Back on the bargain hunt

I'm back in town and ready to bargain hunt, at least in theory. After a week of boogie boarding at beaches as far north as Big Sur, watching otters and seals play in the rocky shores in Cambria and going to bed at 9:30 pm, I am not yet re-adjusted to the working life.

Seems I missed a lot while I was away, what with Lehman Brothers going bankrupt, the major Metrolink crash Friday, and changes to the front page of the paper. Forgive me if it takes a day or two to fully ramp up to my usual six to seven posts a day.

In the meantime I'll let you know that Hubby and I had a fantastic anniversary vacation. We covered about 700 miles over the past week, bopping around Solvang, San Luis Obispo, Cambria and Big Sur.

We hit all the usual suspects the California coast offers - wine tasting in Solvang, kayaking in Morro Bay, touring Hearst Castle, and driving the scenic Highway 1 north to Big Sur, where we hiked in charred mountains. The vacation was no exotic trip to the Caribbean or Hawaii, but we had so much fun.

We also watched our wallets. We never ate out for breakfast (mostly due to complimentary breakfasts at hotels) and bought groceries to make a few lunches. To really stretch our dollars our last two diners while camping in Big Sur consisted of apples, hot dogs and chocolate milk.

We did spend plenty, though. We splurged on two fancy dinners out and Hubby got a massage while I took a yoga-capoeira class in SLO. We violated the basic creed of bargain hunting - buy ahead of need - by waiting to buy s'more fixings at the ultra-pricey River Inn Grocery Store in Big Sur. A box of graham crackers, Hersey's chocolate and marshmallows cost us $11.47. Ouch!

Our total spending for the trip came to $1,242, about 25% over my target budget of $1,000. Almost 55% of our expenditures went to lodging. The rest was divvied up between food, entertainment and gas. With a little help from my Dad, who graciously sent me a check for $200 after reading about our tightwad trip on the blog, we basically met our goal. He even agreed to double the donation at 10 years!