Sad News

(I'll get back to the Traveling Tips...I've been sidelined a bit due to a sad event over the weekend.)

Our youth pastor committed suicide on Sunday afternoon...36 years old...his wife is 30 and they have 5 children. We were at a Sunday School Super Bowl party when the host who is on staff at church got the call from our senior pastor.

He had been suffering from severe anxiety and depression since his youngest daughter started having several undiagnosable major health issues. (she's adopted which makes family medical history difficult) He had recently begun taking anti-anxiety medication with dangerous side-effects. His marriage was suffering from stress.

We saw and talked to him Saturday night after church. I waved Sunday morning while on my way to Sunday School. He was from Iowa and the Midwest connection was nice. Walt and him would razz about sports...he was a Colts fans. We would see him around Surprise a lot...at the park and he was a volunteer tennis coach at one of our high schools as well as a volunteer Surprise community police officer.

He was the first person outside of our Sunday School and fellowship groups that reached out to us and made an effort to talk to us everytime he saw one of us.

Our church has been having prayer vigils this week. We went Monday night and it was comforting to see so many in our church body gathered to gain strength together but it was also really hard as so many of the youth were there. The questions and pain in their eyes as well as hearing their cries made my heart drop even lower.

Please pray for his family (Lizzy and their 5 kids), our church, our church staff, and our youth during this tough time.

That Traveling Couple (Part 4)

Here are a few ways we save money eating while traveling.

We like to take granola bars/snacks with us on the plane or in the car. It saves us from reaching to grab something unhealthy whether free on the plane or spending extra money. (I often save up the free samples I receive in the mail and also drastically reduced boxes bought through sales, coupons, and stocking up...makes planning for vacations even more affordable!) We use these same items for breakfast if the hotel we're staying at doesn't have free breakfast. We have saved a lot of Walt's per diem on business trips especially when I've traveled with him!

We also have a plug-in cooler that has both a car adapter and wall plug. This has saved us so much money...we've taken sandwiches, string cheese, cutup fruit and veggies, and milk to go with our breakfast stuff, etc. (great for roadtrips, of course!) One time we drove to Vegas and brought a cooler into the Bellagio and only ate our our healthy already-paid for food while enjoying the luxury of the Bellagio.

While we do bring a lot from home, we enjoy eating out as well. We rarely eat out at home but on vacation, we eat out more frequently as part of the treat for being on vacation...unless we have a condo. At home, we use www.restaurants.com for great gift certificates that are often 80-90% off. A while ago, I started researching what certificates were available in the cities we were traveling to and was surprised to find restaurants we loved on there in other cities...even if that same restaurant was not on there for our home zip code!

These certificates can be a great value but are often best used when in a group of more than 2...each certificate has certain requirements and sometimes it's hard the minimum to get $10 or $25 off when it's two people. :)

If you sign up on their website, you'll be notified when the sale for 80 or 90% happens! I always look at the requirements, check the menu on the restaurant's website, and then calculate what our bill would be...they add 18% tax before they take off your giftcard to see if it would be a good deal.

I also see if any coupons are available online for restaurants we may be trying. If going for an extended time, we often consider the entertainment.com book as well for that area. We went on a 10-day trip to Cape Cod and onto Maine, we bought the book at a great deal online...$5 with free shipping and made the money back in one meal! (It was ordered in September and most of the coupons expire November 1st.) This book also has great coupons for attractions you may want to go to as well as coupons for regular stores that you might pick up some gifts or souveniers from!

That Traveling Couple (Part 3)

This part is still a work in progress but wanted to start listing some of my favorite sites when planning and booking trips:

www.cheaptotravel.com (owned by Travelocity)
www.orbitz (for cruises)
www.priceline.com
www.hotwire.com

I've read over and over how great www.kayak.com is but never really cared for it.

Every Sunday, we read the Travel section. We like to learn new tips for traveling and booking trips as well as dream about new destinations. :)
Some new sites I read about recently:
www.biddingfortravel.com
www.betterbidding.com
(These above two look good for trying to figure out what Priceline or Hotwires hotels will be based on the vague description you get and not knowing the name of the hotel before you book.)

