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July 2007 - Posts
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Today is the anniversary of the day that I finally packed up all my belongings and headed off in my little car out along the highway towards Indiana. It's absolutely mind-boggling to believe that a year has actually gone by so quickly. Although I feel very settled into my apartment and my life here in Indiana, it's hard to imagine that I've gone through everything that one year has to offer a person. I've seen all four seasons (including the snow). I've experienced all the holidays and birthdays with both new and some old friends. What is important to me is that I still feel a very strong attachment to my good friends that I left behind in Florida, even though many of them now are beginning there own journeys away from the Florida panhandle. I'm sure that by the time another year or two has passed, a lot of us with be strewn around the country or even the world all doing our own thing though hopefully still keeping the others in our lives as best as possible. The anniversary that today marks reminds me of one of the most important financial things that I had to deal with when moving to a new place. Forget about dealing with changing the addresses on credit cards and bank statements. Forget about the new driver's license and insurance (although doing the driver's license thing was a doozy!). The most important thing that most students and anyone for that matter enter into is their financial obligation to the place that they live. Whether it's a mortgage, rent, or in my case a lease, this financial obligation to either a bank, a company, or some person allows us to have one of the most important human necessities; shelter. Tomorrow my new lease begins, and truth be told, I'm having mixed emotions about the fact that my roommate and I decided to resign. I suppose that when the apartment complex management asked us about resigning it was back in March of this year. Five months ahead of time seems like a really long stretch to start thinking about what you're going to be doing the following Fall. I remember that it was right before Spring break when they asked, and I recall thinking that resigning a lease was the last thing on my mind. I just wanted to get out of town for a little bit of a break from the hustle of my second semester of graduate school. We waited a little while but then decided to resign the lease. It seems that as soon as we signed, things went a little down hill at our apartment complex. All of the sudden things didn't get done as quickly, messages didn't get delivered to the proper place, and the facilities generally deteriorated. I imagine that the management supposes that they can get away with that sort of stuff because they know that they've got you legally bound to them for another year of your life. The problem that I had and still continue to have is that this minor deterioration has continued somewhat, and I don't really know who the right person is to talk to about it. The property manager and her assistant, who I had thought were pretty reliable, have turned out to be very friendly though the requests for work orders and whatnot just don't seem to get done. I recall specifically a work order that I phoned in back in January that just finally got taken care of last week since there was no record of the six times I called, left messages, or visited the office to ask questions or follow up. Pretty curious if you ask me. Either way, we're here in the same apartment for another year, and I think that it's going to be OK. It's relatively inexpensive, lots of things are included, the management is at least pleasant, and you really can't beat the location for getting back and forth to school. On top of that...I just hate moving!
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Internet coupon codes, when you can find them and they are for real, are one of life's little gems. I've found recently that with a little bit of effort and grunt work searching around the internet, one can usually find a workable coupon code for just about anything sold or rented on the internet. I don't exactly advocate trying to find ways to cheat businesses out of their products or services, but if business websites are going to make it just this easy to save a few bucks, I say go for it. My case in point comes from a coupon code that I found perfectly legally that I have used several times over the past year. As you all know, I live in a city that isn't exactly close to a major airport without an hour long drive one way or the other. Add that inconvenience to the ridiculous airline fare prices that we currently see advertised, and you can easily see why I've chosen to do a little bit of driving to do my traveling since I lived up in Indiana. When I was planning a trip for my last Spring break to go back down and visit friends in the Florida panhandle, I decided that it would save quite a bit of money if my roommate and I split the cost of a rental car and drove down. Sure, it's a long-ish trip, but the scenery is nice, and it turned out to be a great deal of just eighty dollars per person plus the price of gasoline, which in truth wasn't all that much. The thing that saved us a lot of money was a coupon code that I found through the WalMart (yuck!) website for Budget car rental. Although I don't exactly like WalMart or like to support that particular company, I was appreciative to find the coupon for Budget car rental, a company that I have used several times and that I knew was reliable and had a nationwide presence. The generous coupon code was for twenty-five percent off of my total rental price, which therefore put a significant dent in the entire trip. I was thrilled to use the coupon and then just thought that was the end of it. Fast forward to about two months ago when I began my travel planning for my two August trips up to New York for two different weddings. Although I knew that my family would be paying for my flight to go