I thought this was really beautiful given we’re heading into winter.
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I love this gal’s cow songs lol
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Also known as: an effective primer on BJoy’s spirituality, LOL. That was lovely, ty for sharing.
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I heckin love Jonna Jinton. She makes me love winter more.
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Alright, question for this crew. Imagine a situation where you have the cash to meet your basic needs, savings goals, etc. but have less cash flow for fun stuff. You do have a ton of travel credit card points, and you have upcoming travel. Points are not expected to expire. How do you pay for travel?
- Use credit card points for as many travel expenses as possible
- Look for the cheapest flight/hotel/etc, in either cash or points, and pay for it either way
- Something else (explain in a reply)
0 voters
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For me the answer really depends on what you mean by “less cash flow for fun stuff.”
If you use cash for the travel costs, does that eliminate important fun stuff you want to do the trip? Does it make it impossible to do any other fun stuff for a length of time?
If yes, then I’d do points only. If no, then I’d mix cash/points for maximum cheapness.
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OK, this is a good perspective. You may not be shocked to learn that this was pulled from a real-life situation! I think spending cash on flights does eliminate other fun stuff we want to do, but my wife does not. It’s almost like we need a budget?! Who could have predicted.
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Something else: I think it’s a continuum between those two things. Like, I would aim to maximize points/hotels/etc in points, but if it costs 5x, 3x, 2x more in points than in cash I would probably pay cash if that was an option. If it was only 5 to 10% more, I’d still use points. In between, other factors would weigh heavily.
We had a similar situation for vacation last month. Not CC points but credits on a particular airline. It was cheap to go there but $$ to come back (cheaper on another airline). We ended up (gasp) using Southwest credits on the way there but taking Alaska back (oh, timing was also an issue, Alaska had nonstops to LAX and it was worth a premium). We saved the credits for holiday travel. 
for no vax resistant variants!
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This week has been an “eat down the fridge” week and I just had minimally appetizing, perfectly edible leftovers instead of the tantalizing frozen vegan burrito. I also made freezer fish on Monday.
I want more muffins but I ate them all yesterday. 
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Money saving/spending meal plan update.
Instead of following my meal plan I had a shit ton of seizures. Lots of random shit. Emergency food and takeout. Probably takeout again tonight!
And next groceries I need to stock up on canned frozen and bars of seizure food.
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Big love to you @Elle. Convenience food for down times is a good idea, I hope you get stocked up!
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In money land over here we are dealing with the uncertainty of the car situation, still. It turns out the thief not only cut our cat converter but cut out a bunch of other expensive parts as well. It is most likely the car is totaled. DH and I are considering not replacing the car immediately for a couple of reasons, I kind of want to write through this here but might be boring.
Reasons to not replace the car
There is essentially nothing stopping the thief from returning and stealing car parts again, especially if we buy another old car. Apparently many newer cars have a thick cover on the bottom that makes things harder to steal and/or have the cat converter under the hood. I have no confidence that a camera (which I have still seen no move for them to install) will stop that. Also, this is a small and poor city, I fear that now our building is a known easy target because there have been several incidents and no one has been caught.
Alternative car plans
We can take public transit to work and the gym, but without a car I lose access to grocery shopping…again. It also makes some medical appointments inaccessible I just got back all this mobility and now it’s gone again! I’m so frustrated. DH suggested we try zip car for a while as it would be cheaper even if we use it once a week for groceries. If we did this longterm we could get rid of the parking space, which costs $75 a month. I am open to this idea but it will be way less convenient and require more planning. Lyft exists here but is wildly expensive, it’s what we’re using for now but it is not sustainable.
Another option is to lease a car. I never thought I’d consider it but in this city it might not be the worst idea. I want to find out more about how auto parts theft would be handled, if anyone has experience please let me know. I am aware leasing is not the best deal normally, but honestly this city is a mess in terms of crime and I fully believe this could happen again. The police seem to be doing very little on this and haven’t even gotten back to us, probably because there is so much bigger drug and gun violence stuff happening. I get that those things take precedence, I just underestimated how big of a cultural shift it would be for us to move to a city like this. Still happy overall with the move, just upset at the moment.
The third option is to buy another car and get something a lot newer with more protection, possibly an alarm too, which would mean we have to finance it. I am resistant to this idea because I like paying cash, but IDK. Thoughts? I am also concerned about visibility. I like the anonymity of an old car. Then again, the people in our building with newer cars did not get hit, just us (our car was 2007) and a guy with an equally old RAV-4.
I kind of want to do a trial of zip car to see how it is for a couple of months and then reassess. If it’s a huge PITA we can buy or lease something, if it works we can get rid of the parking space.
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We use zipcar since we don’t have a car. It is ok… definitely less convenient but certainly cheaper than owning. A nice bonus is that they pay for your gas, there is a gas credit card in the cars. Most of them also have I-pass for tolls and that is included.
Things to consider:
How close are the cars and how would you get there?
There are fees if you return the car late - so we always overestimate how much time we will need it for, especially in the case of doctor or vet appointments because what if we don’t get seen on time? We often don’t need the extra time but still get charged for it so that sucks, they don’t refund you if you return the car, say, an hour early because the doctor actually saw you on time and traffic was normal.
They are supposed to shovel around the cars in winter so you can get out, and also clean off the cars, but that doesn’t always happen. Here, cars typically have a snow brush and scraper in them but not a shovel.
That being said, I think it is definitely worth trying and seeing how it works for you.
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Thank you, that is good to know. How far in advance do you have to reserve them typically? Is it ever the case that you cannot get a car?
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Usually we reserve a few days in advance. When we have needed a car in an emergency (like a vet visit), we have usually been able to reserve a car same-day if it is a weekday. (Not always a nearby car, but we can get something.) Weekends, that is less likely. If we need a car for an entire weekend day, like we’re going to the renfaire or to some event in the suburbs, then that gets iffier. We try and reserve that a couple weeks in advance if we can.
I don’t think we’ve ever been completely unable to find a car for just normal errands of a few hours, usually it’s more like, the available cars are farther away than we would like or not something we want to drive (I cannot drive huge SUVs or vans, and one of the cars nearest us has shitty sightlines so I hate driving that thing.).
But then we’re a bigger city than yours and there are TONS of car sites in our immediate neighborhood. Definitely worth checking out how many cars there are in a reasonable distance from you, or near public transport.
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Lyft and Uber also are rough because you can get to one store but it adds up a lot when you want to do a bunch of stops
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Keeping convenience food on hand is so much better for my mental and physical health if I have low spoons or am having seizures. It’s funny because that and relying on cheap takeout was one thing that people always wanted to fight me on at a different financial forum. But knowing our local cheap places (and buying enough for multiple meals) and keeping convenience food on hand saves our asses. Prevents health issues and waaay cheaper than $50 on delivery
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Thanks for the info! Your area is probably a lot more dense than mine so there is probably less competition for cars here. I think husband and I are going to try zip car for two months and then reassess.
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I totally agree. I try to keep some convenience meals on hand at all times but definitely do cheap delivery if I need to. It’s a relief to have food taken care of when you don’t feel well. And I’m not surprised you got pushback at other place 
I don’t think most people really understand what being completely incapacitated means. They think it’s like having a bad flu or something, lol, where you don’t feel great but can still do things. It’s a bit silly.
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I used Zipcar in grad school and I think had a similar experience to Tris. I was probably 50/50 on getting a car from the nearest lot, sometimes had to take the bus for 30 mins to get a car instead. This was fine since I usually did weekend rentals, which is probably why I remember reserving pretty well in advance. Unsurprisingly, there were more options during working hours.
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