This bed.

This is my 17 year old’s bed all made up with fancy sheets and a high-falutin down comforter and even a plush mattress pad for the first time in his blessed seventeen years.

(And by high-falutin, I mean on sale at TJMaxx and of course down alternative, but he doesn’t need to know my secret.)
 
When we had this kid seventeen years ago, our finances were tight.

So tight.
Tight enough that I remember sitting in tears trying to learn how to nurse him before leaving the hospital, because I wasn’t quite sure where formula was going to fit in our oh-so-stingy budget those days.

Fancy sheets?

Nope.

My sister-in-law who always spoiled us gave him a pair of baseball sheets when he grew into my husband’s old twin bed, we added an inexpensive comforter, and the kid was set.
(And that really was just fine.)
When our finances changed a wee bit, it never occurred to me to up the fancy on his simple sheets as this kid grew.

(As a penny pincher at heart, high-end bedding just isn’t even on my radar!)
So when this cute now six-foot-tall-boy-still-pretty-content-in-that-hand-me-down-twin-bed asked me a few weeks ago if I could maybe buy him some new bedding that felt just a little better, I realized just maybe it was time.

(Because seriously folks, he’ll be heading off to college in less than 12 short months and I’m all about making this home the coziest place to come home to.)
(And yes, he knows that.)
(And is completely playing that “I’m going off to college” card every day.)

(And I know I’m a sucker.)
(But I don’t.
even.

care.)

So I called up my sister-in-law who’s known for making the coziest bed on the planet, and asked exactly what I needed.
She suggested a cushy mattress pad (y’all – NONE OF MY KIDS HAVE HAD MATTRESS PADS EVER because as an uber frugal mom I couldn’t bear to spend $20 on such a frivolous thing.)
(I know.)
(You’re horrified.)
(As I think about it I’m a teensy bit horrified too.)
(But really – some children don’t even have beds so surely my kids will survive their beds without mattress pads too?)
She recommended a new pillow, cotton sheets, a down alternative comforter (heaven knows this kid’s not getting real down when I don’t have that myself!) a duvet (which I’d found at the Pottery Barn Outlet a few years back so at least there’s that) and a quilt and coverlet that I haven’t found yet but I’m still on a mission for.

I brought everything home, gave it all a bath in a generous sprinkling of Tide, and set to work with that boy to make his new fluffed up bed.
We giggled as we nearly asphyxiated ourselves getting that ridiculous down comforter in place (those things are evil. clearly.).

We discussed which colleges he really was interested in most and what he really dreams of doing.

And he talked about how much he really wanted the cute train sheets I’d seen at TJMaxx because he knew this was kind of his last year to just be a kid.

(He said “Mom – the whole rest of my life I’ll be stuck with plain white sheets.” I promised him even his grandpa who was one of his favorites had been known to sleep on Garfield sheets at eighty-years-old once in awhile, so maybe this wasn’t entirely the end to his youth.) 

Bless.
As we finished up this mess of a bed and I told him goodnight, I walked back to our bedroom and thought how very much I still feel like that 24-year-old-girl-just-figuring-her-way-out-as-a-momma-of-one-cute-blue-eyed-boy.

And I looked in the mirror figuring quite surely that’s the girl I’d still see.
But the girl that looked back wasn’t quite the same girl as she was way back then.
She has a few more wrinkles.

A little more financial freedom.

(Thank heavens.)

And more than anything an overwhelming adoration for 3-noisy-kids-who-really-have made-her-crazy-but-are-still-so-stinkin’ cute she can’t hardly even stand it most days.

So Jackson.
You win.

Take all the dollars.

(Not really.) 🙂
We’ll buy the fancy sheets.
We’ll splurge on all the silly last minute stuff.
(Ok. I lied. Not all if it. But we’ll splurge a wee bit more at least.)

Only promise one day you’ll remember this place is just the coziest.

Remember that this mom of yours will be at the ready with a batch of cookies whenever you walk through the door.

And most of all know that I’m awfully glad God picked me to be yours too.

(And for real. I’m not even going to survive this senior year. So go to Kroger right now cute kid and use all the dollars to buy all the Kleenex.)

Ooch.

