Frugal Friday

Well, it was a very frugal week, as I was traveling for work & spent zero on myself. M & Nick, who were the only people home last week, appeared to keep the spending in check as well.

My return flight home was supposed to arrive in San Francisco around 9 am yesterday. Instead, I sat on the plane in Tokyo for 7 hours waiting for a mechanical fix. It was incredibly hot in Tokyo, and the plane had to have the power shut down throughout the wait. This means it was. .. insanely hot on board. I'm so happy the delay (if it had to happen) was on my return vs outbound flight. My outbound flight was miserable in other ways, as I still had the flu.

Overall, the trip was very successful from a work perspective, and Tokyo is a lovely city. The weather in July, however, is not my favorite. VERY hot & humid. It was a relief to step out into the cooler weather in San Francisco last night.

M surprised me with champagne by the pool, and we watched Nick swim & entertain us after my Uber arrived at home. We finished up the night with dinner out (using a meal pass + a gift card), & then a trip to Costco to get our supplies for the week.

I pick up my sister & BFF this afternoon, so I'm very excited about that. It's girls trip time! We will spend a few days here, and then head to Sonoma. We'll be taking advantage of the 2 night condo stay I won in our school auction, so the room is "free" (i.e prepaid given auction winning).

Here are the frugal choices made over the past week:

1. I took an Uber to the airport on Saturday, and used my gift card. I'll get reimbursed from my employer, turning the gift card into cash, basically.
2. I spent $0 on myself on my work trip.
3. Used a gift card (and free meal pass) for dinner last night with M & Nick.
4. Provided feedback to United on my compensation for my return flight. Given I was flying business, I expect to receive miles, and prefer that over credit. We shall see.
5. Purchased dinner ingredients so we can cook this weekend while we have guests. We'll be going out for dinner while we're in Sonoma, so I think we'll enjoy having dinners here with our new patio table vs going out.
6. Buying breakfast & happy hour items to bring to the condo, to reduce costs.
7. Opted for the buy back option on our Audi SUV. (There is pending litigation, and a settlement offer for our car.) We've absolutely loved this car, but opted for the buyback. We will receive about $46K back. Part of that is the buyback value of the car ($35K, I believe), & the rest is the penalty fee from Volkswagen. We will get buy as long as possible with our other two cars (they are both 12+ years old), and when one of those dies, we will likely buy an electric car as our replacement.

That's it on our side. I have a ton of work to catch up on today, and then need to get everything sorted at home before my few days off early next week. TGIF! I hope you've all had frugal & fabulous weeks as well.