Dry Clothes!! and Budget of March 2010

Today I picked up my dryer and slow cooker.  $75.  My coworker drove me and moved it into my apartment.  Hurray!

My March 2010 budget was still suffering from my vacation costs earlier this month, and the fact that I somehow spent $200 on skirts.  Only skirts.  There was a mishap at the store in which they put the wrong price on the pricetag, and I got charged $75 for ONE skirt.  OMG!

You guys know me!  I would NEVER EVER have bought that skirt if I thought it was $75!  I absolutely thought it was $25, like the tag said it was.  $75 is almost half my normal twice a year clothing spending!  When I looked at my receipt, I insisted that there was a mistake, but it was at a store that didn't accept refunds or exchanges, and she had removed the tag before bagging my clothing (not sure why...).  She didn't say a word about no exchanges or refunds while I was at the register.  The skirt isn't even that cute!!  This was also what made me breakdown one day.

Anyway--I spent $2400 this month, as seen in my budget:

Bah!!!  Everything is under or on target...EXCEPT for Misc.

Here's what went down in Misc this month:

Alcohol:  $73.98  This was a VERY VERY social month--my friend was in town for the first week, and we partied every single night.  Then my roommate had a cocktail party at our house, and I wanted to make my Vanuatu drink, so I bought Frangelico and Malibu ($66; ask me for the recipe if you want it).  The weekend after that, we had so much booze left that we invited people over to drink again, and ended up going out dancing that night ($8).  It was crazy fun.

Entertainment:  $20  I saw Alice in Wonderland with some people from work last Tuesday night, 3D in IMAX.  Awesome!!

Goods and Wants:  $491.69  This is for all the extra stuff that I buy that doesn't fall into another category.  It spans from toilet paper to electronics to clothes.  It usually contains the lowest amount of spending, but this month it is insane!!!   This month, I spent $50 on a clothes dryer, $25 on a slow cooker, $58.96 on lotions, vitamins, and a neosporin-type cream, $14.99 on ear drops, $19.99 on a field watch, $4.99 on laundry detergent, $2.99 on hand soap, $32.98 on iron pills and a heater fan, $39.99 on shoes, $35 on getting extra keys cut for my apartment (ugh, roommate really should be contributing to that!), and $207.10 on skirts (WTF??!).

Transportation:  $24.90  The usual--bus fares and taxis.  A little high this month because of all the taxi-ing we did to and from clubs the past couple of weekends...

Travel:  $303.60  This was for travel to the South Island--$66 for hotel accommodation, $3.60 for parking, $75 for car rental, $60 for a Milford Sound cruise, and $99 for gas.

I've saved $340 automatically in my Long-Term Savings, so that leaves about $200 for Short-Term Savings.

Next month, I've got another trip planned!  It should cost $75 for the rental car for 5 days, $75 for campground fees, maybe $200 for food?, and another $100 or so in gas.  Budget:  $450.  The rest of my categories should stay the same.

I Think I'm Doing A Good Job?

1)  Recently I wrote a very challenging report for work--it took me about a year (off and on) to do all the research and writing for this 25 page report-- and it was reviewed by someone in my field that I greatly admire, she raved about my report; thought I did an amazing job.  I'm so excited!  Even if I can't read her hand-written editing notes on the draft...

2)  I recently wrapped up a fieldwork campaign, and blew the socks off of another greatly admired boss-type person at that same organization as the first.  I actually blushed, the praise was so effusive.  I was completely in charge of that fieldwork, and I felt like I put in 98% of what I was capable of doing, so I felt great about over-delivering on the quality and quantity that was expected without taking any extra time to do it.  (This is a 'the more the better' type project, but is pretty low-budget.)

When I came to NZ, I applied for jobs working both of these people.  I didn't get called even for an interview for those jobs, but now here I am, working with them anyway!  It is the very best of both worlds.

3)  Remember when I was thinking of applying for a PhD position in NZ? (i mention it here, but I guess I didn't go into too much detail on the blog...I eventually met up with the advisor to talk about it, and we exchanged several emails before I decided I was happiest, and it made the most sense, to stay in my current position.)   I am now in charge of a project that combines my experience from my Master's degree with my main interest.  Who am I working with?  That potential PhD advisor, that's who!  This will give me an opportunity to see what it is like to work with her, and if I ever do decide I want to pursue my PhD, I will have a good chance of getting one with her (pending the results of our collaboration, of course!).  She also has contacts all over the world in my field.  Fantastico!  We've met several times socially at work functions, and she's really fun and nice, so this should be a great experience.