My 10-year-old has wanted to go to New York for a couple of years now — something she picked up in school or books I guess. 🙂 

But it’s BIG and a little intimidating to navigate – and can be very expensive!

As we were thinking about a summer vacation, we looked at the possibility and found several ways to save money and make it worth it for us.  Conveniently one of our 3 available weeks was during her 10th birthday so we chose it.

We surprised her with the trip and only told her a couple of hours before leaving for the airport.  At first she didn’t believe us, but then we told her she had to make sure I packed well enough for her.  She was in shock, which was so awesome!!  My husband spent many hours researching and planning based on our interests.  Here are a few things we think will be helpful for your own trip planning to the Big Apple…

17 New York City Insider Travel Tips

1. Set a budget.

Because we really are passionate penny pinchers we do not go into debt for any of our trips.  We save by couponing (my strength) and living “thrifty” (my husband’s strength) so we can travel (my weakness and the bane of my husband’s existence).  😉  I love to travel, but paying cash is a must!

2. Save on airfare.

If you don’t have a frequent flyer miles account with your favorite airline, get one!

We had Delta Sky Miles from going on a few mission trips and an anniversary trip to Hawaii, and it really paid off on this trip.  We used our Sky Miles to get all 4 tickets, 2 on my account and 2 on my husband’s, for a grand total of only $44 + checked baggage fees!

I suggest flying into LaGuardia to save money and time.  If you’re going near Manhattan like most tourists, JFK is farther away.  It’s also more expensive.  We wouldn’t have been able to get Sky Miles tickets to JFK because of the higher cost.

3. Save on your hotel.

Staying out of Manhattan (or at least away from Times Square) can save you hundreds of dollars.

We stayed in Long Island City at a Fairfield Inn by Marriott.  It was just off of Manhattan and wasn’t inconvenient at all.  It took only 4-7 minute to walk to 3 different subway stations that covered 6 different lines, so we could get to anywhere in Manhattan easily!  It wasn’t too noisy either, which is a big complaint near Times Square.

Staying in a hotel with breakfast included can save money for a daily meal.  Hotel sites like Expedia and its subsidiaries, Priceline, etc. may get you a bargain, and if you’re bold enough to stay in someone’s private property, Airbnb is also something to consider.

4. Decide between Taxi, Subway or Uber?

We decided to use the subway most of the time we were in New York.  It’s definitely the cheapest option and often comparable in time for short distance trips.

We paid $33 per person for a 7-day unlimited Metro Card that allows you to get on/off as many times as needed for the one price.  Considering a single ride is usually $2.50, but we rode several times a day for 5 days, this was soooo worth it!

Learning where to enter and exit the subway was tricky.  When entering, make sure you read the signs before you swipe your Metro Card since some stations didn’t have a way to cross to the other track if you were accidentally on the wrong side, and once you swipe your card, you have to wait 18 minutes to use it again.

My husband’s advice for exiting is to look at the subway map, know which way the train enters the station, know which way you want to walk when you hit the street, and walk towards an exit in that direction.  The only time we took a taxi was to and from the airport since subways don’t go directly to them, and the distance between our hotel and the airport was longer.  It’s typical to tip your taxi driver 15% on top of the fare as long as they did a good job.  You can use Google Maps to get you everywhere, and there are other good transit apps too.  I don’t know how anyone can get around these days without GPS, but you can always ask a local for help with directions.

5. Make sure you have good walking shoes.

Take some good walking shoes (my favorite are Saucony Guide).  If you don’t exercise much, I’d suggest walking as much as you can before leaving, because you will do it a lot there!

I’m a runner and run about 4-5 miles a day, but my husband doesn’t exercise much.  (He complained when I wrote he “doesn’t exercise at all”, so I erased it to protect his reputation.)  😉  So we walked as many nights as we could with our youngest daughter before leaving in order to prepare.  She still had no idea we were going so I just told her daddy needed to start exercising more to relieve stress from work.  😉

6. Check out Entertainment Passes

My husband found 3 entertainment passes for NYC:

• CityPASS gives you a set price for 6 places–3 fixed and 3 others where you can pick from 2 choices.  That didn’t include things we wanted to do and did include others that we didn’t want, so we ruled it out quickly.
• The New York Pass is for a certain number of days and lets you go to however many places within those days that you can fit in.  But reviews were bad since you have to fit in about 3 places a day to get your money’s worth, and sometimes lines are so long that the high cost is unlikely to be worth it.
• Smart Destinations has 3 different flavors of passes, and we really liked their “Explorer” Pass.  That one was based on a number of choices rather than days.  It allows you to be flexible with what you use it on so that we could base it on weather, change in mood, etc. when we were there.  We used the 5-choice across 3 days.  My husband’s company participates in TicketsatWork which offered discounted prices, so we added savings on top of savings for almost 40% cheaper attraction prices!

