Behind the Scenes of our 901-mile, 1-day Frugal Highway Journey

Nevertheless as quickly as further, Mr. Frugalwoods and I’ve engaged in frugal weirdo conduct of comparatively epic proportion. This time, it was contained in the sort of a avenue journey. A really extended avenue journey. Are you conscious you in all probability can lease a automotive at 10pm on a Tuesday evening time time in Charlotte, NC and return it the very subsequent evening time time at 10pm in Boston, MA and solely be charged for a single day? Efficiently, you in all probability can.

And I’m sure a few of you frugal bosses have essentially achieved this prior to, nonetheless this was information to us. As quickly as we had been in possession of the data that we’d pay for a single day of automotive rental for a 901-mile journey, we had been possessed with the thought-about doing it. Ever the opportunists for money-saving hacks, we smelled a grand journey.

Gadgets: The Want For The Drive

Ahead of I delve into the gory particulars of our avenue travails, enable me to first clarify precisely why we felt the necessity to embark on this car-fueled jaunt. Mr. FW’s unbelievable dad and mom reside in Charlotte, NC and are contained in the strategy of downsizing. They’re on tons the equal clutter-annihilating binge as yours actually and are systematically attacking their closets, attics, and completely different storage places.

As a part of this laudable pre-move organizational surge, they’re allocating to Mr. FW and his siblings their respective belongings. Moreover they saved fairly only some teen units, which they’re sweetly passing alongside to us for his or her first grandchild, aka Babywoods. Thus armed with the intention to accumulate the trimmings of Mr. FW’s youth, we booked supremely low-cost one-way flights ($78.10 per specific particular person) all one of the simplest ways proper right down to Charlotte and hatched the plan to drive as soon as extra.

Sidenote on utilizing monetary establishment card parts (of which we now have acquired many saved up): our pal Brad from Richmond Savers educated us on the redemption worth of issues and the info of not using parts when you in all probability can protected flights as cheaply as we’d for this journey. It’s not worth it to waste parts when you should buy a flight for thus little money. Do you need to ever have any journey hacking questions, I terribly advocate Brad’s stellar recommendation. The bonus is that we know him (in exact life!) and he’s a very superior man.

We spent only some days at my in-laws’ earlier this week sorting via Mr. FW’s childhood books, trophies (together with 1^st place for being an “accelerated reader” in fifth grade), a number of tuba mouthpieces, a bag of change, his Bert & Ernie dolls from babyhood, and quite a few accouterments. Tellingly, quite a lot of the ephemera from his youth mirrors his present pursuits.

We discovered tenting knives, tents, books on astronomy and laptop programming (“25 Thrilling Video video video games Written In Essential” anybody?), and an work enterprise he did at age 7 proclaiming that his favourite meals was pizza, his favourite animal was a canine, and that he wished to be a truck driver or architect when he grew up. Apparently Mr. FW has been fairly clear on his life objectives from the beginning ;). It was satisfying to uncover these trinkets of his earlier and I’m thrilled to carry these tidbits as soon as extra house to sometime present to Babywoods.

Most significantly, Mr. FW merely just lately inherited a handmade wood chest of carpentry units from the late 1800s, together with: planes, chisels, augers, saws, squares, and loads of others, which belonged to his great-great grandfather. This chest, which is over three ft extended and tremendously heavy, was residing in his dad and mom’ storage.

Mr. FW is touched to inherit these units partly on account of he’ll truly use them. It’s fairly unbelievable to have such a sturdy set of units that his great-great grandfather employed in tons the equal approach as he’ll: to assemble and restore wood factors. All by way of fairly nifty and positively positively nicely well worth the journey.

To Ship Or To Drive? Furthermore, Why A Rental Automobile?

We investigated alternatives for transport the instrument chest to our house in Cambridge and shortly found that the associated cost would far outstrip that of a rental automotive. Plus, given each the sentimental and good worth of the units, we weren’t eager to hazard the potential perils of transport. With the addition of Mr. FW’s childhood outcomes and the hand-me-down teen units, driving appeared the one sane various.

Now we do love and revere our one automotive, the venerable Frugalwoods-mobile. Nevertheless, she’s a 19-year-old, 206,000+ mile automobile and we actually didn’t need to hazard her life on an 1,802 mile round-trip trek from Massachusetts to North Carolina.

Since Frugalwoods-mobile is grime low worth for us to private and efficiency ($400/yr insurance coverage protection safety… want I say extra?), we’d need to proceed driving her for so long as motor-vehicularly attainable and this journey appeared select it might prematurely hasten her demise. Given this curiosity in prolonging Frugalwoods-mobile’s lifespan, we determined {{{that a}}} rental automotive could possibly be primarily probably the most protected various.

I think about {{{that a}}} non-frugal weirdo would attainable assess the size of this odyssey (901 miles, to be exact) and elect to make it into at the least a two-day sojourn, replete with a resort preserve and restaurant meals peppered in. Nonetheless as you acknowledge, Mr. FW and I typically do the precise reverse of what frequent people do. Makes life extra fascinating and saves a ton of dough.

Optimistic, we’d’ve incurred the extra expense to stretch out our outing, nonetheless correct proper right here’s the problem: delicate discomfort is non eternal; dropping cash is everlasting. Eventually after the journey—no matter which various we’d chosen—it’s forgotten about. It’s a finite time-frame and a finite quantity of draw back. Contained in the grand scheme of factors, driving 14.5 hours in in some unspecified time sooner or later isn’t that large of a deal. And since we’re optimizers to the core, discovering a technique to hack this expedition was a pleasant endeavor for us. While you flip the entire thing correct proper right into a frugal effectivity sport, life turns into an incredible deal extra pleasing and, as a byproduct, an incredible deal cheaper.

