Thursday, February 16, 2012

$1000 Weekends


$1000 Weekends

            We love being ex-pats.  We have tried to take advantage of the culture and the location and the vicinity of surrounding countries/opportunities whenever possible in all the places we have lived overseas.  When we started living overseas many years ago, there wasn’t a lot of money or time in the budget to do much but we still managed to visit some incredible places and see some fantastic sights in each place we have lived, albeit on a minimal budget most of the time which meant cheap hotels, long uncomfortable bus rides, you know the drill.

            Nothing is different about that philosophy now except the location has changed, there is a more money in the budget, and we have a bit more time too as my husband has off work every other Friday.  That gives me two 3 day weekends each month to try and come up with something exciting, either here in England or “on the continent”.  So far we have managed to go south towards the coast for a weekend, to Cardiff, Wales for a weekend, and will soon have a nice weekend in Cornwall.  We have also hit Belgium for a weekend and I have just managed to set up a weekend in Sardinia.  Also on tap are a lot of the “English Must Do’s” such as Ascot, Windsor, Diamond Jubilee celebrations, and Royal Chelsea Flower Show.  And I’m just getting started!

            Needless to say, these weekends are no longer budget cheap, especially if it is a weekend where we have to fly somewhere and rent a car, stay in a hotel, pay for food, yada, yada, for two people do cost more than one even when I am getting every discount I can find, every Groupon coupon, every mileage usage and points usage due me.  So it’s about a $1000 for a good weekend away.  That probably includes all of the above plus gas and entertainment, entrance fees, diving fees (sometimes we dive), transportation, whatever.  The end point you ask?  It’s a hell of a lot of fun, we are enjoying the heck out of ourselves, we are seeing a ton of wonderful things, and we aren’t broke yet 

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