This weekend, Mr. Money and I took a mini vacation to meet our best friends in Indianapolis, Indiana.  We haven’t had a vacation since last year, and I couldn’t wait!  I set aside some money in my “secret account” so that we’d be able to pay cash for everything.  Here’s what we spent:

Hotel & Travel
$45- Hotel (we stayed at the Embassy Suites in Downtown Indianapolis and this was an employee rate-score!)
~$30- Gas
$20- Parking at hotel
$12- Parking at Hard Rock Cafe for lunch

Food
$26- Saturday lunch at Hard Rock Cafe
$44- Saturday dinner at Rock Bottom Brewery
$20- Drinks with my BFF at Champps bar
$0- Free breakfast buffet at hotel
$0- Didn’t eat lunch
$23- Sunday Lunch/Dinner at Olive Garden
$4- Walgreens for water (us) and snacks for my nephew.

Total: $224.  Not bad!

Here are the positives and negatives:

+ Saved money by visiting the Indianapolis Children’s Museum on free day
+ Enjoyed the pool for free entertainment
+ Got an employee rate on an amazing room

- Parking! We spent $32 on parking alone, ugh.
- Couldn’t find anyone to watch the dogs so we had to board them ($52 for two nights)

 I will say that the Sunday dinner at Rock Bottom Brewery was really fun.  I only ordered an appetizer for dinner so I would save money and calories, but I also had a beer and I usually don’t do that.  It was definitely worth the money! I told Mr. Money that we should save our money instead of going out to lunch or dinner at cheap places and go out for a nice dinner once a month and spend $50.  Much more enjoyable!

We also visited the Children’s Museum on Sunday and it was free.  We had four adults and three kids, so I’m sure we saved a good chunk of change!  If you live in or near Indianapolis, I believe they do a free day at the museum once a month, and it is definitely fun!  We had a blast.

Having my cash envelope was so freeing.  I knew how much money we had left to spend and didn’t have to worry about going over budget.  I also didn’t have to worry about writing things down in our checkbook, which drives me nuts sometimes!

It was money well spent.  Vacations are a great investment in your mental health! What are your favorite frugal mini-vacations?

The other day my car insurance came due and I decided to call to see if I would get a discount for paying in full for six months versus paying monthly. We’ve always had our auto insurance automatically deducted from our checking account, and I recently noticed that they’ve been charging us a $2 fee to do so. I thought that was stupid, considering we could pull the six months of car insurance out of savings if we needed to and then just pay it in full.

When I talked with the customer service representative, I was informed that my new premium for six months would be $846.82. We had been paying $744 for six months. Our insurance went up over $100 for no reason! I was so mad. I asked her why that had happened, because we have had no tickets, accidents, etc. (Knock on wood) She said something about the state we live in and blah blah blah and I told her that I would hate to have to switch insurance companies because I really liked them, but I’d obviously have to shop around. She then started asking me a series of questions to see if she could get our premium lowered.

We got a discount for multiple car (which makes no sense, because we’ve always had multiple cars with them), homeowners (we’ve owned for over two years), and some other things I can’t remember. She got it down to $727.39, which is actually less than we were paying before! I am so happy. I didn’t even have to shop around.  I’m still thinking about doing it because we’ve got excellent credit, but I don’t want a bunch of inquiries on my credit report.

I’m going to be transferring $133 a month to a special savings account so that next time it’s due I can just transfer it from there into my checking account and pay it.   I think that’s a good plan, and I feel much better knowing that I am not getting ripped off.  I’m happy.  It works for me!