4) For another project, I recently wrote a 25 page report summarizing the findings of some other recent fieldwork for a commercial client.  It is due Thursday, and I completed it today (Tuesday).  I, again, feel like I gave ~85% of myself to the fieldwork, data processing, and report writing.  My boss didn't want me to spend any more of my time on it, otherwise it would have been perfect.

5)  I'm about to start processing some samples and gathering data using a method I've never done before.  More resume fodder! 

6)  There are several more opportunities to gain more experience in what I think and hope my main focus of my career will be--I can't wait to get started, but I have to set this up very carefully so that others don't think I'm taking over their projects.

7)  Several of the projects that I'm involved in and several of the reports that I've written are going to be the basis for published journal articles in my field.  I never published my master's findings, so I don't have any of these under my belt.  I will finally be published in the next few years, I'm sure of it!

The only caveat (you knew it was coming, right?!):  

For some of these projects, I can't tell these days if I'm actually doing a good job, or if my bosses' (boss'?) expectations of me are too low.  Or if my expectations and standards for 'good work' are too high.  It's a really weird feeling.  I feel like I am capable of producing better, more, quicker, but they are super happy with much less.  They are used to working with undergrads or haven't been anyone's boss before, so maybe that's why this is occurring?  I hope it's not because they thought I wasn't capable of producing good work...

Examples of this behavior:

1. that first report, 1), that took a year?  Was originally due in 5 months.  It was really tough for me to get motivated to do anything on it, because I was writing about something I had no clue about (statistics, of all things!).  My boss decided to just give me a year instead.  Then, when it was still in draft form last November, she said that she moved the due date to June 2010.  What?!  7 extra months?  I was flabbergasted.  In the meantime, a colleague that is an expert in statistics wrote his own report on the same topic, and it is WAY better than mine.  I'm now to go through his report and add anything that I missed (it wasn't much, thank God!).  
2.  My boss wrote me about the commercial client paper 4) back in February about the April 1 due date.  She seemed to be stressing about the deadline, so to make her feel better, I whipped up a report outline and fleshed it out as much as I could without including the exact data that we had collected (it was still processing).  That took about an hour and a half.  You wanna know what she wrote to me about the hour and a half report outline?  See this:

"The report looks fantastic. Well Done!!!  I think it is 95% done.  I want you to present this at a conference very soon.  I would like to make you first author since you have done all the report writing and the report will obviously require minimal input from me. I want you to know that I am very impressed with this report and that these things do not go un-noticed!"

 Now, I'm modest, but I really don't think that hour and a half of slapping that together deserved quite this caliber of a response.  It's like turning in a B- paper and getting extra credit for it!  She thought it was 95% done after an hour and a half, but I had to spend roughly 20 more hours finishing it off, with all the little details that these reports require.  I probably finished it off to about 85% of my own standards.  The response when I showed her the final product was incredibly luke-warm in comparison--she wrote, 'looks good.'   Whaaaa?  It seems as though effort doesn't equal praise, but I'm not sure what does merit the praise.

So what do you do when your name is first author on something (ie in my professional arena, this means that you take all responsibility for the content, answering questions, anything wrong, etc.) and your boss wants you to leave it almost unfinished and not up to your own professional standards?

I wish I could go into more detail here, but NZ is really small, and my field is one of those where everyone knows everyone else, pretty much.

I don't know how I got so lucky with this gig, but my God, I am thankful that my worst problem is that I get praised for doing very little!

Blast From The Past

I wrote the following on my other blog (now abandoned in favor of this one) back in Feb 2006.  I was in my much-hated job, and was in the middle of my debt repayment.  I just rediscovered this post and thought it was kind of funny:

We thought you were dead!

One of the (few) perks of my job is that when I travel, my food and hotel room is paid for. I get paid! to try out new restaurants, new food, in a new city. nearly every month I travel up to LA for a week or two. Sometimes, for a few weeks in a row. As hard as field work is (this past week, for example, was a 60 hour week of physical labor. forgive me if i sleep in a little on the weekends), i look for the silver linings where they shine at me through the gloom.

