Travel Archives - Page 31 of 32 - Making Sense Of Cents

My Extra Monthly Income

Last Updated: June 26, 2015 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 44 Comments

Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links, meaning I get a commission if you decide to make a purchase through my links, at no cost to you. Please read my disclosure for more info.

Today is Wednesday, finally! Anyways, I thought I’d finally give you the details on my extra monthly income.

In my January Goals update, I said:

“Make an extra $500 this month. PASS. I made over $600 from blog income and surveys!”

After I posted that, I was literally flooded with e-mails from you guys!

I’ve told you guys in this post, my February Goals, and in my goal update post that I would tell you more information about my monthly income. I’m not going to lie, I have been pushing this off because I’m not too entirely sure what to say and I thought this post would be extremely boring. But then I reminded myself that before I was making this extra income, I LOVED (and I still do love) reading about others and how they made their extra income. It’s nice to find out about new opportunities that you may not have thought about. [Read more…]

Some Frugal (and expensive) Date Ideas

Last Updated: November 18, 2014 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 35 Comments

Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links, meaning I get a commission if you decide to make a purchase through my links, at no cost to you. Please read my disclosure for more info.

Today is Friday! I’m finally feeling better. Having the stomach flu is the worst and I hated it so much. It was miserable having to work for 9 hours and then going to class for another 4.5 hours this week. 2 weeks down, 13 to go? I think that’s right. Like I’ve said, I have to miss the last 1-2 weeks of classes for work, so I’m not sure how much I have left really.

Anyways, me and the BF have been really lazy lately. We have been staying home a lot (and sleeping a lot). There is really no excuse for this except that I hate the cold and really don’t want to step a single foot outside. Once the weather gets better, there are tons of things that we like to do.

We really need to stop being lazy though! Of course we like to save money when we do things also. What are some frugal date ideas that you have? Below is a list of things that we like to do or would like to do.

Some date ideas:

Try new restaurants. We love using Restaurant.com certificates because we can try new restaurants without spending a ton of money. If you sign up for their e-mail list, you usually get e-mails a couple times a month for 80% or 90% off their certificates. So this means that I often buy these certificates for around $2. Since you usually only have to spend $10 to use the $25 certificate, that means that we get around $35 worth of food for only $12 (plus tip). But that’s a good deal! There are a lot of restaurants that we go to a lot that are on there also.
Have a picnic. We love going to the park and having a picnic, we haven’t done this in awhile. Last time we did this, we rode our mopeds (yes we have mopeds, and yes they are fun) and a photographer actually took our pictures for the newspaper (or at least that’s what he said)! This is relatively cheap and a lot of fun. Usually there are interesting people and we can people watch also.
Go skiing. Haven’t done this yet, but if it gets cold this weekend, then we plan on doing this finally! It’s expensive though, I looked up prices and it’ll be around $100 each for equipment rental and everything.
Order/make lots of food, watch scary movies, and stay in.
Go to the zoo. For some reason, the zoo always seems like a fun idea, UNTIL I get there and I want to leave. Parking is always horrible and it’s always hot. But, I do love going! The zoo where we live is free, so this is always fun! Parking is free also (they have paid parking but I don’t mind walking 1-2 minutes and park).
Take a weekend vacation. We’ve done this a couple of times. What we’ll do is take that Friday off and make it a 3 day weekend. Last year we went to Miami for the weekend. It was fun, but it was hard to pack in the flights, travel and everything into 3 short days.
Go to the movies. We don’t go to the movies a lot (because it’s like $13 a person and because I always fall asleep at the theater), but we do have $50 on a movie gift card, so we plan on using it soon. Nothing too good has been out lately though, but I’m definitely seeing The Vow with Channing when it comes out next month! Who else is excited for that?
Hike. We have a lot of hiking trails around us, and we finally went hiking a couple of months ago on the trail near our house. It was fun and interesting for us. FREE
Drive around. I know this isn’t eco-or-pocket-friendly, but the BF likes to drive around, and I like just sitting in the passenger seat. It’s relaxing. And we just talk about nothing and everything.
Look at the stars. The BF’s grandma has a lot of land, so sometimes we will drive all the way out there and lay out a blanket and just relax. It’s nice and very pretty.
Shooting range. We go shooting at least twice a month. It’s fun, but very expensive.
Hot air balloon. Haven’t done this yet, but would like to. I’m a little afraid right now though since there was an accident last month where everyone died. I’m not sure how much this cost? Maybe $150 a person? More? I don’t know…
Sky Diving. Haven’t done this yet, but would like to. He doesn’t see the need to jump out of a perfectly good airplane, yet he will do tons of scary things that I don’t get. I plan on going with his friend this spring, so this isn’t much of a date idea, but maybe the BF will join. This will be around $200 just for me when I do this in the Spring. I also want to get pictures from it, and that’s around an extra $75.
Paddle boat. Downtown there is a little man-made canal thing (yes I know I sound so smart) and you can paddle boat, get a canoe or a kayak. It’s a lot of fun, really pretty and pretty cheap. Only around $15 an hour (but they don’t really make sure that you’ve only been gone for an hour).

