Long Beach Island, NJ over the weekend

One of the few exciting things happened to me over the weekend. My husband and I left our daughter with my mother and we went to a private beach, Long Beach, NJ upon invitation from family as a family reunion location this year.

It’s been a while since we were on vacation. Last time we were on vacation was in September 2009. It’s almost been a year but it seems a lot longer when you are home with a toddler.

There are actually two Long Beach in the east coast, one of them in Long Island, NY and the other one in NJ. The one in NJ is private. I’m not sure about the Long Island one where a recent 12 year old who drown happened in Long Beach, Long Island, NY during a class trip. A heart-felt sympathy goes out to the victim’s family and friends.

Long Beach, NJ is about 2 hours away from NYC - 100 miles from Brooklyn. I don’t know if there are public parking around but there might. Our family reunion was in a private house which one of the distance family members has for the weekend. I’m not sure if it’s rented or it’s from someone related. All those houses have three floors. The floor has nothing because it’s close to the water, it’s intended it might get flooded. The second floor has bedrooms and bathroom(s). And then the third floor has a living room, office space, a bathroom, a kitchen and a patio with BBQ grills. It’s overlooking the ocean. It’s absolutely beautiful when the sun sets.
This house equip with an elevator. My husband was curious and we got on it for a ride. We couldn’t find the switch for the light inside the elevator so we were riding in the dark from the ground floor to the third floor. He got it kick out of this. And when we finally got up there, he looked for the switch and he found the hidden switch.

I overheard one of the family members that he’ll be coming back to this beach because he got invited by someone else (in a different beach house of course) and he said the houses right next to the beach costs about $12,000.00 for a week. When I got home, I told my mother about how much those beach houses next to the water costs for a one weekly rental, she opened her mouth in surprised. When I heard it, I was in shock how much it costs too. I know it costs a lot but $12,000.00 is A LOT.

We had a great time there. I love the part when a driver stopped for us and had his/her hands out to have other cars behind him/her to stopped for us when we cross to street to go to the beach. It’s courtesy that you do not see in NYC. From the many books that I’ve read about the rich, it’s very common for the rich to be courtesy (not all). And I believe that’s one of the many reasons they are where they are.

When I was younger, I used to love going to the beach and get burn. As I get older, I do mind getting burn. I don’t mind getting a little tan but sitting under the sun and getting skin cancer. I don’t like that anymore. Do I still dream of one day owning a house by the beach? I don't think so. I might prefer something/somewhere else.

Tracking Expenses Manually (inspired by frugaldad’s blog)

A while back, I attempted to write down all expenses on a daily basis for 1 week. I believe I did spoke to my husband about it and he agreed to do that. It was an eye opened for both of us. I believe I’ve used excel to track that.

After reading frugaldad’s blog, I attempt to do it one more time. However, this time, we’ll log our expenses manually and we’ll do it for 1 month (my husband agree to do it for a month). I am excited that he agrees to do it. It’s not easy convincing one’s spouse and I’m sure some of you know what I am talking about.

My first response was trying to get 13 columns columnar paper from Staples or ebay because it’s a lot neater to track anything that way. I would keep double entry on the ledger. After reading some of the comments in frugaldad’s blog, I decided to just use spiral notebook which I have many on hand which I purchased them last year or the year before (before school year started). It was very cheap to get those spiral notebooks. It might be 10-20 cents each for 70 pages. I will have a 4 columns on each pager, they will be 1) date 2) description 3) expense category 1 4) expense category 2. I have about 8-9 categories of expenses and will take 3 pages both back and front. At the end of the month, I will tally up at the end of the page. And I will do this for all the months (if my husband decided to do this all the way through the year till 6/30/2011). We’ll sit down and look at the numbers each month and discuss it.

I’m excited! And I can’t wait to start officially on July 1st.

Planting herbs

Last year, I started some herb plants at home. I spent some amount of money on a light, pots and soil. It didn’t work out that well because it brought bugs. I’m not sure if it was the soil or the air. We tried different soil and try other methods of killing the bugs but it was not successful and I finally had to give up on them.

I did planted basil and parsley outdoors during the summer months and it worked great. The basil was very easy to plant either indoors or outdoors but outdoors definitely beat indoors. I had so much basil that I froze them with olive oil and kept in cubes in the freezer. I still have a lot in the freezer that I haven’t gotten a chance to use. I think it’s time to throw them out.

This year I am planting the basil again but I am not planting too many of them. I only have 2 basil plants and they are working well consider I only use basil every once in a while.

I wish the parsley plants are doing much better but they are not. Parsley doesn’t grow as fast as basil and I love fresh parsley in my salads and juice.

Emergency kit for auto and/or home in case of natural disaster, terror attack, hurricane, fire and etc…

I’ve been busy preparing for an emergency kit for auto and home. I’ve checked out some websites (one of them is the American Red Cross) on what is needed in first aid kit and in emergency kits. Since having a toddler at home makes me unable to go out as free as one pleases, I have order most of the stuff online. I got them through ebay.com, amazon, dealextreme.com and etoncorp.com. It’s been fun shopping and waiting for products to arrive in the mail. It feels like someone is sending me a gift everyday. I wait for the mailman to drop it off and see what is in the package. It certainly feels like gifts from the mailman except they are paid for from my bank account.

My emergency is still in the process of completion. I ordered some items from oversea and they are taking at least 2 weeks to get here.

It certainly feels good to have a kit ready in case of emergency. I hope I don’t ever have to use it.