This past week was a triumph of free stuff, and i'm about to tell you about it, after much prefacing. after all, what's a blog better for than to self-indulge and release the self-absorption hounds? for lack of better things to do, i recently entered what i call my "Self-inspired Pursuit of Financial Freedom." TM. I've paid off three credit cards and two student loans in five months. i've got one card and 5K to go. why the hell didn't i do this before? it's amazing, and a fantastic feeling to cut your debt in half in so short a time frame. it sounds boring and i can't say that accountants have the most chandelier-swingin reputations out there, but i'm learning alot and i'm completely excited about Moolah Management. TM. i've always been obsessed with money (just ask my sister, who i once fanned with my 100 one dollar bills as a kid. i totally thought i was the richest bitch on the block.), and it's been a dream of mine for about a decade to be able to be comfortable enough to help pay for things for my family, like my sister's tuition, or a trip to the grand canyon or europe for my mom, or even just help out with some bills at home. anything i can do to make it better, i want to. but first, i have to get my shit straight. no sense in continuing the cycle of insanity.

so anyway. free stuff. i was informed by a coworker that i could get a $50 gas card if i stayed at our usual hotel in LA for three nights. then, i was called (last minute OF COURSE) to go up to LA for three days this past week. woo hoo! 50 bucks is like two weeks of gas! and for no money down, due to my company paying for the hotel bill. On top of that, i got free meals and snacks and reimbursement for the mileage i'm putting on my car when i drive up there. in addition to my paycheck.

then, my field partner and i noticed a sign on the local Subway sandwich shop near our Site: Free sub with purchase of a regular sub and drink, when it is raining. Well, first off, it's a good deal for Subway, because LA is in a freaking desert. it rains about 10 days a year here. Seriously. however, yesterday we were driving around, spying on a DEA drug raid in one of the houses next to one of our wells (there also was a shooting nearby, i totally SCORED on the location of my job sites, let me tell ya), and it started drizzling. even though it was early for lunch, around 11 am, we both realized that we hadn't been joking about getting a free sub and really wanted to take advantage of this deal. we drove as fast as we could to the subway. by this point, it was raining really hard. yesss. so, after i got home yesterday, guess what was my dinner? yup. my free Subway sandwich.

i heart Subway.

P.S. while doing our fieldwork we also saw a lady who was walking down the street drunk at 3 pm, and 2 dead people. well, almost. the first was an ambulance parked outside of a house, and two EMT's preparing a body bag on a stretcher. they were taking their sweet time, so i'm guessing there was no hurry, if you get my drift. also, there were Christmas decorations on the house. exactly how long had this person been dead? ew. the second was a twenty-something chick in a car of a parking lot. she'd been there before lunch, and when we came out, she hadn't shifted a bit, same expression on her face. My field partner noted that the window wasn't fogged up at all, but the engine was cut. he totally thought she was dead, even though she was in the middle of a crowded parking lot and not obviously bleeding or anything. so what's his first reaction? not calling 911. not knocking on her window. not making alot of noise to see if she woke up (i totally tried to honk the horn but he blocked me). he ...pulls out a camera and tries to take a picture. as he was zooming in, though, i notice that she's moving. she whips straight up in her carseat and jumps when she realizes that a camera is pointed at her. after giving us a confused look, like she doesn't know whether to be flattered or freaked out, my field partner yells, while putting two fingers to his pulse, "We thought you were dead!" Haaaa. she laughs, b/c my field partner is cute and funny and can get away with shit like this. he makes working fun, to say the least...

p.p.s. also you know what i discovered after a shopping trip that's pretty hot but not free? those boy shorts underwear they make for girls. they can make anyone look like they got junk in da trunk, knowwhati'msayin? i may have to invest in some more, they are too, too cute.

Time Management Skillz

In my last performance review at work, I mentioned to my boss that I felt I didn't get enough done in a work day.  She disagreed, but suggested that I attend one of the free time management courses that my workplace  puts on once or twice a year.  I can't wait to sign up!

Until I get some more tips, I'm going to try to do the following this week:

1)  Check email 3x daily:  morning, lunch, and about an hour before I plan to go home (in case I have any urgent emails to send back.  This is difficult because about a third of my work is sending emails, and I always want to reply right away to show that I'm on the ball.  Not anymore!  If it is urgent, they can call me.  My two bosses know about this plan and support it.

2)  Bring in a digital kitchen timer, set it for an hour, and focus focus focus on one task for that hour.  After it is up, I'll spend ten minutes stretching, eating, etc.  That ten minutes is NOT to be spent on the computer, as my eyes and poor carpal tunnel wrist need more breaks than I currently give them.  I could set a timer on the computer, but the kitchen timer is portable, so I can take it with my on my breaks and know when it is time to get back to the grind.

If this works, I'll be psyched!!

What else could I do?

The Day I Went Crazy

My mood is spastic of late, but today was the worst.  Example:  I woke up extremely happy today, enjoyed the sunshine and had a leisurely breakfast, went shopping, and then one little incident blew up into a huge deal and I almost wound up crying in a store.  I finished my errands and came home.  By that time I'd gone through my cycle of calming myself down and putting things into perspective, but the damage was done--my happy mood had evaporated and the stress just left me exhausted.  How could I let a stupid little thing ruin my whole day, turn into something that I beat up myself about??  I went from pretty motivated to improve my life and happy, to nearly convincing myself to never leave the house again, because I couldn't trust myself to do some due diligence.

