Lightening Online

Farmboy and I had a lovely 3 nights away this week - sans kids. Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE my kids. But I do enjoy some one on one time with my husband. It’s taken me a while to appreciate this time. When the kids were younger it almost seemed counter productive to go away without them. I’d feel sick the whole time we were away. Not real conducive to relaxing and enjoying some time with my husband. It has gotten easier to leave them as they get older. I guess because they’re much more independent. And I can see the benefits for them in having some time away from mum and dad. Plus, of course, they get spoilt by Granny, so they enjoy it!

On Tuesday we took the Ferry across the gulf. It’s a lovely way to travel but is usually too expensive for us. They had a half price offer so we took the opportunity to go over on the Ferry. It doesn’t save us any time but you do arrive a little less tired at the other end (especially the driver).

We drove into town, booked into our accommodation and took a swim before heading out for a nice evening meal together.

Wednesday we headed off to the Caravan and Camping Show and drooled over all the nice things we *could* buy. Once upon a time camping and carravanning were the cheap way to holiday. Of course, marketters can sniff a market out a mile away and these days it’s saturated with “must haves”. The good news is that there are some handy inventions that have been created as a result so it’s not all “bad”.

We worked hard to be wise in our purchase decisions (no easy feat I can tell you!). Farmboy was able to get some better towing mirrors for 1/4 of the price he’d seen them for last year. He’s really happy with them.

I watched a number of Dreampot demonstrations and got lots of new ideas and information for what I can try in there. The first I saw was a scone making demonstration. YUM! They were AWESOME! I’m going to give those a try (I’ve never been very good at making scones). Of course, the best part about watching the Dreampot demo’s was that I’ve already bought one so I wasn’t going to get talked into parting with more money.

We decided to purchase a camping clothesline. I was resisting temptation as most caravan parks have clotheslines you can use. We’re trying to be careful not to take too much gear with us. However, this one folds up into a handy carry bag, weighs less than 3kg and at $45, I can see us getting our money’s worth rather easily.

It’ll mean we can leave washing in the annexe while we’re out all day without concerns of garments being stolen or blowing off the line. Plus, I like the idea of having a little more privacy when it comes to my undergarments. We can also use it for hanging wet bathers on. And I thought it might come in handy during winter at home. I don’t have any undercover clothes line for drying washing on a wet day. I could set this up in the pergola or even inside.

We got to speak to some great Tourism people and got some “local knowledge” on a few places we’re planning to visit so that was heaps of fun as well.

Wednesday night (after another swim) we drove into the hills to visit Lleyton at his school camp. When we got back to our accommodation, we walked up the street to a Dairy Bell (ice cream parlour) and each ordered a Sundae. They were so HUGE we could have shared one!!! It felt very decadent to be out after dark eating ice cream. Such a lovely balmy evening too.

Thursday was shopping day. Koorong kindly had a sale on (which rarely happens when we’re actually near one!) so we had breakfast and a browse there before heading out of town to a larger plaza. We met up with Farmboys sister and our niece for lunch.

Thursday night we spent at my parents place (which happens to be near the Ferry terminal) before heading home on the Ferry early Friday morning (with a truck that Farmboy bought from a farmer over there).

We fitted quite a bit into our time away but the pace was never rushed and we really enjoyed our time together.

Despite all of that, none of it comes close to this smiley moment (actually, it was a bit of a teary moment, but good tears):

I picked the kids up from school on Friday as Lleyton was just getting back from camp. I gave Lleyton $10 spending money for camp (he also took a little of his own money) and he spent $8 of it on gifts for his younger brother and sister. He has such a generous heart - it’s enough to make a mother weep (oh yeah, it did).

So many things to smile about this week. My heart is full and overflowing. Unfortunately, so are my sinuses as I’m struggling with a cold! I think we’ll all be taking things easy today.

Happy Smiley Saturday everyone! I hope you can find something to smile about today. If you write your own Smiley Saturday post, feel free to link to it in the Mr Linky below.

Well, not upside-down exactly but we’re looking at changing our minds and heading off the way we intended to come home and coming home the way we intended to head off (or maybe come home an entirely different way).

One of my favourite hobbies is to plan trips. I love to sit down with a blank sheet of paper, a map, a calculator and a pencil (for some reason I prefer to write in pencil when I’m doing this). Then I plan how far we’ll drive each day, how many kilometres that will be and what town we’ll stay in.

When we planned our trip to Darwin a number of years back, I think I got almost as much pleasure from the planning stages as I did from the trip itself.

With our “big trip”, we’re trying not to plan things too closely. We have, however, been looking at a number of route options and planning a very broad timeline to ensure that we fit in the things we really want to do during our time away.

Today I’ve been playing around with the first 2 weeks of our trip away (with a change in direction) and things seem to be falling into place quite neatly. Hopefully that means we’re on the right track with changing our minds on which way we’ll head off. There are a few details we need to sort out before we can be sure that we’ll stick to this plan. And, with 5 and a half months to go, anything could change between now and then.

I am having fun plotting and planning though!

One of the issues we were working on during our recent trip away was ways to travel on a budget. It’s easy to go through a lot of money in a short space of time while travelling. Generally we’re prepared for this to be the case as we’re only doing it for a couple of weeks a year. However, our plan is to travel for 12-14 weeks next year and we just cannot sustain the level of spending we normal have when away from home.

The caravan is helping a little with this as we’ve been able to cook our own meals a little easier than we do with the camper trailer and we have the facilities if we pull off the side of the road at lunch time. We’ve been trying to pack our own picnic lunches most days to reduce costs.

