Frugal Friday

Going to Boulder was certainly an expensive adventure, but I did use points + free hotel night awards, so our entire hotel stay was free for three nights, including parking. The parking is $25/night, but free with my Hyatt status, which is a great perk. 

Saving on things we buy

• Brought the receipts from Nick's shopping trips (Costco & Target) home with me, and remembered to upload them to Fetch & iBotta. I earned $.40 on iBotta & somehow...3025 points on Fetch! Something he bought at Costco triggered a big bonus. It was a very expensive shopping trip, so that was a tiny win at least. ;-)
• I booked two rooms for two nights in Venice using Chase rewards for the Europe trip with my mom & sister at the end of May. Traveling with three people in a lot of places gets tricky, as the US staple of a room with two queen beds doesn't really exist, so we need two rooms. After the rewards, I spent $480.52, and the room comes with free breakfast for all of us + a $100 hotel credit, which we will probably use on drinks or something. 

Earning money

• I sold a pair of Nick's shoes for $14 on eBay. Junk out of the house. 

Avoiding spending

• It's hard to come back from a long weekend & avoid takeout or an airport meal, but I planned ahead by going to Trader Joes on Thursday & getting a few things. I picked up: veggie fried rice, turkey meatballs & the bagged crispy noodle salad kit. I already had the soyaki sauce at home. As soon as we got home on Sunday night, I made the fried rice while the meatballs were heating in the sauce, and topped the rice/meatballs/sauce with the salad kit, as a bowl style dinner. It came together in less than 10 minutes, and was tasty & not too terrible for us. There was also enough for one serving of leftover rice/meatballs, and about 1/3 of the salad for another meal. I like to consider this meal as "good enough", when the alternative is takeout. 
• I was also able to get our entire car full of people (5 folks) in to Rocky Mountain National Park for free, with my park pass. The pass has more than paid for itself so far this year, and I'm planning to visit Joshua Tree with my sister & parents next weekend, as an added bonus. 

Eating what we have

• We didn't go to the store over the weekend as we normally do (or, we did but stocked up Nick in Boulder vs our own fridge), so I made eggs for lunch, with a side of cheese & apple on Monday. Sam had a yogurt parfait, finishing off one of the yogurts & adding frozen berries & granola. 
• I made chicken teriyaki (again, thanks to Trader Joes freezer section) on Monday for dinner, knowing that it would be a crazy work day. More on that later. M made rice to go with it, and I made a double batch, so Sam could eat the leftovers during a busy work week on his end. 

For others

• Bought meals for college students who didn't have their parents in town for family weekend
• Doled out band-aids & hugs to a couple of girls who fell at the football game & made sure they had friends with them to get them back to their dorms. 

What about you? Any wins to share? 

Family weekend trip roundup

As you probably read in my earlier post, we had an incredible long weekend in Boulder with Nick & Sam. We were very excited that Sam was able to join, as he typically can't get off for a weekend with his work schedule. 

Nick regularly asks us to visit, and Sam had not been to Boulder yet to visit since Nick moved in. It meant a lot to Nick to have us all there. We also know that our time to show up for our kids in ways like this is limited & we enjoy it so much - we love getting to know his friends & seeing him in his college life. It really helps us have the right lens on parenting & feedback we give. That said, it's clearly a splurge trip, and one that we wouldn't take if money were tight. We try really hard to incorporate activities with his friends who have parents who weren't able to attend. It takes a village!

Here are the costs for the trip:

Flights: $485.10

• M & I had separate flights from Sam, because we wanted to be flexible in the event he needed to cancel. Paying cash for the flights was absolutely outlandishly expensive ($1500, given our timing restrictions), so we opted to use miles for this trip. We used 112,800 United miles + $22.40. I then opted to upgrade to first class, as part of M's anniversary gift. - $451.5
• Sam's flight was also booked with miles + $11.20

Hotel - $0

• We knew we wanted to fly in on Thursday vs Friday (last year they were out of rental cars when we arrived on Friday, despite having rented one!), so we took advantage of Hyatt free night awards. Knowing we will be staying Boulder & having access to these free night awards at a lower category hotel (easier to use free night awards) is the key reason we are currently keeping the Hyatt credit card. We stayed three nights at the Hyatt in Boulder, for $0 out of pocket, given the tax & parking are also covered with a free night award. Three nights over family weekend saved us approximately $3000. 