I could blame the intense homesickness I've been experiencing, or the post-vacation blues, but I have a feeling that they are just more symptoms of a mood disorder.  So is all the shopping and spending I've been doing.  Today's damage:  $300.  

To counteract this craziness, I prepared a balanced, healthy meal with lots of veggies tonight, and I'm going running at 7 pm, as part of Earth Hour, when you switch all of your electric appliances off.

I'll post the incident at another time, because it has to do with $$.  :)  

Girl Scout Cookies...

...and being able to swipe my debit card at the gas pump are two of the things I miss most about America today.  :)

They have 'Girl Guide' cookies here, but they totally suck and there is only one kind of cookie.  I am not normally a sweets person, but some Thin Mints or Tagalongs would have made my day today!

You have to physically go into the gas station store to pay here, like in the olden days...sometimes you even have to go into the store and hand over your debit card beforehand to get them to start the pump!  And you have to hang up the pump before paying, or else you can't pay because they apparently can only turn the pump off if the pump is physically hung up.  So forget about multi-tasking while the pump is set and filling your gas tank!   (In the US, I use credit cards almost exclusively--but here I don't own an NZ credit card because most have annual fees, and NONE of those without have any sort of rewards programs.  I usually use my Capital One card if I have to--0% foreign transaction fees--but I hate having to transfer NZD --> USD to pay it, so I only use it on rare occasions.)

The homesickness can be bad sometimes.  I was talking to my sister today and realized that it will be two years before I move back--that made me very sad.  I keep looking for jobs in the US, but I can't find anything that even comes close to the one I have now.  What a choice!

I'm really looking forward to seeing all of my family and friends in August!!   I'm currently scouting out prices for tickets and trying to get the best deal.

Dry and Slow Cooked

A coworker is moving back to the States, and has a bunch of appliances to get rid of.   I grabbed the clothes dryer and the crockpot as soon as he sent out the email!

He's selling his clothes dryer for $100 ($50 each for me and roomie!) and didn't mention a price for the crock pot.

My apartment originally came with a dryer on the balcony, and then my landlords decided to move it with them at the last minute.  I've been drying all of my clothes the old school way, on racks, for the past year and a half, and it's fine--no big deal.  I don't plan on using the dryer too much, but it would be nice to have it once in a while.  It's tough to wash sheets because there's no good place to dry them!  They take over the entire living room when  the topsheet, duvet cover, pillowcases, and fitted sheet all need to be spread out to dry.  It's also nice for the wet Auckland winter (things take 3+ days to dry...) and for washing gym clothes that I'll need the next day.  I've been working out almost every other day, and this way I won't have the excuse of no gym clothes...  Ooh, and goodness knows I love a good warm towel fresh out of the dryer!

I've been waiting and waiting on buying a slow cooker here in NZ (see wishlist to the right!)...I look at them every time I'm in the Warehouse.  My want for the item is enough to make me pause, look over the crockpot, and debate about buying it almost every time I walk by one, but then the $50 price tag wins out and I always keep walking.  I recently decided that I'd buy one during the next sale.  I am going to offer $20 for the crockpot and see what happens.

I love feeling like I got a bargain and am helping out a coworker at the same time!

P.S. speaking of wish list items, I recently went to a thrift shop and bought three new cute skirts (appropriate for the ballet or a conference!) for $50.  One more thing on my wish list that I can cross off!

A Smarter Way

Once in a while, I'm smacked upside the head by an idea.  I've been giving to charity for a while, but never bother to take the tax break on the donation,keep my receipts, whatever.  I think that I feel that it's more charitable that way--if I don't get anything but the feeling of helping out, it counts more somehow.

However, I think I'll start trying to take the tax break, and then donate that to charity.  Why on earth didn't I think of this before?  I'm sure lots of people do it, but I just thought of it today as I made my monthly donation (this month, to Oxfam NZ, to their Samoan tsunami disaster fund).

Help from NZers...product search!

Hi all you NZers---

I'm about to run out of my US-bought lotion, Vaseline moisturizer with SPF 15.  I loooove it and use it every single morning on any exposed skin.  Link here.

Is there any store in NZ that carries this, or something similar?   In my searches in NZ pharmacies and grocery stores and stores like the Warehouse, I can only find high-priced face lotion with SPF, OR just body lotion OR just sunscreen, no cheap body lotion with sunscreen like the one I currently use.

Unfortunately, it's dumb stuff like this that makes me miss America.  Hopefully you can help fix that!

Thanks for reading.

