The Cost of Vacation, Part 4: NYC

This week, I’ll be sharing various expenditures related to my recent travels to both The Billfold Live and the JoCo Cruise, and how I feel about them.

So how much did I spend to travel to The Billfold Live? Let’s add up the numbers:

$292.35 for the flight (I cut my total flight cost of $584.70 in half to get this number, since I figured it should include the SEA-IAH-LGA leg and at least part of a return leg)

$37.50 for my bag to travel with me (half of the full $75 cost for three flights)

$337.53 for three nights at the Pod Hotel

$29.13 for the taxi from LGA to the Pod Hotel

$16.50 for the subway

$12.50 for a NJ Transit ticket to get to EWR

And then the cost of feeding myself over four days:

TUESDAY:

$18.13 for Vitamin Water, Airborne, and Purell at Seatac’s Hudson News

$8.99 for a Savory Pack on United Airlines

$19.66 for a bag of snacks at Starbucks

WEDNESDAY:

$4.30 for a cappuccino at Starbucks

$14.67 for buffet food at Marche Madison (baked fish, vegetables, and mac’n’cheese)

$1.99 for a box of granola bars at CVS

$0.00 at Botanica after The Billfold Live because Mike Dang bought me a Dark and Stormy

$12.28 for late night buffet food at Everyday Gourmet (more vegetables and mac’n’cheese)

THURSDAY:

$12.25 for a sandwich, cappuccino, and peanut butter cups at Starbucks

$13.09 for buffet food at Marche Madison (seriously, NYC has too many stores where you can buy hot mac’n’cheese by the pound, I can never live here)

FRIDAY:

$11.38 for a sandwich, a pack of blueberries, and a cappuccino at Starbucks

$16.13 for orange juice, a sandwich, and a donut at the Newark Airport Starbucks

Food Total: $132.87

Total Total: $858.38

Oh, wow. I wasn’t expecting that.

If put to it, I probably could have done without the trip to Everyday Gourmet, but other than that there wasn’t really much I could cut out of this travel. I might have been able to skip the Pod Hotel and find somebody willing to put me up for a few days, but I actually don’t know that many people who live in NYC, and I have long moved out of the stage of my life where I’m cool with couchsurfing with someone I don’t know very well. (I have horror stories. Believe me.)

Traveling to The Billfold Live was absolutely worth it, and I would absolutely do it again next year if they announce The Billfold Live 2: The Investment Returns of Curly’s Gold. It was the best thing ever to meet everybody, and to hear everybody’s stories. Plus I got to meet Mike and Ester, whom I had not met in person until that evening. AND JOSH’S BRASS BAND. You had to be there. (I mean, if you weren’t, there’s always the audio version.)

Also, this has got to be a tax deduction. All of the flight costs and the hotel costs, and something like 50 percent of the mac’n’cheese, right? Making an appointment with my CPA is still my Do One Thing for this week!

Tomorrow I will close out this week of calculations with the GRAND TOTAL of every penny I spent over my thirteen days of travel. I bet it will be over $5,000. Good gravy help us all.

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