7. Get Statue of Liberty Tickets Early

If you’d like to go to the crown or pedestal, make sure to buy tickets for the Statue of Liberty the minute you buy your plane tickets.

We weren’t able to get crown tickets because they were booked about 4 months out, and when we arrived there, an employee said they were now booked until next year!  The pedestal was easier to get tickets for, but there are still a limited number.

I would also recommend getting early time slots.  We had an 11:00 and still waited in line for a long time because of schools doing field trips.  We packed a lunch with sandwich items we brought from home which saved us money and time.  Although we didn’t ride the Staten Island Ferry, it is a free option.

8. Don’t Miss The Empire State Building

If you plan to go to the Empire State building, go as early as possible in the day or late at night.  (Seeing a pattern?)  😉  We saw a recommendation to go before 11.  We went around 9:30, and as we were leaving the lines were getting extremely long. Definitely worth going early to make sure to skip the lines!

9.  Be sure to visit the 9/11 Museum.

I think everyone remembers where they were when you heard about the twin towers getting hit.  It was such an impactful moment in our history.  Older kids and teens would be ok in the “historical exhibition”, but there are parts of it (pictures, audio clips, etc.) that will probably be difficult for younger kids.

If you go on Tuesdays at 4:00, they issue free first-come, first-served tickets.  We got there at 3:30, were near the front of the line, sat for a half hour til the line started moving, and ended up with 5:00 tickets (the earliest possible).  That gave us time to look at the memorial and shop in the mall next door.  You can make a donation as well.

10. A few more museums worth seeing:

Besides the 9/11 Museum, we would recommend the following:

• Statue of Liberty Museum – Included with pedestal or crown tickets
• Ellis Island Immigration Museum  – FREE
• American Museum of Natural History (aka AMNH) –  Suggested price but pay what you want
• Metropolitan Museum of Art (aka the Met) – Suggested price but pay what you want

It took a few hours inside the AMNH (enter at the 81st entrance to save a lot of time from standing in line), and we didn’t see everything.  Plan on 3-4 hours if you like that kind of stuff.  I heard that for the Met as well although we never made it there.  I think our girls were museum’ed out (and maybe their mom a little too).  😉

11. Visit Central Park

This is a great place to go, and it’s free!  There are playgrounds for little ones to play on, winding walking paths, beautiful flora, and lots of history.

The Central Park Sightseeing bike tour was our favorite thing all week!  Our tour guide, Damien, was very informative.  The tour was a 7-mile bike ride through lots of historic places in Central Park with plenty of celebrity gossip and movie info.  So worth it!

12. See something on Broadway

I’m not a musical person, but we were told we needed to take the girls to see Lion King…until we saw the price.  WOW!   More expensive for Broadway tickets than all the other entertainment combined!

My husband learned about the TKTS booths that sell same-day or next-day discounted (maybe half price) tickets, but Lion King wasn’t included.  You can also walk up to the ticket office at the theater for a show you’re interested in the day of and ask for similarly discounted tickets to see if they’ll sell them.  Finally, you can sign up for a lottery the day before for some shows for the lowest price.  Unfortunately, we never got selected for the lottery so we never made it to a show, which honestly I’m okay with.  I am too much of a penny pincher to pay full price for tickets.

13. Walk the Brooklyn Bridge and the High Line.

The first is another freebie activity that is a must!  Great views of Manhattan.  Just stay out of the bike lanes!  🙂  We also went on a small piece of the High Line, an abandoned above ground train track that they spruced up with a walking path, lots of scenery, and occasional fun things like a place to take off your shoes and stand in cool water.