Love,
Sense

Cocktails and 5K's

The Social

My roommate had a cocktail party at our house last night.  You would not have believed the amount of alcohol consumed OR left over...all the guests were from roommie's workplace, and clumped together a bit, so I went to bed/passed out around 1 am (still tired from my fieldwork).  I also suspect that I'm just not that into drinking for drinking's sake anymore.  (Was I ever?)  I mean, I'll go out and dance and enjoy a few cocktails, but just sitting around drinking at home?  Not my bag.  I'm all about movie and game nights, with a little chatroulette.com with friends to break up the monotony these days.

The carnage from last night is also not to be believed.  I spent an hour and a half this morning fishing out pieces of plastic shot glasses and lemon and lime rinds from our garbage disposal (landlord specifically mentions this in our lease--if we break the disposal due to putting foreign objects in it, including lemon and lime rinds, we have to pay to fix it).  Ugh.  Also, the 50+ balloons we put up everywhere are popping one by one and scaring the bejesus out of me!

  

The Exercise

My Couch to 5K runs are going well--Week 1 is completed with absolutely no problems.  I've been running in pretty hilly territory, so Week 1 has been fun and just a teeny bit challenging.  I think I'm going to repeat Week 1 until I feel like I don't get anything out of the run anymore, then do the same with Week 2, etc.  Like SingleMa, I thrive on having structure and goals, and I don't want to rush finishing the Ct5K and then being at a loss as to what to do next.  I'm looking for other activities to do to round out my workouts during the week.  Zumba, yoga, pilates, hip hop, Lady Gaga dance classes (!), kickboxing, squash, and tennis are all on my list to try out.  Ideally, I'll do some sort of activity every night of the week, and take Sunday (or another day) off.

The Finances

Things seem to be on track with finances this month.  

• I still have $1,500 NZD in my checking, with less than half of the month to go.  
• Money has already been transferred to my US checking to add to my US HSBC savings account, and to pay off my credit card bill from last month's travelling.  
• There maybe money left over to contribute to my Oz fund, even--not sure how that is panning out, but I'll take it!  
• I MUST do my taxes this week.  
• In the next month, I need to buy and plan my trip back to the East Coast this August for a wedding and a family reunion. I also plan to visit some friends in California on my way back, to break up the trip and to see people I haven't seen in 2 years.  The flights will cost about $3000.  Rental cars, hotels, food, etc. will take up the other $500 in the fund.

Another Week Flies By

Is it just me, or is time speeding up??  This past week saw me start my first full week back at work since starting my numerous vacations on Feb 1.  Monday was just about meetings, catching up with my bosses and updating them on the projects I'm doing for them, and preparing for the rest of the week, which was alllll fieldwork.  Between Tuesday and Friday, I put in 50 hours of work...I smell another extended vacation coming up!

I'm very sore and tired from the fieldwork, but, as usual, I gained LOADS of experience in an area where I was lacking prior to this stint.  I had a dream last night about getting my (other) dream job in DC--my resume was a mile long because of my current job!  I cannot ask for anything more.

Really, if I keep doing fieldwork like this and saving up the hours, I won't ever have to use my vacation time!  I'm so busy with projects, though, that I doubt that I'll be able to take off the amount of overtime + vacation + sick days that I'm owed.  It's a nice dilemma to have--I don't want to take off because I love my work so much and because I may miss out on getting a really super cool project, but I also want to enjoy all of the time off that I'm owed!!

Paid

I was paid by my work to take a walk on a beach today.  I am serious, and I cannot get over that fact.

This is hands down the best job I'll ever have in my life.  I know that and I treasure it.  

Ahhhh.  Combine that with a perfect day to be outdoors and the fact that I'm heading out on another road trip April 2-6 with some friends, and I'm super happy!!  (Good Friday and Easter Monday are public holidays; Easter Tuesday is a forced holiday from my company--we are forced to use our vacation time to take it off.)

Couch to 5K

Did my first day of the Couch to 5K plan today, Sunday (I am spreading out my posts, so this won't come out on Sunday, sorry!).  I had planned to do it a while ago, but got sidetracked by other things, and then SingleMa decided to do it.  I waited until she was done before starting, so I could see her reaction to it and get a good feeling for what it was all about before embarking on the adventure.

While I was running, I...got cocky, and suffered for it, believe me.  I decided that the 1 minute running intervals weren't strenuous enough for me, so I ran an extra two minutes on the middle interval.  And then, on the next running interval minute, I had to run up a huge, steep hill (Mt Eden, if you are curious).  OMG. The combination meant that I had to sit down for 3 minutes, full stop, after that, and was dizzy and felt sick afterward.  Lesson learned!