What do you guys like to do? Any new ideas?

P.S. Don’t forget to Follow me on twitter!

Do you usually spend a lot or a little on hotel rooms?

Last Updated: May 18, 2014 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 37 Comments

Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links, meaning I get a commission if you decide to make a purchase through my links, at no cost to you. Please read my disclosure for more info.

Condo-hotel we stayed at in Miami (the white 2 story) –
this picture is taken from the kayak

Backyard

San Juan

I’ve been looking and pricing a lot of hotels for the vacations that I’m taking with the BF and with my friends. There are so many options. I hate trying to choose a hotel, because I have definitely picked a lot of bad ones.

A question that I always ask myself is if I should be a little frugal with the hotel that I choose, of if I should splurge and treat it like a real vacation that I dream about.

I have scrimped on hotel rooms before in order for me to have more spending money on my vacation. The difference between a $100 hotel room and a $200 room add up quickly.

One thing that I should share is that I’m extremely germophobic, I’ve stayed at my fair share of 1 star hotels, and I can never sleep when I stay at these. I will have to sleep with a hood over my head, and pants, socks and everything else. Yes I do realize that all hotel rooms are most likely dirty because thousands of people have probably slept with the same blanket and mattress, but I’m more of a visual cleanliness person.

If it looks clean, then that’s good enough for me. But if it looks dirty, then I will have nightmares forever (such as with the hairs and throw up as talked about below).

Choosing cheap hotel rooms have been mostly good for us though. For our Miami trip last year (the condo in the first picture), we used Airbnb for our room and got a great deal. I think around $125 a night for the room. Not the cheapest place we have ever stayed at, but it was across the street from the beach, in Miami Beach, had a canal in the backyard with a boat and kayak for us to use, and a jacuzzi (way too hot in Miami when we went, so we never hopped in).

Of course we could always go free and use Couchsurfing (as explained in my past post). I’ve never done this, and I don’t expect to do this on any of my vacations in the near future, mainly because I like my privacy, especially on a vacation. Would you guys couch surf?

Last year, on one of our vacations, we stayed at an extremely dirty hotel. I wanted to throw up immediately when we walked in. We were extremely mad too, because the hotel was over $200 per night (which by the way was the cheapest thing we could find in the area). There was food on the wall (and some throw up!), the bed was made, but it was obvious that they were not washed because there was multiple hairs on the bed and pillows (and no I am not talking about the hairs on your head, I’m talking about the gross kind of hair).

Yes I know that a hotel is a place where you should only sleep, but I don’t know if I want to do that this year. One hotel that we stayed at had a cement floor, cement ceiling and cement walls. The A/C was leaking and there were puddles everywhere. It was super gross but less than $50 a night. Although I didn’t choose this place, we were on a small road trip and were really tired, and of course Justin Beiber was in town, so there were NO hotel rooms.