up for my brother and sister-in-law's wedding a couple of weeks ago, I knew that I was going to be on my own to pay for my travels to my best friend's wedding, which is consequently coming up next weekend. I decided to be proactive and look for some coupons for car rental again, because I knew that air travel as going to be more or less out of the question. Thinking that I would at least attempt to see if there was a similar coupon as before for Budget car rental, I returned to the WalMart website and lo and behold, there was the same coupon. I happened to find out that Budget and WalMart have some ongoing relationship and that the discount coupon code price is always available to WalMart customers. Very interesting, and definitely something that I intended to capitalize on again. I grabbed the coupon code, made my reservation for a rental car, and voila, once gain I had instantly saved a quarter of the price of my upcoming trip, just by doing a little bit of online research. The best that I've been able to do with online coupon codes in other instances has been to find offers for free shipping and so forth. Those types of coupons codes, depending on the place that you are purchasing from, appear to be pretty reliable. On the down side, coupon codes for retail establishments or for online retail shopping don't really seem to work all that well...believe me, I've tried them. I do know from talking to several other people who spend a large portion of their time online that these coupon codes are out there that work, but you just have to know where to find them. Back to what I was saying earlier though...I don't advocate cheating businesses out of their prices, I'm not going to suggest places to look for such things. Coupon codes that are readily available at legal and free websites sound like fair game to me, but far be it from me to pay money to purchase coupon codes from some undesirable looking website. That just seems like it is going a little bit underground and defeating the purpose, non?!
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It seems as though one of the newest crazes in reality television pertains to shows that involve flipping houses. For those of you who watch any television at all, you have probably heard at least some information about the process of flipping houses, but for those of you out there who don't watch the Learning Channel, Bravo, or even the Style Network, I'll take just a moment to explain the idea. So when you're going to flip a house, the idea is that you purchase a house that one might think of as a fixer-upper, put some major effort into renovating the house in a short amount of time, and then jack up the price tag and make some really fast money. It sounds like a good idea, but if the reality television shows about flipping houses are anything like what really happens, the whole process isn't such a walk in the park. Just as with any other investment, particular those involving several hundreds of thousands of dollars, the whole thing can be one huge risk. Buying cheap property that is badly in need of repairs as is can be a major liability. You don't really know what you're getting until you start digging. I've seen several examples on these shows where people end up needed to replace all the electric wiring, all the plumbing, total dry wall replacement, or even a new roof. Some quick addition will tell you that those things are going to add up. Some of the most amusing of the shows showcase people who decide that they are going to save time and money by doing the work themselves. It seems that it is almost always the case that these people end up realizing that there are people out there with specialized degrees in landscaping, interior design, engineering, and whatever else for a reason, because these specialized tasks are extremely difficult and sometimes dangerous if not done correctly. Let's not forget about the manual labor part of things. People think that tearing out cupboards, knocking down walls, and heaving lumber and furniture can be a job for just about anyone. Again, many people end up realizing that paying out a little bit of money for some big burly moving men is a great idea. Sure, there are risks involved with doling out the work as well. Getting subcontractors opens up a whole can of worms where there are other individuals operating on their own schedules with their own supervisors, and you just have to sit idly by and continue paying wages. On top of that, we've all heard the dangers of hiring lower level contractors where history has shown many cases where they just walk away with your money. It's one of the oldest scams in the book as far as I'm heard. For those people who can successfully flip houses and know the ropes beforehand, the process can be extremely lucrative. Just think of buying a property, investing a little bit of money, and then walking away with an astronomical profit in just a few weeks or a month. The prospect of that kind of return is enough to tempt even the more inexperienced individuals to try their hand at flipping. I think that it would be a fun project to participate in, but I don't think that I would ever want to have a ton of my own money involved in the process. There is just no guarantee on anything in the whole process. After all, once things are said and done, and the home is completed, there isn't even any guarantee that the home will sell in a timely fashion...or at all. I would strongly urge anyone out there who is considering undertaking a house flipping project to watch a little bit of television beforehand. If you're not totally sold on the idea or you're having some doubts, watching a few episodes of any of these house flipping programs will likely help you to make up your mind about how you truly feel about house flipping. Sure, I might be a skeptic, and there may be some of you out there who have done some flipping and would do it again, but it's definitely not for everyone and not for individuals who are impatient, strapped for cash, or illogical.