For vacation rentals (which can save lots of money by cooking most of your own meals...we did this on Maui in 2007 and loved it!):
www.vrbo.com
www.airbnb.com

www.bing.com was also mentioned but not too impressed with their site.

More coming later. :)

That Traveling Couple (Part 2)

Baby-free...those were the last words of my first post on this topic. (see below if this is the first of these posts you've seen.)

Many assume that the reason we travel is because we do not have children. While it is easier to travel and certainly easier to afford to travel with no children, it most definitely isn't our desire. We would trade all our travels for the opportunity to become parents.

There are a few more realistic reasons why we travel. First, we read some wonderful advice many years ago that every couple should travel at least one weekend/year. If you have kids, you should aim for one weekend with kids/year and one weekend without. If you can afford a week or a longer weekend, that's all the better but even just a weekend to look forward to is beneficial. We believe it brings a couple closer together and a family as you pull away from the monotony of daily life. Breaking away from routine allows for our second reason to travel: to admire God's creation.

This is where I need to clarify what my perception of a vacation is. It can be anywhere...camping in a state park, on Maui, or at the beautiful oceanfront Hotel Del in Coronado where we stayed last Memorial Day. I get excited for all three types of vacations because I can't wait to admire God's creation...whether it's the first time I've visited a place or the 5th time...which leads me to my third reason: Photography. I can take hundreds of pictures of God's creation. (Thank goodness for digital cameras now...I use to buy so much 35mm film!) I also love to take pictures because I never take it for granted that I will be able to come back. Each time I go to Hawaii, I take pictures as if it will be my last time to ever go there. We don't know what the future holds in store for us and at least we'll have pictures of the memories.

We don't take our trips for granted. Each time we have a desire to travel, we pray and ask God to provide a way if He will allow it. We always save for our trips ahead of time...don't go into debt for memories. When we went to Maui in 2007, a year prior, I went to AAA and got a free map of Hawaii. I stretched out the map and tacked it up on our bedroom wall. We prayed about it for several months and were thankful we were able to go for Walt's 40th birthday. Along with prayer, we always make sure to give the Lord our tithes first. Not to say that doing this will bring about travels but we honor Him first and pray for those things we wish to do with the remainder of the money He has instructed into our care.

A practical tip for affording travel is to have a travel budget. I know that in the season of life with young children, that portion of the budget is more of a diaper, formula, daycare, clothing fund. Be on the lookout for other ways to save for travel. I can't remember the last time we've ate fast food in town. We just don't use our money to eat out much. We eat out twice/month on a fixed amount. We would rather save that money to travel. We also don't have elaborate cell phone plans. We have pre-paid cell phones for truly rare circumstances and save that money for travel as well. A co-worker used to tease me about brown-bagging my lunch everyday. When he'd bring his $6-10 lunch into the office, I would say, "cha-ching, that's going into my Mexico fund!" (We went to a beautiful all-inclusive resort in Mexico for our anniversary that year!) Some drink lots of lattes, some buy lots of clothes or expensive hobbies...look at where you spend your money. A budget is imperative and only a small percent of the population can say that they truly don't splurge anywhere at anytime...do you go to Pampered Chef parties? There are always places to find cash if not now during a busy season of raising young children, then it will be soon when the diapers and other baby expenses have passed.

One of our favorite and most used tips is to travel during the cheapest times of year. This varies depending on where you're traveling too but it usually is when kids are in school. One couple on our cruise last fall had kids and Walt asked if they took their kids out...being that it was October. They said that their school was having half-days all week for some reason that escapes my mind so taking their kids out this week would only result in missing 2.5 days. This particular week for the cruise was such a HUGE sale, that we could see why they chose to take their kids out. (We shop for travel like we do our grocery shopping...more on shopping for travel later.)