Anyways, when me and my friends go to Vegas for the bachelorette party, the hotel cost isn’t really bothering us too much. That is mainly because of the amount of girls going. I think we might be up to 7 now, so splitting a room with that many girls won’t be that expensive.

But for the vacations that me and the BF take, cost is definitely a factor, since I won’t be splitting everything 7 ways. We definitely want to be comfortable and happy though, and not let extremely gross hairs on our blanket ruin our vacation. I definitely consider a good hotel room to be a part of the vacation.

So, what’s the maximum that you would spend per night? Thoughts? Is a hotel only a place for you to sleep?

Also, I updated the blog today, what do you think? I like the simple, clean look.

Oh Sunday

Last Updated: January 22, 2012 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 25 Comments

Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links, meaning I get a commission if you decide to make a purchase through my links, at no cost to you. Please read my disclosure for more info.

Just a short post today.

This weekend went by way too fast. I forgot to tell you guys that I didn’t go out on Friday night, so no worrying about if anything happened. The roads were too icy so none of us wanted to risk driving. I promise I’ll update everyone on that post soon.

I didn’t do too much yesterday though either. I’ve been feeling really lazy lately. So since I did nothing yesterday, I have a lot to do today. Things we need to do:

Go to carpet places (doubt this will happen)
Homework
Buy another textbook that I forgot about
Buy a bookshelf
Look for a chair that I can attempt to reupholster for my closet
Deposit some checks that I got from secret shopping
I know I said I would stop shopping, but I am planning on going to JCrew today to look for a light blue or yellow button up for work. This will be the only thing that I buy. I’m kind of getting sick of only wearing black, gray and white to work.

Also, above are just some of our pictures from our vacations last year. I’m definitely obsessing over the summer time and cannot wait!

Have a great Sunday!

I’m planning a Vegas Vacation for a Bachelorette party this summer!

Last Updated: December 19, 2015 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 27 Comments

Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links, meaning I get a commission if you decide to make a purchase through my links, at no cost to you. Please read my disclosure for more info.

Hey everyone! I hope everyone is having a good week! I’ve mentioned this a couple of times (or at least I think),but I am a bridesmaid for one of my good friends. Her maid of honor is her much younger sister, so I’ll be helping with a lot of the planning. I’m super excited!

The first thing I’m excited to plan?

VEGAS 2012 BABY!

Ok yes, we’re not going until the summer time, and I definitely look forward to planning her wedding, but I want to go on a girls vacation in Vegas.

I’ve been to Vegas before a couple of times. I went with family when I was a teenager a couple of times and I also went with friends around a year ago. It was so much fun when I went with my friends. Seriously the best time ever.

There’s around 6 of us going most likely. We are most likely going to try and get a suite somewhere so that we can all stay in the same room. Even if we can’t get a big room, then we really don’t care, as we will most likely never even be in the room.

One of my main gifts to my friend will be me paying for her hotel and airfare. I can most likely get her cheap first class tickets there and back for around $125 (through my dad’s benefits) and I’m guessing that the hotel altogether for 3 nights/4 days will be around $600-$800 for all of us (and we all plan on splitting it).

So I’m looking at around $250 for her as my present And if I can’t get tickets for her, then I’ve already price checked it and round trip will be around $400 (for coach seats)

My budget for this trip will be around $1,000 altogether, not including her present. I most likely won’t spend that much though since I get free airfare and there will be 5-6 of us splitting a hotel room. But I know that alcohol will eat away at most of my budget. Last time we went though, we hardly paid for any drinks because club managers always gave us VIP passes for free cover and drinks all night long. It was pretty nice, but I don’t think I’ll count on that again (because of course I shouldn’t always rely on free things and get my hopes up).

