Monday, April 09, 2007

Wedding Weekend Spending

I had a lovely trip. K's sister was very happy and very beautiful and very friendly and got (very) married. It was a lovely ceremony, a great party, and a fun chance to meet K's extended family.

I spent $100, mostly on transportation and food. Some of this spending was unnecessary, because K's parents, in addition to their various benevolences, also handed K and his brother each a wad of cash, so we did all of our beautifying (I had an amazing, amazing pedicure, with sugar scrub and paraffin and a nice lady making jokes, and of the $65 plus tip it cost, I did not pay a dime) and most of our cab-taking and food-eating at no cost to ourselves. Nevertheless, one doesn't want to be a freeloader, and it seemed only fair that after K's parents' cash covered my pedicure, I should cover some of our shared expenses. So my spending went something like this:

$20 for airport transportation and snacks on Thursday
$20 for a cab to the salon on Friday
$20 for dinner on Friday
$20 for miscellany: toothbrushes (we both forgot them--oops), hairbands, Starbucks
$20 for dinner (yes, the hated airport food purchase)

We could have spent less (that is, we could have done without cash from K's parents) had we given up a few things (beauty treatments--I got the wonderful pedicure; K got a manicure! And a much-needed haircut!--and Starbucks) or inconvenienced ourselves a bit by coordinating our transportation better and being willing to spend the time looking for parking in parking-poor areas (and by getting food before we got to O'Hare). I think K's parents knew that, but wanted us to have as nice a weekend as possible. I really appreciate that, and we really did have a wonderful time, so hopefully they got their money's worth. (And, of course, I'll be sending a thank-you note and a little gift.)

Anyway, I'm dispensing with the allocated-but-unspent $40 thus:
I'm sending $20 over to ING savings, to even up my numbers (my love of round numbers is a real savings motivator).
I'm hanging on to $20 for unexpected expenses for this week.

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