Rental car - $316.29

• It was actually supposed to snow when we were in Boulder, but the weather warmed up quite a bit. We upgraded from a Toyota Tercel to an SUV (we ended up with a Jeep). I'm not sure if that was necessary, but in the moment, we wanted a car with more traction. - $299.22
• Gas - $17.07

Activities: $690.24

• To participate in family weekend activities, you need to buy a package through the school. We chose the cheapest package that still provided discounted football tickets, because the entire reason we bought the package was to have access to discounted tickets. Let's just say that I didn't know it was a thing last year, and by the time I purchased family weekend tickets, the football promo codes were gone & we had to buy tickets on the open market. They were outlandishly expensive. Lesson learned for this year! Family weekend tickets = $185 ($75 for the adult tickets, Nick's ticket is $35).
• Football tickets for three = $441 (Me, M & Nick)
• I then needed to add a fourth ticket for Sam, and used my Stubhub credit (available from my credit card) for the majority of this purchase. Again, tickets were insanely priced. - $64.24
• We went to Rocky Mountain National Park, and my annual park pass covered admittance for all of us

Meals: $731.61

• Dinner on Thursday - included in first class flights for me + M, packed a sandwich for Sam
• Lunch on Friday - my BFF treated 
• Dinner on Friday - it was the four of us + my BFF & her daughter, after hiking - $322.91
• Lunch on Saturday - four of us + two of Nick's friends - $230.13
• Dinner on Saturday - four of us - $74.18
• Brunch on Sunday - four of us - $104.39

Total cost for family weekend = $2223.24

We also restocked Nick on groceries & bought him some additional climbing gear, including a helmet! The additional climbing gear was a bribe, because I most certainly want him to be wearing a helmet while climbing. Not included here, as that comes out of Nick's college budget. 

The limited plan menu

 It's always a bit crazy when we're not home on the weekend to meal prep, plan & get ready for the week ahead. No regrets with our trip out of town. Work is very crazy for me, particularly on Mondays, as not only am I catching up from the London team having worked an entire day before I log on, I'm also catching up from the missed work on Thursday/Friday. I only have 10 Mondays left, and it can't come soon enough! I typically spend most of Monday in "catch up" mode, which is no fun.

• Friday - we went out to eat & my BFF & her daughter joined us, after our hike. Meal was fine, company was great.
• Saturday - we were looking for a quick bite ahead of the game. The food was good, the wait was insane! I had a chicken sandwich
• Sunday - I heated up the Trader Joes veggie fried rice, marinated the turkey meatballs in some soy sauce, and then topped all of that with the crunchy noodle bagged salad kit, bowl style.
• Monday - M made rice, which I topped with Trader Joes teriyaki chicken (from the freezer) 
• Tuesday - I defrosted chicken fajita meat from a week or so ago
• Wednesday - I have an in office day, so I expect things to get a little crazy. I've defrosted grilled chicken (M's) + we will have leftover rice.
• Thursday - it's our anniversary, so TBD!
• Friday - sheet pan sausage bake, similar to this

What about you? What's on your menu for the week? I'm looking forward to the weekend, and doing more meal prep!

Back from a fabulous long weekend

 We had such a wonderful time in Boulder with Nick, and also got to see my BFF & her daughter. It's also a rarity to get the four of us all together in one place, and Sam & Nick hung out a lot as well. Sam stayed in Nick's apartment (way cooler than hanging with mom & dad), & it was just such a great time all around. Not every trip is like that, so soaking it all in. 

We went to two frat parties, the football game, took Nick shopping for his apartment items (no toilet bowl cleaner/brush - which I rectified!), groceries, and some additional climbing gear. We took a couple of his friends to lunch, and heard all about college life. 

We also met up with my BFF & her daughter for an absolutely stunning hike at Rocky Mountain National Park. The photos don't do it justice, but we hiked up to a few alpine lakes, and the water was a gorgeous turquoise color. So beautiful. I definitely need to go back for more time at RMNP, especially as M was back at the hotel working, and missed out on the hike.

