Wednesday, June 25, 2008

Back from vacation

Well... we got back almost a week ago from a little trip to upstate NY. We go not because we really WANT to, but we "have to". We didn't go last year because of family issues and some of those arose again during this trip. That was definitely the low light of the trip.

We did drive the 800 or 900 miles it is from Wisconsin to Rome NY. Gas was expensive, but I had actually budgeted it to be at $4/ gal, so it wasn't so bad. Another way that made the trip a little easier to bear was that alot of we spent money on during the trip was already paid. The hotel in Lansin MI was bought on Priceline, therefore when checking out, nothing was owed. Granted Priceline can be a bit of a gamble, but if you do some research on Bidding for Travel you get a bit of an idea as to what hotel you might get -- and sometimes a handy review of it. As for food, I bought a gift card to Subway and Cracker Barrel through a Scrip program that benefits my sons school called Simplified Scrip . Granted, the school only got a few bucks, but hey, it's better than nothing. I also bought $325 in gas gift cards as well through the Scrip program. I figured I would have to fill up about 4 times in our Windstar @ about 22/gal per fill up or a mind boggling $88 each! (ouch!) 88x4 = 352 which is why I bought $325 in cards. The cards can be used at the pump (so you aren't tempted to buy anything else -- which is what they really want you to do!) and I just paid in $50 increments (and we stop that often with a 4 yr old little girl anyway!). During the 1st 2 days of driving, I think we spent about $10 on a debit card because everything was paid for on gift cards or priceline. It's also a great way to plan for a trip because you can buy, say, 1 $50 card from scrip each month and after a year you have $600 saved... and of course you have donated a few bucks to a school in the process!
 

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