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I've seen news in recent times saying that a lot of the bad times experienced by domestic airlines in the wake of September eleventh has cleared up, but I have yet to see this reflected in the prices, reliability, or timeliness of any airline in particular. I got thinking about this fact just the other day as I was traveling by air back and forth from Indiana to New York for my brother's wedding. I had cause for concern because one leg of my travel was going to be on a small commuter plane run by Northwest Airlines. I had heard that Northwest is having the most problems out of all the airlines in the country with keeping up with their scheduled flights due to a host of difficulties. When I arrived at the airport to look for that particular flight, I was shocked and relieved to see that of all the eight flights operated by Northwest Airlines on the day that I was traveling, only mine was listed as "on time", whereas the other seven were all cancelled. That would have been a major fiasco to say the least. So back to my question...what is the problem with the airlines? Why is it that these hard times have continued. Surely there is no shortage of people who prefer to travel from destination to destination by air. It's definitely quicker, but it's no longer a reasonable option for price and reliability. Just about everyone who I have talked to who has traveled by air recently has had some type of problem with their trip. Whether it is lost luggage, cancelled flights, extended delays, or poor service, things are just not adding up. Flights are jam-packed with people who have paid several hundred dollars a piece (at least) to fly on that particular flight. With these never-flagging prices and fuel prices easing, I fail to see why the services that are offered are even poorer than in the past. On two flights that I took myself this past weekend, a limited beverage service wasn't even offered. On one of the particular flights, the air conditioning was so cold but the flight attendant informed several people that the subcontracted airline operating the flight for US Airways was quote "the red-headed stepchild of the parent company" and therefore "aren't permitted to have blankets and pillows." What is up with that? What kind of employee refers to their company of employment as a "red headed stepchild"...especially to paying customers who are essentially putting their lives in the hands of this particular crew on this particular flight and trusting them to fly safely from one place to another. It really made me think twice about flying, and I even considered calling and/or writing to the corporate offices of US Airways so ask some questions. Sure, I may just be some random airline passenger, but still, if I'm going to pay four hundred dollars to fly eight hundred miles, I think I have a right to know why the crew of the flight is saying such disconcerting things to passengers. Yikes! Anyways, I often wonder if we'll ever see a slackening of the high prices for air travel in this country. It's scary to think that I now pay nearly the same amount of money to fly home these days as I did to travel round trip to Europe just about two years ago. Another thing that is a little bit shocking is how you can no longer even attempt to find reasonable flights for last-minute travel. I remember that I used to fly up to New York City for the weekend because it was just about one hundred dollars round trip at certain times of the year if you could find a last minute deal. I happened to look for possible flights to fly up to New York again to go to the second wedding that I need to attend next week, and the prices were absolutely shocking. There is no way that I'm going to pay upwards of five hundred dollars for a flight. I would much rather keep my current play of paying about one hundred twenty dollars for a beautiful rental car with unlimited miles and make the drive myself. At least I know that I'll be reliable and on time and I can bring a blanket and snacks if I want to.
