Episode four fourteen, Staycations Revisited.
Welcome to the Frugal Friends podcast, where you'll learn to save money, embrace simplicity, and liver life.
Here your hosts Jen and Jill.
Welcome to Frugal Friends podcast. My name is Jen, my name is Jill.
And you all loved our.
Recent episode that we did with Jen on a jet plane about vacation destination dupes, and so we wanted to revisit Staycations.
That was such a good one. We walked away from the episode with a few bucket list items to wellow out.
And we actually had a listener who messaged me after that episode and said they went to Washington right after the episode aired and were able to it. Gave than the idea to walk through. I forget what the flower was, but like these fields of flowers and she sent me pictures and it was gorgeous.
Amazing, and that's right whips in Washington State.
Yeah, yeah, it must.
Have been I'm bad at flowers, but it was gorgeous and it was thanks to that episode. So we're gonna do a little bit more just talking about traveling in our own backyard.
Yeah, I'm excited about this one because it is if you've been listening to other episodes what I, Jill and my husband Eric are implementing lately, just how can we really lean into and enjoy our area if we're not going to be traveling as much and it has been really fun, it has not been deprivation. So we're excited to help you lean into maybe a staycation that is
just an added little bonus and isn't deprivation. Whether that's because you're trying to save money and you can't really travel, or you've got other kind of life events, or you just want an opportunity to explore your area more, take more breaks. There's a there's a million reasons to do this, but first, this episode is brought to you by the Drifters, pleading with you don't go, please stay. And there are other hits like save the Last Dance under the Boardwalk
and sign up for the free front letter. That last hit is my personal fave, well not as old as the others. It's chalk full of all the goodies like freebies, money saving tips, and mindset hacks. To get this top hit in you're inbox, go to frulfriendspodcast dot com.
Thanks Drifters, I didn't realize the Drifters was a band.
Oh were you googling that?
Just though no I was, but I that last hit is Dansey.
It's a hack.
Yeah, it's a lot of stuff, man.
They really they really went all out on that last one. Yeah, sign up for the free front letter was they had everybody on all their instruments, just jamin out.
Just doing their job. Yeah, for sure. So travel, We love travel, We love spending our money on experiences. But something that we say is that just because you value it doesn't mean that you have to spend all of your money on it. Frugality incites creativity so that we can get the things that we value at a lower cost or.
At no cost.
And it is totally okay to spend money on the things you value, but it doesn't mean you have to. And so that's something with staycations. They're going to cost money, but they're going to cost a lot less than the European vacations that a lot of people are taking on social media this summer. So if you love talking about travel, then again Episode three eighty six, our best vacation destination Dupes.
The conversation about cheese caves in that episode changed me, and that was with Jen on a jet plane obviously, and episode two eighty four how to Hack Your Next Vacation with Chris Hutchins. He is a travel hacking expert, but we spend maybe a quarter of the episode talking
about points. We talk a lot about how to get everything else low cost, everything you can't get on points, how to keep the vacation affordable because sometimes we can get the free flight, or we can get the free hotel, and then overspend on everything else because we got a
deal on one thing. I was just listening to a podcast where that was their vice, Like she would see an eighty dollars flight, she would book it because it's such a good deal and then spend without regard on everything else, so it didn't end up being a money saving trip.
So that's two eighty four is really good for that.
We also pulled you all in that friend letter again that that top hit from the Drifters. Why did you sign up for free friend Letterfregal Friends podcast dot com And we asked you all what's your favorite summer activity and the options were swimming, hiking, sunbathing, volleyball, boating, other tell us and you all love swimming.
Swimming one out by a land by a landslide.
You all are swimming this summer, which is great. That's a that's very much a staycation activity. It's also a vacation activity, but it is something you could do locally.
Yes, But we also you guys are doing other really cool things like spending time with your horses and attending horse events and.
These are all things.
So we're saying these things that like our listeners are doing, but like to spark your creativity, uh, going to waterfalls, camping, gardening, riding on a motorcycle.
I oh.
