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[Anthony1971]

Las Vegas can be inexpensive if you hit the places off the main strip for food. The casinos make Disney look very inexpensive. The hotels are mostly subsidized by the casinos so always a decent deal to be had. I will disclose every time I went it was company paid but still had a budget some days… and the biggest tip of all as you have to walk through a casino to get a room just reach in your pocket pull out a 20 throw it on the floor and keep walking it’s much cheaper that way… at least for me… unless you are one of the lucky people that win sometimes or all the time in which case please send me a refund check you have some of cash.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

I just want to point out it says this thread has at least 11,000 views!!

 

[tvguy]

My two favorite road trips from Tahoe are Virginia City and Bodie. Checkout Ruby the Red Caboose. We have a stay booked there. I’m super excited about it and having a cocktail at the Bucket of Blood Saloon after the rest of the town shuts down.

If you go to Bodie plan a couple of days for the side trip and swing over to Yosemite.

Bodie is amazing.

 

[MsChristy12]

Where are you paying extra for Ranch Dressing??? I've never heard of such a thing.

Not necessarily ranch only but honey mustard, bbq sauce, tarter sauce, etc. Basically anything outside of ketchup and reg mustard, restaurants can charge you petty pennies for it if you ask for them!

 

[tvguy]

So I am trying hard not to wonder what the OP is thinking now. You know they have to be reading these! I’m still baffled as to why under $100k people don’t go on vacations or have homes or are incapable of saving. That is as insulting as saying poor people can’t budget. That is the big insult I hear being say in the line of work I am in. Anyhoo…on to better topics…

I missed that. I never made $100,000, and my wife and I combined working full time barely made above $100,000 and we have taken lots of vacations over the last 40 years. You just shop around. Our last cruise was on Celebrity, 7 day Pacific coast, Vancouver to Los Angeles with stops in Victoria, San Francisco, and Santa Barbara. $600 a person for a stateroom with a balcony....plus about $250 each round trip air fare. With tips and wine and excursions, $2,500.

 

[MsChristy12]

I won't stay anywhere other than the Cosmopolitan .... so yup ...
*pulls on his suspenders and lets them snap*

Ookaaaay...Bouuggiieee here aren't we!!?!? But I LOVE it!! Hahahaha Bougie can be my middle name! I feel like we would make great friends?
My favorite Vegas resort are the Palazzo and the Waldorf Astoria! Love Cosmo too especially if we had plans to hit up Marquee with the girlfriends!

 

[HopperFan]

I just want to point out it says this thread has at least 11,000 views!!

I do think we can thank the OP for that.

That title is eye catching and then you see that the thread is not only open but very active ....
...... everyone becomes curiouser and curiouser.

 

[focusondisney]

They did away with plastic bags in our county last year…I had a decent stash I guess but this week we bought kitchen trash bags for the first time in my life.

The handled kind from grocery stores? NY outlawed stores giving plastic bags a few years ago. Check Amazon or Sam’s club. We got 1000 for $20 from Sam‘s. Amazon was more expensive, but had more variety. We don’t use them for trash tho, but for the kids to take leftovers home, dropping stuff to family in quarantine, putting shoes in when packing, etc.

 

[john7994]

Ookaaaay...Bouuggiieee here aren't we!!?!? But I LOVE it!! Hahahaha Bougie can be my middle name! I feel like we would make great friends?
My favorite Vegas resort are the Palazzo and the Waldorf Astoria! Love Cosmo too especially if we had plans to hit up Marquee with the girlfriends!

Haha... what can I say ... lots of energy there ... good food onsite like Scarpetta, Zuma, Momofuku, Beauty&Essex, Blue Ribbon and a fun speakeasy to hang out in along with a pretty lively day club scene... (most of that is well behind me now of course!)

 

[barkley]

We haven’t paid off our mortgage, doesn’t really make sense as the interest rate is so low, and back in the day we could deduct the interest payments

when the tax laws changed it wasn't advantageous for us anymore so it was incentive for us to pay it off but back when we were doing our best to reach the criteria to itemize-heck yes we retained our mortgage. i clearly remember going to see our cpa after we married and she ran the numbers, looked at us and asked 'how long are you going to wait to buy a house so you can save some money?'. yup, we ended up paying a few hundred more on the mortgage vs. renting but it was a life saver tax wise.

Anyone here from Nashville here?? I work with colleagues from that area and they have an additional 15% liquor tax on top of the 9.25% sales tax!!! I can't imagine going out for a drink and get charged 24.25% tax on my cocktail!!

try 20.5%-that's out the door sealed bottle. a drink in a bar is 13.7% PLUS the prevailing local sales tax so where i'm at-9.1%. your cocktail will run you base cost plus 22.8%

is in any wonder we make a run for the next state over with no sin tax and sales tax at 6%?

