DH and I used the free hotel room last night. It was a very, very pleasant room, all in an Italian theme with a marble bathroom and a great view of downtown Seattle. It was normally expensive place (over $300/night), so it seems a shame that we spent most of the time asleep. We were going to another restaurant in downtown Seattle, one where we have a gift card, but with the crazy Friday driving and the rain - 27 days straight, almost a record - downtown Seattle traffic was a complete nightmare. We would have had to walk about 10 blocks and wait an hour.

So we went downstairs to the restaurant in the hotel. It was quite the blowout; we had wine and steak and lobster and at the end we spent over 200$. The hotel got a deal back, but they gave us a wonderful experience and I didn't feel particularly slighted about it.

I guess that's the difference between frugal and cheap to me. Frugal implies a certain amount of planning, but flexible for the unexpected. We had saved some money, let's see what the future holds and enjoy ourselves. Cheap is more reflexive; no - its too much. I guess if we would have been cheap we would have hit the coffee shop across the street and complained.

Did manage to put in 5$ in the tip box over the last two days. Put in 2$ into a football pool for the Seahawks game. Sent 10 ING invites out and got already got an invite or perhaps it was an invite I sent to my friend over a week ago. I'll have to ask my friend whether she took me up on the ING offer.