Year: 2012

Different Kinds of Envy

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Moose Envy

There are all kinds of envy.  Things like: new home envy, new car envy, dream job envy, weight loss envy.  This week I realized the WORST form of envy of all…at least for me…is TRAVEL ENVY.  Travel envy is a feeling you may understand if you ever have turned the Travel Channel off in disgust because you are not on a beautiful boat, with a beautiful girl.  In fact you are in the snowiest part of the U.S. and your wife is wearing sweatpants.  That my friends is travel envy.

Have you ever experienced envy for something? I am assuming it is fairly safe to say we all have experienced some type of envy in our lives. It is part of being human, as much as we try to repress the feeling of desire to obtain something better or different. There is envy for things that others may have that you may want. However, today I would like to talk about just one form of envy and my personal vice.

envy (Google definition)
Noun: A feeling of discontented or resentful longing aroused by someone else’s possessions, qualities, or luck.
Verb: Desire to have a quality, possession, or other attribute belonging to (someone else): “he envied tall people”; “I envy Jane her happiness”.

It all came to light several weeks ago we were asked by my in-laws to take them to the airport for their trip to Florida and a cruise. (Never mind,  at this point, the whole separate discussion that we could have on them taking a cruise the week after the horrible Italian cruise disaster.) I gladly accepted the offer, despite having to do so at 5:00 AM, without even thinking about it because I know they would and have done the same for us.

So I picked up my in-laws, and after dropping them off at the airport and unloading their baggage, it hit me. They were actually leaving on a vacation. This time their bags were packed, and…gasp…I am not going with them. I want to get on an airplane and go on vacation. I was experiencing travel envy, and there was nothing I could do about it. Sure, I have enough miles to get us to where they are going if I really wanted, but we have jobs to attend to. Instead, I had to get back in the vehicle and drive myself home, all the while thinking about the fun our in-laws would be experiencing without us.

Then, to make worst things worse, upon driving home, feeling sorry for myself, wanting to drown my sorrows in sugary confections, I realize that it was also a fiscal fast Wednesday.  Really? Are you kidding me?  On the day my in-laws left in all my grogginess I realized I can’t spend money. Upon thinking about it, that even makes the situation worse, because besides being on the road really early in the morning, wishing I too was flying the friendly skies, I could not EVEN enjoy a piping hot Krispy Kreme or Dunkin’ Donuts.

Anyways, that day got me thinking.  I do not consider either my wife or I as envious people. There are certain people we know who seem like they need to keep up with the Joneses with material things, and then emit really negative jealousy towards people who experience good things. We even occasionally get slack from certain family or friends when they see how much we travel and take our boys. We do not even mention Hawaii around certain people because they can not fathom why we would go for 2+ weeks AND take our kids with us. Just like being back in school, a lot of it comes down to people being envious, and most typically, they do not understand the logistics and how we afford to do the things we do with miles and points. While I openly share any information with people, most people do not have it in them to really grasp the ideas. My in-laws though are slowly understanding and first hand experiencing the benefits of mile and point collecting.  Although we did have the points to go on this trip with them, all our money is going now into a giant fund for Hawaii, not to mention being even better about budgeting and saving.  Besides, lets face it, no one ever says “I have too much money.” Still Travel Envy stings, and I imagine what I would be doing on a tropical cruise right now…

We have determined that the worst type of envy to have is for travel. We are not talking about a jealousy from “how do they afford it” or any other type of envy caused from traditional jealousy. We are talking about a jealousy of really wishing we were with _______ enjoying the moment, capturing the memories. When people we know are on vacation, I daily imagine myself with them, and wonder what they are doing.

Several weeks ago my in-laws were on their bonus trip to New Orleans. My father-in-law loves thinking about us while on vacation, and I know it is because he really misses us and wishes we were there with him. Then, while I am in the middle of my work day, around that 2:00-3:00 hour when you are ready to go home, I get a text that says “sitting in the Acme Oyster House and enjoying a…Christmas Ale and charbroiled oysters.” There it is again. Travel envy. I could almost taste the salty air and the smells of the food.

In a couple of weeks, my sister heads off for a vacation to Hawaii. I have enjoyed helping her with the planning. Even though we will be headed to Hawaii in a couple of months, I know we are going to experience travel envy when they are leaving. There is just something about the entire time someone is on vacation that makes you wonder what they are doing at every moment.

As my in-laws took some time in Florida before their cruise, we were not to “concerned” with their well-being. It was the cruise portion of the trip we were envious of being with them. Then sure enough, my cell phone went off with another text message. “Just thought I’d let you know it’s 72 and sunny.” Really? As if it is not bad enough that it is below freezing back home, and they refuse to turn up the heat in my office, now I have to feel the sun beating on the back of my neck? Travel envy.

As soon as we knew my in-laws were stepping on board that ship, my wife and I began to wonder, “I wonder what they are doing now?” My father-in-law is probably enjoying something nice and yummy. I think we can relate so much to this trip because my wife and I have been on a cruise before, so we can relate to the feeling, the excitement, and the continuous amount of food. I could have been on that ship.