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I almost never advocate paying money to do something that you can do for yourself with minimal effort and a little bit of elbow grease, but every time I realized that it's about time that I get cleaning my apartment, I'm tempted to change my tune. To put it plain and simple, I hate to clean. Well, more specifically, I hate to do particular types of cleaning, like cleaning the bathroom, dusting, and most of all doing my laundry. I don't mind so much cleaning up the kitchen or running the vacuum for some reason though. What is even worse about the laundry is those times about once a month when you start running low on clean bath towels and cloths for the kitchen, so you have to end up doing extra laundry with sheets, pillowcases, etc. Man, those are the worst days! Anyways, I've recently been juggling the option back and forth in my head about paying someone to come by once a month for an hour or two to do the part of the cleaning of the apartment that I just can't stand to do. In the past, when it started to get really warm at the beginning of the Summer, I had thought about sending my laundry out to get cleaned, but then I realized that I wouldn't trust the proper washing and drying of the majority of my garments to anyone besides myself. Anyways, I wasn't thinking that I would waste all that much money to hire a professional cleaning company to send someone over to clean the apartment. I thought that it would be better to ask one of my friends who I know likes to do cleaning on the side. That way, I would know who was in my house, and I would be helping out a friend financially while still getting my chores done around the house. I first started thinking that this might be a good way to spend twenty dollars or so of my money when I learned that most of the people in my family actually hire my aunt and cousin to come to their homes once every other week and clean. I was surprised to learn that my aunt was doing this in her spare time, but she informed me that it's a great way to make some good extra cash. I guess that I'm not the only one who doesn't like to do housework in my family...hey, maybe it's genetic?! This whole thing is just really puzzling to me because as you know, I'm probably about the least lazy person that you'll ever meet. However, when it comes to seemingly unproductive and time-wasting ventures like cleaning the bathroom, I would far rather pay someone to come and do it for me so I can concentrate on more important things. Besides not wanting to waste my free time cleaning up the place, after everything is said and done with working three different part time jobs during the week for the Summer, I'm just one hundred percent exhausted and totally unwilling to fend of my will to nap on the couch every so often. These little hour long naps that I get to indulge in every so often are something that I've realized is very necessary in order to make it through the day. Having to get up and do somewhat manual labor at five o'clock in the morning five days a week is tough work, then having to worry about getting home, not resting, and then running up to work with either of my two professors is a little bit stressful. Combine that with my daily regimen of exercise to try and lose a little bit of weight, and you can easily see how my day is lacking a time for deep scrubbing the bathroom and the kitchen. So, I'd really like to know all of your opinions on the subject. Do any of you find it unacceptable to dole out the dirty work, so to speak, on others for a price? Do any of you actually use a cleaning service or maid? The thing is that I know that many people do so, but it just makes me feel like I'm going to underline some mark of laziness next to my name if I actually go ahead with the whole thing. I also try and think of other things that I might be able to spend the money on that would be better suited for me. An extra twenty or thirty dollars each month on the credit card payment or even a new book for school might be a better way to spend my money. On the other hand, I do work very hard to be able to pay for things that I don't want to or don't really have to do, so why not sign up for a cleaning service? Oh gosh, I am really torn about the situation. It's another one of those times where I work hard for my money but then feel guilty spending it rather than saving it for a rainy day. It makes me think of my grandfather who always told all of us kids that he didn't mind spending money because he would just go to work and make some more the next day. I try to make that my mindset about money, because I know that my grandfather lived a life of comfort and happiness, though too short of one. I then think about my father, who on the other hand always had enough money but squandered it and lived miserably worried about what needed to be paid on a day to day basis. I suppose that looking at it from those two perspectives, the choice is easy to make, but the habit of saving rather than spending is hard to break. Wish me luck with my decision!
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As many of you know, I'm not really one who makes in a habit to splurge on many items that are for my own personal benefit or use. I usually never hesitate to fork over some extra money to make others happy or feel extra special however. Today I decided that since it was the last day of my vacation and it would be the only real vacation that I would have all Summer long that I would treat myself right with a nice dinner all to myself. Since I work at a grocery store as my Summer job, I happen to know when all the sales change, it before I left for my trip I did some shopping and ended up buying myself a single filet mignon to put in the freezer for a special occasion. I decided that tonight was as good of a night as any other, so when I woke up I took the tenderloin out of the freezer and decided that I would broil it in the oven for an early dinner later on in the day. I decided that my special vacation dinner was going to be the highlight at focus of my day, so I decided that I would go shopping for a few things to make to accompany my steak to spice up my dinner. I decided on a fresh green salad, a few roasted red potatoes, and a bottle of delicious spicy red wine. Of course I did my best to be frugal about all of my purchases, including the steak when I bought it, so that I wouldn't feel too terribly guilty when I finally sat down to eat. All in all, I think that the dinner cost me under fifteen dollars. Not too bad, right?! I guess that when you consider what I actually ate for dinner, it appeared that I was really splurging on my meal, but the important part was that I was splurging wisely and frugally. This is something that I attempt to do quite often, though not to the extent of eating filet mignon and having wine with dinner every night of the week. I try to find creative ways to take every day generally inexpensive ingredients and turn them into something delicious and relatively healthy. It has definitely been a change since I've been back in town, since for the last several days I haven't had to pay for much of anything that I've done. With all the wedding festivities, I don't think that I paid for a single bite of food that I ate, save the first night I was home when I took my little brother...the groom to be...out for some barbeque at one of our favorite restaurants. After that, I was able to save my money as someone had already paid for the food, the hotel, and everything else that I needed. My mom even gave me money to put twenty dollars worth of gasoline in the car that I had mostly been driving around. That's my kind of good deal, since most of you know that I have such issues with the price of gasoline these days...especially since it's about twenty-five cents more expensive per gallon up at home in New York than it is down where I live in Indiana. Anyways, I suppose that the point of my post is that even people with the most focused view on frugality and smart spending (like I like to think that I do) have to treat themselves to a little bit of extravagance from time to time, be it culinary, entertainment, or some fun shopping. If you treat yourself to these types of special treats every so often, my feeling is that you are less likely to go out and have a spending binge. What do you think about that? I'd love to hear your opinions on the subject. Why not leave me a comment by clicking below?! You know you want to!