My biggest problems with running are:  bad knees (minor), hills (ugh), being really itchy when it is cold out or when I wear shorts (WHAT IS THAT?!  I want to cut my legs off!), and that awful feeling I get when I work out (due to...hypothyroid or chronic fatigue or something?).  I've decided to see if I can push through it all.

This week, I am supposed to run on Tuesday and Thursday to complete Week 1.  However, I have field work those days...meaning I work from sun up until sun down.  How am I supposed to work in a 30 minute run? I don't belong to a gym.  Also, I am usually dog tired after a field day, in the sun and hiking around all day.  I guess I will try to run in the dark and push through the tiredness...not looking forward to it, though.  :)  Hope it will be worth it, and I hope I have enough willpower to do this.

Total Summer 2010 Vacation Costs

I had about $3,380 saved up and allocated to spend on my February-March 2010 vacations.

I spent $2,200 on my 2 week road trip around the South Island, and I just wrote that I spent $800 NZD on my Vanuatu trip (I paid for the hotel and flights last November out of that same fund).

Some of the time, my friends stayed at my place, and while I did incur extra costs due to their presence (rental cars, gas, more food, going out on the town), I just counted that towards my usual monthly expenses.  My spending for February was a paltry $1,900 due to that, and March spending is very much at a low, at $1,016 excluding expenses originating from the latest trip to the South Island.

We took a trip around the South Island (Dunedin to the Otago Peninsula to Milford Sound and back to Dunedin in 3 days!) while he was here, and the costs were as follows:

$75 car rental for 3 days
$60 Milford Sound cruise
$66 hostels with linens
$44 groceries
$99 gas for car
$61 eating out and parking
$405 total


Grand Total for Feb vacation goodness (drumroll, please):  $3,420! Only $40 over budget...not bad at all, given the time span and the fact that I didn't regularly add up my totals during my time away.

The Cost of Paradise

My Vanuatu trip was priceless, yes, but it did cost a little bit of money to do everything we wanted to do.

The flights and hotel and transfers from hotel <--> airport were all covered in a package deal I bought through FlightCentre.com, for 4 days and 4 nights (Saturday through Wednesday), for $800 NZD.  'Twas a grrreat deal, as far as I can tell; many people have agreed.

The Moorings Hotel (3 stars) was our accommodation, and it was the lowest cost option of the offers.  There were several more 'high end' hotels that we could have stayed at instead, but we decided not to go for them.  (We did visit several more hotels on our excursions, and I'd be happy to share what I thought of them if you wanted.)  The hotel was clean, was spacious enough, and there were fresh flowers waiting for us on arrival (they were obviously freshly picked, because there were tiny little ants crawling on them...and our bed!), and the room had air conditioning (an unexpected but very appreciated luxury in the very humid tropical heat!).  The hotel had a clean, decent swimming pool and deck area that you could watch the sunset from every night.   The hotel also had a very responsive and helpful front desk, a large restaurant (decently priced) with enough variety to keep me happy, and a nightclub, Rumours, which shut down the first night we were there (RIP Rumours).  My only complaint would be that when we went to order drinks, of all the tropical drink names I threw out, they only knew how to make pina coladas.  Moorings Hotel is about a 7 minute walk from town.

The first day we got there, it was raining.  The locals were out and about with no umbrellas, and didn't even seem to register the pelting rain.  Indeed, it was a very excellent temperature to be walking in the rain, 90's or so, and the rain felt wonderful as we walked into town from our hotel.  Over the next few days, we drank kava, swam in waterfalls, were evacuated for the tsunami generated by the Chilean earthquake, and saw a volcano erupt.  I also drank the yummiest cocktail I've ever had IN MY LIFE (and I make a habit of drinking fruity, yummy cocktails and spent a significant amount of time living on a tropical island, so that is saying something!  For picture of said drink, see here.  You can find it at the Erakor resort restaurant, I believe it is the first item on the cocktails menu, and has won several drink awards.).  All in the span of 4 days.  It was amazing.

Money
I had exchanged $200 NZD for some ridiculous amount of Vatu currency (about 13,000 Vt).  I also took 40,000 Vatu out of an ATM when we had to pay cash for our volcano excursion, and paid 5,200 Vt or so to our hotel for meals there.  I had 3,000 Vt left over that I accidentally stuck in a pocket somewhere, and have since exchanged that for $40 NZD.  Sooo.  I spent about $800 NZD total on meals, souvenirs, drinks, and our various excursions.  Over $500 of that was for our volcano excursion on Tanna, which included an hour and a half long plane ride over the rest of the islands and a 2.5 hour four wheel drive up to the volcano, stopping at a few villages and schools along on the way, lunch, dinner, and morning and afternoon tea.  Worth it?  We only got 20 minutes on the crater of the volcano...but yeah, I have to say it was worth it, even in the daytime (I had requested that we do the more expensive but supposedly more fantastical night tour, but there weren't enough takers to do the nighttime tour, they said.).

