Frugality

Vegas Vacation Recap

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Welcome_to_fabulous_las_vegas_sign Last week I had a five-day vacation in Las Vegas. Although I lost money gambling, the total cost of the vacation ended up being very little. I got the flight, hotel room, and rental car for free. I did not note how much cash I had before starting but I think I had roughly $85 in cash with me and had $9 left at the end of the trip. So the trip cost me approximately $80 since I didn’t take out any cash and any credit card purchases were reimbursed.

The flight was free because I have the Southwest Airlines Rapid Rewards Card. The card has a sign up bonus of 50,000 points which is good for at least two round trip flights. I think I’ll end up getting two round trip flights plus a one-way for my points since I got some cheaper flights. One drawback to this card is that they don’t waive the annual fee for the first year. If you would like to sign up for this card you can leave a comment and I’ll send you a referral link. If you sign up through the referral link you will get the 50,000 point bonus offer and I’ll get 5000 points for referring you. If you don’t want to sign up through my referral link it is easy to find the same offer on the web.

The hotel and rental car were free because I used points from my Capital One Venture card. This card gave me 50,000 points worth $500 in travel when I signed up. This card does waive the annual fee for the first year. The link to the Cap 1 card is not an affiliate link and the bonus is smaller at this time.  I also recommend the Barclaycard Arrival Plus World MasterCard® which pays an effective $440 bonus.

We didn’t spend any money on visiting any attractions. It was my girlfriend’s first time to Vegas so there was plenty to see. We toured a lot of the casinos and watched the light show at Bellagio and the volcano at the Mirage, but there was still a lot more we didn’t have time to see. I didn’t count money spent on food as a trip expense since it was about the same as it would have been if I were at home.  I did eat at In-N-Out Burger a couple of times which I considered to be special meals, but other than that I just had ordinary food. Since I covered the expense of the hotel and rental car my girlfriend covered the $20 in gas for the rental car and the $35 for airport parking.

Overall, I managed to spend four nights and five days in Las Vegas and only spent about $80. I consider that a bargain.  My next trip will probably be more expensive, but I’m hoping I’ll have enough credit card points and SW miles to keep it cheap.

Cruise Recap Part 2

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cruiseship This is the last of three posts about the cruise I took last month.  The firs post was about the cost of the cruise and the second post was about the room and the food on the cruise.  This post will be about the ship activities and the port excursions.

Ship Activities

There was quite a variety of activities available on the ship.   Many of our fellow passengers favorite activity seemed to be drinking and getting drunk.  I’m not much of a drinker and the drink prices on the ship were ridiculously high so I did not partake of that activity. Since the motion of the ship made me queasy drinking probably wouldn’t have been a good idea.

The main activities we attended were the shows.  There were only two nights where they had what I would consider a real show being performed.  Those were the shows with singing and dancing and actual sets.  I did enjoy those shows although they were somewhat short and seemed like a random collection of musical numbers rather than a cohesive show.

The standup comedians were my favorite entertainment on the boat.  They also only performed two out of the five nights.  The other nights had amateur shows.  These were basically the ship’s entertainment staff performing on stage without any set other than some chairs.  These shows were actually fairly entertaining despite the lack of production value.

We were on ship for Halloween night and a lot of people dressed up and there were some great costumes.  There was a Halloween costume contest that was won by a couple of guys dressed up as KISS.  They did have authentic costumes and could have easily passed as actual members of KISS.  The runner up was a group of guys dressed as the Avengers. The man in the Iron Man costume made the costume himself from metal and spent over $800.  The costume looked great, but I don’t know if it was $800 great.  Our costumes were much cheaper.  We went as Pornstache and a prisoner from the show “Orange Is The New Black.”

pornstache

Not many people knew we were portraying people from a TV show, but they did still like the guard and prisoner costumers.  We were smart enough not to use blackface to make the costume more authentic.

Ports and Excursions

The cruise left and returned from New Orleans.  It would have been nice to add a couple days in New Orleans to the beginning or ending of the cruise, but we didn’t really have time for that and it would have increased the cost of the vacation a fair amount.