Already missing my wild child, but he will be back soon enough for Thanksgiving.

Frugal Friday

It's been a busy week, trying to squeeze things into a very short work week, and now a trip to Boulder. But, we had a few wins along the way. 

Saving on things we buy

• M eats a lot of sardines (not my jam, but whatever) & our Costco is no longer carrying them. I found them on sale at our local store, and bought out the few remaining. I also picked up some avocado for our fajita dinner. I had a $5 off of a $15 purchase, dropping the charge to $12 for 9 packages of sardines + 2 avocados. 
• Pre-booked airport parking, which is the cheapest option for us on most trips. I also created an account, as apparently they are starting to build a loyalty program. 

Earning money

• (Insert caveat that chasing credit card perks never makes sense unless you are paying your bill in full every month & aren't carrying a balance.) Thanks to a variety of factors, mostly including work travel, I hit my spend reward goals on a couple of my other credit cards, and decided to shift the rest of the year spend to United. I earned a $100 travel credit for my efforts, which is basically zero effort at all. Next year will be different, as I won't be charging work travel. One of my goals is to build a credit card strategy, to ensure we are utilizing the best cards for our situation & ditching what doesn't work.

Avoiding spending

Eating what we have

• I'm continuing my fridge, freezer, pantry attempts for lunches, as well as dinners. I prefer berries on my yogurt, but saw we had some grapes that needed to be used up, so had those chopped instead on top, and they were quite good. My preferred yogurt combo is: Trader Joes Greek vanilla yogurt, some sort of fruit on top, with a light sprinkle of the TJs protein granola. Hits the cravings for something a little sweet, but isn't bad for you. 
• For the Korean beef dish I made last weekend, I sliced the pickles that go with it, and added them to the leftovers of a pickled onion jar, and shook them up for a few hours. That added great flavor to the recipe, for free. I did this 2x during the week.
• Used six overly ripe bananas from the freezer to make banana muffins (9 without chocolate chips for M, 3 with for Sam). Everyone was pleased. 
• I noticed that the shelf stable oat milk I keep on hand was going to expire in December. I don't prefer this kind at all, as it doesn't foam up for my morning latte, but I also don't want to waste it. I've started adding a bit to my regular oat milk every morning. Somehow, even a small amount means the milk doesn't foam, but that's a pretty small problem, all things considered. ;-) 
• Ate leftovers during the week, to ensure the fridge was cleaned out before we left for Boulder.

For others

• Shared a Guest of Honor Hyatt award (gives anyone the same status as a Globalist, which means free breakfast, potential for room upgrades, etc) with a friend. 
• Increased a tip on a delivery, when the person was extremely prompt. I'm not a huge fan of the tipping culture (wish everyone was paid a fair wage by their employer), but I also know that's not the current system & how hard some of those delivery people (and, other staff who is tipped) work, and while I tip a standard amount always, I like to remember to reward awesome service as well.
• Reached out to my family + my BFF, and have more folks lined up to contribute encouragement cards to the guardian scholars (students just coming out of the foster system & in college). I'm writing my own cards, as well as adding some gift cards.  

What about you? Any wins to share?

Starting to think about 2027 goals

2027 is going to be a big year for me! I'm officially leaving my job the first week of January. I don't have any plans to accept another job, but I won't rule out doing something very temporary or part time in the future. My goal was to save up enough money where I don't have to work, and that I can take care of my health & have enough to bridge the gap until I can tap into my 401k. I have approximately 10 years (just under) until I can access my retirement account without penalty. M is still currently working, and he will cover our health care, which is a vital step, especially given my health. 

I also expect that the first few years will be more expensive, as we have Nick in college, Sam will likely need additional support after he finishes his conservation training & schooling, and we will likely be traveling more in the earlier years rather than later, particularly with our families. 

I also expect that the pivot to permanent "retirement", for lack of a better term, may be a big adjustment for us. My health is my top priority, but I also want to continue to foster social connections, give back & support my family. 

