Today was our four year wedding anniversary and we wanted to mark the occasion by doing something special, but also affordable. We’re saving the last of our spending money this month for U.K. Vegan Campout, so we’re very aware that every penny we spend right now is less spending money on amazing vegan junk food in a couple of weeks!
With full tanks of fuel we just needed an idea of where to go and that wasn’t hard as I was keen to tick another item off my 2019 bucket list and visit Stonehenge!
Ireland is somewhere I’ve been keen to visit for a while. Having just returned from an eight day European road trip with kids, I have travel on the mind. Does travel do that to you too? Even whilst we are travelling we become inspired to travel more, thinking up more and more places we’d love to see.
In November I wrote a post about our 2019 travel plans and bucket list. That was over three months ago and now we are well and truly settled into 2019 I want to write an update on our travel plans and thoughts.
Should I travel or save my money?
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I started by saying we’d have a limited travelling year as we give our emergency fund a big push. My target this year was £10,000. We already had £3000 saved and we’re now up to £5000. I’m always torn between the best thing to do. I have the travel bug really bad and feel we never know what’s around the corner. Something tragic could happen any day and I don’t want to regret not travelling more.
But, at the same time, I get so anxious about money. I’m self-employed so income is never guaranteed and I always worry about one of us getting ill or losing our jobs. Plus, in 2018 we had total car repair bills of £3000 for the year! Something we managed to pay for thanks to our savings, but it’s made me further off my savings targets and of course anxious that we might get more repair bills like this and need the funds saved just in case.
I feel like life’s too short to not travel. We’re also only here once and there’s so much to see and experience. But I also feel I need to be sensible and have a good batch of savings to cover all sorts of eventualities.
Ben and I never went on a honeymoon. Boo-hoo I hear you cry! We didn’t do the traditional wedding thing at all really. I always dreaded the thought of walking down an aisle having everyone stare at me and having to say vows in front of a huge audience, so instead we did our own much more relaxed style wedding. We had a Wedfest in our own garden! Continue reading “My top 10 honeymoon destinations”→
This post will be updated in italics as we progress through 2019 and tick things off our bucket list!
I think 2019 is going to be a somewhat limited family travelling year for us. I am in the middle of saving an emergency fund and I have decided to give it a big push in 2019 and hopefully reach my target of £10,000 by the end of the year. This means we probably won’t be going on any big holidays in 2019, unless I suddenly discover a lot of extra cash or my workload goes through the roof!
I’m self-employed and so earnings are always a worry and something I feel anxious about constantly. To ease this anxiety I want to have a substantial emergency fund saved up that will cover my household contributions for several months should work dry up for me or I need to spend time finding employment.
It’s also to cover unexpected bills, such as our Mazda Bongo camper repair bills! I fear we purchased a money pit having already spent £400 on a new turbo and it now being back in the garage for over one week already with an engine problem that will cost us £1200 providing they don’t find anything else wrong in there…
Arg!
This means we probably won’t have as many luxurious holidays away as we have been in 2018 – Fuerteventura, Center Parcs and Bluestone and several smaller camping trips/nights away.
We do already have a couple of festivals booked as I purchased tickets this year to take advantage of early bird prices. So it’s great to already have something paid for to look forward to. I’d also like to go away at Christmas again if we have a great time at Bluestone this year. I’m really looking forward to our last adventure of 2018 which is a 3 night stay at Bluestone in Wales with lots of festive activities booked for the children.
One of my biggest regrets of my twenties and pre-kid life is not travelling the world. When I left school it wasn’t something that interested me or that I had a passion for. I worked the same job for nine years before I had my first daughter and I liked the security of it so didn’t want to ever leave it to go travelling. Now I really wish I had! In my thirties and with two kids and a mortgage, I now, rather annoyingly, have the thirst to travel! Only now I can’t just save up and zip off round the world for a year or so as I have responsibilities. Why, oh, why did I not have this passion and desire in my twenties or late teens when anything was possible?! Continue reading “Victoria’s ultimate travel bucket list”→
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