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Having recently spent way too many hours in airports in both New York and Indiana, I have decided that the idea of the Smart Cart, while brilliant is also pretty silly. The brilliant part of the idea dominates my mind, because of course I would much rather not have to lug around my very heavy suitcase along with my carry-on luggage while I travel from the parking garage, to ticketing, to the food court, and wherever else is necessary to go while traveling in an airport. The silly part about the whole thing is the twenty-five cent deposit that is required to use a smart cart. It's not so much that I mind paying the trifle of a few dollars to use the service. Rather, it's the fact that if you return your smart cart to a designated smart cart rack, you'll get your quarter deposit back. I don't know about you, but after a long, weary, and expensive day of traveling, the last thing that I'm going to worry about when I finally get to my chosen mode of transportation is searching for a smart cart rack to make sure that I get my twenty-five cent deposit back. It's ultimately more satisfying to me to just be able to leave the cart wherever I end up and count my twenty-five cent loss later. See what I mean? It's just kind of a goofy idea. I understand that by offering some kind of incentive, the airport facility is attempting to minimize the amount of person power than they need to expend on having someone running around to collect the carts, but seirously, I'd rather not even waste my time. The smart person who I would respect quite a bit would be the young kid who comes to the airport and walks over to the parking garage and searches for the empty smart carts from dummies like me who are too lazy and/or uninterested to turn them in. Then the kids can take the carts one and a time throughout the day and get some quarters for their candy money. That's surely the kind of thing that I would have liked to do as a kid. Sure, perhaps it's potentially unsafe, but it's a good way to make even just a little bit of money before you can really get a real job. On the other hand, maybe it's not even worth it for the trouble of driving out to the airport, unless perhaps your local airport is just a mile or two from home like the one was in my town growing up. Either way, this is yet another odd antic of mine as I waste away my time thinking and staring out the window of the shuttle bus that I was just speaking of in my last post. I figured that I would attempt to get ahead on some posts and catch up from being gone for several days at the wedding while I have the time. More to come tomorrow!...
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By far one of the most trying problems associated with living in a small town is the fact that you just can't get to the airport with a hop, skip, and a jump to a bigger busier city. The town that I live in has a county airport, but I shudder to think how expensive and unreliable it would be to take a flight from the county airport up to the capitol city in order to catch a regular flight. Since this isn't usually something that people like to do, some entrepreneur decided to purchase and implement a shuttle service that picks people up at various locations around town and drives them the forty-seven miles up to the airport in the capitol city. In the vice versa direction, the shuttle leaves the airport bringing people back several times a day. The service is definitely convenient for the most part, but it has two inherent problems that weary travelers end up having to deal with. Number one, first, and foremost, the shuttle service is fairly expensive. The cost for the short drive is twenty-five dollars each way. That right there puts a damper on using the service. Secondly, the shuttle only arrives and/or leaves every two hours. That leaves traveleres with especially early or late flights stranded if they can't come up with another alternative commuting solution. I've heard that there are also some dial-a-ride type options so that people can find others going to the same general location and essentially share a car, van, or limo. It saves a little bit of money but not much. The biggest advantage to this particular option is that you don't have to wait around for the shuttle. I have been the victim of arriving at the ground transportation center at the airport just five minutes after the shuttle has left, thereby leaving me with just about two hours to kill before the next shuttle arrives. Post times, people end up conning their friends into driving them the short distance up to the airport. It's under an hour for the drive each way, so while inconvenient, at least it's not an all day long trip. This option is especially difficult during the summer months and the winter holidays when there aren't the usual abundance of friends from school and work in the small town who are able to take time out of their day to bring you up to the airport. More often than not, I end up sucking it up and taking the twenty-five dollar hit to my checking account by swiping my credit/debit card at the ticket dispenser kiosk in the airport. At least I know that paying that amount will get me a reliable, safe, and quiet ride back home. Oh yeah, I forgot the fact that the shuttle only drops off to certain locations, so you still have to arrange for a ride to pick you up or drop you off...unless you've packed a pair of your cruddy walking shoes with you and you want to hike home with all of your luggage. That just doesn't sound like any fun to me. This time when I was planning my trip, I thought about just driving my car up to the airport and parking it in long term parking for a few days. It's about eight dollars per day, so it could be a good or a bad solution depending on the length of time you're going to be away. Based on the amount of time that I was going to be gone for this trip, the difference would have simply come out in the wash. So, here I am sitting on the shuttle, having just shelled out my crazy twenty-five dollars payment, waiting for the one hour long drive to pass before I have to call and beg a friend to pick me up from the student union on campus. What a way to end a great trip!