Our choices for hotels are:

Monte Carlo – we’ve stayed here last time and loved it. And it’s cheaper than the other 3 choices. This is our #1 choice because we liked it before. Awesome pools, lazy river, on the strip, cheap.
MGM Grand – We were at the MGM Grand nearly every night when we went there last and really loved it. A tad more expensive than the Monte Carlo.
Bellagio – More expensive, but we would all love to stay here.
Caesars Palace – Also more expensive. But I think it’d be sooo much fun.

What other hotels do you recommend?

I’m not much of a sight seeing type of person. I’m fine with just relaxing by the pool and going out at night. And so are my friends, so I don’t expect us to do much looking around and spending money on taxis or anything.

We plan to go to Thunder from Down Under (LOVED IT LAST TIME), maybe one day I’ll have the guts to post my picture from that. Have you guys ever been to it? It’s seriously the most hilarious thing on earth.

Some of my friends will be on a tight budget when we go just because of all of the other wedding related costs, so do any of you know of cheap things to do, ways to save money, or anything of the sort?

What else should I know for a bachelorette party in Vegas?

Do you use all of your vacation days every year?

Last Updated: December 8, 2014 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 28 Comments

Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links, meaning I get a commission if you decide to make a purchase through my links, at no cost to you. Please read my disclosure for more info.

When I worked in retail, I wasn’t offered vacation days, so if I wanted a day off, I wouldn’t get paid (even though I was in management and worked there for over 5 years as a full-time manager, but that’s just another depressing story). But now that I have a different job I get actual vacation days. I get 15 days a year (not including holidays so it’s more than that of course) but last year I only used 12 days.

Why did I do this? After not having a vacation day for over 5 years, you’d think I would use them all. I think since I didn’t have vacation days ever, I felt kind of bad for using all of my vacation days.

This year I plan on using all of my vacation days. I still have 4 left, and I’m using one day this Friday and the other 3 the rest of the month. It’ll be nice!

I also came across this article from Yahoo that talks about how $34.3 billion worth of vacation days will go unused this year. Here are some interesting facts:

The average American worker earned 14 vacation days but will only take 12 of them
Most people didn’t use all of their days because they said they couldn’t afford a vacation
Too much stuff to do at work so most people can’t even use their days
Many workers feel that if they took a day off, that they may be fired due to the economic situation
Most other countries use ALL of their vacation time.

“Workers in France earned 30 vacation days, on average, in 2011, and often used every single one of those days. The same goes for employees in Brazil and Spain. In the UK, workers get 25 days and they used all 25.”

Do you always use all of your days?

Retirement Costs in 13 Countries

Last Updated: December 19, 2015 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 9 Comments

Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links, meaning I get a commission if you decide to make a purchase through my links, at no cost to you. Please read my disclosure for more info.

I constantly dream of retiring (who doesn’t), and I would either like to retire abroad or constantly be on vacation. I found an article on MSN about 13 places to retire abroad and their average living costs. I thought it was a good article since I want to travel or retire abroad.

There are a lot of things to consider when retiring such as:

Health insurance
Food
Utilities
Phones
Internet and cable
Cars/Transportation
Fun, entertainment and traveling
Personal (clothes, hair, etc)

Of course, all of this adds up like crazy, and it’s recommended that in retirement that you have around 70% to 100% of your past salary for your yearly expenses. Many people think that you should save less, but not everyone will have their homes paid off. I plan on having around 85 or 90% per year.

Here is what the article says about places to retire abroad (these are all per month):

Argentina – $4,000
Belize – $2,200
Brazil – $2,700
Colombia – $2,000
Chile – $2,500
Ecuador – $2,000
France – $3,000
Italy – $2,400
Malaysia – $1,600
Mexico – $2,500
Panama City – $2,500
Thailand – $1,200
Uruguay – $2,300

You can obviously find places for MUCH cheaper than this, but I think these costs are for living very well in most of these countries, while some are just average living.

Have you thought about your retirement? Is retiring abroad something that you’ve thought about?

Also, Daily Worth is having a $10,000 giveaway (5 winners will each win $2,000). Sign up under my link. All you have to do is enter your e-mail!