I'm a planner, and I always like to know what comes next. But, for this particular next step, I think it's important for me to experiment - to try new things, discover what I enjoy, drop things that I don't, and not worry about getting everything right or knowing what comes next. That is a semi uncomfortable space for such a planner, so there will be a lot of growth required to keep experimenting!

I don't expect my goal categories to change, as I find it helpful to approach my goals across those buckets (financial, family, health, & personal). 

These are very initial drafts at this point, but here's where my head is currently at.

Financial

• Continue to pay for Nick's college
• Make $3000 in side hustle money
• Pressure test our budget & categories for the next few years, and make adjustments as needed. Included in that is optimization of our existing budget & plans. 
• Track & optimize travel related perks, savings, etc to best manage our travel budget, which is our largest flexible spending category (quite intentionally). 

Family

• Support both of our young adults
• Spend more time with my parents
• Continue to have regular date nights with M

Health

• Hit my goal weight, go off the micro dose of GLP-1, & maintain my weight
• Continue to manage my lupus
• Add another fitness activity to my days/weeks/months
• Track & manage my health overall

Personal

• Experiment with hobbies, activities, etc
• Host more 
• Volunteer
• Say yes to adventures
• Continue decluttering & organizing our house

Are you thinking about your goals for 2027? If so, what's top of mind for you? 

Fitness Monday

 It was nice to see a drop on the scale, but my steps are not on track. I missed one workout day, and it was a day with a lot of meetings. I need to find a way to more organically get in steps. Walk around the block between meetings? The weather has cooled off & it finally feels like fall, making it much more appealing to get outside here & there. 

Weight: 144.2, down 1.9 lbs from last week. This is an unusually big drop for me, but likely because I didn't have any notable loss for almost a month. 

Calories: 1,281/day

Steps: 9,446/day

Workouts

• 4 hard workout classes (combo of strength & cardio)
• 1 - 30 minute elliptical workout
• 1 - 45 minute elliptical workout
• 1 day without a workout

Goals for the week:

• Again setting the "no days without a workout" goal, since I missed that last week
• Keep the calories in check, while on our trip to Boulder
• Hit an average of 12k/steps, because it's been a while!

What about you? How did you do with your health & fitness goals last week? 

Menu Plan Sunday

 Another week, and we did well last week with eating a lot of leftovers. M ended up making a second batch of grilled chicken to bring to Boulder, which he then deemed "not good enough for Nick", so I guess we will be eating it. Our preferences are not worth as much as Nick, apparently. ;-) I thought the first batch was incredible & the second batch was still quite good, for the record.

As such, grilled chicken, round 3 is on the menu this week.

• Friday - chicken fajitas. I'd move away from the chicken, but already have the peppers & need to use those up.
• Saturday - Korean beef bowls & rice
• Sunday - grilled chicken, take 3
• Monday - leftover fajitas
• Tuesday - leftover Korean beef bowls
• Wednesday - leftover grilled chicken
• Thursday through Sunday - at Boulder for family weekend. Thursday will likely be an airport meal at the lounge, Friday we are meeting friends for Italian food. Saturday is a real mystery, and Sunday will be whatever we find in the freezer when we get back.

What about you? Has it cooled off at your house? Are you into fall meals yet? 

Saturday Happenings

I'm enjoying the much cooler weather today. It's going to be a high of 69, which feels much more appropriate for August than the very warm high 90s we've been having. Yay for fall! 

Meal prep gets a lot more appealing when the weather cools off! My goals for today in the kitchen are:

• Use up overly ripe bananas to make banana muffins
• Roast the potatoes that are going bad
• Make Korean beef dish for dinner, & quick pickle cucumbers

Other things I need to do today:

• Figure out timing for our Boulder activities. I'm either meeting my BFF for a hike, or another friend for lunch. I'm hoping to do both, but depends on the schedule.
• Sweep out front
• Wash bedding
• Go to my workout class
• Start packing for Boulder trip
• Confirm plans with both Nick & Sam
• Make a post to give some stuff away on Buy Nothing

That should do it! What about you? What are you hoping to get done today? 

Frugal Friday

It's been a good week overall, although pricey as I booked some 2027 travel (covered in a separate post). We also had what I hope to be our last plumbing bill for now. Fingers crossed on that one!