14. Food is Expensive

Almost every restaurant we went to did not have a kids menu so plan to either split your meal with the kiddos or buy them an adult meal.

We ate at 3 different pizza places (you have to, right?).  The pizza was pretty good, but we noticed that at every place the employees were just not friendly.  Welcome to New York! 🙂

Because we walked all day we stopped a few times for sweets.  (Ok, as payback for the exercise comment earlier, my hubby says that I have to admit that I would have stopped at all the sweet shops even if we hadn’t walked all day.  Guilty pleasure!)  😉  All the employees at the bakery places were awesome!!  I would recommend using Zomato (formerly Urban Spoon) for restaurant reviews, menus, and price ranges, and then working a few interesting restaurants into your budget.  Eating earlier dinners will help you wait less time for a table.

15. Be smart when buying souvenirs.

We went to Chinatown and Little Italy on a whim, and the souvenir shopping was so awesome that we decided to return later in the week!  We were able to save money buying souvenirs here rather than the actual tourist attractions.  Authentic meals here too . . . but more expensive.

16. Pack Water Bottles… & Backpacks to Carry Them

We each had our own water bottle and filled them up every day before leaving the hotel.  When we went to any tourist attraction that had water fountains, we would fill up again.  This saved us a ton of money, and during the hot summer it was a must.  There are vendors at every corner selling bottled water for $1-2.  So glad we didn’t have to buy water!

17. Character Costumes

Try to stay away from the people dressed up in character costumes.  A friend warned us about this and we were so glad she did!  When you get you or your kiddos picture taken with them, they expect you to tip them and will hound you until you do.  This is their job.

I hope these New York City Insider Travel tips were helpful in planning your next trip – and I’d love to hear any additional tips you might have for saving money or seeing the best sites!

Looking for more travel tips?

• 7 things you need to know before bidding at Priceline and Hotwire
• Check out How to Travel on a Budget
• 16 Things You Need To Know About Before Going On A Cruise
• 17 Secrets You need to Know Before Planning A Trip to Hawaii
• 25 Things You Need To Know Before Going on a Mission Trip

Looking for more travel tips? Check out these 7 things you need to know before bidding at Priceline and Hotwire. 

If you’re here only for the penny pinched deals, bear with me through this one ~ this is a LONG post, but was on my heart today! 

As I shared earlier this week, my husband lost his dad a week ago today, and we’ve all lost truly one of the best men I’ve ever known.

While it’s still fresh in my memory, I wanted to share a few (amazing!) things friends did for us that made the grief a wee bit more bearable this week. More than anything, I want to remember how to bless someone in these same ways when they go through a difficult time too.

So often, I don’t know what to do when someone is suffering, but these simple (practical!) acts of kindness have tendered our hearts and meant more than we ever could have imagined right now. 

Here we go. 

1. Help with their kids.

When we got the phone call last Thursday night that James’s dad was struggling and we needed to get there, several neighbors offered to help with our kids. (We weren’t quite sure that we all needed to make the seven hour drive as this last year has been a whirlwind of physical struggles for Don, so two of our three had stayed home to finish up finals and end of year activities.)

Immediately one neighbor let our youngest spend the night, a group from my son’s Young Life program came over and just hung out with him, and another dear friend (who doesn’t even know our family all that well!) offered to drive my kids to the airport once we found out while driving to Kentucky that he’d passed away.

Beyond that, this sweet friend brought my kids goody bags to have for the plane flight, prayed with them before they flew out, and promised to stay close to the airport until she knew they were safely in the air.

Taking care of someone’s kiddos during a time like this was an AMAZING gift ~ I can never express what it meant for this momma to know her children were taken care of! 

2. Bring a meal.

As soon as friends and church members found out that Don had passed away, the food started coming in (it was amazing!) As we had 30+ close family members there over the weekend for the services, it was a huge blessing not to have to figure out what to feed our bunch (especially in a small town without tons of restaurant options.)

