Forgot We Were Being Frugal

Blogging is fun and a good outlet for many of us. Most of who I follow are everyday folks, looking at how to maximize their life with the resources they have. There is no one right way, and certainly lots of wrong ways to get manage money and get in financial hot water. When that happens, the blog world is great for tips to correct, ides to save money, and just encouragement when the writer shares honest challenges to either saving or getting out of debt. I have very thick skin on this blog, but I also haven't had any trolling or negative comments. I'm too little for that. I want to share openly and feel bad for a few that have stopped blogging gin or have felt the need to go private. People, and you may know who I am talking about, get a grip with your cyber holier than though attitudes. Have some fun, participate, and if you disagree and feel a need to comment, do so with healthy disagreement that is not malicious. My rant is done.

About my title. Darn, going on this trip is not pushing me to be hyper frugal. Yesterday was DH's birthday. He has been working massive hours, but starting today, he is off until August 28th. He can't remember the last time he had more than a week off work. Well, DD1 and I took him out for supper last night. She wanted to pick up the check, but I grabbed it. She treated us to ice cream. It was very hot last night, but not humid so we walked by the river and ate the treats-quickly as the heat was melting the ice cream quickly. We didn't have drinks with dinner, but still, meal and treats were nearly $60. I thought we were being frugal?

My mother-in-law is coming along to the concert. Her birthday is while we are gone and while we will celebrate labor day weekend at the lake, DD2 will be pretty hungry, so it will be lunch out. My cousin who lives in the college town is coming to the concert. It would be rude to not invite her. Yep, frugal is out the window for a bit. 

These are choices and I'm fortunate to not be incurring debt by these expenses. Still, I'll look for simple ways to not blow the wad. In part to keep me from overfilling my suitcase with unneeded clothes, I'm hauling along a couple basics like coffee from Aldi's so we have some in the apartment. I had major sticker shock at the price of coffee in Paris. No, I won't be stopping by each morning after picking up my croissants and baguettes to buy a 4 Euro cup. I'm also going to pack a dry wild rice soup mix, something cheap and hearty. I mentioned the take along snacks to avoid the airport food yesterday. It would have been easy to just buy new SD cards for the cameras, but I spent an hour this morning transferring the pictures and videos onto a hard drive and reformatted the cards for my camera, DD2's camera. and the fake Go Pro. these are little things, but important to remember it is the little things, despite not always being frugal, that help make dreams possible.