I was talking to my college friend's parents and they rented motorcycles the whole time their kids were growing up, and then and then bought them, but they loved renting motorcycles.
A rented motorcycle, well you don't.
You can you can ride the latest model without paying full price. Yeah, So they were renting them and they and it was so fun and you got to do You got to rent a different bike every time, far less expensive than owning one. But a lot of you love camping concerts. It's oh yeah, Like if you are a music person, festivals aren't cheap, but you can see so many artists at the same time.
So it's kind of like getting a deal.
It's like it's like bundling oming. I've never been to a music festival, but I assume it's like bundling.
That's that's a lot. I went to WARP for a couple of times.
Wow. Yeah, I guess I can't say I've I've been to an adult summer camp, but I have not been do a music best So.
That's a story for a later time.
What is that I never have I ever?
So the article that we are going to be in today is a two parter, so it's one article and it is how to plan a Joyful staycation on Kanmari dot com.
Even the aesthetic and the way that this is written felt like it was helping me enter into that mode of kind of just making everything a little bit special, and so I did feel inspired reading this. But we want to go through first of all, just kind of how to plan a staycation, and then we'll go into some ideas that they list out the different types of staycations you could possibly do that can start some brainstorming.
Yeah, I never thought about the kon Maarrii method with vacationing, but it does make so much sense because so like we see so many pictures and videos from around the world people vacationing, and it's really hard, especially when you don't know what happens in a place or what goes on in a place you've never been to to figure out if that's like a place that's good for you to vacation or a good place for you to explore.
And so really considering these staycations first can help you establish maybe like what you value in travel, so that you can more intentionally choose these bigger travel destinations. Yeah, so the first one in how to plan a joy sparking staycation is to imagine your ideal trip. So there are countless staycation ideas out there, so it can help to spend some time envisioning your ideal staycation, much like you would a regular vacation. So what sort of experience
sounds ideal to you? Do you need some rest and relaxation or intellectual and creative stimulition, Like I think that's that's something that maybe we don't think of with vacationing. Like if you have a job that requires creativity and that doesn't have to mean art or things in the art if your job requires you to think differently or innovate, so often we can get in creative slumps, and so
maybe you just need a vacation that sparks creativity. This is something I see entrepreneurs do all the time, is just do a weekend in a hotel to and just explore a place nearby to spark creativity and like quiet themselves.
Just getting out of your immediate space. I notice this for myself, even just throughout a work day, I can forget to walk outside, and only when I remember get outside, look at a tree, breathe in fresh air, I feel so much better, rejuvenated, ready to get back into it. Just those little breaks. And that's kind of what I think we're looking at a staycation as. And I will say the article does describe a staycation as something within your area. Staycation can look a lot of different ways.
But you're cutting out the travel, you're cutting out along the road trip, you're cutting out air fair But that doesn't mean that you couldn't either stay in your own home and exployer city, or for some people it does mean going within you know, a twenty to forty mile radius of their homes and staying at a hotel or something like that that could still be considered a staycation.
My definition was what you can leave your house in the morning and be in the destination in the afternoon, still enough time to include that day as part of.
The staycation, right yeah, yeah, it's just a few hours of a trip. Yeah.
But like, yeah, so what do you want your ideal trip to be. Maybe it includes outdoors, maybe includes sports or no sports, spaying as far away from sports as possible. So maybe there's like a disc golf tournament that you want to participate in, or you just want to accompany your spouse to one and not go, but like stay
at the hotel. That's that is a dream. So yeah, brainstorm things that you would like to do and also work on this with your partner if you want to stay cationed together, so that you can come up with something that's you're doing each other's like you're doing your own ideal thing, but together, Like your ideal thing doesn't have to be their ideal thing, but something that you can both do your ideal things in the same location.
Ish or because it can be so much less expensive than a vacation, you both get to plan a staycation at different parts of the year.
That's so true.
