Today is Going to Be a Great Day!

I’m sitting in Atlanta Georgia drinking my coffee while thinking about my day. It’s going to be a great day. Cynthia and I are visiting our great friends an their brand new house! What a beautiful house it is! I’m sitting on the back deck that overlooks a “green belt”. There are beautiful trees to admire. There are birds and crickets chirping to wake up the neighborhood. My newest little friend, a hummingbird had a sip of nectar at zis little nectar bar (sorry Hunter I couldn’t resist!). The temperature is a cool 67 degrees. Also, later today my son is driving here from Alabama! Today is going to be a great day.

Of course the old man has to tie this to something financial related right? Yep, I am. Since I travel somewhat for work, I’m able to accumulate American Airlines miles for trips that I take for work. Since the miles have built. Up quite a bit I had enough to get Cynthia’s ticket for free! Work also brought me to Atlanta this week, so they paid for my ticket…and I got to put some more “free miles” back into my American Airlines account! The hotel was paid for by work since they make me come to Atlanta two nights ago. Last night we got a sweet upgrade from a standard hotel room to the Goss house! That’s where we’ll stay until we return on Sunday. The out of pocket cost for the airfare and lodging for our 5 day stay in Atlanta will set me back a whopping $40.

But what about transportation? Work paid for the time working. But they won’t pay for the extended stay. So, I’ll have to pay for 2 of the 5 days of the rental car. So, our biggest expense this trip will be 40% of the rental car cost and gas. I’m estimating that to be approximately $75.

With a little planning, a little work, a little hospitality, and a little money we were able to optimize resources for some value. We will pull off the 5 day trip to Atlanta (including airfare, hotel, and rental car) for approximately $115. For that $115 dollars we got the following value:

A lazy and stress free travel day.

Some alone time which we needed at the hotel

A great drive through winding and hilly roads lined with beautiful trees through northern Atlanta

A great meal with great friends, with more to come

A visit from my son, who I haven’t seen since hunting season at our annual deer hunting trip

Plenty of down time with some great God loving people

The above list is worth way more to that than the $115 dollars! Just for y’all I’ll estimate the costs. Airfare would be approximately $1,336.78 (my ticket was $668.39 thanks work!), one night at hotel was $157.72 (Thanks again work!), 3 nights at the Goss House ($157.72 X 3 = $473.16), rental car is estimated at $200.31 (60% Thanks to work), and maybe $20 for gas. The full price or retail price for the 5 day trip to Atlanta would run $2,187.97. We can afford the approximately $2,220 trip and would pay that gladly for a trip with all of the above value received for that price. We had actually been targeting this week for approximately the same number of days anyway. But when work “made” me travel, we took full advantage. By not being Average thinkers, we were able to enjoy the trip for only 5% of the retail cost.

Cost avoidance like this trip saved us quite a bit of money, $2072.97 to be exact. That’s money we can use so I can invest towards my goal of being a stay at home Grandpa much earlier than my peers, spoil the grandkids, blow on cigars, help a kid in need, or whatever else we want to do with the money!

Today is going to be a great day!

Update:

Below is a pic of buck in velvet walking through the green belt. It’s not a great pic, but it’s the best my iPhone can do. The experience was way better than the picture.