Expenses Diary:
(to give you a reference, 100 Vt = approximately $1 USD)


3200 Vt total for hotel fees and various meals at the hotel restaurant
740 Vt lunch first day
100 kava drinks
316 Vt batteries for mp3 player
1150 dinner
1200 drink
200 nickel slots
25 Vt chips
330 snacks
420 stamps and postcards
2700 dinner
1000 postcards and stamps
400 departure fees
1200 drink
 800  other souvenirs (magnets, soaps, kava, etc.)
350 snacks
1000 hand painted sarong
1000 piece of hand drawn vanuatuan art
1500 Vt for Cascades entry (waterfalls with a natural water slide!)

700 Vt bus ride to/from Cascades

34,713 Vt for Tanna Mt Yasur Volcano Day tour (we found a 7% off coupon somewhere in our welcome packet; normally 36,900 Vt!)

300 Vt for bus ride to/from Erakor resort ferry

1500 Vt for ferry to Iririki Resort (voucher for cost can be redeemed for food/drink on the island); we swam in their 9 or 10 gorgeous pools (with swim up bar!)

So I spent about 11,000 Vt on food and drinks, 4,536 Vt on souvenirs and other goods, and 38,917 Vt on excursions and experiences.   Just what I like--heavy on the experiences, light on everything else!  To give US prices, it was ~$575 on hotel and flights, ~$110 on drinks and food for 4 days (awesome for eating out that whole time!), $45 on souvenirs, and $389 on experiences, or $1100 USD total.  I'm super happy with that breakdown.

Total cost was approximately $1,600 NZD for my Vanuatu vacation.  This is why I save up.  The experiences I had in those four days will fuel me through the next interval of saving and scrimping, so I can do it all over again.  While I can now count Vanuatu as one of my most favorite places on Earth, I'm thinking Fiji next...

KiwiSaver!!!!

You guys, I'm so psyched!  My $1K kickstart was deposited into my Kiwisaver account while I was away on vacation.  I received a notice in the mail, and today I finally set my PIN and registered to be able to see my account balances online through SuperLife, my preferred KiwiSaver scheme provider.

So far:

Opening balance $0.00


Your savings 197.30

#Employer contributions 197.30

#Government subsidies
Kick-start 1,000.00

Interest paid by IRD 1.24

Investment earnings 45.02

Tax at your PIR rate 3.54

Administration fees -8.25

Closing balance $1,436.15

Not bad for 3 months, right?!

What's For Dinner

I stumbled across this recipe as I was trying to whip something together for dinner for visiting Friend #2 and my coworker, who were having dinner at my place in a few short hours.  It takes a while because it's baked, but I'm sure there is a stove-top version that would be much quicker.  In any case, it is so delish that I had to share!  Plus, it is rare that my cooking experiments turn out successfully.

Heat oven to 350 F and bake chicken pieces for 45 min, turning over at the halfway point.  Drain off fat (I have a removable grill-type baking pan that catches the drippings from the grated top, makes it much easier to clean and you less prone to burns!).

Mix 1/2 c. ketchup, 1 tbsp. mustard, 1 tbsp. Worcestershire sauce, 1/4 c. brown sugar, 1 tbsp lemon juice, and 1/4 c water together and set to low boil for a minute.  (Note:  the original recipe calls for 1/2 c. brown sugar, but I find the sauce too sweet if I add that much, so I cut it by half and it turned out perfectly.)  Cover the chicken with the sauce and bake for 15 min. (I turn the chicken over and add another coating at 7.5 minutes.)

Credit goes to http://www.cooks.com/rec/view/0,1933,145168-235193,00.html

So, so yummy!  Who knew it was so easy to make BBQ sauce (esp since NZ DOES NOT have good BBQ sauce!)?  My guests raved!

March 2010 Savings Update

As far as I can tell, I didn't do as badly as I thought I did concerning savings in February.  I looked through my savings accounts and it looks like I now have the following:

Long-Term Savings (stored in Raboplus bank account)
$10K in NZ EF
$1.4K in US Roth Fund
$490 in House Downpayment Fund
$490 in Europe Trip Fund

Short-Term Savings
$1.1K in laptop fund

$3.5K in 2010 US Travel (bumped up from $2.8K due to the wedding I need to attend)
$1087 in Oz Fund (bumped up from $0 with leftover travel money)
Total:  $18,067
 
We'll see if my credit card bill necessitates an NZ transfer beyond what my monthly budget can handle.  I think it is going to take a month or so to figure out how much I will have left over each month for fun.

