Signs of Life : The Brownie Chronicles

I'm super excited to share our meals and how we saved well over $400 during our vacation! **Check with your hotel to learn what appliances are/are not allowed. These meals can all be made in the microwave if a skillet cannot be used.** Originally, we had booked two standard rooms at Cabana Bay Beach Resort. When they offered us a great upgrade deal, we changed to a tower family suite with a kitchenette.  This ended up offering us a huge savings by allowing me to prepare 5 breakfasts, 4 dinners, and some snacks in our room.  The grands ate a few breakfasts and 3 dinners with us, so we were feeding 7-9 people at an average of $15.55 per meal!  (That's $1.73-$2.22 per person!) Big thanks to Trader Joe's for providing such high-quality, quick-prep foods!  (No, this isn't an ad or sponsored blog!) First of all, if there is any debate about the size of these "mini" fridges at Cabana Bay Beach, see this photo and notice the gallon of milk in the background. T...

This blog post is the "before" the cruise excursion.  It will be interesting to see how the "after" turns out! Thanks to an excellent review from Joel Barish 's travels Around The World, we knew we couldn't miss The Baths National Park at Virgin Gorda!  (His review of The Baths begins at 04:00) We've never planned a cruise excursion on our own; it's a bit scary!  There are pros and cons to going it alone, the biggest two pros for me being control and money. Money If all goes as planned, it's much cheaper to plan your own excursion than it is to book with your cruise line.  The greatest risk, and probably the main reason most people book with their cruise line, is the possibility of being left behind.  If a shuttle breaks down, if traffic comes to a standstill, if some act of God causes you to be late for "all aboard," the ship will not wait for you.  On the contrary, if you've booked through the cruise line, the ship will wa...

By nature, I'm a procrastinator.  I've been one who says "I work best under pressure" and it's most often true.  It's not often than my "type A" side shows up, but when it does, it comes on strong! Numbers spreadsheets? Yes! Planning out activities months in advance? Please and thank you! Painstakingly researching and comparing prices? But of course! Planning a trip awakens my inner geek! After Ken and I crunched broad numbers and decided we could book a Disney Cruise, I began searching for ways to get to the port (drive for fly?), where to stay overnight (hotel or Airbnb?), and even the best rest stops along the way. That blog is coming up next. First I created a spreadsheet in Numbers where I could plug in...numbers...and calculate things such as gas prices and compare hotel costs.  Typically, I'd go straight to Airbnb, but since we were looking for one quick overnight stay in Mobile and a possible night near Port Canaveral, hotels are o...

There is a huge debate out there in the Interwebs that starts with the question, "Is a Disney Cruise worth it?"  Seriously, just Google that and you'll see for yourselves.   Like I mentioned before, the answer to that question is completely subjective, depending on what's important to you.  For us, the only other cruise Ken and I have taken was on Disney Cruise Line .  The Disney "magic" cannot be denied!  It also happened to be the name of the ship we sailed back in 2008. When we began considering a cruise, we did look at other cruise lines.  They cost significantly less. (Click here to read about ways we found to save for a vacation.) My parents cruise extensively, enjoying a few cruise lines, and had taken our older kids on a Royal Caribbean cruise, each on their 13th birthdays, so we knew Disney wasn't the only option. Mackenzie said the Royal Caribbean trip was her favorite cruise, but she wants to see how cruising Disney as a teen will compar...

I went in to this a bit before, but here are some small ways we save money daily. These can add up to big savings over a full year: No cable. We've been without cable for over 10 years. It's become easier and easier with free online content. We do pay for a Netflix subscription, but otherwise watch free Hulu, YouTube, and sometimes take advantage of free 30-day trials of YouTube Red, Hulu Plus, and Amazon.  We have bunny ears we drag out if there is something we really want to watch with the rest of the world, such as Nyle DiMarco on DWTS or the Super Bowl.  Savings: $120/month or $1440/year Ken has even started getting in on the haircut action. Haircuts.  While living in Vegas, a friend taught me some haircutting basics, then I used YouTube to help me do a halfway decent job.  I don't trust myself on the girls' haircuts, but I can use a razor.  I DO color my girls' hair.  That has saved us hundreds of dollars I won't even factor in here.  I...

As mentioned previously, the Brownies have a  major 2-week vacation  planned for September. It's the first true vacation we've taken since our  RV trek to NAD  4 years ago this very month. I remember when we had our cruise planned back in 2010, a friend asked, "Why would you spend so much money on a Disney Cruise?! Why not buy a car or something? That money is gone in a week!" Evidently,  our  friends aren't the only ones who feel that way.  I've recently seen several bloggers discuss and defend their spending on vacations. Here's a  snarky one  that is Disney-specific, and another post from a general  travel blogger .  By the way, I enjoy a little well-placed snark now and then. We've waited 6 years for this and it's truly a dream vacation for us. After the kids willingly gave up their trip in 2010, we promised we would go in the future. Since that time, we've taken several major hits on our income.  That's a long story,...