One gets to do their ideal thing, the other gets to do theirs, which ties into number two. Consider your budget, consider your spending plan. Consider what sort of money you want to put towards this. As with anything, this could be a staycation could be very expensive, or it could be inexpensive. It could be super complicated, or it could be really simple. So again, in identifying your ideal type of staycation, also consider how much money do I want
to spend on this? Am I really trying to do something where I do get to relax and have some adventure, But I really only want to spend like fifty bucks on this, or actually I could spend two to three hundred dollars. It's not enough to get me to go somewhere outside of my hometown, but it is enough to have a nice dinner out and go see some sites and do some cool things. So whatever the money's going to do will also help to dictate what you can do.
Yeah, we love like our primary way that we vacation is these small staycations, and we live so close to Orlando, so we have so many options. So we're just like really black in that area. But we'll use points for hotels and we'll just do a one night stay somewhere and we'll get there like early in the afternoon, take advantage of all the amenities, have the place to sleep, and then do a late checkout if we're if we can, and then explore, like some playgrounds in the area.
That's cool, that is good for the kids.
Yeah, yeah, So we always try to see what's free wherever we're going, Like Orlando has a lot of great playgrounds. We go to a lot over here, but like every playground we go to over there is brand new for the kids.
Side note, I've been liking Instagram for this, Like you could just search places to visit and then insert your hometown. It's possible that they could come up with things within
an hour of the place that you're searching. There are whole accounts, especially in our area, like places to visit in Florida, places to visit and Tampa, places to visit in Saint Petersburg, and then you're going to have all these different accounts telling you about these different opportunities that maybe if you've lived in the area for so long
you don't know about her, you've forgotten about her. It can jog your memory of Oh, yeah, that is a park I want to check out, but it's not it's an hour away, so it's not typically what you're going to do on a Saturday. But now when you're planning a staycation, we're going to finally check out that park. So if you're looking for ways to brainstorm, I would encourage you to try that, like places to visit blank.
Yes, because I follow those accounts for Saint Pete HM And let me tell you, I was born and raised here. You have lived here all but five years of my thirty five years on this earth, And there are things that they post on that account and I'm like, ram, where did that?
When did that come in?
Yeah? I've started to like save. I've got my own saved section of just spots I want to visit and put it all. I'm collecting them all.
Yes, And there's email newsletters a lot like city will have some kind of like ours has I Love the Burg. It's not a city run account or website, but they all have some kind of like commerce business Association, some kind of newsletter where they're always talking about what's coming in, what's opening, And then just like check yelp to see the things.
I think we're probably skipping ahead.
So this goes into number three, which is plan an itinerary. It is no good to go into a staycation without a plan, because the plan is what sets your staycation apart from normal life. Right, So, when we have a plan to do the restaurant or the hotel or the pool or whatever, you can get a resort pass and you can get a day pass to these nice resorts in your area, and you don't have to pay for a full night there. So but you don't do anything unless you plan for it. And that's what makes it
feel special and set apart. And that's the thing about a staycation. It feels set apart from regular life. That's the cation of it.
And I like this tip. We've talked about this as it comes to impulse spending. If you are wanting to go scroll and spend some money off of whatever Instagram's telling you to buy, or you just scroll an Amazon for no known reason, do this instead, Yeah, and your itinerary. Scroll the places that you want to visit, make a list, start to think through, oh what's near what and how
could I make a day out of this? A much better way of spending your time and then your money eventually and can kind of give you a little bit of that high of because when we know that dopamine release is in anticipation of something, So if that's what you're looking for, anticipate a cost effective trick and you'll be able to get that dopamine release of anticipating something that you're planning for and have money to put towards.
Yeah, because when we are trying to decide whether to make an impulse purchase or to not the idea, like our financial goals really do fall by the wayside and we our brains naturally go more towards instant gratification. So if you can have something like a staycation maybe every month or every other month, depending on how hard it is for you to delay gratification, then you can use a staycation as something a goal that's closer that feels
more or less delayed than a financial goal. Like I can say I'm not going to eat out this week, because in two weeks I'm going on my staycation and I'm going to eat out at an even nicer restaurant. And if I don't eat out at this one, then I can go bananas with what I order on the staycation.
