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Catch Me If You Can

August 25, 2018 by Lazy Man Leave a Comment

(Warning: This is more of a journal entry than a personal finance article. I will try to slip in some personal finance tips along the way. That’s also why I’m posting on a Saturday.)

For the first time in a week, I have the combination of a laptop, an internet connection, and potentially an hour of quiet time. I’m writing this at 4AM (Friday) which helps for the last part.

The last week for me was a lesson of how simple plans can go crazy.

We had booked 5 days to be at Lake Winnipesaukee in New Hampshire which is where my mother-in-law vacations around this time every year. She loves having this time with the kids. She was going to be there for a week, but we staggered our trip so that we’d have 3 days with the kids ourselves to go to Storyland (kids theme park) and then two days to ourselves in NH before returning to Rhode Island where our kids would be brought back to us at the end of my mother-in-laws trip.

That’s 5 days (Mon-Fri) of not supervising children, which would give me all the time in the world to do online work. I’m not smart to remind myself that things never go according to plan.

Monday turned out to be a family day because we didn’t sync up with my mother-in-law until around dinner. Extra family time is good and typically missing one day isn’t a big deal. Tuesday, my wife suggested we go to the outlet malls and do some back-to-school shopping. I agreed, because shopping for clothes with a 4 and 5 year is difficult, but also it would give me a chance to upgrade from the 20 year old shorts I’ve been wearing. (Microfiber was in style, went out of style, and fortunately came back in style during this time.) The outlet shopping ended up taking up much of the day. Afterwards it was time to check in on the kids and go to dinner.

Personal Finance tip: I thought outlet malls stopped being good deals about 15 years ago. It seemed like you got a lower quality product. I’ve changed my mind on this recently. I think now there are indeed some bargains to be had. As you can tell above (20 year old shorts), I don’t shop for clothes very often, but they seem a little big like TJ Maxx and occasionally better. We were able to get the kids a lot of the brand names that their classmates wear for special occasions.

Before I get to Wednesday, I have to take a step back. As we were running out of the door for our trip, we received some bad news. My wife’s paternal grandmother had passed away. I am the worst person in the world in dealing with death. I’m just one step below being Anya bad. However, in this case, I think death was truly her gift (to keep with the Buffy theme). She was 93 years old and had been everywhere and seen everything. Her husband of 71 years died last year. I had only met her 3 times with two of those times being my wedding and her husband’s funeral.

At the last minute my wife packed some clothes suitable for a funeral. She even grabbed a suit for me, but I couldn’t see the point. Since we had our dog on our trip, I wouldn’t be able to leave him alone and would probably have to miss the wake and funeral. I also had to be Rhode Island for Wednesday night as I am class parent at the kids school and I needed to be available to greet the new parents and the welcoming event.

The wake was planned for Wednesday evening. The plan was originally to drive from northern NH in the morning to southern Rhode Island to drop off me and the dog, with my wife going back to Boston for the wake. That’s about 6 hours round trip for her to get to the wake and another 1.5 hours to get back home that night. That would be followed by another 3-hour round-tripper to Boston the following day. That’s a lot of driving.

The welcoming event got pushed to Thursday due to bad weather. As we were driving down from NH on Wednesday morning, I had the idea, what if we just got a pet-friendly hotel around Boston for the night? It would save hours of driving back and forth to Rhode Island. Then I took it a step further and called my mother to see if we could stay there. Ordinarily this would be an easy thing to ask. However, she’s had some mobility problems and I didn’t know if introducing a dog was going to work. Once she found out that we didn’t have the kids, she agreed that having two adults may actually be helpful with a couple of things around the house.

We saved a lot of driving time and spent some quality time catching up with my mother and went to the wake Wednesday evening. Afterwards, we went out for a quick dinner before heading home and falling asleep. Thursday, we went out for breakfast, as my mother was, of course, not planning for our visit. If you live in the New England area, Friendly’s is offering 50% off of all breakfast M-F. Our bill for two huge breakfasts, drinks, etc. came to $13. After breakfast, we had just enough time to walk the dog and get dressed (thanks to my wife bringing the suit) and get to the funeral.

The lunch after the funeral ran late and we rushed down to Newport to meet with the new parents at the school. I didn’t have time to change and we were still 30 minutes late. It was still a successful event though I think it was a bit of a downer explaining that we were coming from a funeral.

While we were exhausted at that point, my wife and I really wanted to see the only showing of a documentary that near to dear to our hearts – Life in the Doghouse. It focuses on a pair of animal rescuers who have rescued over 11,000 dogs and have around 70 dogs living in their (very large) house all the time. It’s run as a non-profit and they take no salary. The money from their day job, show horse training, goes straight to the dogs. It’s really an amazing story and if you ever get the chance you should see the movie. Bonus points if you rescue a dog from Danny and Ron’s Rescue or anyone else.

