Simply Well Spent

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Our Favorite Coffee Shops in DC

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Is it slightly hilarious and ironic that I’m writing a post about coffee shops and I don’t even like it!? Ian’s the coffee drinker, whereas I’ll take a cup of tea over those blehhh tasting brewed beans any day (alright, alright that’s a little harsh and very much a personal opinion but ya get it!). So yeah, probably a little hilarious. BUT even though I don’t drink coffee I’m still a sucker for visiting “coffee” shops, ordering my tea (or hot chocolate if I’m feeling particularly indulgent!), and enjoying the space.

And now enter DC, one of our favorite cities that we get to visit several times a year on work trips. On those trips, Ian’s spending his days in the office, and I am usually spending my days hopping around the city finding a place to call my own little office for a couple hours – which usually ends up being coffee shops. I can’t offer a take on the coffee itself, but from reviews and the number of people at all these places, I can tell you they are all doing something right! So here it is – a list of my favorites coffee shops in Washington, DC  (in no particular order):

Slipstream

Plenty of table space, clean, bright, and modern atmosphere, and it’s not just for your coffee needs – this place also has cocktails, and provisions on their menu. Plus, there are two locations: one on 14th Street NW, and one in Navy Yard….

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Getting the Most out of Your Accommodations

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One of the biggest costs of any trip is the accommodation. Sure, airfare can be cheap or even free, but it is harder to find good deals on hotels and Airbnb’s. A couple nights of hotels or Airbnb’s, plus the assorted cleaning fees and taxes and whatnot can really add up.

One of the best things you can do to fight against the accommodation money-suck is to consolidate your rewards programs. And what I mean by that is to pick a major hotel chain and stick with it when you are looking at multiple bookings that cost the same. This way, you will be able to funnel any rewards points into one stack instead of randomly having a couple thousand points here and there.

Hotel points are funny because it seems like across the board almost they cost more in points than airfare. On Southwest, a $100 flight will run me around 5,000 points, but a hotel room at a mid-level chain can easily start at 20,000 points. Because of that, these hotel credit cards with huge sign-up bonuses don’t go as far compared to airline cards with smaller sign-up bonuses….

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Barclay’s Arrival Card and Airbnb (or Disney)

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We have been taking a little bit of a break from our “Summer of Renovations” the past week and a half with Sarah’s parents in town. However, any chill time that we got in over the evenings was well-earned because they helped paint all of our doors and trim to go along with some deep cleaning! It was again just a joy to put time and energy (…and to watch them put their time and energy 😉 ) into some of the little things around the house.

For example, the doors in our house all seemed to be a different shade of beige with mismatched yellow doorknobs and yellow-rusty hinges (not rustIC, rustY). And with painting the doors, it seemed like the perfect time to bring all of this random hardware onto the same page with a nice simple black. So next time you stop by, check out our matte black doorknobs (that all match) and our sweet $.99 matte black hinges (thanks eBay)….

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Friday Five Episode 7: McDonald’s, IKEA and Flying Blue

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This Friday Five is coming at you at the end of a really weird week – July 4th on a Wednesday – I mean, what is that. Needless to say, whether your BBQ was over the weekend before or on Wednesday, it was probably a hot one! I hope you had a pool or a lake to cool off in. Alright – let’s get started on Friday Five.

McDonald’s $1 Burgers

Look. I know McDonald’s has a bad rap in North America. And I mean, sure, sometimes the restaurants aren’t the nicest and the food isn’t super healthy or fresh – whatever. We don’t eat there every day by any means, but if we are on a road trip… and it’s Sunday and Chick-fil-a is closed, we might end up there….

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Our Favorite Small Towns in Europe

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We love Europe, yes we do, we love Europe, how about you!

