Lately, with gas prices and every newscast throwing chicken little themed stories about the economy at the public, it has started to become hip to be thrifty. Huh? Am I getting hip again? I suppose this is a good thing.
I know that Clark Howard has commented on his show that he is getting a lot of requests for articles and appearances in the media. I've seen more than one article online, such as this one at MSN, that has mentioned family vacations and Greyhound in the same paragraph. Yeah, like I'm going to spend all that time on a bus with Hoot.
Just for kicks and grins, I put in our travel information for next weekend's Corpus Christi trip to see what it would cost on Greyhound. $290 round trip. Huh? It will only take around two tanks of gas for our entire trip. Even if gas was to jump to $4.50 a gallon, it would only cost us $117 for the trip.
Hey, I only paid $432 for our September plane tickets! I guess if we were going a long way, it might make a difference. But, again, for kicks and giggles, I put in our September vacation information: $630! Let's look at that. I have 3 round trip tickets from DFW to Orlando's MCO that I bought on Hotwire a while back. We leave September 14th and return September 20th. I paid $143 for each seat including taxes and fees. We fly non-stop. I have budgeted $160 for gas, (including oil prices at worse case scenario), parking, tips and travel meals. So, we will spend around $592 for transportation for our September trip. That's $38 less than Greyhound tickets, which wouldn't include meals. That's just crazy.
Don't get me wrong, I'm all for saving money. I think it's great that frugality is "in" because maybe it doesn't make me seem so freaky. But, please, enough of the articles that don't really give any info, okay?
Overheard in the bookstore:
I'd like to return this map of Europe.
Is there anything wrong with it?
Yes, the cities are all listed in foreign languages.
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