California Sucks (yo money right out of yo pocket)

So my family survived another trip to California. Here is some highlights of are trip and what I learned.

#1 I don't think I'll be returning to California any time soon. You realize real quick you are small and valueless in Cali. Nobody cares and it seems as if every driver in Cali. Needs to get somewhere quick. What's the rush?! Seriously.

#2 Going along with number one, I don't think I'll be returning to San Diego unless I'm completely out of debt and have my honeymoon done. Again with my "finding value" thoughts. For an out of stater California has some of the highest prices and lowest value for an economical traveler. I personally feel like I gained very little visiting such a crowded city.

#3. This isn't something I learned but I did get into an argument this last trip that turned the trip from a good trip to a worthless trip. After examining it in my mind. I feel I'm right and my wife's right. In the end my wife should have been "more"right and the trip could of been a bit better had I put my wife first and my feelings last. Without going into what happened. Here is the jist. I argue that for a short trip to get the maximum out of a trip plan on one fun activity to do and then plan around that activity. That way your not using alot of time traveling on overcrowded roads from one place to the next. My suggestion was the beach. My wife wanted a few bucket items off her list. I failed to see value in it and when things started to go sour I let my emotions get the best of me in a crappy situation. To prevent this from happening again 1st during the planning is where we will have our arguments, not on the road. There are no "I told you so" once the plans are made. We make a plan together and stick to it.

2. I am going to have an envelope with a certain amount of cash in it. I'm thinking it may be called, the "no questions asked cash". This will be determined at a future date but I'm thinking 100 dollars. The purpose of this cash is for those moments where the service or product doesn't meet our, or more commonly, my standards for value. For example. Let's say I'm at a restaurant where the prices are 50% higher than what I am used to. Maybe they are a 100%. Like Disneyland? I would then take out the difference in cash from this envelope to cover the difference. It also would be for unexpected purchases. You go to an attraction not realizing they charge for it or they charge more than you were planning. The "no questions asked" cash envelope would pay or make up the difference.

#4 Don't always trust your road directions. I did that and in my opinion I ended up taking an extra half hour to get back to our hotel.

#5 I usually abide by hotel guest rules. If I have 6 in my group I'll pay for a room for 6. I broke rules on this trip and it was an interesting experience. We decided to fit 6 in room that only fits 3. How'd we do it? We snuck in the side door. We used sleeping bags to sleep 3 on the floor and we split up to go eat. When we realized the hotel wasn't watching our every move we relaxed and decided to just see what happens. Nothing did it was actually kind of fun.

#6 again I did not pay for ice. I refilled old water bottles to freeze, used the free ice machine at the hotels and even filled up my small personal cooler to freeze a huge chunk of ice. Unfortunately it didn't last all day but it did save me money!!

I think that is it for now.

Quick vacation recap.

So my wife and I just got back from a short getaway.

Not a honeymoon not even a second honeymoon. More of an extended weekend getaway without the weekend part. Here are some quick thoughts of our trip.

Travel savings. I have for the longest time always tried to find ways to save on our trips. We do splurge from time to time but we also try to find value. It's a simple rule. If we feel we don't benifit from a purchase, we will not buy it.

For example.

We walked into a clothing shop in a popular downtown destination in the high Rockies of Colorado. While browsing the shirts and souvenirs we noticed that although we wanted something to remember our trip we were met with a feeling of pressure to buy something. I thought about that for a second and went back to my "boundaries" thoughts from my previous post. What do I want and what can I negotiate? I realized I did want something to remember my trip but I also didn't want to feel pressure to buy it. Even if that pressure was coming from myself. I also again wanted value. We looked around the store and realized we didn't want to pay 25 dollars for a shirt or 50 dollars for a hoodie. Now keep in mind, I didn't say 25 dollars for a t-shirt was a rip off. I myself have sold clothing for more than that. What I am asking is, is that t-shirt worth 25 dollars to me? It wasn't. We didn't buy anything and moved on. At the second shop we found slightly lower prices. I also realized I wanted something that would last a long time. I found a warm hoodie and after looking at the price and finding the right color I found something that would be a good souvenir, serve a purpose, and as a bonus cost less than the shirt my mind was pressuring me to buy.

To save on eating costs we chose one meal we could splurge on. We ate breakfast at the hotel, ate sandwiches from the grocery store chose eateries that provided value along with their food and even split a meal that filled us both. With our splurge meal we decided we didn't want desert there.  We found a Ben and Jerry's ice cream at the grocery store and shared that. It was delicious and cost less than the restaurant.

This wasn't an extreme cheapskate vacation. Some cost such as the couples massage or the camera we bought prior to the vacation cost nearly half of the whole vacation. Thankfully the vacation was paid for with all of my cashback I had been saving for the past 3 months.

Why are you buying stuff that's free?

Particularly Ice and water.

To cool our drinks we froze water bottles and used the FREE ice machine at the hotel. Because of the "absolutely no coolers" sign on the ice machine we bent the rules by taking the ice bucket from the room and using that to fill our cooler. It did take 3 trips but hey the ice was free. We asked the front desk where we could fill our water bottle and they allowed us to fill at their coke machine.

Gas is always a hard cost to keep under control. Yet there are a few dollars we did recapture. First we used our most economical car. I'm not sure the exact gas mileage but I would guess in the neighborhood of 36 mpg. Because of its long range (about 450) we were able to chose lower cost gas stations and not be forced to buy gas at overpriced gas stations in these secluded vacation towns.

We tried our luck with a 2 dollar scratcher. Not a winner but hey. I still believe in luck. I still believe my day will come.

Last thought. Baby boomers are retiring and they are filling up the hotel rooms. Lately every hotel room I have been to have been at least 30-50% retired baby boomers. I could be wrong but that's what I'm seeing at the free breakfast buffets. What I'm also seeing is baby boomers in brand new/near New crossover SUV. That seems to be the baby boomer choice. Now again with everything else I need to bring this up. Can they truly afford what they are doing. If the car is not paid off it's an indication they cannot. If they truly have wealth and just want to spend it more power to them but if during our next economical fall they are hurting and showing up at the food bank. I ask the question why are you not preparing economically for the future.

I'm leaving it at that.  I may bring it back up in a future date.

Happy New week!