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With the crazy times of the wedding safely past and the new bride and groom off preparing for their honeymoon to Hawaii, a lull in the action and frenzy was long coming. For individuals like my mother, aunt, and grandmother who have been running around like maniacs for weeks making sure that the minutest details were in place, the change of pace to an afternoon of being able to sit around and do nothing was surely welcome. For me on the other hand, a person who is used to running constantly with no time to sit down, having nothing to do on the day after the wedding feels almost painful. As a thank you to the wedding party, my brother and sister in law purchased a catered brunch for everyone this morning at the hotel where the reception was held last night. That was all well and good, but once the cars were jam packed with gifts and the overnight bags were packed and ready to go, there wasn't much to do but watch everyone go their separate ways back to their regulars lives. I headed home with my mother and sat around dozing lightly on the couch with the television playing quietly in the background. I woke from my cat nap after a bit and realized that I was wasting my day away and that I needed to do something...anything other than sit around. I thought that I might go down to the mall and see what was new down there. In the town where I live in Indiana, the shopping possibilities are meager at best, and I can think of only one store in the entire mall that I would ever even consider shopping at. I knew that when I got home that I might have time to stop down and actually do a little bit of shopping. The problem was that I couldn't find anyone who wanted to go downtown and endure the hustle and bustle of the mall traffic and fellow shoppers. Everyone just wanted to sit around. Even more importantly, no one wanted to spend any more money. Since I hadn't gotten a chance to shop in so long, I figured that I might be able to spare a few dollars for a few new shirts or some cool flip flops. Everything changed in the blink of an eye when I realized that my mother had called a bunch of people in the family to invite them over to the house AGAIN to help finish eating up the many leftovers that we still had from the rehearsal dinner two days ago. There went the peace and quiet along with my chance at stealing away from the house unnoticed for a little bit of light retail therapy. As the doorbell started to ring and family members showed up who I had only gotten a chance to chat with fleetingly at the wedding, I knew that I was doomed. I was going to have to stay home and pretend to be interested in these inane conversations about how school is going and what I've been doing all summer. The only bright side of the situation that I could come up with is that the distraction that came along with the arrival of my extended family meant that I wouldn't be going out and spending any unnecessary monetary reserves of articles of clothing and other material items. Although I know that I should be thankful for this money saving distraction, I couldn't help but be a little bit bummed out at the lost shopping opportunity. As all of you who read my blog with any regularity know, I don't allow myself very many changes to splurge on items for myself, so this shopping trip was going to be my one opportunity in the last seven months or so to do so. On the bright side, I did start to solidify some plans to head up to New York City to visit my cousin for next Spring break in March, so I suppose that I can just put that bit of money I was going to spend today away to save some extra funds for that trip.