Here were a few specific items that were special blessings to us over the weekend:

• Paper plates, cups, napkins, plasticware, paper towels
• Water bottles and soda
• Breakfast foods – homemade is great, but swinging by Sam’s or Costco works perfectly too
• Fresh bread (because our friend Mrs. Deaton’s bread is well known in all of Marshall County as the absolute best sourdough bread on the planet, I had to share a shout out for that one. Bring. the. bread.) 🙂
• Turkey/ham sandwich “fixins”
• Fresh fruit
• Ham sandwiches (someone made simple sandwiches with Sister Schubert’s rolls ~ they were perfect)
• Italian beef (another church member brought this by and it worked perfectly because it feeds a ton and everyone loves it)
• Barbecue
• Pie 🙂 our friend Mrs. Colburn brought by what had to be the very best lemon meringue pie I’ve ever eaten. When I told her how perfect it was, she credited Mrs. Edwards’s for that lemon meringue pie. (Y’all. You do not have to make the pie. Let Mrs. Edwards make it for you.) 🙂 
• Toilet paper (I know that’s silly, but you do NOT want to run out of TP when there are 20 people mulling around a 1 and 1/2 bathroom house. Ummmmm…. yikes.)

3. Offer your home or guest house to extended family members.

If by any chance you have a spare room in your home (or a guest house?) offer it for extended family members to stay. It was a huge gift to our family to know that everyone had a bed, and we were so thankful for the lake house that a sweet friend of my sister-in-law offered us!

4. Take care of their pets.

Our neighbors offered to care for our dog which helped so much ~ we ended up boarding him at our local boarding facility, but my neighbor took him there so we didn’t have to make an extra trip.

5. Help during the funeral & visitation.

James’s dad’s visitation was Saturday night (the funeral was Sunday), and some of our sweetest friends from Alabama drove four hours to be there during some very difficult hours for us. Because they knew Don was pretty loved by everyone in the community, they came in completely knowing that they would be there for HOURS, but our friends Stephen and Sandra stayed for the long haul just to be there for James.

Whenever he could without stopping James from a conversation, Stephen ran over and asked James what he could get him ~ soda, water, gum ~ whatever. I think just knowing a friend was there comforted James as he literally stood between his mom and dad during the viewing, and meant more than they will ever know to James. (And I was blessed to get to spend extra time talking to my friend Sandra too!)

There were also several families from the church who checked in on us to see what we needed during the services. One dad with a daughter Reagan’s age offered to take she and their daughter to Hardee’s during the visitation, my dad and mom took my girls to Dairy Queen after they paid their respect (they ate a lot during those 4 hours ~ eek!), and people picked up purses, brought extra Kleenex, and carried plants when we needed them to.

Members of the church also helped with funeral arrangements, contacting ministers to conduct the service. One sweet man even stopped by to take all the trash to the dumpster, because he knew it would be more than could wait until the next trash day. (I would never have thought of that, but it helped us so much not to have to worry over the trash. Such a small act of kindness but an incredible gift!)

6. Show up. 

Like I said, a few of our friends families from Alabama drove four hours to be with us during both the funeral and visitation (even though they’d never met James’s dad!), in addition to the hundreds of local people that came to honor Don. Our friends Tim and Misty came and stayed with us through the funeral and graveside service, and just having them there meant more than they could have ever known. They helped us get a meal ready quickly before the funeral, chatted with James’s mom for a bit to make her feel more at ease, and took a tour of James’s childhood home. It meant so very much to our family to have them there!

My parents also drove four hours to the service without any expectation from us at all, and it was such a gift to know so many people loved this man (and us too!) One of the men in James’s church who’d known James since he was a toddler just took the time to talk with James and let him know how special he and his dad were to him ~ such a small act of kindness, but one that will never be forgotten.

7. Send flowers (or plants.)

As someone who normally doesn’t like spending money on extra “stuff”, I have to say, the beautiful plants and flowers that people sent to our family meant so very much to us (I was so surprised by how much we appreciated them!)

There were several gorgeous flower arrangements (the PPP team even sent the most gorgeous hydrangea bush!) and I loved that people were so thoughtful to think so much of us during this difficult time.

