The last twelve days have been exhausting. My husband and I are both physically and financially spent. Wow, being a gracious host takes a toll on you and your finances.
But I am sad, this morning we took my sister and my niece to the airport so they could catch their flight back home. It had been two years since I last saw them but hopefully it will be much less before we see them again. They were here with us for the last twelve days and those days we spent shopping and showing them around.
As tired as I feel I decided to spend a few minutes accounting for our expenditures during the past few days. I debated doing this because sometimes it’s so much easier to just bury my head in the sand but I needed to be honest with myself and our finances.
So here it goes:
$75.41 Spent on groceries
$165.04 Eating out
$120 Gas for driving around and round trip to Chicago
$22 Tickets and parking to Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago (inlaws are members, so we only needed one extra adult ticket)
$190 Membership and parking to Shedd Aquarium in Chicago
$75 Spent boarding our dogs while we traveled to Chicago
$150 Shopping
Holy Crud!! for a total of $797.45 It sure adds up quickly!
I won’t rationalize or feel bad about it. It’s my family and I don’t get to see them often at all. I would spend just as much if my brother and other sister decided to come visit me too. However, we will get to enjoy the aquarium membership for another 15 months and my son loved it. The money will come out from savings to pay this off. Although we only charged gas (5% card discount) and the museum membership. But the rest came from our monthly budget and now we need to transfer some money from savings to pay some of the monthly bills. My husband gets an extra paycheck in May, which we usually send to our cash savings, not this time I guess.
Good news is: I am back! But after all of this spending I feel all out of money saving ideas or what not.
PS. Oldest son turns 3 today! Oh! and his gift from us was a used bike, haha! there you go; a money saving idea: gift a used bike to your toddler who doesn’t know yet the difference between old and new.
Hi! I am Mercedes and this is my blog Common Sense with Money! Helping other people live better, spend less, and save more is something I am very passionate about. I combine simple frugal living tips and smart shopping techniques to help moms across the U.S. become better home economists. Thank you for visiting my blog.
Wow! It adds up! It sounds like you had a really nice visit with your family, so I’m sure it was well-spent. Glad you’re back!
It’s easy to overspend, but keep in mind all the fun you had!
It was well-spent! Thanks for reminding me of that.
It’s good to be back to the normal routine.
Thanks guys!
Welcome back! I can so relate to the spending…we did our fair share this last week as well…. Here is my one thought: I’m just going to get back on track. I wouldn’t change a thing about our vacation or what we spent. We could have spent SO much more! But we see family in Florida once a year…. So now I just go back to doing what I was doing. Yes, the expenditures set me back a little from our goals, but it won’t deter me either. I am so glad that you had a wonderful visit with your sister!
Happy Birthday Little one!! Oops, Big Boy now,LOL!! All that matters is that you don’t beat yourself up about it. By being frugal in the 1st place is what enabled you to have the money to spend/share in the 1st place!! Just pick up where you left off!! Glad to see you back, we missed you:)