Tuesday, June 22, 2010

Getting Ready to Blow this Popcicle Stand

As I write this, I am sitting on the couch in our living room surrounded by cat toys and little bits of yarn from our carpet that Anna has pulled out.

My desk is covered in coupons, a dress, information about the various acts at the Fayette County Fair and shopping flyers.

Even our kitchen island is covered in mail and our poor floor hasn't been "swiffered" in about a week.

This is all do to my level of motivation dropping like the New York Stock Exchange.

The reason for this is because we are going to be heading on a mini-vacation to Williamsburg, VA on Saturday.

I always lack motivation when it is near a vacation. I just don't feel like doing much of anything which makes me even more tired.

Back to Williamsburg, Kev and I will be traveling with my parents to spend five days in the colonial town.

We have plans to visit Colonial Williamsburg, Busch Gardens, Williamsburg Pottery Outlet and Jamestown.

We tried to save money buy purchasing our tickets to Busch Gardens through Ticketmaster, and it has caused a miniature mess.

Before purchasing the tickets, Kev and I looked to see if there was a location that was close to us where we could go and pick up the tickets.

We saw a grocery store in our town would be able to do this, so we proceeded to purchase the tickets for $47 a piece instead of the advertised $61 a piece through Busch Gardens.

When we went to the grocery store to pick up the tickets, the person behind the desk told Kevin that since they were Virginia tickets, they couldn't print them out.

Needless to say, we were upset and were determined to not lose the money that we already had invested in the tickets.

When we got home, Kev called Ticketmaster who told him that he could pick up the tickets at a few of the grocery stores down in Virginia.

So this is what we are going to have to do. There should not be a problem because the guy from Ticketmaster told Kev twice that he will be able to pick up the tickets without a problem in Virginia.

Since my parents invited us to come with them, and they are taking care of the cost of the condo that we are staying in. In turn, we wanted to take them out to dinner one of the nights we are down there.

After reading so much about Restaurants.com, we decided to give it a shot.

For those of you who do not know about Restaurants.com it is a Website that lets you purchase gift certificates to various restaurants at a discount.

For example they are running a special now that lets you purchase a $25 gift certificate for $2 if you type in the promo code SUMMER. (This deal is only good until June 24.)

There are a few catches, not all towns participate with Restaurant.com. Since we do not directly live in a metropolition town, we don't have any restaurants that participate.

There are also some restrictions placed on the gift certificates. For example, some places will require a minimum amount to be spent in order to use the gift card, or they may restrict the use of the gift card to only Monday through Thursday.

All-in-all, it is a pretty good deal. If you are interested in learning more about Restaurant.com, let me know and I will tell you more information.

Since we are going to be staying at a condo, we will have a kitchen which means we will eat our breakfasts "at home" instead of going out each morning. This is a saving that can really add up.

What this also means is that we get to go grocery shop and I can try couponing at a different store. Call me a nerd, but I am super excited!

Well, I think the dust bunnies are starting to revolt against the cats, so I better go clean up this war zone.

If any one knows of any good places to check out in Williamsburg or knows of any great ways to save money while traveling, please leave a comment on the blog!

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