Saving on things we buy

• Used a variety of CVS rewards, coupons, etc to buy four of the largest containers of vitamins I needed for $23.75, saving $25. 
• We spend Christmas with my parents, my sister + her kids, and my BFF & her kids. We think this is likely to be the last year with everyone together, as my BFF's daughters are engaged & in med school, etc. She asked if we could do Christmas pajamas this year, and when Old Navy had a sale over the weekend, we jumped on it, as we needed a bunch of sizing options & then tend to run out of sizes. To reduce the cost, I first started by ordering a $100 gift card for $79.99 at Costco.com, which was delivered shortly after ordering. The pajamas were also half off, and I started my order at Rakuten, saving a bit extra. Then I noticed that there was another code on Old Navy's web site, and I had $2 of rewards to use as well. I bought six sets of pajama pants & the coordinating tops (my family + my parents) for $125.80 total, and will get a small amount back through Rakuten & our Costco rewards. 
• Sam is planning to join for family weekend in Boulder, so I bought a 4th football game ticket. I bought the original three with a discount code no longer available through the school, so I went on StubHub for the 4th, and used my $150 Chase credit (through my card). The ticket was just over $200 (insane for a college football game, but it's also family weekend), so the $150 savings was quite exciting. 
• I don't usually order grocery delivery, but I had two offers to use up (one with my credit card, the second through the app), so I ordered the following items for $11 (includes tip): sourdough bread, turkey meat, two bagged salads, a protein bowl. I saved $26, although wouldn't normally spend that at the store, as Costco is cheaper for some of these items. It was a pretty great deal. 

Earning money

• I am now working part-time, so my paychecks will be reduced by 40%. We've saved & planned for this period of time, so I will enjoy the part-time income & flexibility through EOY, when I'm leaving my job.
• I shifted some money around to earn more interest. I need a rather large cash cushion for the year ahead, and moving the money around to a higher yield account is worth it. 
• Dropped off some coins we had sitting around - I hate clutter of all kinds, so I wait until we have enough to make it worth going to the store, and turned that into $18. 

Avoiding spending

Eating what we have

• For dinner last Friday, I dug out chopped peppers, rotisserie chicken & chicken broth from the freezer for a recipe. I've been wanting to use up the peppers, so it was a good addition. I also used a jalapeno from the garden vs buying chiles, and Greek yogurt vs the sour cream it called for, to avoid needing to go to the store to buy anything. In the end, the recipe was still missing something, so I dug around in the fridge & added some wing sauce that was leftover & that increased the spice level perfectly. M & Sam asked what I'd added, and we were all surprised that it had changed the flavor in such a good way. A clean out the fridge surprise, if you will. ;-) This made 2 dinners, plus 2 lunches. 
• We picked 17 large pomegranates off of our tree. M made pomegranate martinis one night, and will begin the task of removing the arils for snacking. He planted this tree when we moved in, so it's always exciting to get to pick the fruit. We left about half on the tree, as we won't be able to go through all of them right now.
• Used the last of a package of frozen berries in yogurt.
• Made another "use it up" dinner during the week, using up four cans of beans from the pantry, as well as the last three chicken sausages. I doubled the recipe, so used some sausages from a new package as well, but it was good to use the three from the open package before they went bad. Bonus that this recipe called for chicken broth. We've had so much chicken broth in the freezer, and I've been working on getting that down to create more space. This created two dinners for us, a lunch, & I froze another dinner's worth. 
• Picked herbs from the garden (thyme, oregano, rosemary & basil) + lemons from the tree for M's chicken marinade. He's grilling lots of extra chicken for us to freeze & bring to Nick for meal preps. 
• Used strawberries from the garden (we are having a heat wave, so I just picked more) for a yogurt/granola bowl for Sam before a work shift.

For others

• Returned some shopping carts that were blocking a parking spot at the grocery store.

What about you? Any wins to share?

International trip planing with parents

I've mentioned in other places, but to recap, I'm sponsoring a trip to Japan for my dad (my nephew is taking him) & I'm taking my mom & sister on my mom's one & only international trip. The goal is to do traveling with our parents (also still planning to get together with M's mom, when that's possible) while that's still an option. It means front loading some of our travel spend in 2027/2028 vs more spread out over the next 10 years. Travel planning for my dad's trip is a bit on hold as we wait for flights to open up, but we will likely book flights over the next month or so. 

