Simple Savings

Monday, May 31, 2010

I am a list writer, so it was a pleasure for me to sit down with pen and paper and make a list of all the places I wanted to visit and work out how many we could fit in to our 12 weeks. On the Simple Savings forum I had picked up a tip about making Scotland the arrival point in the UK, to avoid travelling up and down, thereby saving on travel costs. So I made Edinburgh our starting point and mentally clicked that this might be the opportunity to fulfill one of my dreams, to see the Edinburgh tattoo. I made a note on my check list. From there we would visit the Lake District and visit Beatrix Potter' house and the home of one of my favourite poets, William Wordsworth. The lakes scenery is among the best in the world, so this was a definite. From here across country, west to east to the coastal town of Whitby. I had visited here as a young child and had my first encounter with a real life seahorse (funny the things that stick in your head). The ancient cobbled tiny lanes and underground rooms in this town are amazing and resonate with its history of secrets and smugglers. Near to Whitby is the home of the TV show, Heartbeat, so I would visit there to take photos for all the fans at home.

From here we would head further into Yorkshire, which is the home of 4 of my sisters and Tom's brother and sister. We would make this our base, staying with my second youngest sister and put up our feet for a wee while. I also wanted to head across to Wales so I put this on my checklist as I know my second eldest sister is familiar with the area and might be able to go with me for a day or two. I knew hubby wanted to visit Germany with his eldest sister, too, so this could be an opportunity for him to go while I visit Wales.

London, Stonehenge, Bath, Devon and Cornwall were also added to the list and then I turned my thoughts to Europe.

I have always wanted to see Paris and Rome, so these were my obvious choices. I knew my daughter and her family had these two cities in their plans and thought maybe we could do at least one of them together. I decided I would learn the basics of the Italian language as I already had a smattering of French from school, so I put languages on my list.

I could see now that I was going to have to draw the line soon as this could turn into an exhausting experience and not the enjoyable one I wanted it to be. Hubby's brother had asked if we could accompany them on their annual visit to Spain, so I needed to include this somehow, too. By now I had my list of more than a dozen official stopping off points and knew there were many more than that with all the family members we wanted to catch up with. Plus the daytrips we would inevitably be doing along the way. So I put down the pen and turned to the computer to begin researching places and costs. This was the fun bit...
Where should we go, when should we go, and how the heck are we going to get there? Well, lots of talking, debating, arguing finally brought us to a decision. Our daughter's plan to visit UK and Europe in 2010 had a bit to do with it, as hubby wanted to be there when his UK brother and sisters met our granddaughters for the first time. Daughter had a 5 year plan (had to be put off once or twice because of other priorities) to get the 5 of them to Europe for a 6 week holiday. After a lot of thought I came to the conclusion we could make it our "Bigtrip". 2009 would be the year of our 40th wedding anniversary, (yep, we actually managed to stay together that long!) and hubby's 60th birthday. Then 2010 would see me turning 60, too. What better way to celebrate these huge milestones than with a nice long holiday.

So the decision was made in 2005. We would travel to Europe in 2010 for 3 months. Yes, 3 months. Next step was to work out the budget.

I have to say at this point that hubby was never really convinced it would happen. Especially when I told him we would need between $14,000 and $17,000 for the 12 weeks we would be away. He almost laughed at me. I almost laughed at me, too. How the heck was I going to do this? It was only 4 years since I had been seriously ill and since I had finished work. It had taken me to this point to begin getting the finances in order. Now I was expecting the tight budget to tighten itself into frugality of the first order! This was going to be fun...

Saturday, May 29, 2010

It took me a few years to get into the swing of living on hubby's income. There were two credit cards to pay off and bad habits to break so I was very interested when on A Current Affair one night I saw Fiona Lippey on the launch of the Simple Savings website. (See my header for the web address.) Everything she talked about rang bells with me and I decided to check it out. At first I didn't want to pay the (back then) $34 membership but curiousity got the better of me in the end and I joined up. Within 2 years I had cut my grocery spend in half and had learned lots of other ways to cut the bills. Then I won $200 in one of the Simple Savings competitions and also won a few months free membership and suddenly my savings were starting to grow.

I stopped and looked at our new budget and new spending habits and for the first time I began to realise that travelling wasn't so impossible after all. I sat down and thought about all the places I wanted to see. I had lived most of my life in England but hadn't seen a lot of it, so that was one priority. France and italy came to mind, too, but the main draws were the Caribbean and (don't laugh!) Antarctica. I have dreams of icebergs and glaciers. Extremes, I know.

My late father-in-law used to tell me a tale of his trip to Jamaica. He had forged his date of birth and joined the merchant navy in his teens. The way he spoke about the island and its people had me dreaming again. Those stories had put the Caribbean firmly back on my itinerary.

Then my long-held desire to see Antarctica peaked about 7 years ago when a friend of ours made a 2 month long expedition. His videos held me in absolute awe. I came home that evening telling my hubby that was where I was going to go as soon as I had saved up the $10,000 I would need. He was not amused but didn't really take me seriously.

I had some decisions to make. Where to go first, and when...