Yes's the next one on this list is make meals special. So they're describing this depending on again, how you want to do your staycation, whether you are staying home and you're going to be cooking, then think about some meals
that you'd like to eat that feel more special. Maybe there's a new dish that you're excited to cook, or if you are going to a hotel, you could treat yourself to room service, or is there a restaurant that you've wanted to try for years, And take some time to jot down a few ideas of restaurants or recipes that you want to be trying, make a grocery list, have a loose meal plan in place. But I think the key with this one is that it feels special. It feels out of the norm and the regular routine
of what you're doing. And because for me at least, food is a big part of vacations, So if we can pull that into our staycation experience and be able to have some food that feels out of the ordinary. Maybe this is the time that you allow yourself some chippies with your sandwich, or you're able to get the I'm thinking, We've got this Italian market near us that I just love and they have these really great pre prepared meals, but it's not something that I do regularly.
Like that might be something that I would do is get a pre prepared pasta dish and a really nice salad from the Italian place and have that on hand. If I'm staying home or plan out, where do I want to go? What new restaurant do I want to try? Think about ways, because if you're not traveling and you're not having a lot of new sites that you're seeing, then having some new cuisine is what can make it feel special.
Yeah, and we give almost the opposite advice while you're traveling to make meals like less almost not less special, but just pick and choose your special meals. And I love like Costco and Sam's Club. They're pre prepared meals that you can just like either eat cold or slip into an oven pre made and just warm up. They're so great. They are really great when you don't have a full kitchen, maybe you just have a little oven or a microwave. But this can be something you use
on a staycation as well. Maybe you are getting an Airbnb. Then you can instead of maybe one night you're cooking and one night you're going out. On the night you're cooking, you don't have to like make dishes and stuff. You can just get one of these pre prepared meals, like from the Italian Market or from Sam's Club.
The fifth is.
Nobody is surprised this is on the list. It's from conmari dot com. It's to tidy up. And this I will actually say, make sure your house is clean before you leave, so when you get home, you're not coming home to a messy house. And this is like a goal everybody wants to do, but it is very hard. But it will feel more like a staycation if you do tidy up before you leave. Because I if I'm coming home to a mess then I have that anxiety
and it starts on the drive home. But if I'm coming home to a clean home, I do not have that anxiety on the way home, so I feel more relaxed instead of We all have experienced that you get home from a vacation and you're more stressed than when you left. So at least you can eliminate that one stressor.
My comment on this is tied to number six, which is slow down. It's important for us all whether we're staying or we're going on a staycation or vacation. But I think if you're staying in your home, tidying up is even more important before you enter into the staycation. So having a clean home can help you to be able to slow down and relax because you're not looking at everything you have to do and that needs to
get done. It can be one help for you to actually be able to rest and relax in your home. And they even recommend, you know, pull out the good linens and use the tablecloth, and light the candles and do all the things that again you may not normally do the things that are going to help you slow down. And only you know that. For me, one of the reasons that I do need to get out and go to a hotel is because I can't. I have a very hard time turning my brain off in my home.
I'm going to end up wanting to get a project done, cleaning, some deep cleaning, something that I don't normally do. So you know yourself and what you're going to need to actually be able to rest and slow down, or if you are in your home, what do you need to do ahead of time to prepare so that you don't get distracted by all these things and put parameters around it that I'm not going to do any projects and I'm just going to enjoy my space.
So this second part of the article is staycation ideas for every taste, and so these are themes that you can theme your staycation around. And I think everyone should do every single one of these. So just like make the list and just check them off. Try to do them in a year. There's six of them, so you could do one of these themes every other month and there you go. There is your beautiful year of staycations planned. The first one is the artist retreat, and so this
could be art, but it could also be architecture. So head to the nearest city that has museums galleries. These don't have to be like big museums like most cities will have some kind of small local gallery, so you could do that. Or you could do tours like home tours. If you like architecture, you could do go tours. If you like spooky stuff, every almost every city has.
A ghost tour.
Yeah, check out groupon Yeah for your own city.
