Life Musings

When I travel on company business, I like to watch my expenses. That is, I try to spend as little money as I reasonably can, even though the company foots the bill.

Case in point: I try to take the most affordable flights that will reasonably accommodate my schedule. Sure, this sometimes means waking up at 4 a.m. in order to catch an early morning flight. It can be a major inconvenience, but I choose to do so nonetheless. I just don't like the idea of wasting my employer's money.

I also like to stay in the cheapest hotel possible, provided that it's reasonably safe and close to the customer's site. That way, I can simply walk to their facility and avoid the expense of hailing a cab or driving a rental car. Sure, this will mean hauling some luggage around, but so what? I'm willing to bite the bullet to save the company a few dollars.

Speaking of which, I laso like to avoid using taxicabs or rental cars to travel from the airport to my hotel, or vice versa. Whenever possible, I try to use an airport shuttle service instead. I know some people think this is silly. They'd say that it's not worth the effort of locating a shuttle service, and that a taxi would be faster. Honestly though, it doesn't take much effort to find a shuttle service; after all, they're typically listed on the airport's website -- and if not, your hotel should be able to advise you on this matter. Given the exorbitant cost of cab fare, I think that this extra effort is clearly worthwhile.

Heck, most recently, I picked an affordable hotel that was 0.8 miles away from the nearest shuttle drop point. Did this faze me? Not at all! I simply viewed it as an incentive to get some more exercise and save the company a good chunk of money.

It's not that hard, folks. With just a little bit of effort and sacrifice, it's possible to save some significant travel costs. I don't believe in wasting my own money, and I certainly don't believe in wasting the money of my employer.