Hi everyone! I hope you’re all ready for this series to start up again. =) I’ve been seeing more and more posts about the importance of gratitude popping up, and I think you all know how I feel about that by now.
Hint: it’s awesome!
I should mention, before we get started, that I’m grateful for being back at my parents’ house this weekend. We haven’t seen my parents since Christmas, as things have been a little hectic.
I also may or may not be making the transition to being a redhead this weekend. =) In light of that, I’m grateful for the freedom to dye my hair whatever color I want (I seriously contemplated purple for a bit) since I work from home!
Okay, let’s get on to the main reasons I’m being grateful this week.
The Ability to Travel
The first thing I’m being grateful for is the fact that I can take advantage of a crazy sale on plane tickets without hesitating.
I mentioned in my last post that I’m going back home to visit family and friends. Truthfully, I had been planning on going back at some point, but when tickets were $35 one-way, I knew I couldn’t turn it down.
There was a catch, though: there were certain dates you had to fly on (of course).
Being that I’m self-employed, this wasn’t an issue. For a moment, it kind of blew my mind. If I were still working, taking time off might not have been possible.
I’m so grateful I no longer have to answer to vacation time. It can be a hassle to deal with! Thankfully, R’s company is very lax about when employees take off, so between the two of us, there aren’t any issues.
I decided to stay longer than R because there’s simply no reason for me not to. Honestly, I wanted to stay for 2 full weeks, but because of the way the dates fell, that wasn’t really an option. Maybe next time!
My Grandma & Friends
I’ll be staying with my grandma the entire time. I don’t even have to ask her – I could show up at her doorstep tomorrow and she’d be happy to have me.
Obviously, this is a huge money-saver for us, as hotels aren’t cheap. Besides that, she’ll be making sure we’re fed (she already requested a list of food to buy).
Her birthday is the day after I leave, but we plan on celebrating early. I’ll either be making her dinner or taking her out!
I also have to mention my friends. For those that don’t know, R and I met through mutual friends. I met them in college, and he had met them in high school.
No one else has moved away, so we’re really excited to meet up with everyone again. However, because R is leaving before me, getting him to the airport was going to be tricky. My uncle normally picks us up and drops us off, but I felt bad asking so much of him (LGA is about 50 minutes away).
Instead, we asked our friend if he would mind driving R and myself (at a later date) back to the airport, and he said no problem. As thanks, I’ll either be baking lots of goods for our friends to eat, or taking our one friend out to lunch a few times!
I’m just really grateful to have friends and family who take care and look out for us.
Community
I’m always grateful for the personal finance community, as I think we all are.
When I was away on my “blogging hiatus”, I came to the realization that while I love personal finance, I have other interests, too.
I try to stay on the topic of PF here, but I intentionally named my blog Journey to Saving because it’s about the experiences I have as I pay off my student loans and (slowly) work my way toward financial independence.
These experiences won’t necessarily always be related to personal finance, and I want that to be okay. As part of my “goal” to be more personal on here, I’ll be sharing those experiences with you, and I hope you’ll stick with me.
Regardless, I joined another community (gasp) that encompasses a lot of different things, but at the core of it, is centered around gaming.
Video games are something that people are quick to frown upon. It’s akin to watching TV and wasting your life away, right?
While I do acknowledge that video games can be dangerously addictive, I don’t believe they’re inherently a bad form of entertainment, and it’s been nice being surrounded by others who feel similarly and embrace being nerdy/geeky/what-have-you.
Everyone in this community has been absolutely wonderful and welcoming, and I’m really looking forward to connecting with others outside of the PF world (and then hitting them with awesome money saving tips. That’s what it’s about, right?).
Video Games
So I’ll go ahead and throw it out there – I am grateful for video games. They’re a cheap form of entertainment when done right, as so many games have great replay value.
R recently dedicated about two or three months to Skyrim. It’s an old game now, but we got it for around $15. Very much worth it.
My parents actually gifted R a year subscription to Xbox Live, so he’s been getting back in touch with his Call of Duty alter ego. I played with him a few times and hilarity ensued, mostly because I’m horrible at first person shooters.
While he’s been busy with that, I’ve been playing games on my 3DS that I purchased for Christmas. Yep. It was on sale at Target for $150, and by using our REDcard, we basically saved on tax as it came out to $152. Awesome.
I might make a more detailed post on this, but I thought long and hard about how I wanted to spend money this year, after having what seemed like a tight 2014 (with moving and gearing up freelancing).
I came to the conclusion that video games are something R and I truly value. I’ll still stick to buying used games and waiting out new releases, though. No reason to go crazy.
I mean, when R took a week off back when we were first dating, we had a video game marathon that featured Fable, Assassin’s Creed, and Golden Sun. No regrets.
I like to think of video games the same way I think of books – both are a means to escape to another world, and playing with magic is fun (I mostly play RPG’s).
What are you being grateful for this week? Do you have certain values other people tend to look down upon or not understand?
Hello everyone!! It’s been a while, hasn’t it? Happy New Year, even though we’re close to the end of the month already! I hope all of you have been having a fantastic January so far.
