November 27, 2009
Reminder: I’m hosting the Carnival of Personal Finance this week, be sure to submit your best articles by Sunday!
Of course, you can’t cook every meal when you’re vacationing in Hawaii for the first time ever! We had some very nice meals out and the prices reinforced our decision to be frugal at least half the time.
Giovanni’s Shrimp Truck on the North Shore: $13 per plate of shrimp scampi, $1 drink
Dole Plantation: Plate lunch ($9) and Pineapple Whip dessert ($4):
Happy Hour at Kona Brewing Co.: 4 beers, 1 6-oz. sampler beer for me, 3 appetizers ($33 after tip; party of three)
Dinner at Cafe Sistina: $41 per person, included 4 shared appetizers and 2 bottles of wine; party of 9
Buffet lunch at Indigo in Honolulu: $25 per person; party of 7 [You might not be able to tell, but there are about 15 different items on that plate. I was stuffed.]
We also had a mindblowing dinner at Lucy’s but I forgot my memory card at home. *heartbroken* We were treated to that meal by our local friends, and the entrees were around $25 each. The ahi tower was beyond fresh, the braised lamb just feel off the bone, and the coconut cranberry rice was amazingly moist and flavorful.
The costs were shared for a number of meals – we took turns treating each other so that the spending was relatively even across the board. Still, you can see how quickly you could spend hundreds just on eating! Luckily, that’s what a vacation is all about. 😉
November 24, 2009
Hamauna Bay (Ha-na-oo-mah in Hawaiian)
I’m home! Or am I?
All good things must come to an end. I’m back from this month’s travels and amazing though it was, I’m glad to be home. My body’s been frantically waving the white flag for a few days now. It’s had trouble coping with the demands of travel and living with a large mixed group so I had to make allowances like checking baggage which costs extra money. With United, you can check your bags online and pay a reduced fee, but make sure that your credit card is accepted! My friend’s wasn’t, and she ended up being recharged at the counter for a total of $70 instead of the $55 we were quoted online.
Meanwhile, my brain is still in Hanauma Bay. For $7.50 per person, and another $9 if your face is too freakishly small to use borrowed gear and must rent a kit, you can go snorkeling! Turns out, if you sink like a stone without snorkel gear, you will also sink like a stone with snorkel gear. But if you have a swims-like-fish friend who’ll tow you along, and can get over sounding like Darth Vader underwater which totally freaked me out (*shiver*), then it’s not so bad.
Meanwhile, back “home,” the brother left an envelope with $200 in cash, I wasn’t attacked with updates of bad news upon walking in the door, and I settled in rather peacefully. Even managed to vacuum an entire room without more than two interruptions. Seriously, where am I?
November 17, 2009
I’ve been waking up to this for the past few mornings.
My trip thus far has been an exercise in patience, worry, and discovery. As I mentioned on Twitter, my travel companions were unusually irate with each other just about the entire trip over, so I was stuck in the middle awkwardly trying to make myself as small as possible, or mediating a little bit. Much of the grumpitude was powered by physical discomfort from various ailments of the internal growths sort + temper on one side, and oscillating glucose levels + temper on the other. I love them both, so I did my best, but phew, I was looking forward to the arrival of another couple to defuse the tension.
Unfortunately, things were to get much worse before they got better on that front. Things did finally get better today, but more importantly, the circumstances allowed me to become very intimately acquainted with the new couple’s lives. It’s utterly heartbreaking.
A few years ago, she lost her mother and aunt, horrifically, due to a possible psychotic break of one sibling. Two years later, she lost her father to depression and a series of massive strokes, and to all appearances, has lost another brother to the collective horror of the past few years. They moved from their home with two high-paying jobs to an extremely high cost of living area and both accepted 40% pay cuts to take care of her remaining family. She’s heroically fighting to keep the family intact but, at this rate, it feels like there soon won’t be anyone left functioning.
She tells me that my family story, told in part before she shared hers, made her feel less alone. Now I know that my life doesn’t even begin to compare to the series of ongoing tragedies that compose her reality, but it freed her to share with me some of her many trials in the life of becoming an untimely mother substitute for a younger sibling who can no longer cope with the world he’s living in.
All I can say is, I have to be more grateful.
Not for the fact that her story isn’t my story, because in a surprising number of ways, it is. We share much the same concerns, fears, and trials. But I remember what it was like to sit alone in the mental dark, wishing there was someone I could talk to, wondering if I had the strength to make the right call in the next situation. So I should be grateful that in experiencing the things that I have, in a small way I can help her with her narrative. Having fought through debt, bankruptcies, and plain old messed up deteriorating family relationships, I can share what decisions I made and why. I can teach her what I know about finances, I can just be there to help her through some tough chores that need doing.
These are no more than scraps in the grand scheme of things, but thusly do I find some comfort in paradise today.
November 15, 2009
I know it’s kind of a terrible picture, but the lights twinkling in the dark, the palms blowing in the wind, and the waves of the lagoon are just so pretty.
November 12, 2009
NYC was wonderful. No new ode, I still feel the same way. There was perhaps less glitz sparkling in my eyes, but only because the trip was shorter and it took a little longer for the rigors of traveling cross-country to wear off.
