Financial Report: San Francisco and Washington (Part 1 of 3)

We had a wonderful trip last week!  We flew from Las Vegas to San Francisco, spent the day in San Francisco then flew to Seattle, took a ferry to the Kitsap Peninsula, visited there for a couple of days, came back to Seattle, took the train to Portland where we stayed for a couple of days, then flew home to Las Vegas.

The finances (costs for both of us):

• Flight from Las Vegas to San Francisco $184.00
• Flight from San Francisco to Seattle $140.00
• Train from Seattle to Portland $61.05
• Flight from Portland to Las Vegas $230.00

We spent the day in San Francisco and it was wonderful!  We dropped our bags at the USO (its like a very fancy lounge at the airport for military and retired military members) and got a bunch of tourist info from the guy at the desk there.  We hopped on the BART train for the trip into downtown San Francisco, got off in Chinatown, then walked down to Fisherman's Wharf.  At Fisherman's Wharf we had to try some clam chowder in a sourdough bread bowl (yummy) which is kind of a San Francisco classic, then we took a cable car back up to Chinatown.  We ate lunch in Chinatown (both yummy and cheap), then took the BART train back to the airport.  We hung out a bit at the USO before our flight left and chatted with the volunteer staff there who were great!  Total spent in San Francisco: $79.10 (for BART train, cable car ride, and food)

Next we were off to Seattle where we took the lite rail from the airport to the ferry then took the ferry to the Kitsap Peninsula where we stayed with hubby's cousin who had just visited us in Las Vegas a couple of weeks ago.  Total spent on transportation: $14.50

The next day we hit some of our favorite places including the most amazing crepe place ($17.67), hubby played poker with some of his old poker buddies while I met up with a friend for lunch ($21.11), we stopped by the $1 Store to buy treats for my friend's kids ($7.75), meandered by the Goodwill where I found a brand new Sherpani backpack for $3.03, and then met up with a bunch of friends for a wonderful buffet at the Suquamish Casino ($5 for tip, they paid for dinner).

Thursday we were off again!  I picked up a hot chocolate at my favorite coffee place for $3.35 then paid $4 for the city bus to get to the ferry.  The ferry was free on the return trip to Seattle, and we had a great lunch at one of our favorite Chinese places (Harbor City dim sum...as usual it was a half hour wait just to get in the door) for $29.58.  I picked up a bottle of water for $1.95 then we hopped on the Amtrak to head south.

On Friday I spent the day working at my friend's office then we were invited to dinner with my sisters (which, surprise, I got to pay for...$120.00!).

Saturday was our final day of vacation.  We went to a buffet ($27.11) for our big family reunion where I saw family members I hadn't seen for 30+ years!  We also gave $20 to a niece to pay for her dinner, then picked up candy at the $1 Store ($2.00) before we caught our plane back to Las Vegas.

What saved us a lot of money was staying with friends and relatives in each place plus they gave us cars to use while we were there so no hotel costs and no rental car costs saved us a lot of money.  We spent a crazy amount of money on restaurants which was fine because we pretty much expected this as mostly what we do when we vacation is eat out.  We also got a couple of nice discounts because I asked for hubby's senior discount on things like the train and ferry.

Total spent on our trip: $971.20

In order to keep this post less than 500 inches long, I will post pictures of our trip in the next blog post...