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Weekend Getaway

October 13th, 2006 at 03:58 am

Alright, I know everyone is wondering how I can possibly have the audacity to put a weekend getaway under the Frugally Fabulous category. Well, I'm frugal and I'm having a getaway, which I think is fabulous Wink

Actually, it could possibly pay for itself and then some, so I'll share. DH and I are going from upstate SC to western NC Saturday morning to meet my parents, aunt, and uncle at the

Text is Mason Mountain Mine and Link is http://www.tjrocks.org/masonmtnmine.html
Mason Mountain Mine to hunt gem stones. Here's how it's frugal:

* We're taking DH's van (aka the company van) there and back, so we don't have to pay for gas
* We're sharing a hotel room with my parents rather thang etting our own (OK, yeah, this might be get a little weird)
* Instead of paying $10-$30 per person for one little pre-salted bucket of dirt that's gone in an hour, we're going for the $25 per person deal where you haul your own dirt and get to search all day long (in our experience, the most enjoyable way to go about it).

And other than the room and the gas, how is this frugal you say? Well, there will likely be a Shoney's buffet involved, but I digress.

This weekend is Frugally Fabulous because previous trips have always netted a hundred dollars worth of stones or more. My aunt & uncle go about 2x per year and have turned around and sold their stones back to the mine on several occasions. Others they've kept, had cut, and then made into jewelry (also profitable).

So, this weekend I'll be hauling backbreaking loads of 50lb buckets of dirt and sitting hunched over a sluce of cold water in 50 degree weather for anywhere from 6-9 hours. Sounds like fun, hm?

Don't worry, if I strike it rich, the proceeds will be broken into 3rds: EF, high debt, and WOOHOO! Big Grin

5 Responses to “Weekend Getaway”

  1. JanH Says:
    1160720025

    Happy Digging! Dontcha love playing in the dirt!

  2. tinapbeana Says:
    1160739441

    dirt is goooooooood!!! i even love the smell of it, guess it's cause i'm a nature dork, too... dirt is actually a rarity around here, though: it's all red clay. BAH! messing around in that stuff all day dries my skin out to no end. go figure, it's clay Big Grin

  3. princessperky Says:
    1160764925

    I feel special I noticed I am in your 'sites I frequent'!

    PS I love the smell of real dirt too! one day I would like to take DD to a mine thing, I thik she would love it, od you know the frequency of finding a small gem? I would like her to have a souvenere, but not sure if I need to budget the gem in addition to a bucket of dirt or not...

  4. tinapbeana Says:
    1160765475

    the place we go, the gems are exceedingly plentiful. you can buy a small bag of dirt for 10$ that has been 'salted' (they put goodies in it!), and you're guaranteed to find a little something. it's really neat for kids, b/c the rocks they find don't really look like gemstones (well, garnets do sometimes!), but they're obvoiusly not regular rocks either. it's a great geology lesson.

  5. LuckyRobin Says:
    1160863247

    That sounds like something my kids would love. They love discovering stuff and digging in the dirt. My parents used to go to Montana and come back with saphires and emralds, really small ones, but still.

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