Groupon will have all of these It is the best for them. Try a like a sip and do some craft. Sip and craft they have them all. Oh my gosh, our city. Now you can do candle making, you can do pottery making and painting. You can do canvases, or you could get if you're staying home and you're not going out, you can get one of those paint by number kids that I see everywhere that always.
They are calling to you. You need to try it.
They taunt me you could.
But yeah, just something that flexes your creativity muscle in the physical and that will translate, I think to other parts of your life too.
I will also add, if you've got universities near it could be worthwhile to see what's open to the public at the nearby university. So like I mean, we've got a lot between Saint Pete and Tampa, and I went to one recently that they one of the buildings on their property is over one hundred years old, and it was owned by the city but then donated to the university.
But the in the with the qualifications that they lead it leave it open to the public so that the public can enjoy the grounds and be able to tour it. So it's completely free to be able to walk through, and they've got placards around to learn about the different architecture and the people who came through that building. Depending on what the university's known for, too, sometimes you'll have
some really cool stuff on university sites. If they are known for business or agriculture architecture, then there's definitely going to be things on the campus that are odes to those types of schools. So that I did not. I did a staycation with a friend recently and toward this campus, and it was the highlight for me. I would not necessarily consider myself like a museum person, but that was
very fun. It was both indoors outdoors. It felt like not a typical kind of museum environment because you've kind of got the collaboration of students live here and go to school here, and there's this like cool history happening. So that was something I hadn't thought about before that. But throwing it out to you, I'll check out your local universities what they've got going on. The next one
I'll mention is do a spa weekend. Again, whether this is going to be something you recreate in your own home or you choose to spend some money because you're saving it in other ways by not getting a plane ticket or a hotel but booking yourself a spa weekend, getting a facial and a massage, or doing an at home pedicure and a bath and a sheet mask and lighting a candle and playing soft music whatever that's going to look like. Really be able to set some time aside to hamper yourself.
For you and another mom, go haves the's on a hotel room, get away from your kids, and you just do the spa things. You get those masks on you guys, watch them trashy TV that your husbands don't like.
That's a dream. You get the double beds. That is what actual dream.
Yeah, I know what we're doing next.
I would love to do that, or even like, go have these so you go get a pedicure out and then you do other things at home, or you find a school that has facials and massages. Yeah, Cortiva is the one near us, but they have places around the country. You know, almost every city will have a massage school, so go find it. The next is a backyard staycation, so you spend the day or weekend outdoors in the backyard at an nearby park or a city arb arboretum, arboretum,
thank you. I'm bad at flowers with a picnic, some books, whatever.
I love this.
We have so many like gardens in this city. A lot of them are free, some of them you have to pay. The Largo botanical gardens are so beautiful. Not a lot of beautiful things in Largo, but like that is beautiful, So go find something beautiful in nature around you and then just spend the day there.
Do that.
Yeah, I would not sleep outside in my backyard, but so many people do, so that could be If you like camping, it could be a thing. I like a mattress.
I like this next one on the list, it's romantic firsts. So if you do have a partner that you are taking this staycation with a couple of ideas here. Either do you recreate all of your firsts together, So if you're still living in the same area where you met, going to the same restaurant where you first met, or seeing the movie the first movie that you saw together again. Another idea, again still with firsts, is do something throughout the staycation that is going to be a first for
both of you. So maybe new experiences that you can have together that neither of you have done before. It doesn't have to be super complicated. But like neither of you have played pickleball before, great, go try it. If neither of you been to the to the local state park, go do that or again, recreate some of the first things that you did together.
I love that. What would you recreate?
So our very first date, we did a lot on our very first we did a lot too. Yeah, we went to skip rocks at a nearby state park. We went out to dinner at what became our favorite dinn spot because it was so inexpensive. It was cash only. You could get dinner and drinks for less than ten dollars apiece. And then we went shopping for Mother's Day cards because we met right around Mother's Day. And then we watched a movie It was Easy A.
Oh, I love that movie.
That would be the movie we watched it yet, Easy.
I love that movie. That movie's so good.