May I recommend, by the by, always using SeatGuru.com before selecting your seats? It’s truly my own fault, but I felt like I was being punished for using an award ticket to travel. The outbound flight was ok, but the seat I was squished into on the return flight: a] wouldn’t recline (way to pick the row in front of the emergency exit), the overhead light was broken, and b] was right next to the galley where business class’s delectables were prepared and wheeled past me. Pasta, garlic bread, and brownies, oh my!
First, in pictures…..
My preflight and inflight snack system …
DFW’s downright neighborly …..
Woefully underdressed upon my arrival, TopShop and I immediately became acquainted. Those tights were really expensive but oh-so-warm. They were daily wear: kept my legs warm AND kept my feet from blistering up a storm in the new flats.
Citi sponsored free ice skating in Bryant Park. Am I the only one thinking that Citi shouldn’t be sponsoring anything at all right now?
Mamoun’s [just off the Astor Place subway stop] makes a mean schwarma sandwich. That was some amazing deliciousness for $5.
Gorgeous weather in the city …
I truly wish that I’d inserted my ARM in the photo for scale. That rib bone lying across the top was the size of my forearm. That platter was well worth the $22. [Blue Smoke restaurant, home of the first time I’ve had an amazing oyster.]
“Not to rub it in, but my treat because I can get this any time. I live here, you don’t!”
I hate you, friend. I love you and I hate you.
You, Ippudo, I love. Always. Home of the snarkiest [in a good way] waitstaff ever.
Waiter overhearing a reference to San Diego: “You’re from CA?”
“Yes.”
“I knew it. I just knew it’d play out like that!”
“??”
Waiter: “Miss? Miss? Would you like an extra bowl of noodles?”
Me: *mouth terribly full of pork*
Friend: Uh, she can’t talk right now, she just stuffed herself full of pork.
Waiter: Runs Away.
Me: *mouth still full* Wait!
Waiter to my sloooow-eating friend: “Can I take this away already?”
We: point and laugh at her.
Furry friends
Bye bye, awesome NYC food. Airport food [4 oz veggie orzo, 4 oz red potato salad, 2 oz chips: $6.50]
Then, in numbers …..
Ticket: $7.50
Day One: $29
Day Two: $62.50
Day Three-Five: $0
Day Six: $30
Day Seven: $95
Day Eight: $44.50
Total: $ 268.50
It’s a total budget cheat that I paid next to nothing for transportation [about $40 for airfare and Metro] and nothing at all for lodgings due to the repeat generosity of my friends. What kind of advice could really be derived from this? Have good friends in strategic places? For what it’s worth, I absolutely intend to pay it forward.
I spent a ton on clothes: $55 at TopShop for 2 pairs of tights and a pair of leggings. They’re all super comfortable and made of good material which is not the case for the discounted stuff I found at Filene’s [and they made me look funny.]
There was also a Blitzkrieg trip to H&M where I picked up a grey sweaterdress, black belt and white long sleeve for another $50. The sweaterdress replaces a black cowl-neck dress (circa 2002) and is now falling apart. The long sleeve is the beginning of my replacing ratty old long sleeved layers (circa 2004).
November 11, 2009
Happily, no jet lag, but definitely a little discombobulation after returning home late. The suitcase remains unpacked which is distinctly odd – opening mail and unloading the suitcase are usually the first things I do when I get home.
Some ramblings for y’all ’til I get it together ….
Audio
Had Ramit on in the background for 45 seconds.
Water Bill
48% decrease. What happened?
Piperlime
These shoes came in, but the day after 7 hours of travel and fat feet is not the time to try on new shoes. I mostly ordered them to check for fit (they have free shipping and free returns), and for the $25 off next purchase coupon.
Returns pile
I went to the trouble of buying a pack of AAA batteries in NY for my mouse. That I left at home in CA. And then found out that I actually just needed a single AA. Back to Walgreens later today.
Cobra/Open Enrollment
This is a whole other post – but turns out I still get to participate in O.E. this November. Oh goody! New rates! Oh wait. …
Netbook lust
I was woefully out of touch this past week because my regular laptop [which I love!] is just too heavy to schlock around the city. The longing for a netbook is pushing me to consider …. dun-dun-duuunnnn…. BLACK FRIDAY!
Feel free to weigh in on that last topic, folks, recommendations, warnings, etc. No enabling necessary! I have set the boundary: it has to be under $200.
October 19, 2009
As the weeks go by, engagements are piling up right and left, and my travel obligations are too. New York, Hawaii, New York for a wedding (?), Greece for another (?), and now a fishing trip?
I had to say no. Though, it was my own darned idea! I haven’t gone fishing, properly fishing, since I was eight. And I hadn’t seen these friends in 3 years, they wanted to go fishing, perfect, no? But I didn’t realize that even though the timing was right, a 24-hour fishing trip in Ensenada, the money was not. It was estimated to run right around $75 or more, and this after I’d already committed to a thing on the East Coast in two weeks, and Hawaii two weeks after that. The travel fund is already gasping, I don’t have the extra $75.
And if I did, honestly, I’d rather it went to Rina’s best friend who just lost her husband. The donation I could send seems too paltry. So even though it was my big mouth that started the ball rolling on planning a fishing trip, you’ve got to pick and choose sometimes, and this is one of those times. And every other invitation that involves more than $10 a pop will likely be one of those times, too.