Planning/location:

After quite a bit of discussion & researching options, and hitting the balance of seeing some of the things my mom wants to experience, but doing it in a way that works for her & our group, we landed on a very small cruise in May, that allows us to go to some of the (less) touristy destinations.

We will be flying into Athens, spending a day there before we get on the cruise, mostly to ensure there are no travel delays. Then we will visit three Greek islands, including Paros - which was a huge favorite when I was there this summer, & two islands new to me. We will then go to Croatia & I'm very excited to go to Krka National Park, which looks amazing. 

The cruise finishes in Venice, and we will spend 1.5 days there before flying home, and will do a few Venice tourist activities. 

Cost/optimization:

• I booked the cruise through Chase travel, which means I'll get 8x points for the purchase, and also a $250 excursion booking credit per person. I'll share more details on the cruise as we get further along.
• Because the cruise was quite a significant expense (traveling with three is hard, and requires a second room), I really wanted to keep the flights in check. I also had some complicated travel booking (multi city with Athens & Venice) & then on the way home, my mom & sister will be routing through Portland & I'll be returning to San Francisco. The logistics nearly did me in! But, I found some options to use miles for one of the routes, and then found some less expensive economy flights for the return. There were seat booking fees on Lufthansa that added to the overall cost, but I managed to get all of the flights needed (minus the flight from my sister & mom one way from Portland to SFO the night before) for just under $2400, which felt like quite a feat.
• For the hotel in Athens, I booked a Hyatt hotel on points for two nights, for two rooms, and used a Suite Upgrade Award, which will hopefully secure a nicer room. Total cost on that was $0.
• I'm hoping to use Chase Travel points for the hotel in Venice, as Hyatt has limited options there.

In terms of what else I still need to pay for, and how I'm thinking of the budget, I have planned:

• Transit from Athens hotel to the port
• Transit from Venice port to hotel
• Food & activities in Athens & Venice
• Excursions on the cruise. Drinks & tips are included in the cruise, and there is no additional food up charging. 
• Travel insurance
• A one way flight for my sister & mom from Portland to San Francisco, hoping to use miles for this.

I'm new to cruising, so interested to see what this is like! If you have any tips or suggestions, please share! 

Fitness Monday

 Aside from a nagging back pain (I think I was sore from an exercise in my workout class), it was a pretty good week. Not enough steps, and slightly over my calorie goals, but slow & steady! 

Weight: 146.1, down .2 lbs from last week, and at my previous low

Calories: 1,403/day, with a couple of meals out

Steps: 10,979, even with my long hike. Those in office days with the commute really drag down my average

Workouts:

• A 7.5ish mile hike with a friend
• 3 hard workout classes (1/2 cardio, 1/2 strength training)
• One elliptical workout (30 minutes)
• 2 days without a workout (in office days with long commutes). I won't miss those!

Goals for the week:

• Drop calories back to 1,300/day
• Increase steps
• Daily workout

What about you? How did you do with your health & fitness goals this week? 

Menu plan Sunday

 It's been a real "fly by the seat of our pants" week, as we got home from our trip on Sunday with no groceries & no plan. As such, this is a bit of an extended edition, so you can see how things look when we have no plan. ;-) 

• Sunday - DoorDash'd Greek food. Which is a pretty rare occurrence for us, luckily.
• Monday - I had leftover Greek food. M had grilled chicken.
• Tuesday - I went out to dinner with coworkers.
• Wednesday - shrimp (M) + leftover pizza (me + Sam)
• Thursday - one pan chicken fajita rice
• Friday -  chicken sausage white bean skillet
• Saturday - Korean beef bowls & rice
• Sunday - grilled chicken & Persian rice
• Monday - leftover chicken fajita rice
• Tuesday - leftover chicken white bean skillet
• Wednesday - leftover grilled chicken
• Thursday - Sheet pan fajitas
• Friday - leftover fajitas

It will be so nice to have days where I can actually cook again during the work week! What about you? What's on your menu for the week?