February Money Review

The start of a new month, and the accounting on the home level continues.

February was kind to us (or we were kind to ourselves). Total groceries (food) for the month? $132.17 (and that counts a birthday cake Warren bought for his adult children, February birthdays both, for $11.99). Non-food items? A stunning $3.16. Grand total?  $135.33.

Average year-to-date? $148.32.

Our eating out, as expected, was impacted by our road trip to Mayo. Without the Mayo trip, eating out was a cool $11.50. Mayo though (our portion only, as we treated family members at times) added another $70.08 to the pile, for a total of $81.58.

We knew that was coming.

That $70.08 contains one of my favorite "eating out" meals ever. Ever. Heading into Rochester Sunday evening, tired, road-weary (there had been much snow and ice en route, starting early that morning coming out of Chicago), feeling the omnipresent burden of my cancer, we talked as we drew nearer. "What do you want to do for dinner?" "I don't know. What do you want to do?" Neither of us were interested in fast food. I said that I wasn't up for a restaurant, even a casual one. The back and forth continued with little progress. 

We needed gas and so pulled into the Kwik Trip as we came into Rochester. Krip Trips are a chain of gasoline stations/convenience stores primarily in Wisconsin and Minnesota. They have food, including produce, bakery items, and snacks. Warren encouraged me to go in and look.

Nothing was appealing. When I am this worn out, I can stare at even a Michelin-starred menu and see nothing appealing. Warren, though, was persuasive and, most important, patient. "How about this?" Head shake. "How about this?"

We ended up spending $5.92, buying a large Caesar salad and two (2!—Count 'em!—2!) pints of skim milk. We still had clementines, pretzels, and homemade cookies in our travel bag from the packed supper the night before. Okay, we could make this work.

30 minutes later, we were checked into our room and I was in sweats (i.e. comfortable). We sat side by side on the deep couch in the room, spread out our meal on the coffee table, and proceeded to eat and regroup from the long, hard day.

It was perfect. Perfect. The first milk container (which I swigged) calmed me down, the second one relaxed me utterly. (Note: Warren is not a milk drinker. That milk was all for ME!) The salad was as fresh as the ones I've pulled from the Mayo cafe after the cafeteria closes and there was more than enough for the two of us. Add the items from home, add being warm and off the road and in for the night, add being in Oz, and life was good. Life was better than good. It was as good as it gets.

The Mayo trip itself came in at almost $413.00, counting the eating out noted above. About $102.00 of that was the car rental. Gas was a stunningly economic $76.32; we had a rental that got over 42 miles per gallon. While we stayed one night in Chicago (Oak Park), crashing for free at our sister-in-law's condo, we had two hotel stays for a total of $164.59. The first was our usual in Rochester, the second was in, of all places, Merrillville, Indiana.

A word about Merrillville. We drive through it all the time en route to Chicago or further points north and west. The town sits on the intersection of US 30 (east/west across Indiana) and I-65 (north/south from Gary on down). There is a town, somewhere, but we always see the US 30 strip of chain stores and eateries and heavy traffic. But this trip, looking at the weather, looking at our late(r) departure from Rochester, looking at our schedule, Warren suggested we stay in Merrillville rather than Oak Park. That alone would put us an hour and a half or more (depending on traffic) closer to home. While we have driven straight from Rochester to home before, arriving somewhere around 3:00 a.m., neither of us felt we were up to it this time. Hence, Merrillville.

And you know what? It was great. We grabbed a late evening meal-to-go at Portillo's, a hot dog chain that we have hit in Illinois. (Who knew one was in Merrillville? Warren, apparently.) A good sleep, a passably decent breakfast as part of our hotel stay, and we were back on the road in the morning with a little over four hours ahead of us. It worked out so well in terms of driving, minimizing exhaustion, and arriving home at a reasonable time that we may make Merrillville a regular stop.

Who knew?