It just felt appropriate, okay? 😉 In last week’s post, we talked about why we love Europe, and one of those reasons was the cute and quaint small towns. So we’re going to dive into that a little more and list out our favorites! These are some of the places that we’ve visited over the last few years, but there is obviously so much more to explore, and so much we haven’t seen. We can’t wait to continue to add to this list over time, but for now, these are some of the small towns dearest to our heart.

Also…we’re interpreting the term “small town” pretty loosely. Some are tiny villages and some are larger towns – but all are great!

Giethoorn, The Netherlands

Giethoorn is a village in the Netherlands that is known for all its waterways. In the mostly car-free village you get around by walking, biking, or our favorite – boating around the canals. A boat through the waterways will take you all through the village – past homes, under bridges, and out onto the lake that is nearby (and connects to all the canals).
If it’s suppose to rain on the day that you’re headed to Giethoorn, don’t let that stop you. Pack an umbrella and rain jacket and still rent that boat. I’m speaking from experience here because the two times I’ve been it’s rained, but still, this village’ charm is so evident!…

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Why To Make Europe Your Next Travel Destination

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Okay, so making Europe your next vacation destination is a bit of a blanket statement. Unless you’re traveling for months and months, making the whole continent your next bucket-list place is probably not even close to possible. BUT even still, with any country (or countries!) you might visit in Europe, you can’t go wrong!

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Friday Five Episode 6

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This week, Friday Five is going to cover how to stay on top of expiring miles, cheaper house reno buys and some potential Southwest expansion routes!

AwardWallet

Sometimes, it can get a little difficult to keep track of the different miles and points programs that you’ve collected points with over the years. This can be an issue because most miles expire if they don’t have activity. That’s where AwardWallet comes in, and it’s a handy tool I use to stay on top of everything. How it works is you link your awards programs to it and they will send you updates depending on changes – so if you get more miles, use your miles or most importantly, your miles are getting ready to expire.

It’s important to know that you don’t have to fly in order to save your miles. Miles can be “renewed” by making even a small $1 purchase through an Airline’s online rewards portal – it’s a great option that I’ve used on multiple occasions. One thing to note about this, though, is to not wait until the last minute. Sometimes that point or two can take a month to post to your account.

Side note: I have a bookmarks folder containing all of my travel rewards programs in it, just so I don’t forget who I have points with!…

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7 Days In Ireland: Our Itinerary for the week from Dublin to Doolin

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It’s been just over a year since we took our trip to Ireland, but we still think back on those memories all the time! Ireland was a place that I (Sarah) had always wanted to visit, and am fascinated by the culture (especially the pub music and Celtic dancing!), but even so, our trip to Ireland was actually supposed to be a trip to Hawaii. That was our original plan with the Air France points we had, but when dates and timing didn’t align, and there was a sale for flights to Ireland we jumped on that opportunity. I think we’d both agree that we are really glad we did! From the green and beautiful countryside (everything really is so, so green!) and the small quaint villages, to the mountains, and cliff sides – it was breathtaking!

Wait, what? How’d you get enough points for this trip? Read this!

We only had 6 nights in Ireland, and to some that might not seem like a lot for the distance we had to travel, but hey, we’ll take almost a week in Ireland over 0 days 😉 and we were able to fit a lot into our days while also not feeling overwhelmed by a super busy itinerary….

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Friday Five Episode 5

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Hey guys, it’s been a solid two weeks since our last episode of Friday Five because we decided to make this a bi-monthly effort! That way we can highlight more important things and not be so overwhelmed with trying to scrape the bottom of the barrel. All that out of the way, let’s go ahead and jump in.

Southwest Schedule

I know I probably sound like a broken record talking about Southwest on here, but now that the schedule opened up until January 6th, it’s a good idea to go out and book your holiday flights. Even if those flights are just placeholders, Thanksgiving and Christmas prices skyrocket fast. I booked on the day after the schedule opened up, and had to settle for some weird times and more expensive routes. Southwest has no change fees, so if you need to make a switch later on, no harm no foul….

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