As many of you are now aware of, I'm going on a tour of England.
I paid for the trip all out of money that I've saved in the past year.
The tour ended up being $2,601 and the plane tickets around $1,000 (my parents agreed to pay that), so that leaves me with roughly $300 spending money, but I still need more cause exchange rates SUCK.
How did I do this while only working part time part of the year and going to school full time the other part?
Let me explain in list form:
- First of all, I did not have a boyfriend who lived in this country who I spent money on all the time. After Matt and I broke up, I had SO much money that I didn't know what to do with it. So I started saving it and using it to fund a trip to see my new boyfriend, David. I did send David packages (postage is not cheep), but one lump sum of money at a time is better then spending a bunch of little sums of money on boy all the time (for saving, at least).
- I made money any way, shape or form I could. During the summer I work at Tropical Sno in Edwardsville earning $8.25 an hour. Most of my paycheck went into savings. I also dog-sat and house-sat as well. During the winter I cleaned houses and worked in my church's nursery earning $10.25 an hour. I wasn't ashamed to do menial stuff, like babysit, do chores around the house. Money is money no matter what way you slice it.
- I tried to have as little bills as possible. The only "bill" I pay every month is $40 to Compassion International for my sponsor child. Yes, my parents do pay for my car, cell phone, gas, insurance and schooling, but that is besides the point.
- I was stingy as hell with my money. I did not loan any one any money at any time during this whole thing.
- I kept all my money from Christmas and my birthday. I also only asked for money for those two holidays as well.
- I LITERALLY saved my pennies. Every few days or so, I would empty out my wallet of all lose change. My dad had an extra change counter (one of those things you put change in and it adds it all up) and I would use that to see how much change I had. It became a little game I would play with myself. I would try to get enough change to get to $20, then $30 and so on. I'm currently at $99.44 and it's killing me a little inside to not be at $100.
- I sold stuff on Craigslist. Seriously. I made roughly $250 selling my old junk on there. We only had 1 garage sale in the time I was saving (I also sold stuff there and donated all the old stuff to Goodwill OR sold it on Craigslist), but Craigslist is a great way to get rid of stuff. You have to be patient and sometimes post stuff multiple times before it gets sold, but it will happen one way or another.
- If I spent money on something, I made it worth it. I recently bought 6 books that I really wanted off of Amazon.com. I saved money by combining books together for shipping and getting some dirt cheap. I ended up spending $43 on all them, shipping included.
- One thing that really killed me sometimes is that I would break down and flat out ask my parents for money. If some friends wanted to go over to St. Louis and do something, I would tell my mom what was up and ask her for a little bit of money. She or my dad would front me a bit, nothing huge (like $10 or $15), just so that I could have a nice time. It also helped that I would have a rough estimate in my head before posing this to them so I could get exactly as much money as I needed to go out. But then there were the times that I didn't want my parents to know where I was going, so I would have to front my own money for those trips. Again: choose how you spend your money wisely.
- Watching my spending on food was a HUGE thing too. When I would go out to eat with friends, I would order water and put lemon and sugar in it in stead of getting a drink. I limited myself to eating out one time a week (it was usually Mr. Currys *nomnom*). Generic food products became my best friend. Cooking at home became my staple. I would pack my lunch or dinner to take to work instead of grabbing something on the run. If I went out to eat more than once a week, it would be with my parents so they could pay for the meal.
- Another huge thing was that I didn't put my money into my checking or savings account. Now, you may say, "Christina, some one as money savvy as you should know that you could have drawn interest on that money while it was in there." Yes, this is extremly true, but if it was in any of my accounts, it would have been WAY too easy for me to spend. And because the current economy SUCKS, it would not have earned that much interest anyway.
- The number one most cardinal thing that I did during this time was I watched what I spent. It may seem like a "duh" thing to do, but it really helped me. I still bought some things that I wanted, but I put the work in and hunted around for deals. If I saw a book at Borders Bookstore that I wanted, I would wait a few days to see if I still wanted it, and if I did, I would go online to find the cheapest one possible.
I'm still trying to save some more money, seeing as the tour doesn't provide us dinner half the dates and we have lots of excursions to choose from. I need at least $250 to do all the excursions that I want to do on the trip an then another.... I don't know.... maybe $200 for dinners and lunches on the trip. So lets make that an even $800 I need/want in spending money for the trip.
And I'll get it, one way or another. I'm still working at T-sno, still working in the nursery, so the money will come in slowly, but surely.
Over and out ♥
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