Next week, I should be able to focus more on personal finance articles. I have a couple of ideas ruminating.

Filed Under: About / Admin, Announcements Tagged With: Vacation

Vacation from Blogging (and Personal Finance Links)

September 20, 2010 by Lazy Man 7 Comments

Last week I tried an interesting experiment. I decided to not write at all and see what would happen. I expected the to sky to either rain frog or just fall and hit me on the head. Neither happened. It got me thinking, what are the consequences of not writing?

Losing Money? This didn’t seem to be the case. One of the days was one of my top 5 or 10 income performing days of the year. Maybe after more than a week, I’d start to see some negative effects to the income from blogging. However, I’m not going to continue on with the experiment… I’d miss not writing too much.

As much as I’d miss the writing, I’d miss the interaction that I get with you, the reader. I paid twice as much attention to comments that I got during the time that I wasn’t writing. Fortunately they weren’t all comments on my MonaVie post (more than 4700 comments and counting). A lot of them said that they came from Smart Passive Income where Pat mentioned me via his Facebook page as helping out with traffic when he was getting started. I don’t use what Bill Belichick calls “My Face” very often, so I would have missed it. Thanks Pat and those who came and commented.

I plan to continue with my usual writing schedule, but a minor announcement that I have set for tomorrow may impact that decision. To make my writing schedule seem even worse, I’m going to follow that up with a guest post. However, it is a good guest post… which is increasingly rare these days.

Until then, here are some personal finance links to tide you over:

Money Writers:

  • Brip Blap on how to deal with a financial crisis.
  • Digerati Life wonders if you know what to consider before you cancel your credit cards?
  • Frugal Dad asks do we have a right to line dry our clothes?
  • Generation X Finance writes the lost decade of investing: was all really lost?
  • Million Dollar Journey gives a primer on corporate bonds ““ II (credit risk).
  • Money Smart Life presents waterproofing your basement against costly damage.
  • My Dollar Plan shares financial management for newlyweds.
  • The Sun’s Financial Diary says U.S. poverty rate reaches 15 year high.

Top PF Posts:

  • Smarter Wallet asks can you start an internet business with no money down?
  • Free Money Finance with a $1 gold coin update.
  • Get Rich Slowly shares a story about entrepreneurs in kids these days.
  • Frugal For Life reviews handmade bar soap vs commercial bar soap.
  • My Wealth Builder posts why to not work in retirement.
  • Hundred Goal$ says loaning money is stupid .
  • Canada Personal Finance Website asks what is employment insurance (EI)?
  • Money Reasons examines minimalist vs misers, money fight match-up #2.
  • Darwin’s Finance says fantasy football can get you fired ““ score!
  • Saving to Inve$t offers up 10 ways to boost your retirement savings starting now.
  • Frugal Village with tips to make eating at home easier.

Filed Under: Links Tagged With: Blogging, Vacation

Weekend Links – Preparing for Australia/Thailand Edition

August 10, 2008 by Lazy Man 8 Comments

My wife and I will be heading to Australia and Thailand in less than a month. Instead of looking forward to the vacation is excitement, I’ve found myself looking forward with worry. A flight across the United States is almost more than I can stand. I’m not sure how I’ll do on several hours of flights. I’m starting to think that if I had an Amazon Kindle, I could catch up on a lot of eBooks I have waiting for me. Unfortunately a real computer will probably run out of battery quickly. I would even be tempted to pick up a Kindle if I found a cheap one on Craigslist. No luck on the Sony eReader either.

The other thing that worries me is keeping up with Lazy Man and Money. I know that when you are on vacation, you should be on vacation. Still I would like to make sure that spammy comments are kept out, read the good comments that people are leaving behind, catch up with advertising, etc. I worry that there will be no Internet connection or that it will be an outrageous amount to use per minute. On top of that, I need to have a month’s worth of content ready for you guys to read. I’ve never had more than a week before. I have outlines on 10-15 stories – even a couple of sentences for each – but I may have to use those in the short term as well. Do I have the creative juice to do it all in advance? Do I risk not having it all ready and hope to fill in with some articles “on the road”?

While I’m checking my spam filter for cheap places to order Xanax online, enjoy these links.

