Monday, November 5, 2018

Relaxing on a Sunday

Wrote this yesterday, but somehow it didn't post.

We've had a quite relaxing day so far. I thank that extra hour today, due to Daylight Savings. I went for a run, vacuumed, did some vacation planning for our trip to Hawaii. It's coming up so fast - I'm quite excited about it.

We actually changed our plans for Hawaii & will now be staying at a hotel versus a condo. Typically, staying at a hotel drives the food costs up quite a bit, so we've been trying to get creative on the savings. I have platinum status at this particular hotel chain, so we will get two breakfasts for free each day. I don't eat breakfast, & M is content to have a muffin & a banana. We'll bring his muffins from home (I make in big batches & freeze), & we're planning to stop at Costco after we land at the airport, so we'll pick up bananas.

That's breakfast sorted, but we'll do something similar for lunches. We'll get sandwich fixing for lunches (the room has a mini fridge). Nothing fancy, but enough to make sandwiches, with chips & fruit. We'll likely also have dinner leftovers, so we'll plan to mix it up with leftover lunch stuff as well. We are also planning to do at least 1-2 lunches out as well.

For dinners, we have a few plans. First, we will bring our own wine/champagne in our (free) checked bag. We bought special containers a few years ago that allow you to safely check wine into a checked bag (well, as safely as possible, I suppose). We'll enjoy a drink on our lanai before we go out to eat, and/or after we get back. And, we've scouted out restaurant options that offer happy hour (and, also doesn't require us to sit in a bar/lounge, as that rules out the boys). There appear to be quite a few options.

Our goal is to keep our food spending around $100/day. It will be close, but we will make a few tradeoffs on our travel days (grabbing food at the Costco food court, for example).

Feeling so lucky we have the opportunity to go on vacation, and we will be striving to be reasonably frugal, even with the travel costs! Any tips on keeping costs down while eating out & traveling? Please share!

6 comments:

  1. What does your wine luggage container look like? When we bring/take home alcohol in our luggage I end up bubble wrapping it to death then have 3-4 plastic bags overtop just in case. Glad you had a relaxing Sunday - for me in the Pacific Northwest daylight savings is supercritical, that extra hour of light genuinely makes our life better.

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    1. Not the exact ones we have, but something similar. https://www.amazon.com/Reusable-Wine-Bottle-Protector-Travel/dp/B01M5HXOBJ

      I'm with you - when we were in Seattle, the daylight savings was so important for sanity!

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  2. That sounds good! I think without the option of a kitchen, you've covered all the options we would normally cover. We'd skip the drinks largely because we're not big drinkers AND I like to take the path of least resistance on low priorities so it'd be easier to skip it than to pack some but that's entirely a personal preference. You may not have my addiction to malasadas, after all ;D

    We also would shop the local grocery store if that's possible, sometimes their prices are better for local foods like poke.

    What led to the change in lodgings?

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    1. Good question. Change of lodging was because the place we had settled on seems to be going through some sort of management crisis, which has led to poor service & housekeeping/maintenance/cleanliness. When we booked the hotel months ago (and, we've stayed there before), everything looked fine. Now, all of the reviews are super negative. Additionally, there was a great deal at Costco on a hotel that, when factoring in food costs & a free rental car, almost made it come out in the wash. Plus, minimal work.

      The Costco in Hawaii has incredible poke, actually, so we will definitely pick some of that up as well.

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  3. The premixed Kirkland margarita mix is pretty good and is something like $8.99 (includes the tequila). We buy the chicken and a small mayo and make chicken salad sandwiches. Also the huge bag of chips and mango salsa.

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    1. I love the chicken salad! The kids are not really fans, so we'll probably go with turkey. I usually doctor the chicken salad with curry & sliced grapes. Sometimes roasted cashews. Yum!

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