I'm SO tired of talking about money, Christine - updated

There has been a request to paint the whole picture so people can save the appropriate amount for OKI. Not a bad request at all! Here are my best approximations, but as we know from the house payments, sometimes an approximation isn’t as close as we’d like.

House	Car Rental	Airfare	Groceries
$ 349.41	$ 44.00	$ 188.00	$ 30.00	$ 611.41

We estimate that the total cost, including flights, car rental, and house rental will be around $611 per person, plus gifts and seafood. This is just an estimation, so don’t hold this as Bible truth or carve it into your arm, or something. Not that you do that, of course.

Freak.

AIRFARE: I’ve been watching the ticket prices since August, and they haven’t really fluctuated at all. It’s been staying just under $200. Right now, it’s $188, taxes included. That’s something that we’ll each purchase on our own as we want to. The flight on United leaves MCI at 7:15am, and arrives at ILM (Wilmington) at 12:09pm.

CAR RENTAL: Car rental prices also haven’t really moved since August. We’ll rent one car, and it’ll be $170 for the rental, including tax. That breaks down to $34 per person, plus $10 per person for gas. In the past (last year excluded), car and gas money has been due the day of the trip. We’re going to do it that way this year, to avoid anyone getting cheated out of money (Erin). I’ll just put the car deposit on my credit card (I promise Erin, this year I understand the whole deposit thing!!), and when we return the car I will use the cash everyone gave me on the 28^th to pay the bill. If we use less than $50 in gas, I’ll give you the cash back at the end.

MISCELLANEOUS: I am having a hard time estimating how much we spent on groceries the last few years. I know that we have to purchase all of the paper goods, like toilet paper and paper towels, all of the spices and condiments, etc. in addition to the food. I don’t remember it being a lot of money, especially since we tend to buy the cheapy brands (since it just don’t matter!). So…I guess I’d estimate that it’d be somewhere between $1 and $1,000. I’m thinking it may have been around $30 a person last year. As far as gifts, that’s personal discretion.
Also, if you love seafood, most people went to the fish market every day and bought fresh seafood. So keep that in mind as another possible expense.

I know Christine will be spending a lot on gifts for me!

If you have any questions, let me know blah blah bliddy blah.

-Jennifer L. Meyer
Senior Accounting Executive
OKI 4 Vacation, Inc.