She’s getting married in a resort town over Memorial Day Weekend.  The location [...]]]> One of my very good friends is getting married in a few months.  She’s having a very small wedding, and only a few of her friends from college were invited, myself included.  Initially, I was very gung-ho about going.  Then I started researching.

She’s getting married in a resort town over Memorial Day Weekend.  The location was chosen because it’s a midpoint between her hometown and her fiance’s hometown.  With layovers, the quickest trip for me will still be almost 8 hours.  But that’s not the bad part.  The bad part, as you can expect, is the price.  After looking at the cost of flights and splitting a rental car (necessary in this town) and hotel room, and meals out, I’m looking at close to $1000. 

I love my friend, but $1000 is a lot of money that could be spent elsewhere.  I spent less than that for my entire trip to Hawaii last year (admittedly, I stayed with a friend, but still, it was a much longer trip).

Admittedly, a big part of my hesitation is also the travel time.  Even if I go for a 4 day weekend, I’m still spending two of those days traveling.

I know that the couple understands the cost of the travel, and would understand if I backed out because of the price, but my friend has already asked me if I was coming, worrying that none of her friends would be able to make it.  So I’m feeling a little bit obligated.

But $1000.  I can technically afford it, but it puts a big dent in my budget.

She lives near me, so it’s not as if we never see each other.  And only one of my other friends will be there, a friend who I will see many times throughout the year.  So this isn’t one of those weddings that’s also a bit of a reunion.

I like her family a lot, and I’m sure the weekend would be fun, but right now, I’m really hesitating.  What would you do?

The first trip planned is [...]]]> So I haven’t even finished putting away my luggage from my last trip and I’m already making plans for the next one.  Well, the next few.  In the past few days, I have booked hotel rooms for three trips, registered for a race, and will probably register for another one soon.

The first trip planned is just a quick overnight stay.  Since my half-marathon didn’t happen, I wanted to get one in before the summer so that I don’t end up with a mental stumbling block over the distance.  I found one that’s fairly local and has great reviews, so I registered, and then, in the interest of not having to get up at 3am, decided to book a hotel room within walking distance of the start line for the night before.  It will be a nice little treat for me.

The other two hotel stays are also for races – one in Florida and one in California.  The California trip has been planned for months, my friend and I just didn’t have a hotel room yet.  The Florida trip is a replacement for this most recent trip that turned out to be a bit of a bust.   I haven’t registered for the Florida race yet, so for now, the trip is mostly refundable, though I really want to go.  Next up will be looking for flights. 

It feels like a lot of travel, and it is, but at the same time, it’s just a few weekend trips.   It’s not cheap, but I do what I can to make the trips as cost effective as possible, and this is one of the reasons that I try to watch my spending in other categories.  I would rather save on groceries and rent movies rather than go to the theater and then spend my money on fun trips.  Other people don’t like to travel, so they splurge on fancy groceries or cute shoes.  It’s all about the balance.

I kind of like the idea of traveling to run a race.  It gives me an excuse to go to a new destination and something to do while I’m there.  Plus it’s a good way to stay in shape.  Never a bad thing.

Now to just kick the rest of this illness so I can get back to running this weekend!

Memorial Day Weekend kind of snuck up on me this year.  I’m hoping to [...]]]> Due to technical difficulties (meaning that I wrote a post and have no idea where it went), today’s post has been postponed.  Maybe the blog decided to leave early for Memorial Day Weekend.  It definitely appears that my office has done so.

Memorial Day Weekend kind of snuck up on me this year.  I’m hoping to get down to the War Memorials this weekend, maybe bring some flowers with me and thank all the veterans who are visiting and remembering fallen comrades.  It’s a nice way to spend the holiday.

I know a lot of people are traveling this weekend.  Anyone taking any good roadtrips?  Be safe, and remember to pack snacks!  It’s so much cheaper than buying food at the gas stations (though not nearly as fun – I still think of Combos as vacation food thanks to many childhood roadtrips).  What’s your favorite roadtrip snack?

First off, I don’t think that I knew that the dollar was considered “the leading international currency.” Given the recent American domination in many areas, I [...]]]> Earlier this week, I read this article about the current state of the American economy. I found the discussion of the dollar versus the Euro to be fascinating.

First off, I don’t think that I knew that the dollar was considered “the leading international currency.” Given the recent American domination in many areas, I suppose it makes sense, but I never thought of it as a leading currency. I knew that the dollar was often accepted in other countries, but I assumed that was mostly in tourist areas or in poorer countries. I would never expect the dollar to be dominant in Europe. I suppose the description is more in terms of banking currency, of course, and I can’t say that’s an area I’ve ever stopped to ponder.

