I did pretty well with the trip to south Florida. I spent $428 overall. This included a car rental for a week and two plane tickets. The only thing I am not including in the cost is the three restaurants. I will be reimbursed for those as they were mystery shops. I also mystery shopped two grocery stores. I picked up snacks and juice boxes for my grandkids with those. I head to Michigan in three weeks and hope that trip is around $600 so my total stays around $1000 for both trips. This should be totally doable as I will stay with family. The major costs will be the car rental (heavily discounted through my daughter) and gas.

In other news, I am so proud of my son. He scored a 32 (the national average is around 21) on his first try on the ACT. This was with no prep and he ran out of time on the math section. He is going to take it again and shoot for a perfect score (he was perfect in reading and close to it in science and English). With his GPA and these scores I know he will get some excellent scholarships. We are daring to hope he may even get a full ride somewhere!

This month is flying by. I can't believe it is almost time for my first vacation. I head down to see my older two kids and my grandkids in south Florida on Thursday for a week. I have to get a box of clothes shipped on Monday so we will have them when we get there (avoiding bag fees). I found two small drawstring bags for my son and me to take one change of clothes on the plane along with our Kindles. We can have one small carry on. I need to measure the bags again to make sure. I am not paying $45 per bag as it would negate the great deal we got flying down there ($142 for two round trip tickets).

I am also working this weekend. I was supposed to be off, but I took off six days while I am gone. I am learning the system for the new admin portion of my job that starts next month.

On the financial side, I set aside the money for the car rental and $200 in spending. However,a good portion of that $200 will be reimbursed next month. I took three restaurant and two grocery store mystery shops while I am down there.

I am also working on keeping the costs down for the July trip to Michigan. It is exciting to be taking my son to visit colleges. He is down to four choices. He is deciding between Michigan State, Florida State, Dartmouth and U Conn. His dad will be taking him to visit U Conn and Dartmouth in early August. I have no doubt he will be able to get into all of these. He is a smart kid! We are researching scholarships like crazy.

I hope you all have a great weekend!

I spent $200 on myself this past week. I rarely do this. I desperately needed clothes. I was wearing jeans and that doesn't cut it all summer in Florida. In addition to the shorts and shirts ($75), I bought a tablet, case, and accessories, which came to $125. It was a want, but it will be useful. I have two laptops. Each has issues, but are usable. My son is going to buy one of the laptops so that purchase will even itself out. The other will be my spare.The tablet (with keyboard) should work out for me for editing and mystery shop reports.

I picked up a couple more mystery shops for this week. It made me feel a little less guilty about spending that money. On a good note, I finished the school year yesterday. I hope to feel a little less overwhelmed. I am looking forward to my trip to south Florida in less than two weeks!