Let’s Do The Numbers!

I do know, I do know, that is your favourite half! No individual else would care precisely how tons we spent and precisely how tons we saved, nonetheless I do know you all do. And that’s why I like writing for you! The place else can I wax poetic concerning the deserves of packing all of 1’s non-public meals for a 14-hour drive!?

The Frugalwoods Freeway Journey Stats:

The Cash We Spent:

Now, only for funsies, let’s think about our actual whole with the projected whole of extending our junket to two days and going the extra normal route of buying meals.

Estimated Quantity Saved by Touring like Frugal Weirdos:

I don’t uncover out about you, nonetheless I’m elated to stay away from shedding $352.39 simply by buckling down and getting this voyage knocked out in a day. Plus, I think about definitely considered one of these vitality journey may not be attainable/clever as rapidly as Babywoods is born, so why not revenue from our present no-kid standing?

For the doc, Babywoods and I did merely massive contained in the automotive at precisely 31 weeks (aka 7.75 months) pregnant. She contentedly kicked alongside and after I wasn’t driving, I sat cross-legged contained in the passenger seat (with my seatbelt on, don’t fear), which made my hips very totally glad. Thanks yoga for preserving me in form!

How We Did It

Whereas the principal hack for this trek was merely willpower, there have been only some methods we employed to drag it off. I used to be going to say “and by no means using a hitch,” nonetheless there was that point pulling out of a relaxation space after I unintentionally turned the automotive on in ‘accent mode,’ which seems deceptively like actual driving mode, nonetheless doesn’t indicate you’ll velocity up earlier roughly 3 miles per hour… very good second for me.

There have apparently been fairly only some enhancements in automotive manufacturing since 1996 (Frugalwoods-mobile’s provide yr) and this automotive turned on with a button, which I indirectly managed to press incorrectly. In my security, this rental automotive had extra lights, buttons, dials, gauges, screens, and reveals than a fighter jet cockpit (as if I’d know, right?). We discovered the entire instruments fairly hilarious since we merely do massive with our simplified, historic automotive. Often (okay, truly often), extra is decidedly not larger. Nevertheless, I’m going to say that I very tons appreciated the heated seat various early contained in the morning. Scorching buns, anybody? Okay, as soon as extra to the hacks:

1. 

   We picked up the rental automotive on the newest attainable second the evening time time prior to: 10pm. We knew we’d ought to get a strong evening time time’s sleep, nonetheless we didn’t need to hem ourselves in on the choice finish by choosing the automotive up too early. Subsequently, 10pm appeared like an moderately priced stability. Seems, we returned the automotive at 8:30pm the subsequent evening time time, so we gave ourselves a pleasant little buffer.

2. We stacked and arranged the entire stuff we wished to schlep forward of time. After returning to Mr. FW’s dad and mom’ house with the automotive on Tuesday evening time time, it took us a mere quarter-hour to load the automotive. Fairly fast truly, which enabled us to leap in mattress with good haste.
3. We executed what we time interval “hike day morning” (aka the method we modify to after we make the 3-hour trek to the White Mountains for a day of mountaineering). We awoke at 5am, showered, dressed, packed up our meals and occasional, and left the driveway at 5:27am. Prepping the entire thing from sandwiches to socks the evening time time prior to enabled us to roll out the door quickly. We’d have appreciated to keep away from Charlotte’s morning rush hour by a giant margin, which we had been fortunately in a position to accomplish.

4. 

   We packed all of our non-public meals. That could possibly be a sort of double-edged advantages for the road-tripping frugal weirdo. Along with the at the least $75 saved on meals itself, having on-board meals allowed us to ration our stops and save tons of time. We pulled off the freeway a mere 6 occasions for restroom and re-fueling breaks. An infinite as a consequence of my in-laws for offering us with peanut butter sandwiches, bananas, espresso, scones, granola bars and extra for the street. Our dad and mom are terribly beneficiant and we deeply respect it!

5. Mr. FW mapped a route that circumvented all principal east coast cities, with the intention of avoiding any and all rush hours. Thus, we added some mileage to our whole journey, nonetheless cleverly skirted Washington, DC (considerably necessary provided that our sojourn coincided with the Pope’s go to), New York Metropolis, and fully completely different miscellaneous medium to massive cities on our route. We in its place appreciated significantly bucolic countryside setting replete with cows, timber, mountains, and horses. Moo!

It’s All About The Mindset

Lastly and most crucially, we seen this quest as an intriguing frugal draw back. As an alternative of dreading it or fretting over it, we thought-about it merely one completely different exemplification of our excessive frugality mode of existence. The ability to derive enjoyment from our frugality is a key ingredient to principal a hilarious, fulfilling, and luxuriously frugal life.

Mr. FW and I checked out one another when devising this plan and talked about, “why not cram 14.5 hours of driving into in some unspecified time sooner or later?” We actually couldn’t take into consideration a single set off to not. We knew we’d do it safely with two drivers and ample snacks. And, as I’m eager on claiming, you’ll do nearly one factor for a short while body.

This journey is in no way primarily primarily probably the most excessive feat of journey ever carried out contained in the set up of frugality and effectivity, nonetheless I actually really feel it serves as a major event of life optimization. Enduring short-term challenges to reap longer-term monetary optimistic factors are nearly frequently worth it. Plus, we now have a narrative to inform Babywoods about that one time mommy nearly tried to merge onto the freeway in a rental automotive that was in impartial…

What journey adventures have you ever ever ever undertaken to economize?