The article discusses how the Euro may be taking the place of the dollar. Quite shocking to me was the fact that many Manhattan retailers are putting signs in their windows indicating that they accept Euros. This is an indication both that the dollar is losing its dominance and that European tourists are flocking to the U.S. to take advantage of the exchange rate.

I suppose it’s good for the economy that foreigners are taking advantage of the exchange rate and coming to the U.S. for vacation. I’m sure that many vacation destinations in the U.S. are struggling because of all the Americans who have decided to scale back this year and have a “staycation” instead, so an influx of foreign visitors will hopefully boost them back to their normal levels.

Unfortunately, it looks like the dollar may have a few more years of struggle ahead of it. Some believe that the dollar is at an unnatural low, others believe that in the 90′s, the dollar was overvalued and now things have started to normalize to where they should be. I can’t say that I know enough about international monetary policy to make an informed guess. But I do thing the next few years will be interesting.

And hey, if the exchange rates don’t improve, maybe this means I’ll be able to convince all my friends to take that trip to Yellowstone I’ve been hoping for, rather than the exotic foreign destination they seem to all crave.

Abundant Life Spending Spree – $25,600
$25,600 will probably buy me a hybrid car. Not that I do a lot of driving as it is. But with gas prices as they are, it seems to make sense. Plus it’s just good to do the most green thing possible (even though I hear hybrid cars aren’t as green as they seem, what with the methods of disposal available for the batteries).

Well, actually, what happened [...]]]> I mentioned a few weeks ago that I had purchased my tickets to fly to my hometown for Christmas. I’m flying American Airlines, and you may have noticed that this past week, they announced that they were canceling a number of flights. I’m sure you can guess what happened next.

Well, actually, what happened next was that my parents called me to tell me that their flights to come see me and go to a football game in November got changed. Changed in a very strange way. They booked their flights into BWI (Baltimore-Washington International, a perfectly lovely airport in Baltimore). Their flights got changed to bring them into Washington Reagan (another perfectly lovely airport, this time here in D.C.). Not a big deal, since their plans involved getting a rental car and driving to D.C.; the flight into BWI had simply been cheaper. This way, they can just borrow my car instead of renting one and save a bit of money.

So I wasn’t surprised to get an e-mail from American Airlines telling me that my flights for Christmas had changed. I skimmed the e-mail. At first glance, it just looked like the flight times had changed and that I was connecting through a different city on the way back.

And then I took a good look at it. I was flying out of Washington Reagan. But then, flying home, I was going into BWI. Significantly further away. Not really even in the same city. Or state, for that matter. On top of that, I flew into LaGuardia, and then had to somehow get from there to JFK to get my flight to BWI!

Obviously, this was unacceptable. I called the reservations line and the agent I got laughed when she saw what had happened to my itinerary. Not surprisingly, the whole thing is done by computer, and somehow the computer had thought this was a good idea. Fixing the problem took less than five minutes, and she managed to get me on a direct flight back rather than connecting through any city. Not a bad deal. She told me that this didn’t happen often, but when it did, calling the reservation line was the easiest way to deal with it.

Given all the hassles in air travel, I can’t say this was a big one all in all. But it is a good reminder to always check and recheck your itinerary to make sure some little subtle change, like an airport change, hasn’t been made.

Abundant Life Spending Spree – $12,800
Like I said, this is getting tough. With $12,800 to toss in the air and dance around in, I would grab a group of my friends and go to Disney World. Sound silly? It’s been something that a group of us has discussed for years. We’ve talked about how it would be an incredibly fun trip, especially if we could go all out and eat in the fancy restaurants and stay in the fancy hotels. I think I could pay for everyone to fly in and go for $12,800. And then some!

I spent a long weekend at my parents’ house as a Father’s Day surprise for my dad. My flight out was [...]]]> I have an addition to my travel tips post. When flying anywhere, be sure to bring at least one extra set of clothing, and plan to fly home with that outfit still clean.

I spent a long weekend at my parents’ house as a Father’s Day surprise for my dad. My flight out was delayed a bit, but nothing too bad. However, my flight home today got cancelled due to “weather in D.C.” Really, I think there were just storms possible, and the flight wasn’t full, so they opted to cancel rather than delay. I could still have gotten home tonight, but it would have been around 2 am by the time I got back to my apartment. I wasn’t going to be able to get to work by 7:30 anyway. Not if I wanted to function. So I opted to take a flight tomorrow, get another evening with my family, and not worry about work. Thankfully, I have the vacation time available, a very flexible boss, and will likely be able to make up the hours anyway.

But the problem is that I didn’t have any extra clothing with me! So I’m doing laundry right now. Not a problem, since I’m with my family. But if I were stuck in a hotel overnight, this would be a bigger issue. No one wants to fly next to the stinky girl, after all.

Content will return on Wednesday. Wish me luck getting home tomorrow.