Friday, May 28, 2010

The Crossroads.

So, now let's get down to it. In 2001 I suffered a heart attack. I nearly died in the ambulance on the way to the hospital but got there alive and was very blessed in the fact my friend was on duty that day and she signed off, telling the staff this was her friend and making sure I received the best drugs and treatment available that night. I lost 40% of my heart muscle and was a very sick girl for a while. However my life changed right then and there. It was one of those crossroads moments we all reach at some point. Some make good decisions for the rest of their lives, some don't. I was determined mine would be the best.

I had been a smoker on and off, mostly on, for 34 years. I had also worked all my life, often in stressful jobs and raised a family at the same time. I decided to quit smoking and quit work. To me, this was my wake up call and I was wide awake. No more smoking, or drinking coffee or clocking in and out. Instead I changed my lifestyle, ate much better, exercised more and became a full time wife and mum. It wasn't easy to adjust to one income and I will get to that later but I was determined to manage. Anyway, our income dropped by around $30,000 a year. And on top of that I had this huge desire. Not only had I woken up but the gypsy in me had been reawakened and this time was not about to be ignored. I began devising my plan.

Thursday, May 27, 2010

I recently discovered that my father loved to travel, too, and in the 1950's, when not too many working class families enjoyed foreign holidays, he was cruising Eastern Europe and sunning himself in Spain. Is this where the gypsy gene comes from? I also remember when I was young that two of my mum's brothers were in the armed forces and when home on leave would bring me gifts, a leather purse, a watch with a velvet strap, all bought in the countries in which they had served. I would look at the gifts and try to imagine the countries of origin.

No wonder then, with this background, I had my itinerary all worked out in my head from the age of 10. Gosh, it has taken me a long time to finally get my act together and get this trip underway. Mind you, life did get in the way for a very long time but not any more...

Wednesday, May 26, 2010

When I was born I was taken from England to Ireland to live with my Gran. After 4 years I was back in England. Then every year after that Mum would take us back across the sea to visit Dublin. The journey wasn't luxurious, no first class for us! But I loved the train from Yorkshire to Liverpool or Holyhead and the sound of the wheels clacking along the rails would take me off into my own world. Our transport across the water was a hulking big ship from the B&I line and access from the quay was via a shaky old walkway, or gangway as it was known then. My God, I hated stepping onto that thing and looking over the sides of it into the murky harbour water. My fear of walking on swing bridges, pedestrian flyovers, even opencast metal stairways must originate in that experience. I know I would hold my breath as I struggled up it and would let out a hugely relieved sigh when at last my foot landed safely on the ship's deck.

You've all seen Titanic, right? It is even on my list of all-time favourite movies. Gotta love Jack, AKA Leonardo DiCaprio! Remember the barred entrance/exit between First Class and Steerage? It was real. Believe me. We had one, too. We had no steerage class, well not for the humans anyway, but the ship did carry cattle in it's hulk. We just had first and second. Yeah, great being defined as second class. At least today it is called economy! I would stand at the rail on the deck and could see through the bars along a carpeted passageway, where stewards in white shirts and red vests were carrying trays of food and drinks to the unseen passengers in First Class. Meanwhile we second-class citizens of open wooden Deckland were freezing and wet from the relentless lashing of the wonderfully bracing cold wet wind coming off the grey, rolling Irish Sea.

Sounds awful, doesn't it? Yet this is where my love for travel was born. As soon as I could persuade my mother I was old enough to take care of myself, I would spend the 8 hours travel time to Dublin wandering the deck, watching the couples smooching, listening to the duos and trios playing their Irish music on fiddles and guitars, steering clear of rolling drunks stinking of Irish whiskey, and gazing out over the black sea, loving the sight of the whitecaps on the waves and the silver sheen on the water from the moon's reflection. Yes, we always travelled overnight. Can you imagine a young girl being allowed to do that nowadays? Funnily enough, in all those overnight journeys, and there must have been at least 14 of them over the years, I was never in any danger. Well, not until much later, when I was about 16, but that's another story for another day which I may never tell anyway.

So this is where it all began. Looking through those segregation bars I was determined to one day be on the other side of them; that I would one day cruise the high seas and visit foreign lands with exotic sounding names. I had not even thought of flying as that was still outside my own experience but I had found the gypsy in me.

Tuesday, May 25, 2010

Beginning the journey.

We all have dreams. Some are unrealistic. Others unattainable. Most, I find, are possible. All need some effort to realise. This is what my blog is about: turning the dreams into reality. What is your dream? Or should that be dreams? Maybe you have many or maybe just one. Whatever your situation I hope you can get some inspiration from reading about my own dreams, my plans and my pro-active efforts to reach my own rainbow's end.

Dreams can be about many things: love, friendship, money, property, beauty, career, the list is endless. I have had many over the years but one has stayed with me throughout my (almost) 60 years. It is the dream of travel. The desire to travel the world, visit exotic destinations and see the wonders I have only read about has consumed me and is now my number one goal. Why now, after so many years? There is more than one answer to that question and all will be revealed as I visit this new place each day and reveal to you my dreams and my steps towards realising them.