Seven envelopes are rubber-banded together in the kitchen drawer, one for each trip since March. Last Sunday I poured them all out on the table, sorted every receipt into four piles and added them up twice. Wes walked through, looked at the piles, and went back out to the carport without a word, which is how I knew it looked serious.
Here's what we've done since we started this blog: Wilmington and Kure Beach, Myrtle Beach, a night of camping at Jones Lake, the Blue Ridge Parkway from Boone to Asheville, a pet-friendly cabin in the Uwharrie with June, a day at Lake Norman, and one night in North Charleston. Seven trips, $1,488 total, all paid from the trip account.
The four piles
I sort everything into the same four lines every time. Rounded to the dollar:
- Beds: $809 (54 percent)
- Gas: $284 (19 percent)
- Food: $299 (20 percent)
- Admission, parking and everything else: $96 (7 percent)
So beds are more than half. That's no surprise. Two of the seven trips had no room cost at all (Darren's couch in Wilmington and the Lake Norman day trip) and one was a $28 tent site, and beds still came out on top.
Beds first. The motels and the cabin are where the big decisions are. The two nights on the Parkway, one in Boone at $94 and one near Asheville at $109, plus tax, came to about $226. The Uwharrie cabin was $105 a night plus a $40 pet fee. Charleston would have been $289 downtown, and we paid $112 plus tax in North Charleston. That one decision saved more than our whole gas bill for that trip.
What I've learned is that a bed is worth the money when we'd be miserable without it, and not much more. We don't need an ocean view. We need clean sheets, a lock that works and a parking spot where Wes can see the car.
Gas covered about 2,700 miles in six months, at prices between $2.85 and $3.05. The Parkway trip was the big one, close to 600 miles round trip with all the curves. Everything else was under 400. Gas has been the most predictable pile, because I figure it before we leave and round the price up a dime.
Food: the line that keeps creeping
Here is the one that bothers me. In March and April, food on a trip ran $30 to $35. By the Charleston trip in August it was $58 for one night. Some of that is prices. A plate of fried shrimp that was $16 in the spring is $18 now in some places. Some of it is us. It's hot, so we stop for cold drinks more, and Wes has discovered the joy of a gas station milkshake.
The cooler still helps. The trips where I packed it properly, Jones Lake and the Uwharrie cabin, had the lowest food lines. The trips where we got lazy, Charleston especially, had the highest. That's not a coincidence.
Admission and parking is the smallest pile. Most of what we like is free or close to it: state parks, beaches, main streets, the Parkway overlooks. The $96 is mostly parking at the beach and in Charleston, the Lake Norman park, and a couple of small museum and garden tickets. I'd like to keep it that way.
What we're changing
Our target is under $300 a trip. The average so far is $213, so we're fine overall. But I'm setting a food line of $25 a day for the two of us, with one sit-down supper per trip on top, and I'm going to pack the cooler every time, even for one night. If food goes back down to where it was in the spring, that's another $15 or $20 a trip we can put toward a bed somewhere a little nicer.
I also counted the receipts I'd lost. Three, all gas station coffee. I've decided to let those go. A person has to have some mercy on herself.
The envelopes are back in the drawer. Next month is Savannah, and I already know which pile I'm watching.
