Cross country moves = adding to the debt :(

The Bumblefucked household just up and moved 2,000 miles. Moving is always expensive. But moving across the country is REALLY expensive. Sure, we cut costs where we could but there are just some expenses you can’t avoid.

Gas. It takes a lot of gas to drive over 2,000 miles. To avoid paying out the nose for gas, we topped off the gas whenever we happened across an exceptionally low price on gas. This way we were able to avoid having to pay high prices when we were desperate for gas. We also took to only getting gas in more populated areas. It seems like the middle of nowhere gas stations are the ones that really stick it to ya. For instance, I paid a decent price for gas in Flagstaff, AZ. I did not gas up again until Kingman, AZ when I saw another decent price. But boy do I feel sorry for the schmucks that had to gas up in between those areas – the difference was about $0.40 a gallon!!

Food. For starters, we tried to stay at hotels that had free breakfast. We also looked for hotels that had a microwave and fridge. And we kept bread and peanut butter in the car. Then, we would take a few extra pack of jelly from the hotel breakfast so we could make PB & J’s in the car! Another way we saved money on food was by stopping at grocery stores instead of restaurants. This was an awesome cost savings!

Hotels. We had to have places to stay on the move. And hotels are not exactly cheap. At least not the types of ones you feel comfortable sleeping in! Fortunately one of the evil credit cards that we have is affiliated with a hotel chain. So every dollar spent earns hotel rewards points which turn into free hotel rooms. Since we knew for a while that we would be making this move we began using that card and paying off what we charged in order to earn points. I also had a bunch of Marriott Rewards points that I had been saving up from back when we were reckless spenders and travelers. And for the non-free hotels we looked at Last-Minute Hotel Deals at Expedia.com  and took advantage of the Expedia promotion for free gas cards when you book hotel stays.

The end result. Even though we found some awesome ways to save money the fact remains that we spent more in a few weeks that we normally spend in an entire month. So, that means we added to the credit card debt some. We also traded in our dying car for another used one. So the car loan balance on the sidebar will show an increase soon. But more on that later.