We don't live in the area that we met, but there's some of those things that we could do together, Yes, like skipping rocks and watching ECI.
Yes, Oh my gosh, what would you know? What you could do?
You guys met at a wedding, Right, You're going to a wedding in June, so you could like make it a kind of a first date meet.
I mean cute date.
I'll wear the same dress I wore.
You still fit in that. I'll punch you. I'll punch it.
I don't want that. No, I did not keep that dressed.
I'm just kidding.
So the next one is the solo staycation. This here's the thing. It says if you're single, but listen, if you're not single, you probably need this.
You need it.
So if you are a person, a staycation, a solo staycation is the perfect opportunity to connect or reconnect with what sparks joy for you. So some solo staycation ideas take yourself out on a date if there's a place that you want to go that your partner does not or your friends do not want to go go. I went to a ray La Montanne concert by myself because I've always been sixty years old and no love. Well, I didn't know you, nobody, nobody even like knew who
he was, so I went by myself. This was before I met Travis. I used to take myself out all the time when I was single. All the time. Spend a day in your city's botanical gardens and then go to lunch or cook your idea of a perfect meal. Just anything you love to do or have wanted to do and nobody wants to do with you.
Take yourself out, girl, be the best date you've ever are your best date. You have self flowers.
Yeah, nobody buys you gifts as good as you do. Nobody treats you as well as you do, So go girl.
The last one on this list is the Foe vacation. And I do like this one, and I'm gonna tell you what I like it. Not just as a staycation. I like this as a regular Tuesday night if I can do it. And that is, if you have a dream destination to travel to, whether it's a foreign country or another state that you've never been but it's known for certain things, take I mean, certainly take some time to plan and save to hopefully be able to go
there one day. But bring that place to you. So figure out what types of things that area has and if there are dupes in your area, again referencing our talk with Gen on a jetplane, but also food. I mean, that's the best way to kind of recreate an area. So they give the example of let's say you wanted to travel to Tokyo someday, then having a time dedicated
to Japan, make sushi. Figure out how to make sushi, watch YouTube videos, get the ingredients, try a hot pot place, do some host of Japanese inspired dinner party if it's not Japan, pick the place and identify what kinds of foods do they have there? Could I pick up a new skill in the process and be able to bring that place to me. I love this for just even being able to make a regular week feel special, or being able to help me with my meal planning for
an entire week. Oftentimes I will do the cuisine of a certain area because that also helps me use up specialty ingredients that often might go to waste. So if there are dishes I want to try but they use mirror in which, by the way, you can just sub some white wine for that. But if you're getting some of these ingredients, then plan the whole week for it and try out a bunch of new dishes. But you know what, we love to try out and we do.
We try this every week. It never gets old. I always love to go here.
With you the bill of the week.
That's right, it's time for the best minute of your entire week. Maybe a baby was born and his name is William. Maybe you've paid off your mortgage. Maybe your car died and you're happy to not have to pay that bill anymore. That's built but flow bills bill clean. This is the bill up the week.
Hey, Jim and Jill.
I am so excited about this bill of the week. So it's my current insurance and last six months I wasn't really happy with how my cost was going up.
So I did a little bit.
Of shopping around, found a different company that actually wasn't a whole lot of thing things at that time. But the company has really good reviews on responsiveness if you actually have an accident, which is important. And they also have the app that you can download onto your phone and it monitors if you're going they say speeding, they're only checking if they're going eighty miles an hour. They don't know what to speed will out stuff like that.
And it's not one of the ones that, oh, actually you're a really bad driver and you get not as much and now your break goes up. It's not one of those that I was super great about explaining everything. So last six months my bill was eight hundred sixty eight dollars. I got the maximum discounts, and just six months it is six hundred nine. That is nearly two hundred and sixty dollars in savings. And I am so stoked.
I am so pleased about this. Have a good one.
