Thursday, April 29, 2010

Brooks & Dunn & Avocados, Oh My!

I am so excited about Avocados this week! Both Vons/Safeway and Sprouts have them on sale for $0.50 (Sprouts is $0.47 I think, but I know most people don't have one of those nearby). I can hear the guac and veggie-focused sandwiches calling my name this week!

I also had the BEST time Tuesday evening. Toyota sponsered a private Brooks & Dunn concert at Club Nokia in LA and my roommate had tickets (it pays to fill out those surveys- she got them free for filling out a Toyota customer service one regarding the recall on her car), so off we went! The venue had maybe 1000 people in it, so everyone was really close up- definately the closest I have ever been to a famous performer.

Parking: $15
Pre-concert dining/beverage (for me and roomie): $40.50
In-concert beverage: $8
Seeing Brooks & Dunn's final (as of now) concert in LA: Priceless!

Monday, April 26, 2010

Gorgeous, frugal weekend!

I desperately need to find my camera cord. I have pictures that I want to put up on here, but I can't seem to locate that magic little thing that connects my camera to my computer. If I did I would have better pictures of this view for you.

This weekend was so beautiful, my friend and I drove to Palos Verdes on Saturday and meandered around some of the hiking trails. You can see the Pacific ocean from basically everywhere, and while it wasn't clear enough to see Catalina very well, the day was flat out gorgeous.

Sunday was a wonderfully lazy day after about 2 p.m. Before that it was a "clean the house" day (after sleeping in of course). I did let a $1 RR expire, but since it was so low (and gas isn't free) I'm OK with that. My neighbors and I grilled out and played cards and Jenga instead, and watched a few episodes of Match game on TV land. Seeing some of the 70's outfits on that show makes me wonder what aspects of todays dress will be made fun of in 30 years, but I digress.

So this was a wonderful weekend, and frugal to boot! My friend and I spent a few dollars on ice cream (well deserved on account of our hike) rather than going out to eat, and my only other expenditures were most of my weekly grocery shopping (~$25), and picking up some of that free Kotex at WAGS.

Friday, April 23, 2010

I am smart, S, M, R, T!

I have not done a lot of couponing lately, since work has been, what's the word? Oh yes. INSANE.

So I'm at work by the port, and right next door is the mercedes lot where they keep the cars between when they're offloaded from the boat and when they take them to the dealership. I could seriously count the number of true mercedes on my fingers. However, the lot had hundreds upon hundreds of those tiny little smart cars.

And I think to myself, "Self, who would by those?". Usually I don't look at other passengers, but sure as the grass is green, I passed a smart car yesterday that I just could not NOT look at. The guy driving must have been well over 6' tall, you couldn't even see the top of his head! Clearly these things were not built for big guys.

Now certainly, they'd be great for retirement communities as one serious golf-cart upgrade, and for going to the grocery store and such if you don't drive often. And they are a very frugal car choice (they start under 10K if I'm not mistaken). But at what hidden cost?

The mileage is good, but not great- my non-hybrid civic actually gets significantly better. You can only have one passenger, and the trunk is teeny. And then there is the safety aspect. I know they scored well in crash tests, but most crash tests only go up to 45 mph, and most are static (where they crash the car into a wall, not another moving car)- so most crash tests aren't very good representations of real-life safety- particularly on the highway. They provide a good baseline comparison to be sure, but I'd be interested to see what consumer reports or a company that really puts cars through the ringer came up with.

Different strokes for different folks I guess. But I'm still going to laugh when I pass a 6'6" guy squished into one of those cars.