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Today is the big day, the day of my brother's wedding, and things have finally come to a culmination after a frenzied week of preparations. Everyone has done their respective jobs, and all the details have been planned down to the most minute detail. As I was saying in my post yesterday, these minute details are the types of things that make the dollar signs show in everyone's eyes. Of course, even will all the planning completed, the amount of money that it costs to have a successful wedding doesn't stop even the day before the wedding. Little gifts, gratuities, final balances to be paid for the banquet hall, the disc jockey, and various other vendors and individuals all come to a head on the night of the wedding or shortly thereafter. I think that I saw my brother, mother, and grandmother writing checks left and right ever since I got home. I will gladly admit that the cost was all worth it, as the entire occasion was absolutely beautiful. From the bachelor party, to the rehearsal dinner, the wedding ceremony, the reception, the after party, and even the day after brunch...everything was so perfect, and I believe that my brother and my new sister-in-law had an amazing time. I know that my particular favorite part of the whole wedding was the food, and that's mostly because I'm such a foodie. I was a little bit skeptical about the food at first, because I've never really been to a wedding where I actually enjoyed the food. It always ends up cold, undercooked, overcooked, or just plain scary looking...but not this time. From the hors d'oeuvres, to the drinks (alcoholic and otherwise), to the dinner, and desserts, the food presentation and taste was spot on. It's pretty funny, because at this point in my "foodie" career, I find myself really "tasting" and "evaluating" what I'm eating when I eat somewhere new or special. I suppose that I shouldn't have expected anything but the absolute best at my brother's wedding, even though it probably cost him a pretty penny, because after all, he's a chef by training. The wedding ceremony in the church was also very beautiful, as it was in a gorgeous cathedral downtown in the city where I grew up. I thought that it was great that my brother and sister in law decided to have the wedding in such a lavish array of beauty in this huge church. My grandparents have always been very religious, and even though I am no longer a practicing Catholic, but rather a Lutheran, it was still great to see all the pomp and circumstance involved in a big Italian Roman Catholic wedding. I was surprised to learn about how much it actually costs to pay for having the occasion in a church. I was under the impression that churches were somewhat inexpensive for weddings. After all, you just need some music, a pastor, and the building for about an hour or so. Apparently, I've been wrong. My mother informed me that the cost of the church was upwards of four hundred dollars to reserve, give the pastor an "honorarium", and to pay for the organist who, in the case of my brother's wedding, doubled as the cantor. That just sounds like an enormous rip-off to me.
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If you've never had to be intimately involved in all the hoopla that goes along with getting ready for a pretty good sized wedding, I would suggest that you go through it at least once. In my family, there have been so many weddings due to the size of our large Italian family that everyone is pretty familiar with the usual goings-on involved and everyone knows to fall into their respective roles in the preparations for the various parties and ceremonies. One thing is for sure, when you add together the amount of money that everyone spends in preparation for a wedding the ending sum can be pretty mind-boggling. The littlest things that you take for granted end up costing big time money when you have to plan for things on a larger scale of, I don't know, say upwards of two hundred people. A lot of the money that gets spent for weddings, besides what goes into paying for the food, the florist, the photographer, the reception hall, and the church goes into paying for little personalized souvenirs to make the occasion special. My brother and soon to be sister-in-law have perhaps gone a little bit overboard on this whole side of the preparations. Not only have they personalized their napkins and wineglasses like most couples who are getting married, but I also happened to have seen personalized M&M candies and miniature candy bars that bear their two names and the date of the wedding. I mean, sure, it's cute, but maybe it's a little bit much. Then there are the wedding colors. Everyone has their wedding color. The color of the flowers, the bridesmaid dresses, the vest for the groomsmen, and the decorations on the cake. However, don't forget things like the napkins, the balloons, the cards, the tablecloths, and whatever else the happy couple decides that they can find wedding-ish in their signature wedding colors. No matter where you look, there will be something to spend money on for a special wedding...and rightfully so. It seems that a lot of peopl equate money with happiness, so why no jack up the prices on just about everything that the bride and groom and going to want for their special day. My personal pet peeve in my brother's wedding and the next wedding that I have to attend two weeks from now for my best friend is the price of tuxedo rentals. My grandmother came with me yesterday up to the tuxedo rental store and was joking around with the folks who work there since back when she got married in the nineteen fifties, tuxedo rentals for the fathers of the bride and groom, as well as for the groom and ushers were just fifteen dollars a piece. Today, I paid a whopping one hundred sixty dollars so that I can stand up next to my brother and try not to fall asleep at his wedding. These tux places are making an absolute killing. I wonder what the bridesmaid dresses cost, because if it's less than the prices for a tuxedo for just one day, then I'm going to protest!
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