Bye. M Yes, I'm so stoked with you. I have been trying to shop around for car insurance and we live in Borida and it's so so high. But this is a massive win. To save two hundred and sixty dollars on six months of car insurance is so huge. Sometimes you hear fifteen twenty dollars and that's still nothing to laugh about. That's great. Then you can you can buy dinner with that put two hundred and sixty dollars. You can have a staycation with that kind of savings.
Yes, if you.
All are listening and you want to submit a bill, if it has to do with saving big money on some insurance negotiations, or if you're just out here plan in a staycation. Your name is Bill and you want to just say hi. This is a Frugal Friends podcast dot com slash bill, leave us your bill.
We're ready for it.
And now it's time for.
The lightning around all right, what is your dream stayation? Jill? I want you to go first, because I feel like you've thought about this way more than I have.
I have, Oh, I mean, I don't I thought about that. I can't say I thought about it more than you. Oh man, I do have so many ideas, Okay, top of mind, though, something that I did get excited about recently is you all remember how when we we're in the midst of our renovations took us three years, the first thing we did was build out an airbnb like a hotel room. It's like a bedroom bathroom that we were going to airbnb. And then by the time we got to the end of the renovations, we decided not
to airbnb it. And that's on us, that's our bad. We're living in it now. But I had the idea recently because like I said, I don't know that I could fully allow myself to rest and relax in my own space. However, I was thinking that it'd be very fun to set up what is now our owner's suite as a hotel room for us, where we almost block off the whole rest of the house, or we don't allow ourselves to enter the whole rest of the house.
But I bring in my espresso into that space, and we treat it as if we are our own visitors to this Airbnb space, and we do the things that an Airbnb guest would do. So I would like leave out maybe a bottle of wine and have an espresso in there, and we'd use the kayaks, and we'd go out to dinner and come back to just only our little kind of hotel room.
That would be fun.
Now, you also steal the toilet paper when exactly guest bathroom.
But I also have this other dream eventually of being able to have a full SPA day where I do all of the things where I can get a facial a massage, a manny petty, sitting and relaxing whatever area they have to sit and relax in, whether it's a salt room or a sauna or a just kind of all the whole thing. I want to do, the whole thing. I realized that many spas that's gonna be like five or six hundred dollars, and that's why I haven't done it yet. Maybe I just want someone else to just
give me those things. But I feel like that'd be very fun. Yeah, just do all the things.
I've never had a spa day. I've never done anything except get a massage. That's the spaiest thing that I've ever done.
Yeah, and even if I get a pedicure, I never have done a pedicure and a manicure, Like, I don't do all of it.
Yeah, Okay, so I do get pedicures like a couple times a year, but I don't remember the last time I got a manicure.
So yeah, that would be fun. That'd be fun.
I used to get gel manicures.
Oh man, I can't call it.
Well, they were your nail plosh would stand for.
So long, I know, and then it would ruin your nail bed. Yeah yeah, I can't have that.
These babies got a last I know, I know.
I know.
That's why I never had my nails painted.
Okay, what's yours?
So I think maybe like getting a hotel on the beach would be fun. It is annoying to go to the beach because it costs so much money. If you live here, parking is like twenty bucks and which is nothing. I mean, granted, if twenty bucks does all cost to go to the beach, Like, that's a lot better, you know.
But it's not something you can do.
Like just because we live near the beach doesn't mean we go often because it is quite an expense, and so it's also work to trudge everything there and back, and then you have to be there the whole time. You can't take a break like you can if you had a hotel room on the beach. It's just a lot easier to vacation on the beach than it is to live near one. Yeah, so I think that would be fun. I've I used to go. My friend's parents had like a beach house right on the water, like
up in Saint Augustine. That was so much fun. Yeah, that was when I realized. I was like, this is why I don't.
Like the beach, because it gets war out of the sun, right but.
Like when you're right there, it's so easy to just.
Go in and out like all day.
So I think that might be maybe, But we're not big beach people anyways, so I don't know, but that that would maybe, like a just a hotel. I've always wanted to stay the Vanoi, but we've never we got engaged there.
We've never stayed.