 

[tetera]

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[tetera]

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[john7994]

Anyone here from Nashville here?? I work with colleagues from that area and they have an additional 15% liquor tax on top of the 9.25% sales tax!!! I can't imagine going out for a drink and get charged 24.25% tax on my cocktail!!


It is also 10.25% for us....


I seriously thought we were the highest too. 11.5%?! That's crazy!!

And Nashville is one of my favorite cities to visit for a weekend out of town

 

[bcwife76]

Zumanity! My husband proposed to me there while we were waiting for the show to start
Haven't stayed at the Cosmopolitan (I would like to) but we had a great breakfast there last time DH and I were in Vegas (2017 I think) at Eggslut. YUM.

Most of the cities in my province have a ban on single use plastic (bags) so if you forget your reuseable bags you either need to buy more there, take all your stuff in your cart and dump it in your trunk or get paper bags (if offered, sometimes at a cost) and let me tell you, frozen foods and paper bags do not work well.

 

[nw6675]

Speaking of bags - has anyone bought from the Bradford Exchange? They have a cute Minnie & Mickey, but not sure I went to spend $139 on a no-name bag. Are they decent quality? At least D&B, Vera, Kate, etc. you can feel a little extra

 

[MsChristy12]

Our Travel friends to Disney won't drink Joffrey's ever, never, ever ... so get where people can draw the line
When we stay there, we bring our own for the mornings

We will drink Joffrey when we are at the parks if we need a quick boost! But will only get their cold brew straight up, no milk, no syrup, nada!

Okay see now we're about to go on a tangent about pour over coffee
And 100% agreed on Starbucks, I like dark roasts, bold flavors, bitter, dark chocolate too but Starbucks is just burnt to me.

Pour over is great but I am no expert about them. We like French Press so on weekends sometimes we'll do it if we got some local beans that we haven't tried.
I can't believe I didn't know better for YEARSSSS and drank that Charbucks!! Ugh! Now I will only go in there for convenience when I'm on the road. Or I'll get the Chestnut Praline Latte a few times during the holidays, but with half the syrup! Otherwise, I think I go inside Charbucks once every couple months??

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

Haha... what can I say ... lots of energy there ... good food onsite like Scarpetta, Zuma, Momofuku, Beauty&Essex, Blue Ribbon and a fun speakeasy to hang out in along with a pretty lively day club scene... (most of that is well behind me now of course!)

Scarpetta was one of our favs but last time we decided it's time to move on, it'll still be on the list but not a must do for every trip anymore. But the braised short ribs..so yummy and good desserts.

Last trip we tried out Rivea at the top of Delano and such good food. Then there was Lakeside at Wynn (a splurge but we had a $100 resort credit to use up). Now Mon Ami Gabi is still a must for breakfast every time, dessert is good too

Really we joke but we got to Vegas primarily for food and ambiance. We gamble a tad but just a wee bit. My husband is video poker stadium black jack and I'm slot machines..so naturally I either win the money for us or lose it

 

[MsChristy12]

As I was leaving work earlier...I thought to myself "why the furk did I bother to get ready to come into the office today?! What did I get done??!" *sigh*.....

 

[barkley]

Has it always been like this? I don’t remember it being that bad during my college days (but is been a few decades)!

things changed when it privatized but on the flip side we are no longer limited to state run stores that close early.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

Pour over is great but I am no expert about them. We like French Press so on weekends sometimes we'll do it if we got some local beans that we haven't tried.
I can't believe I didn't know better for YEARSSSS and drank that Charbucks!! Ugh! Now I will only go in there for convenience when I'm on the road. Or I'll get the Chestnut Praline Latte a few times during the holidays, but with half the syrup! Otherwise, I think I go inside Charbucks once every couple months??

My husband is the expert on the pour over, I just leave it to him lol. I prep the stuff getting the water in the electric kettle we have, getting the coffee variety we'll be having out (though he weighs out the beans and grinds them with the machine), get the mugs out, set up the pour over with the filter...but then he does the rest of the work.

French press is good too though!

As far as not knowing for years preach. This pour over was actually a birthday gift to me a couple years back (see here we go again with being a practical gal) and we both can't believe we went this many years without having it. We used to buy coffee from a local place that also makes their own chocolate but unfortunately their pricing just got too high to justify it. We get a lot of our stuff now from Costco but they sell local stuff too. We had been buying this specialty variety from a local company that appears to be marketed just for our local Costcos and because it's Costco it came in 2lbs and lasted for a long time (still stayed really good though especially when we switched to grinding just before we use it).