Audience Rewards Trivia Update for Best Buy Reward Zone Points (1-25-12)

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Hello everyone! Before I get into today’s Best Buy update, I have some more information related to points earned last year. As “tarheelblue” pointed out in a follow-up discussion on MilePoint, any points earned in the Best Buy Reward Zone (BBRZ) program at the end of 2011, but did not credit until January, will not expire until the end of January 2012. Therefore, if you have not gone back into your account to move the BBRZ out via points.com, you should before the end of this month. Otherwise, any points not meeting the 250 point increment for a $5 credit will be lost. The BBRZ equates to free airline miles or hotel points in another program, so do not miss out on the opportunity.

Today we have another round of the Best Buy Audience Rewards questions to earn you free points.

Audience Rewards

Now, without further ado, we proudly present the trivia questions.

  • What theatre will Newsies be playing at? Nederlander
  • Who is currently starring as Roxie Hart in Chicago? Charlotte d’Amboise
  • Who starred in the movie version of Mamma Mia!? Meryl Streep
  • True or False? The current Elphaba in Wicked on Broadway was in the touring company first. True
  • Where did Diane Paulus get her undergraduate degree? Harvard University
  • Jack Weinstock, who co-wrote the book to How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, was also a what? A physician

As a reminder, for all things Audience Rewards, including all the latest free points and miles from the Points Play trivia questions, see my Audience Rewards page.

Save Money, Travel More!

Fiscal Fast Meal Planning and Spending

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The biggest thing we have learned by our experimental weekly fiscal fasts on Wednesdays, and going into the first full week fast, is a heightened awareness of where we spend money, and figuring out ways to trim our daily costs. Later in the week I plan to share some ways we have decided to cut some costs not only during our fiscal week, but hopefully for the good. In this episode of our fiscal fast analysis, we want to concentrate on our biggest monthly expense, food.

We spend around $400-600/month on groceries, including paper products, cleaning supplies, etc., and not including eating out. Food is a large expense for our family of four, and we are looking for ways to start trimming our costs; however, with two growing boys, we tend to go through a lot of food and supplies. Paper towels, for example, somehow seem to just flow in and out of our house like the breeze. Dirty faces, spills, and messes require a lot of paper products for cleanup when normal wash rags will not do the job.

The greatest variability in our spending comes from weeks where we stock up on supplies and freezable items. Stockpile weeks typically include piles of coupons, paired with sales, and a lot of times added discounts (Food Perks) from our local grocery chain, which can amount to up to a 20% discount. So while we do spend a lot, we also do so smartly by using as many discounts as possible without going to the Extreme Couponers. We hope to make some changes though as a result of our outlook from the fiscal fasts.

Heading into the first day of our fiscal fast, we had to do some planning for food and meals throughout the week. Mostly, we will be able to use up items in the chest freezer in the garage and the stock pantry, but there are some items that need to be purchased right before going into the fast. Therefore, we stocked up on milk, bread, juice, and several other items to complete meals throughout the week.

Luckily, we already had some backlog of baby formula, baby foods, and a large stockpile of diapers and wipes. However, want to know what could really cause a mess of a fiscal week long fast? Running out of toilet paper. The funny thing is I am not trying to be funny. We usually buy the largest packages of toilet paper as possible and have an extensive closet full of backlog. As we were walking out the door for our last minute shopping trip, we realized we were at the end of our supply. It was a lucky catch because it could have caused us to break. I am thankful we now do not need to go to the extent of one of the Extreme Cheapskates and use washable rags. It was a lucky catch, and really makes one realize all the little things you might take for granted, and need to account for over a week when spending, or no spending, matters.

So the basic summary is there were certain items we did need to stock up on prior to the fiscal fast. They are items we would have purchased normally, and yes we did have to shift our spending, but it was not extraneous spending. In the process, we also used a bunch of gift cards we acquired over the holidays, so very little actual spending was done to plan our week at the last minute.

The other great thing about stocking up for the week, is knowing exactly what the menu will be all week. There are quite a few weeks where my wife and I plan out the meals; however, there are also weeks where we wing it, and often times do not feel like cooking and might decide to go out instead on the occasional night. So it was kind of fun going through the pantry and freezer to see what we might have buried at the back or bottom, and decide what we could use up.

On the menu for the week for dinners is tacos, some type of pasta dish, fish sandwiches, chicken soup, and a full turkey meal. It should be a pretty exciting week of some hearty meals that can also be used a lunches. We will also use up lots of side dish items from the pantry and freezer.

Here lies my biggest concern though about the fiscal fast week. The goal is to use up as much stock as we have on hand over the course of the week so there is less stuff that reaches expiration and needs to be thrown away. However, what this means in that next week, we need to stock up again with another large shopping expense because the shelves may be close to bare. So while it will be great to use up some stock, it inevitably means we need to spend more to restock. We will not completely empty the shelves by the end of the week, but a lot of the larger, more relied upon items might be used up, and require new ones.

Normally, we do at least one large stock up trip per month with smaller trips each week. However, we had one of our stock up trips a couple weeks ago knowing the fiscal fast week was coming. So I am worried that while it is good to empty the shelves, we also are gearing up for a possibly abnormal big grocery spend.

My other problem is I have not come up with a big gauge of ways to keep track and monitor the impact of the fiscal fast from a pre versus post spend. I am hoping something clicks as we progress through this experiment throughout the year.

Stay tuned for the rest of the week as we discuss various other ways we have trimmed existing expenditures, while also spending no money throughout the week.