No Bills To Be Paid
Crossing the Texas border, images of the wedding week flooded my mind. Firstborn Son at the altar, eyes filled with joyous tears as his Bride walked down the aisle to meet him and take vows till death do them part. Husband by my side, inundated with the emotions of a proud father. Daughter and Youngest Son, surrounded by wedding party with happy faces. So many memories and thoughts to process on this long trek home.
Grateful to be completing our several day excursion, my thoughts went to an analysis of our trip expenses. Since our everyday cars are 17 and 13 years of age, Husband and I found renting a vehicle to be an unavoidable expense for our 4,000 mile round trip. A change in the circumstances of the friends, who were going to provide housing for our visit, necessitated a hotel stay. Reflecting back upon our expenses, I was pleased that our daily combined average of hotel cost and mini-van rental approximated $100.00 per day. Perhaps not as frugal as we had first thought our trip would be, we found Hotwire.com to be an excellent way to procure good deals on hotel and car.
Making our trip out to the East Coast in two days, we brought all our food for the car trip with us. Freezing turkey wraps and our favorite homemade “hot pockets” was a definite plus. Enclosing ham and cheese and a bit of olive oil in pizza dough, and baking them with some melted butter on the outside sprinkled with parmesan cheese, made for delicious meals on the road. Although most scrumptious hot from the oven, these are great cold. Fruit, bagels, chips and some packaged cheese and crackers washed down with water bottles, rounded out our eat-in-the-car meals helping us make excellent travel time.
Arriving at the hotel, we purchased some milk, bread and fruit to add to our brought-from-home stash of hard cheese, crackers, tortillas, cereal and nuts with raisins. Thanks to invites from family and friends, these items were just needed to round out our menu. Any leftovers were devoured on our car trip home.
Realizing the pocketbook is lighter than when we started this journey, we are still pleased to have stayed within our budget and for the privilege of having been able to participate in the beautiful wedding of Firstborn Son. Just as seeing the blessing of previous life decisions when this couple became man and wife, Husband and I also were gratified that past frugal choices gave us the monies needed to enjoy this time. Living out of pantry, freezer and fridge in order to save as much of our food budget as possible now seemed like a simple sacrifice. Saving a bit each month in the wedding budget category instead of spending this money on something else, now seemed wise.
Tears came to my eyes as I appreciated the fact that this momentous occasion was paid for and would not be a bill to deal with for months to come. This is a lesson learned with grateful hearts!
How about you? Is your appreciation of special events enhanced when the bill does not still need to be paid?
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4 Responses to “No Bills To Be Paid”
June 3rd, 2010 at 7:32 am
This was not a special event like your wedding was, but we had planned and saved to take our kids to Disney World. It was so nice to have everything paid with cash! I had a daily budget, and kept track of everything we spent each day. In the evening I would add it up officially, and the entire family was so excited that we were under budget each day at Disney World!!
Yes, my enjoyment is definitely enhanced by knowing there are no bills yet to be paid. It was also cool to come back from a vacation like that with money remaining and yet having had a great time and done everything we really wanted to do.
June 3rd, 2010 at 5:23 pm
Congrats on the wedding!
And in response to the question, everything is made better when it has been paid for in advance. You then have time to concentrate on the meaning of the event instead of “what is this going to cost me in the end”.
June 12th, 2010 at 7:04 am
We just had a wedding too: our second-born daughter. We saved, even before they got engaged, and were able to provide them with a lovely wedding just as daughter dreamed of. Not only did we pay cash for all of it, we came in under budget! Our new son-in-law really got into the spirit of it and worked a few deals on musicians, etc.
June 17th, 2010 at 5:08 pm
one of my friend’s mothers used to make mac-n-cheese and cover it with cheese and then cover the pan with aluminum foil. they put this on the rear deck of the inside of the car. the heat radiated through the window melted the cheese and so they had a hot meal at their first rest stop. she says mac-n-cheese gives her wanderlust!
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