The ship stopped in the ports of Progreso and Cozumel during the cruise.  In Progreso we had booked a tour of the ruins at Dzibilchaltun before we embarked.  This allowed us to pay less than half than what the tour would have cost if we had booked through the cruise line.  The guided portion of the tour was only about a half hour and after that we had time to further explore the ruins and/or swim in a nearby cenote(sinkhole) for the remainder of the tour time.  Since it was hot we opted for the swimming.  The total time of the tour including transportation to and from the ruins was a little under about 4 hours.  This was just about right since it gave us a little time to explore Progreso before going on the tour and allowed us plenty of time after the tour to get back on the ship.  There isn’t a lot to see in Progreso so I’d recommend booking a tour for that port.

In Cozumel we didn’t have a tour booked and decided to just wing it.  The tour guide in Progreso suggested that we go to Chankanaab.  Admission was $21 each and basically all we got for that was access to the beach.  I wasn’t impressed with that recommendation.  We still had a good time swimming in the ocean and relaxing on the beach, but I think we could have done that for less.  If there is a next time, I’ll either book a tour ahead of time or at least do some prior research.

That wraps up the cruise posts.  Going on a cruise was something I’d wanted to do for a long time and I’m glad I did it.  Although I did enjoy this cruise, if I ever go on another cruise it will need to be an even better deal and go somewhere I haven’t been.

 

 

First Cruise Recap

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cruiseship  In case you don’t already know, my girlfriend and I took a cruise at the end of October. I already shared the financial cost of the cruise in my Cruise Cost Breakdown post, in this post I am sharing my general thoughts about the cruise. Since this was my first cruise I can’t compare this cruise to any other cruises.  Any comparisons will be to other similar vacation options.

The Room

We had an interior cabin which was the cheapest option.  Several people had told me that the room would be really small.  The room was indeed quite small, but it was as big as it needed to be.  The size of the room was not an issue for me.  The lack of a window also was not a big deal.  I think a window might have actually been a negative since looking out through the window probably would have made me queasy.

The room was a little outdated.  It was apparent that the room fixtures hadn’t been changed out in a long time.  The TV cabinet was made to hold a tube TV and now held a flat screen TV.  The closet had been broken at some point and the repair job was rather apparent.  The king size bed was two twin beds pushed together.  The bed was very comfortable as long as you didn’t roll into the middle of the bed.  None of these things were a big deal and not unexpected given that this was basically a budget motel room.

On the plus side, the room was very clean.  Our room attendant was very friendly.  It was really nice to have a clean room when we came back from breakfast and to have the bed turned down and a new towel animal when we returned from dinner.  The shower was great.  I was a little worried that the shower pressure would be weak given that we were on a ship.  The shower actually had better shower pressure than our shower at home and the water was piping hot.   The endless hot water led to me taking even longer showers than usual which makes for some pretty long showers.  I do love my showers and the shower was one of my favorite parts of the cruise.

The Food

Whenever I mentioned that I was going on a cruise, previous cruise goers always talked about the variety and quantity of food available on a cruise.   The food on the cruise was okay, but I can’t say I was impressed by it.  Many people telling me about their cruises commented on how much they liked that food was available 24 hours a day.  That doesn’t seem like a big deal to me since if you live in a city with 24 hour drive-thrus and grocery stores you also have food available 24 hours a day. It isn’t too hard for me to indulge my food cravings at home anytime of day so the cruise didn’t seem like that big of a difference to me.  The main difference is that on the cruise you don’t have to directly pay for each meal.  The first night I wanted to get a late night snack around 11pm and all the restaurants were closed.  My free food options were self-serve ice cream or pizza. There was a long line for pizza so I chose to forego my late night snack.    The fact that I didn’t gain any weight on the cruise shows that I didn’t indulge anymore than normal.  Of course, my normal level of indulgence is pretty high so it might be hard for it to get any worse.

We did make it a point to eat in the dining room every night.  I tried to expand my palate a little by having a different item every night and only had my default burger one night.  The menu featured a different “exotic” appetizer choice every night.  The options I remember were frog legs, snails, sushi, alligator.  Since I’d had sushi before and didn’t like it, I didn’t try it again. Growing up in the Ozarks, I’d also had frog legs several times when I was a kid and didn’t have any desire to have them again.  I’d never had snails, but I still didn’t want to try them.  The only exotic appetizer I tried was the alligator.  It had so much breading and seasoning though that I couldn’t even taste any alligator.

The servers provided excellent service and also provided entertainment with a short song and dance routine towards the end of mealtime.  Even though eating in the dining room was a nice experience I probably would have been happier just eating from the buffet most nights.  My favorite meals were the cheeseburger and fries I had for lunch everyday.  I even liked the buffet burger better than the dining room burger.  I guess my unrefined palate just prefers the cheap food so I don’t really get an added value from the fancier food.