Articles from The Money Writers that I liked this week:

  • Looking for an unconventional Roth IRA strategy to lower tax bill? My Dollar Plan presents hers.
  • Write it down is Million Dollar Journey’s tip of the week.
  • Money Smart Life says make more money & be happy in your job using a work portfolio.
  • What are the 5 signs that say your job sucks? Brip Blap knows and if they apply to your job then it’s pretty clear that you are in need of change.
  • Do you know what the 10 hottest mutual funds in 2008 are? Not sure? Read the Sun’s Financial Times to find out.
  • Ouch! Hackers steal 40 million credit and debit card numbers – has your number been stolen? Store List provided at Generation X Finance.
  • Digerati Life asks, how would you grade your money management skills? What’s your answer?

From outside The Money Writers:

  • Ten things teens should know about money over at 5 Cent Nickel followed by the state of financial education in the U.S. looks at financial education pretty critically. What aren’t your teens learning?
  • Consumer Commentary says bottled water? What was I thinking? Read more for a look at how gas prices and food prices connect. Save on tap!
  • Mighty Bargain Hunter writes there is NOTHING unpatriotic about retiring early. What do you think?

Filed Under: Links Tagged With: Amazon, australia, Kindle, sony ereader, thailand, Vacation

Military: Save Money With (Almost) Free Vacations

August 1, 2011 by Lazy Man 14 Comments

toy-plane.jpgMy wife is active duty military – and with that comes a number of perks. One of those great military benefits is a significant savings on vacations via flights, hotels, and car rentals. Eighteen months ago we went to Hawaii at a cost of half what others would expect to pay. On Saturday, I found out how it would have been even cheaper if I did a little more planning. Today, I’d like to share some of the ways to save money with nearly free vacations – but remember, you may need to be in the military to take advantage of them.

Cheap Military Hotels

Navy Lodge – This is usually our first choice to stay wherever we travel. In the summertime, Newport, Rhode Island is an extremely popular vacation destination with some hotels starting at $400/night. A room, just as good, in an arguably better location, at the Navy Lodge is $75. The rooms are big enough to do cartwheels in and come with a kitchenette (refrigerator, stove, microwave, etc.)

Special Military Housing

  • When we went to Hawaii, we stayed at the Hale Koa, a military hotel that I would rate with the best I’ve ever been to. It’s about $100/night – which is a bargain compared to the $300/night hotels on the left and right of you. Plus, it’s the only place you can go to a luau hosted by Glenn Medeiros – sing after me, “Nothing’s gonna change my love for you. You outta know by now…”
  • If you prefer to go to Walt Disney World, you might want to check out Shades of Green. I’ve never stayed there, but prices look to be around $110/night for a prime location on Walt Disney World Resort.
  • While it’s not a hotel, there’s a small place on Martha’s Vineyard that, with extensive planning and luck, can be had for cheap as well. We hadn’t been able to book there before we moved to San Francisco. I wish I had more details, but I couldn’t find anything published on the Internet about it.

Camping and RV Parks – There are a lot of military camping sites available and Military Campgrounds does a very good job of detailing them. I’ve been looking at the Petaluma campsite as a cheap place to stay on a weekend of wine tasting in Sonoma Valley. Reading reviews with comments like this really sealed the value for me, “The food at the dining facility is still great, although now the rates went up five cents! All you can eat for lunch or dinner for $3.55.”

Space-A: Fly For Free

The military has a program that allows people to fly to many places in the world for free. It’s called the Space Available program, but is commonly referred to as Space-A. If it sounds too good to be true, in many case it is. There are two reasons why we hadn’t pursued this option in the past:

  • We didn’t know how it worked. No one at my wife’s job had ever tried to fly Space-A and couldn’t really share how it works. This past weekend I spent a lot of time reading John D’s Space-A FAQ. It takes some time to understand the jargon and common acronyms.
  • You can’t book a flight You show up at the terminal and “hope” that there a plane available, that it’s going where you want, and that there is space for you on the plane. Due to 9/11 restrictions, it’s often not published in advance where and when planes are scheduled to go. We found that the Pepperd message boards flight schedule information is very helpful for determining where planes are likely to go. For instance, we found that planes leave Travis, about 45 minutes from us, and go to Hawaii nearly every day. A few times a month, they continue through to Australia. This can be a savings of $3000 for the two of us – or it could be a nightmare or waiting and lost vacation time.

Car Rentals

Civilians can find many deals on car rentals. However, we’ve found that booking through the military gets us a better deal than any of out other connections. Usually it’s around $30 a day from Hertz for the cheapest – but they always bump us up a class for free.

Photo Credit: Yogi

Filed Under: Vacation Tagged With: camping sites, car rentals, disney world resort, flights, free vacations, hale koa, hotels, military, military benefits, military housing, navy lodge, newport rhode island, rv parks, Vacation, walt disney world, walt disney world resort, ways to save money

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