Aubrey and Kiddo - Homeschool Adventure

Saving Money for the Trip

2009-08-18T17:39:00.000-07:00

As part of our plan to do this trip on a budget, Kiddo and I have decided that we need to cut expenses in other parts of our lives in order to make this trip responsibly (aka: Doing it without using a single charge card - my rule).

We started out by plugging the household finances into Mint.com. It was a bit of a hassle to get everything together and in the program, but it seems pretty secure, and evaluated our spending patterns in a matter of minutes - without using graph paper, calculators, or Kleenexes. The program showed that we spent a LOT of money on food - groceries, bagels, fast food on dance nights, etc. So we decided that THAT was one area that we could cut without a lot of problems. The question was how.

*I* didn't want to eat junk. I have a metabolic problem that makes traditionally cheap food REALLY bad for me. So, it had to be healthful food, at a reasonable cost.

We stumbled upon (not sure how - sorry I can't give credit) The Three Dollar Cookbook. The web-site has a sample recipe for you to try and a really great article about why whole foods are important - the part that caught my attention was the $3. We purchased the cookbook and downloaded it. We already had a lot of the "pantry" items in the cabinets, so there wasn't a huge outlay for new stuff. We are determined to use the stuff we already have too, so that helped.

Tonight we tried the Park Avenue Sloppy Joes. (Kiddo approves heartily, BTW!)

This is our adaptation and cost breakdown - shopping at Kroger's:

1 lb. ground beef (90/10) $4.55
Organic Ketchup (more than 3/4 cup) - already had
Mustard (as in recipe) - already had
Kroger brand organic pinto beans $1.39
Kroger brand organic chopped tomatoes - already had
Onion - already had
Olive oil - already had
Yummy whole wheat buns (the BIG ones) - $2.00

We also like our food a little more robust than the original recipe, so we added a teaspoon of chili powder, Herbamare (didn't measure - sorry), black pepper, and crushed garlic - all stuff in the pantry.

Served with a can of vegetarian baked beans ($1.39), tomatoes from the garden, and a salad (I had a "free" salad coupon from Kroger's).

The grand total outlay (with padding for existing materials) is: $13.38

From that - the recipe says it will serve 4, with seconds - BUT with the addition of the 1/2 pound ground beef - it feeds closer to 6 - with seconds. So - that averages out to be about $2.23 per person.

What that means in practical terms: We ate REALLY well tonight, and will eat REALLY well tomorrow, and STILL probably have enough to freeze for a lunch or something!

We are looking forward to trying out some more of the recipes soon!

National Zoo and Transportation

2009-08-11T08:45:00.000-07:00

We are going to the National Zoo while we are in Washington, D.C. We had to look online at the National Zoo's website. On the website we figured out that we could go for free. We can go from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. in September and October. While we were looking at the website, I was looking at some of the pictures of the animals. There were pictures of lions, and other cool animals. I read that there is a spider exhibit. I want to go there during my trip.

One of the cool things I was reading was about feeding a giant octopus and a talk about spiders. I was wondering how they are going to feed a giant octopus without being eaten.

We are using public transportation while we are in Washington, D.C. The zoo's webpage said that we can get to the zoo using the MetroBus (L1, L2, and L4) and the MetroRail (Red Line).

We then went to the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority web page. Then we were hunting for information on how to get from our friend's house in Woodbridge to Washington, D.C. It was complicated trying to figure it all out. We tried to use the Metro's Trip Planner to figure it out, and that didn't really work. We did find information about the SmartTrip card, and how much fares cost. We tried to do the math to figure out which fare card would be best. We found out that the 7 day Fast Pass is $39.00, or we could get a get a regular SmartTrip card, that we could put money on for our trips - and pay for each trip. We decided we couldn't make a decision on which one to buy yet because we didn't know how many days (or which days!) we were going to be in D.C. We want to visit other places in the area too.

The next step that we need to do is figure out what activities we want to do, and then figure out which days we are going to do them. That way we will know how many days we need to get a rail pass for. It will be a little hard to make a solid plan because we don't know if we are going to get to go to the White House or not yet, but we can make it so that we can swap days around to make the plan work.

Status

2009-08-09T08:50:00.000-07:00

What do we have so far?

We have train tickets, a place stay (with friends!), and the letter sent asking to see the White House.

What money have we spent?

We have spent $676 on train tickets.
We have spent $0 on travel guides. We ordered Fordor's Guide to Washington, D.C. from the library.
We will be spending $0 for a place to stay.
Most of the places we are going to see don't cost anything to get in.
We have a Zoo membership. We hope that it will work at the National Zoo. We have to go to their web page and find out.
We aren't going to have to pay for a house sitter, because Dad will do that.