This post is already long enough so I will finish writing about my thoughts on my first cruise in Wednesday’s post.

Ways I’m Saving Money on My Katy Trail Hike

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Hiking the Katy Trail is a pretty cheap activity on a daily basis. However, since I’m hiking the trail both ways it will likely take over a month to finish the hike. Over that long of a time period even small daily amounts add up to a fairly substantial amount. There are several things I’m doing to try to keep the cost of the hike down while still enjoying the hike. These tips are specific to my hike, but some of the tips can also be applied to biking and other forms of travel.

The biggest potential expense for the hike is accommodations. This should actually be a rather small expense for me. The main way I’m saving money here is by sleeping in my car. I have converted my Ford Focus hatchback to a sleeper car in the back. This would be easier if I would have gotten a station wagon instead of a hatchback or if I were about half a foot shorter. There is barely enough room for me to lay down. The sleeping area still needs to be improved, but I have been getting full nights of sleep in the car. I’ll post a picture if I improve the sleeping area as planned this weekend.

Not everyone is willing to sleep in their car. Camping is another cheap option. The city I started from offered free camping in back of the city community center which included free use of the showers in the community center. That was a good deal. You can’t beat free. The city I’m in now has camping available for just $10 a night, but it doesn’t include showers so I’ve just been opting to sleep in my car.

The main two things I want from an accommodation is somewhere to sleep and somewhere to shower. The sleeping part is supplied by my car so I don’t need to worry about that. Showers are all I really have to worry about. After hiking all day in the sun a shower feels great. I’ve tried cleaning up with wet wipes and baby powder; they help but aren’t anywhere close to having a shower. A cheap place to get a shower besides at a campground is a local gym. The gym where I’m currently at only charges $5 for a day pass. That is a bargain when you’re dirty and grimy and really need a shower. I’m also a member of a national fitness center chain. The chain doesn’t have any gyms where I’m currently at but they do have some at towns I’ll be going through later in the hike. That will allow me to have a few free showers.

Sleeping in the car and taking showers at the gym save a lot of money, but sometimes one does want the privacy and luxury of a hotel room. I’m trying to keep the hotel room stays to once a week. After sleeping in my car for a week a mid-range hotel seems luxurious. I’m keeping the cost of the hotel stays down by using my free travel redemption from my Barclay Arrival Card. I should have enough points available to redeem for travel to make all of my hotel stays on this hike free.

The other major cost of the hike is food. Since I have to eat whether I’m hiking or not I don’t consider all of the cost of food to be a hike-related cost. I’m trying to keep the cost of food down by eating food from the grocery store and not eating in restaurants all the time. I haven’t done great on this so far as I’ve been eating fast food twice a day most days. I do at least usually get dollar menu items or specials. As a plus, I get free internet access while eating which does influence where I eat.

There are actually more ways I save money that I was planning on including, but this post is already long enough. How do you save money when traveling?

You Can Spend Less and Earn More

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There are two parts to getting ahead financially – spending less and earning more.  Some bloggers seem to think that you can either spend less or earn more.  This isn’t an either/or situation though.  It is entirely possible to be frugal and also be rich.   A couple of well known examples of very rich and frugal people are Warren Buffet and the late Sam Walton.  The book “The Millionaire Next Door” noted that frugality was a common trait among the profiled millionaires.    I’m not sure why some people think you can’t be both frugal and rich.  The definition of frugality is the practice of economy in the use of resources or the lack of wastefulness.  Even if you’re rich you shouldn’t want to be wasteful. Every year you hear tales of famous athletes who earned millions during their career and are now broke. This shows that even if you earn more you still need to pay attention to spending less.

Many blogs do focus more on one side of the equation.  This blog definitely focuses more on the spend less side of the equation than the earn more side.  Frugality is the area I have more experience with and expertise in so that is the main focus of my writing.  I think many focus on spending less because it is easier to do and quicker to put into practice.  Earning more usually takes some time to develop and many people aren’t sure how to earn more.

I would like to point out that I don’t entirely ignore the earn more side of the equation.  I have wrote about making passive income from sources such as dividend investing or Mr. Rebates.  I’ve also written about making money with alternative income sources such mystery shopping, medical studies, and blogging.

Both spending less and earning more are important. Neither side of the equation should be ignored.