There, and you should. That'd be a good little anniversary treat. But I also feel like something like that would be really fun with kids, as far as a hotel on the beach, Yeah, it would help with you can rinse them off, you can bring the toys and you're just kind of back and forth. When they get too tired, you can come inside and cool down.
Yeah, you're not shuffling around in the car or waiting lines or anything. So yeah, I think that would be super fun to do with the boys. Yeah, thank you so much for listening. I hope this episode inspired you to have a staycation somewhere. Hope we inspired you with the themes. Please let us know by leaving a rating or review. Late rating and review which theme you're gonna try first, and let us know how it goes. Hopefully it's five stars like this one from this I guess
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Frugal Friends is produced by Eric Sirianni.
Jill.
Let's talk a little bit about owning a home, because we were just talking about this before we recorded, and this is real talk owning. It's not when we say it's not for everyone. Honestly, it's in a lot of aspects. No, it's not better than renting. It's it's on par it's basically the same thing. Are So we have done what real estate, the real estate people told us to do.
You know, like I've talked to hundreds of real estate investors in my career and everyone said, what we you know, buy a house that's really my and then in five years buy another one, rent that first one out and you know, renovate what you got.
Like so we did it text book.
And they're like, eventually you'll be paying you know, on the second one, you'll be paying well if so, we bought a house hack essentially it was our second one where we're renting out one side and living in the other, and they're like, essentially you'll be living for free.
And I did.
I just ran the numbers this morning because just this month, like everything is kind of reset and after taxes and insurance have raised every year for the last two years. We are paying the exact same But then we also had to go through the arduous task of renovating this home and dealing with two sets of tenants. And I would rather not I'd rather just pay that money, not have an investment, which is basically a second job for each of us, plus raising children. It just didn't work out.
That's the thing. I wish that more people would talk a little bit more openly about this. At the same time, I don't want to lose sight of the privilege that it is to now have a home. There. That is something I go back to in worst case scenario if I need money, I have something to sell. I did not have that as a renter. So there is that.
But as far as day to day, month to month, our monthly expenses are going up just like they would, if not more astronomically, as they would if I were renting like Eric and I bought our house three and a half years ago, and in those three and a half years just from taxes and sure it's alone our mortgage or you know what we pay monthly to live here rows five hundred dollars per month, per month, month, monthly. Yeah. Yeah,
So let's say this is not the real numbers. But let's say I was paying one thousand, now it's fifteen hundred. If I was paying fifteen hundred, I'm now paying two thousand, like per month to live here. So now the spot that I'm in, I'm still paying less than I would if I were to have to rent a place like this. But it still makes me nervous because I bought this
place very conservatively. We were approved for this amount of house based off of my income alone, thinking we're in great shape and we're inching close to it's about twenty five to thirty percent of our annual household income is now what we're paying for this house now. It wasn't
what we were paying previously. So I think I always thought you're kind of get locked in, Like if your mortgage isn't expensive, then that's just kind of how it's and it's not insurance and taxes go up every year, so they make your monthly housing expenses go up every year, just like they would if you were a renter. And that's what I don't hear enough people talking about, and not to mention with your piece where people just want to make it seem so easy house hack have tenants.
It's like there are so many nuances that go into that and keeping a house full fully rented with good tenants who are paying you on time, not to mention upkeeping and maintaining now two different properties. Plus you don't get homestead exemption on the place that you're renting out, so that absolutely increases the taxes on it. There's just so much to it that it does baffle me and frustrate me with how people will talk about just do this.
This is the one way in the one path, and it is good, it can be good, but it is not for everybody, and there are so many other ways to be able to make money in a more simple way. I think that isn't so dang stressful.
Yeah, I mean, and we are all lucky that we bought, like our first house and your house way below what we could have. Like so many people get wrangled into buying at the top of their budget or buying at the midpoint of their budget, and then we see stuff like this happen, and it is just it's killing people.
And that's the reason not to push the budget, because if you're pushing the budget as is, it's going to go up, and it could go up drastically, But then there you go, all the more reason for us stay ocasion, for us to enjoy the place that the majority of our income is going to yep, paid my mortgage, going to get the money's worth