What money are we going to have to spend?

We will need food. We will not need food on the train. The meals are part of the ticket, and we can bring some snacks with us. It depends on how much space we have in the luggage.
We will need transportation in the city. We aren't bringing our car, so that means we will be using the bus, subway, and commuter train. We need to get how much that will cost too.
We will also need money for cool things that we can buy.

So how will we figure out what money we will need?

We know we can look at the transportation web pages and find out how much using them costs.

We can make a budget for food. Most of the food we can get at a grocery store and carry it with us. We can plan on eating out only at special places. We have a friend that recommended that we eat out at the Native Americans Museum. So we can plan on that.

With the money left over, we can plan on how much spending money we can use.

What do we need to do next?

Save money for the trip.
Look at the transportation web pages, and figure those out.
We can go to the National Zoo web page, and see if our Cincinnati Zoo membership will work.

Snag...

2009-08-08T17:43:00.000-07:00

We know we have to write a letter to our Senator (Honorable Sherrod Brown) to get tickets to the White House. The White House web site says to plan six months to thirty days in advance.

We went to the U.S. House of Representative's web site and looked up our Representative. ~HIS~ web page says to make requests three to six months in advance. This is discouraging.

Kiddo -

Darn. I really wanted to go to the White House and see President Obama. I want to send the request any ways - just in case. We might get lucky.

This is the letter we posted to Senator Brown's tour request page:

Dear Senator Brown,

My name is ----------. I am 11 years old. I am a homeschooling student who is planning a trip to Washington, D.C. as part of my classes. I am learning about my government this year.

We are going to be visiting Washington, D.C. with some family friends. We were wanting to go on a field trip to the White House. I would really like to see where President Obama lives. I haven't seen him since he was trying to get to be President. I would like to see President Obama too, but I am not going to get my hopes up because he is a very busy man.

I hope you can help us with information about visiting some places in Washington, D.C. My mom has gotten some tickets for the Capitol Building, but they said that I needed to talk to you so I could go to the gallery.

We are planning to tour the Capitol building on September 26th.

Thank you for any help you can give. I am looking forward to my trip to Washington, D.C.

Sincerely,

(Mom deleted my name because she is worried about crazy internet stalkers.)

Committed!

2009-08-08T16:53:00.000-07:00

I was busy talking myself out of the planned Washington, D.C. trip. There were (are) lots of reasons why the trip should be postponed.

So I stopped the argument. I bought the tickets the other night. We are committed to going now.

I decided that we would take Amtrak for a couple of different reasons:

I hate driving. Driving leaves me exhausted and anxious, and that is a miserable way to start or end something that is supposed to be pleasant.
I can only drive about five to 6 hours a day, then I'm done. That makes for about two hotel stays, and at least six meals - each way. Averaging out to be about $600 with gas - not to mention gas and parking while in D.C.
I have always wanted to take a train ride - period :)

So, once the tickets were bought, we looked up baggage information.

Turns out there isn't a checked baggage service in Cincinnati (if we are reading the chart correctly). We THINK this means that we are limited to two carry on bags each. We are going to call the ticket counter next week to make sure.

We also did the virtual tour of our type of train, and our room reservations. We are using a roomette. Figured it would be better for both of us if we didn't have to stay in a chair for 15 hours.

Kiddo -

So far, we are going to be riding in a car. It isn't all too fancy. It isn't too expensive. It isn't as nice as some of the other bedrooms on the train. We have a bed that folds down from chairs. There is a personal bathroom. There are two showers on the train that everyone shares. The private bedrooms have their own personal showers.

It is going to be 15 hours to Washinton, D.C. I think our firends are going to pick us up there. I wonder if there are cabs there. That would be awesome.

We already have tickets to go see the Capitol building. I have a library book about it. We have plan for next week to write a letter to our Congressperson to see if we can get tickets to go see the White House. I would like to see President Obama when we go. I wonder if he will be at home? He goes all over the place. The last I heard he was around Europe or something with another President. He wasn't the President the last time I saw him. He came to Dayton. I haven't seen him, in person, since he was trying to become President.

We are making a plan to decide which museums to go to. There were like a million different museums to choose from in the book. I sort of want to go to the National Zoo too, but I don't know what animals will be there.

Our next step is to write the letter to get tickets to the White House. The White House web page says that we have to get the letter in 30 days in advance, and we are running out of time. We may not get them either, because they might run out. We will see what happens.