Queercents

“Wealth buys leisure, but not wisdom.” – William George Plunkett

So last weekend it was my birthday. Sound the trumpets! Actually, they sounded last year when I turned forty. Since we spent a small fortune on that party and then on Jeanine’s fortieth in March, we decided to scale back and be a bit more low-key with this one.

Jeanine suggested a weekend in Big Sur but I didn’t want to drive that far and take off Friday from work. So we started looking around Southern California at some of our favorite get-a-way spots. Santa Barbara, the Santa Ynez Valley, Ojai, Palm Springs, Palm Desert and a few places in between.

But as we were planning this last minute jaunt all the hotel rooms either had a two night minimum, were in the $400 - $1000 range or sold out. When on god’s green earth did all the hotel rooms become so expensive? Pre-9/11, I remember many a weekend for less than $200 a night in places all over Southern Cal. Read the rest of this entry »

There are essentially two kinds of financial dilemmas: happy and unhappy. Unhappy dilemmas are the ones where you have to decide which credit cards you aren’t going to pay so you can keep electricity on in the middle of winter. There are also dilemmas that we still agonize over even though they’re a result of a good situation. An example would be choosing between a driving tour of Tuscany or a cruise to Mykonos.

My happy dilemma came with the tentative decision to purchase an iTouch, a portable wifi device that runs about $300. It’s apparently also some sort of iPod, but who cares? I love the idea that I can access the net anywhere there’s wifi, especially for my upcoming trip to Los Angeles. I intend to eat at some of the newly rated Michelin star restaurants before hitting wine country.

I easily snagged seats at Urasawa, a three-star sushi restaurant. A single Michelin star is considered a great honor, while three set the global standard of excellence. The meal is “exquisite” raves the Gayot reviewer—gold leaf flaked tofu as a starter and sushi so delicate it must be eaten within ten seconds lest the rice warm the fish beyond its optimal temperature for consumption. And it’s one of the only places in the US licensed to serve blowfish; mmmmm sweet, deadly blowfish.

But it comes with a price… about $275 for a single person, without alcohol, tip or tax. Even for a three-star, that’s a lot of clams. My platonic life partner, Russell, normally handles the financials but he recently returned from Europe and felt it out of budget… unless I was willing to pay my own way.

Read the rest of this entry »

 As I’ve mentioned a few times, I spent last week on vacation, visiting a friend in Portland, Oregon.  I learned a great deal about composting, cereal, kayaking, heterosexual drama, and microbreweries–as well as a few things about career and finance.

First of all, saving up leave for a big vacation was definitely the way to go… I think.  I was so burned out before I left that I was trudging around like the end of the world, but my luxurious, worry-free week has me feeling like a new woman.  An extra three-day weekend in there might have helped, but clearly woman does not live on three-day weekends alone. Shifting back into gear hasn’t been too hard, either, although I did fall asleep on the couch at 7:30 last night.

That said, I do think it’s more important to take care of yourself all the time instead of letting one week every eight months do it for you. Read the rest of this entry »

Tipping at hotels was a surprising thing to research for this series. I travel quite a bit both domestically and abroad and always thought I knew the ins and outs of the business. Obviously you tip the bellman if he takes the bags to your room and leave something for the room service if it isn’t included. But I learned that some people also consider it customary to tip the concierge, maids and doormen as well.

I don’t have any problem managing my luggage so I’ve never tipped for bellman service, but I always thought a couple bucks was standard. Well it turns out I may be way off base. Tipping.org lists a standard tip for the bellman around somewhere between $5 and $10. Much higher than I would have thought, but a dollar tip doesn’t go very far anymore apparently. Some other sites put the figure around a dollar per bag, but bump it up if he actually prepares your room and shows you amenities.

Read the rest of this entry »

Today in Prague, I went on a David Černý sculpture hunt. My first sighting of the Czech sculptor’s work and probably the most visible of all of his publicly displayed and acknowledged works was the arrangement of giant babies with coin slots for faces affixed to the city’s TV tower. My Lonely Planet guide describes the piece as ”Creepy, giant, slot-faced babies crawling all over a TV transmitter tower; something to do with consumerism and the media, methinks.”

So, with admiration for his brain if not all of his work in hand, I circled the tower and its Babies, considering two of my most cherished topics: consumerism and the media. Equally as interesting as the Babies is the work in its geographical context (which gives it more points). The tower sits on the site of an old cemetary, the headstones cramped and arranged in an almost ampitheater-style seating arrangement to the tower. It’s a violent, organic contrast to the tower and its synthetic parasites. Er, the Babies and theirs? Read the rest of this entry »

Kimberly and Elizabeth are the co-founders of Go Green Travel Green. As life partners and avid travelers, they’re committed to reducing their environmental impact. In addition to being eco-conscious, they’re budget conscious and have written a guest post that keeps both green and greenbacks in mind when exploring our lonely planet. These are their words…

One common deterrent to “going green” when traveling is the perceived expense. People think that being environmentally friendly will cost them a lot of money. But, in actuality, eco-conscious traveling can save you money.

For the sake of comparison let’s consider a weekend trip (3 days, 2 nights) from Washington, D.C. to New York City.

Transportation (getting there and away):
Regular Travel: Plane
cost: $160 roundtrip
Green Travel: “Chinatown” Bus (far fewer carbon emissions than a plane)
cost: $30 roundtrip

Savings: $130 Read the rest of this entry »

At Treading Together we often work with diversity and multiculturalism. Many of our events or programs revolve around holidays such as today, Black History Month in February, or Women’s History Month in March etc.

I wondered if there might be a personal finance connection. Here are a few of the connections I found.

• Forbes.com reports that Priceline.com is offering special rates to Atlanta Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s place of birth. The best deal runs about $420 per person (from Boston) which includes round-trip airfare and 3 nights’ accommodations at the Hyatt Place Atlanta Galleria.
• Penny Nickel age 25 from Washington, DC recently made a compelling case for the connection between the notions of King’s “drum-major instinct” and frugality. You can read it at Money and Values.
• On LinkedIn.com’s Q&A I threw out the question asking what employees, employers, and businesses are doing to recognize or celebrate King’s holiday. I found one answer on my own at Money.com which reports CIGNA, a major provider of health car insurance, is sponsoring the Philadelphia Orchestra’s 18th Annual Tribute Concert.
• One source suggested honoring today’s holiday could be as easy as doing some volunteer work. It is tenuous but the personal finance connection here is a chance to make a deposit in the bank of Karma. In Ten Money Questions J. Mark White reported “the most important thing a person can do… is give back to the community. It’s like creating good business Karma.“

Any other ideas about the connection between Dr. Martin Luther King Jr (the man or the holiday) and personal finance?

UPDATE: In the comments a discussion about rail in California and Europe develops.

This holiday season I documented some of my cost-savings methods related to travel which is a favorite topic of mine. Now that the holiday season is finally drawing to a close here is an article about one of my very inexpensive holiday journeys (day trips). At Queercents we have previously discussed the theme of managing without a car but the discussions focused on in-town travel. This post covers regional travel for those who make the commitment to live with out a car.

On Facebook of all places my fifty-something cousin contacted me about joining that branch of the family in Rockford, Illinois for Thanksgiving dinner. Rockford is only just over an hour away by a car, to far to walk of course, and at that point I had decided not to go out of town in order to conserve on the travel budget (rental plus fuel). Read the rest of this entry »