However, after a week in Canberra, I’ve estimated our spending on living expenses to be in the vicinity of $500. That’s for a week. We did have a couple more Take Away meals than is in the plan for our big trip but not enough that I feel our projected budget of $350 a week is going to be met easily.

It’s got us seriously thinking about what our budget will be for the trip and how we’ll go with affording it.

My original estimates (about 5 years ago) were $1000 per week (so $14000 all up). With recent price increases in fuel, caravan park charges and food, we’ve revised this estimate. Here’s what I came up with:

LIVING EXPENSES

$350 per week (total for trip $5000)

This has to cover food, take away, spending money, money for washing machines etc.

Until we spent $500 on our week in Canberra, I was of the mindset that it should be plenty. Even allowing for the $5 each spending money we’re planning to have per week and another $25 for laundry costs, it’s more than double what we now spend on food.

While the caravan helps to keep costs down, there are a lot of limitations imposed such as not being able to buy in bulk or buy up when on special. Cooking facilities are limited as well and I’m still working on ideas for both meals and snacks with what facilities I do have.

Add onto that the temptation to purchase Take Away (where we live now, take away is too far away to be much of a temptation), especially on busy days and I can see food being our biggest hurdle as far as the budget goes.

We’re toying with the idea of adding an additional $50 per week into the budget, earmarked for Take Away purchases. If we can come up with an extra $700 between now and when we go, we may well do this.

SITE FEES

$50 per night (total of $5000 for trip)

These have increased quite a bit in the past couple of years. Many are now charging as much extra per child as they do for a cabin which is frustrating (and expensive).

We’re not real keen to attempt “side of the road” and other camping style stays although these would reduce our expenses quite dramatically.

We were given a 12 month membership to Top Tourist Parks (from the caravan company) and plan to take out a Big 4 membership before we go which will be well worth our while. These give us 10% discount on most stays which will help.

FUEL

$5000 total (works out to around $350 per week although we’ll work on a lump sum as some weeks we’ll do a lot more km’s than other weeks).

This is our biggest unknown with Fuel prices so erratic. Farmboy thinks this should get us 15,000 km’s which sounds like a lot but it’s around 8,000 straight up and back and it’s amazing how many km’s you do in general running around. Of course, it will all come back to what fuel prices are doing at the time we go.

It would seem that keeping our speed under 100km/hr gets us better fuel economy so we may just need to take things steady in order to meet this budget.

SIGHT-SEEING

Farmboy has been doing some extra work to pay for our sight-seeing costs. At this stage his goal is to earn an extra $5000 before we go. The budget will basically be whatever he ends up earning with the extra work he’s doing.

There are some reasonably expensive things we would like to do but then there will likely be week’s where we won’t spend anything so I hope things will balance out that way.

PROJECTED BUDGET

That brings our projected budget to around $20,000 which sounds like a lot doesn’t it? I’m only responsible for finding $15,000 of that budget. It’s not the kind of trip that’s easy to up and do on a whim. It’s been over 10 years now that we’ve been planning and saving which means I’ve only had to find less than $30 a week on average. It doesn’t sound quite so bad when you break it down like that does it?

Of course, the budget is really only a guestimate at this point in time. If we can keep within it, we won’t need to go into debt to do the trip. If it turns out we’ve underestimated, we may have to make some tough decisions about whether we are prepared to go into debt and work on paying back the extra spent as quickly as possible.

CARAVAN COST

At this point in time, we’re not counting our caravan cost in the cost of the trip. While it is a “cost” associated with the trip, we expect that we should be able to get most (if not all) of the investment in the caravan back if we were to sell it upon our return.

Having the caravan will save us an estimated $10,000 on the cost of the trip without one (assuming the alternative is to use cabins), not to mention the convenience of having everything on hand and not having to live out of suitcases the entire time.

It’s not our intention to sell it but we’re prepared to if we feel we can’t afford to keep it. Which gives me extra incentive to be frugal so that we can afford to keep it.

ARE WE RICH?

I don’t believe we are. I know there are plenty of people out there who struggle with the basics and couldn’t even contemplate a trip like this. Then again, there are also many who are on similar or larger incomes to ours who live week to week and would consider us as rich for being able to afford to do this.

This is where I particularly love frugality and all that goes with it. I love how much further our money has stretched since I’ve learnt the value of frugality and the fact that we are so much more empowered with the choices we’re making in regard to how we use our money.

Without frugal living, there is no way we would have been able to save the money to do this trip.

BUDGET TIPS

If anyone has any suggestions for keeping expenses down while we’re on the road, I’d love to hear them. Every little bit helps and we want maximum fun for minimum cost.

After a week of no internet access, I finally have some limited access. So fingers crossed this Smiley Saturday post will make it. We’re having a great time in the caravan. It’s a bit of a learning curve but we’re getting there. And it has been sooooooo convenient not having to pack up as much each time we move. I’m also LOVING having a kitchen. That’s making cost effective and healthy meals much more achievable.

I apologise that Smiley Saturday is a bit late in getting published. We’ve just managed to get some internet access now that we’re in Canberra. I’ve tried searching for free wifi but until I get a more portable laptop with a battery that actually works, it’s limited in where I can go searching and so far have drawn a blank. So we’ve paid for a few hours access this week. It’s not cheap so I’ll be on and off fairly quickly.

Thankfully, I prepublished a few posts before we left, just in case.

If you’d like to read more about our travels so far, you’ll find a few updates on 3 Kids and a Caravan (which have been written in Windows Live Writer and published today).

Anyway, Happy Smiley Saturday everyone - I hope you’re having a good weekend!!!