Stolen? Donation

Before I visited Vanuatu, I did a little research on where to go, what to see, and how much to spend.  During my research, I uncovered some interesting facts about the nation's poverty level:  it is among the world's 50 poorest undeveloped countries, as ranked by the U.N.  Gobsmacked, I did a little more delving and found out that the schools there regularly run out of things like paper and even pencils.  Why this is the fact that hit home the most, I'm not sure--maybe it was that parents can't afford to buy even a pencil for their child?  In any case, I decided to use my February charity budget to buy and bring over a bunch of school supplies for the schools. 

While packing, I bought ~$50 worth of pencils, lined paper, crayons, pencil sharpeners, colored pencils, calculators, etc. in a back to school sale at the Warehouse.  I lugged it over to Vanuatu, and then had no idea what to do with it.  I packed into plastic bags, marked it 'School Donation,' and placed it on my bed when I went to check out of my hotel.

A few hours later (our plane didn't leave until 4 pm; the hotel agreed to hold our luggage behind the desk), I remembered the bags and told the front desk that I had left the school donation bags in the room, and could they please donate them to the appropriate people?  The front desk said yes, of course.

A few moments later, the front desk guy came back to where my friend and I were waiting in the hotel bar, and said that he hadn't find anything in the room, nor had the maid service found anything.  I shrugged, said, "OK, that's fine, I'm sure the supplies have made it to where they were needed," and forgot about it.

The thing about most Ni-Vanuatu people is, they are very VERY friendly, very hospitable, and very quick to apologize for anything and everything that may cause you a problem, even if it is not their fault.  Even my bus driver apologized when he asked for the going rate for one of my trips.  It's nutty, and you get the feeling that you need to keep things to yourself or overly reassure them to protect them, so that they feel like they've given you the absolute best experience possible.  Everyone says hello to you, good day, whatever, and some even will come up to you and demonstrate what 'Vanuatu music' sounds like, by playing it on their ever-present cell phones (poor or not, EVERYONE in Vanuatu has a cell phone!).  I'm sure this over-pleasing trait, while wonderful to encounter on vacation, gets them into a lot of trouble.  For sure, I hope they don't visit L.A. anytime soon.  :)

So of course they checked the room again, and found nothing.  The maid came and apologized and said she found nothing, and eventually even the wait staff at the bar came over to see what was going on.  I kept saying, "It is totally fine, I'm happy, I think the supplies will be put to good use wherever they are," but they kept talking about it and making a huge deal of it.  Some of the staff gave me a few hard looks like they thought I was accusing someone of stealing.  I really wasn't--I was just letting the front desk know that I had left the school supplies there for them to distribute.  I didn't want them to make such a fuss!  I had to leave without knowing what happened in the end.  I really hope no one got into trouble over this mess.

So, that's my story of my February donation money from my budget.  I know I brought them over to Vanuatu and I know that they weren't in my luggage when I packed up, and I know I left them in that hotel room, even though they all said that they didn't see them. 

Wherever all those supplies are--I really hope that they are being used by someone who is happy to have them.  It is fine by me, all I wanted was that someone that could use them, got them.

Good Memories

Five weeks later...here I am.


My trips are over, and now, all I have left are a few souvenirs, a megabyte of photos, and lots of good memories.  Considering that I could also have debt to add to that list, I'm very happy with the remnants of my vacations.  They all went about as smoothly as could be expected, meaning that there were several unscheduled hitches and wrong turns, but nothing major that couldn't be overcome, and I did 90% of what I wanted to do on each trip.
 
I will tally up the damage later on, but I'm fairly certain that I stayed within 10 to 15% of my allotted budget.
 
Now, catch me up--what has been going on in the blogosphere??
 
 
 

Vanu-what-tu?

Aaaahhh.  I'm back from the most wonderful tropical paradise imaginable.  If you ever get a chance to go to Vanuatu, do it!!  The people are friendly and so hospitable, the atmosphere is incredibly laid-back, there is much gorgeousness to see, and lots of beaches, pools, and waterfalls to cool off in and explore during the mid-day heat wave.  And it was about as expensive to eat and live as in NZ or the US.

More pictures and updates coming...I promise!  Next Tuesday this blog will be back to a more frequent posting schedule.  I am still debating about how often to post (every day seems excessive to me now), but the next few posts will for sure include lots of fun stuff.

In the meantime, I'm off to the South Island to drink in more vacation goodness.  On the docket this time are some Milford Sound and penguin action. 

Miss you!  Besos...