Thursday Thrifty Roundup

This week I…

• Saved roughly 700 by not renting a car on vacation. We’ve spent about $45 on public transit so far, and it cost about $30 for me to Uber to and from Costco to get our Belmont Park passes.

• Bought three sets of two-for-one passes to Belmont Park. This was enough for us to go for two days to ride unlimited rides. It saved us roughly $180. What we’ve learned since then, though, is that Kyle and I didn’t actually need passes at all – the rides B wanted to go on allow a free adult chaperone, so we could have just bought passes for him and not spent any more money. However, we did take advantage of our passes to go on a few rides solo that B couldn’t do.

• Food prepped (some). I roasted broccoli and sweet potatoes on our first day so we’d have some veggies for the week.

• Only ate food out once a day. Otherwise we’ve cooked easy things at our Airbnb (Trader Joe’s and Von’s were both around the corner) or packed sandwiches and snacks to take out with us. We also found a good bagel shop and bought half a dozen, so we’ve eaten good bagels at the house a few times.

• Didn’t go to the Midway Museum. Nothing wrong with going – we went downtown today with the thought that maybe we’d go. It was $44 a person, though, and we decided a three-year-old is just as happy to look at the big ship from the outside, for free.

• Went to a lot of parks. Free entertainment for the kid and some exercise for us just getting there.

A few other notes:

I thrifted his bright orange hat and sewed a strap (with breakaway clasps so he doesn’t dangle himself) onto it, and that has been KEY. It has protected his face, head and neck from the sun, the strap has kept it from blowing away, and I can always see him because he’s bright orange.

Our Airbnb has been wild. When I booked it, it was obvious the photos were heavily airbrushed. But being here now, the yard looks absolutely nothing like the photos. In a good way, honestly. The listing photos somehow removed the trees that line the yard to insert a big, fake, beautiful sunset. However, I’m much happier with the trees that make the space private. Nobody needs to see my face while I sit in the hot tub and listen to the same song 30 times on my speaker. Speaking of the hot tub, the jets don’t work so it’s basically just a hot, tiny pool. That’s not ideal, but I don’t care that much. The couch is actually quite comfortable, which is rare for an Airbnb, but that barely matters because the living room TV doesn’t work. So when we put the kid to bed at 7, we can only watch 5 minutes of a movie before we get nothing but buffering. The house pops and crackles loudly all night as the temperatures drop and it contracts. We sleep comfortably in the bed if we’ve finished two bottles of wine, but not if we’ve finished zero or one (the bed’s fault) or three (our fault). The biggest thing, though, is that the light in B’s room turns on and off, all by itself. We’ve seen it happen several times now. Last night, in the middle of the night, it turned itself on. We have him sleeping in a little tent in there with a sound machine, trying our best to get him to sleep until 6am, and the fucking light turns on?? Disaster.

So basically, I don’t know how to review this place. The location is great, and there’s so much going for it. But holy fuck, lights can’t just ghost themselves on and off. I’ll probably just not review it. Fuck it.