If you’re like me and not so sure about sending flowers, here are a few things that were extra special to us:

• Send houseplants ~ when I was talking to my sister-in-law she mentioned that she’d gotten houseplants when her grandfather passed away, and twenty years later still has those plants and remembers her grandpa each day when she sees them. Such a wonderful way to remember someone
• Send windchimes ~ Don loved windchimes, so those meant so very much to us
• Send a bush that can be planted outside ~ we loved the hydrangea bush from the PPP team, and have seen families give roses, gardenia plants or small trees to honor their loved one
• Send the flowers ~ I had no idea how much just seeing beautiful flowers near Don’s graveside would mean to us, but they totally were a gift. If you’re like me (and a true penny pincher at heart!) you may not see the gift in this unless you’re in that situation, but they really do mean so much.
• Send an edible arrangement after the funeral. We received one today from our sweet neighbors back at home and it completely brightened our day (thank you Sarah & Ryan!)
• And of course, if they ask for an “in lieu of . . . ” gift, that’s an incredible way to honor a family member too

8. Mow the lawn.

One of my husband’s co-workers offered to come to our home and mow the lawn (during Spring in Ohio we have to mow at least twice a week!) While we made it home in time to take care of it ourselves, it was an incredible thing to think of that I normally would have forgotten.

9. Water the plants. 

10. Make the phone call. (Or send a card, an email, or even a text.)

We feel sooooo incredibly blessed by so very many this week, but our friend Stephen (who’d already driven forever over the weekend!) went above and beyond and texted me to find out when James was on his way home from work this week, so he’d be able to call and just talk to him on the way home during his hour long drive (every day during the drive James called to talk to his dad, so I knew this time was going to be hard for him.)

Just doing something to let people know you care is such an incredible blessing, and it can even be just a text or email checking in to make sure you’re doing okay. I’ve received texts from some of my dearest friends who just want me to know they’re thinking of our family (along with a note that I don’t have to even respond!), as well as dozens of emails, Facebook messages, and comments from PPP readers, which has been an incredibly gracious gift to me!

Whatever you do, if you know someone who’s struggling today, think of a practical way that you can lighten their load as they struggle through a difficult time. Even if they don’t have the energy to say it today, I promise you’ve gifted them more than you know, and your small act of kindness will be as much a blessing to you as it is to them.

I’d love to hear your suggestions on what to do when going through a difficult season ~ what other ideas do you have? Leave a comment to share ~ I love hearing from you! 

On a side note, the PPP team TOTALLY hopped on board and took care of EVERYthing for me here ~ emails, messages, my scheduled posts, SO MUCH stuff. I can never repay them for what a gift they gave me to completely take the weekend off for my family ~ I’m so blessed each day by these sweet ladies!  And, I know there have been SO many people and gifts that we’ve gotten and I forgot to mention, so for whatever you’ve done for us, we are so blessed by you (just tired and forgetful after a busy-sad-hard-but-blessed-and-thankful week!) 

I am so excited to share this with you all!  Back in April I went to 305 8th Street Group Home to drop off some donations.  They handed me a Publix gift card for $188 that Publix donated to them, and asked if I could stretch it for items they were in need of.  What an awesome company to help the people in their community!

They knew that I’m totally a let’s-see-how-much-I-can-stretch-the-$188-gift-card-for kinda gal, but the items that 305 needed aren’t items that typically have coupons.  They do go on sale Buy One Get One free frequently at Publix, so throughout the past 5 months I’ve been buying items when they were on sale.  I ended up getting $395 worth of groceries for the $188 gift card!

This will help 305 8th Street so much.  So many group homes nationwide run on a shoestring budget. I’ve mentioned this in previous posts, but imagine if your family took a night off of eating out, ate sandwiches instead, and went shopping to grab a ton of items for those who are in need.  Isn’t it amazing to think what just one meal out could do?!

After shopping, your whole family (kids included!) could swing by to drop the donations off.  It really could be life changing not only for you but also for your children as they see how they’re able to give.

Whenever we teach coupon classes, Laurie and I always share that donating is the real reason we drive ourselves a wee bit nuts to share deals with you each day and get a few deals ourselves.  It would be so much easier just to swing by the store, get what we need and pay full price, but because we pinch a few pennies each week we’re able to give to those in need.

If you live in North Alabama area, like the 305 8th Street Facebook page to see their needs each week.  And if you have time to swing by, you can’t help but to fall in love with the residents.  They’re always willing to help bring in the grocery items out of your car, and love talking college football. Such a wonderful ministry and a wonderful way to bless those nearby!