October 2

$18 Fandango (movies)

Dinner:  Falafels

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The plan today is for a NSD.  Will see how it goes.  MH has another volunteer shift today.  I certainly have no plans to leave the house.

Edited to add:  Money was spent.  See below.

We spoke to MM(18) very briefly today.  He squeezed us into his busy schedule.  My heart is very happy.  He was always so bored with school and so I am just crying tears of joy after talking to him.  The workload (very easy freshman schedule, assigned by the college) is easy and that part is probably boring to him.  But he's joining several clubs and getting a variety of hands-on engineering experience.  He was basically planning to spend the day in labs and machine shops, learning a lot today.  & was very excited about some math/physics project he is working on for one of the clubs.

We did discuss the food last week.  After seeing his food spending detail and seeing other parents complaining about "airport food prices" at the college dining halls, we told MM(18) to just eat out if it was better/cheaper.  That we'd cover it, if it saved us money overall.  So I was surprised he hadn't eaten out at all.  Anyway, we talked to him today and he told us he was figuring it out.  Was telling us he had found $3 potatoes.  & I mean, cooked/prepared potatoes in the dining hall for $3. & I am going to bring him some ceramic bowls for oatmeal, stuff like that.  He's getting a feel for what is filling and some of the better values.  I'll probably give it another week or two before I look at it again.  We have a "redo" end of October where we can change the dining plan.  But my crystal ball says he will still run out of money before the end of the quarter, and that we won't be changing his plan downwards.  We've already chosen the max dining plan.  (I figured that was a safe bet).

My trip is getting complicated with the change from 1-2 people to now 3 people.  MH had movie plans (free with his pass) to see the new James Bond movie.  We re-arranged those plans today.  Which was really irritating me for a while.  But we finally just re-arranged the puzzle pieces and got it all figured out.  Phew!  Once we figured it out, everything fell into place.  We are splurging on the hotel and dinner out (x4) one night, but that should be it.  MH used a Fandango gift card (that I won) to get a free movie ticket for himself, but he's going to the movies with his Dad (a stop on our drive home) and he picked up a ticket for his Dad.  Thus, $17 spent today.  In turn we will get a free place to stay for a night and a free meal.