Hawaii is cheapest April-June. Traveling over the winter holidays or in the summer when kids are out of school will be more expensive but you could still figure out which week is the cheapest and save hundreds. If flying, departing on a Tuesday or Wednesday will be cheaper than a Saturday departure. Some places like Vegas are cheaper Sun-Thurs than Friday and Saturday. It pays to do your research. Once you figure out where you want to travel, how much it will cost, then determine how much money you need to budget for how long.

That Traveling Couple (Part 1)

"How are you guys able to travel so much???"

In our nearly 7 years of marriage, that is one of the most frequently asked questions we get. Usually it's from those happy to hear that we've been able to do it but then there are of course some who are not happy with how we've managed to do it so it can be a sensitive subject for us. :)

Michelle recently me for tips about the trips we have been blessed to take. I can't do the tips or my trips justice in one post so I will be doing a little series...posting at least one/day, if not a couple! :)

I'll be covering why we travel, how we travel, where we travel, when we travel, tips on booking/planning, tips on saving money once we're there, favorite travel websites, etc. (Don't worry, I'll mix them up so we get to the applicable tips while talking about the big picture!)

Leave me a comment if there's an area I haven't mentioned that you'd like to know specifically more about.

Many of you know that I have a background in hospitality...over 10 years...both in Omaha and a brief period in Dallas. These jobs gave me discounts and more importantly knowledge for traveling that helps me now that I'm in the boat of a regular consumer like yourselves! :)

My first tip is timeshare presentations are a great money-making endeavor to make traveling affordable SOMETIMES.

We have been to several timeshare presentations in our married life and now we only attend them when we wouldn't otherwise be doing something great. In my opinion, there is NEVER a good time to do a timeshare in Hawaii...it's too beautiful there!

But when we went to Vegas in the summer for a wedding, it was blazing hot (we were still midwesterners at the time so it was brutal) so we did one during the hottest part of the day when we would have been indoors...got some nice A/C, snacks and refreshments plus made $100 in 60 min which helped pay for our food for the trip.

We did one in Mazatlan on our cruise in October because the port was not pedestrian-friendly to go out by ourselves and the other alternative was to spend the day on the ship which we had been on for a few days and had a couple days at sea still on the agenda. We got free transportation to/from a beautiful resort and a nice touristy part, free resort credit which paid for a huge lunch that got us away from the ship food so it was a good deal!

We have also got deals to go stay at resorts for a weekend to do a presentation on one of the days

If you do decide to do one of these, the most common thing I hear the presenters say is "do you like what we offer?", "would you use it?", and "can you afford it?" It's their job to make all three of these questions YES from you! They will find all sorts of ways to get horrific financing approved to get you to do it.

We have also heard "everyone deserves a vacation." So after umpteen presentations, we have two strategies for getting our of buying a timeshare...we tell them we really don't like it which has been true on some. They really can't sell you something you don't like so sometimes we say we don't like it and we mean that we don't like the idea of spending our hard-earned money on it. The second thing was something brilliant Walt has done. He looked the person in the eyes and gently tell them, "we do not believe that everyone deserves a vacation. It's great to go on one but it's not a right." That usually stops them in their tracks and they go get our promised prize for attending.

Timeshares are expensive but even worse are the maintenance fees...we often travel for less than the annual maintenance fees and what they don't tell you when they ask how much you spend on travel is that if you tell them a certain amount for airfare (or gas), hotel, food...they try to use that on the timeshare but it's only for the timeshare...you still have to pay for travel to the timeshare, food, and often a rental car.

We have also had weekends offered in San Antonio, Sedona, Vegas, and the like to stay at a timeshare 2 nights free or drastically discounted along with a resort credit or off-site restaurant gift certificate all if we attend a timeshare presentation...sometimes it has been a good idea! It just depends.

We have also attended a couple timeshares here in Phoenix. Two hours of our time (factoring in drive time) has proven to be a good moneymaker on a Saturday afternoon.

Most importantly, remember time is money...it can be a good thing to go to one of these as long as you don't get roped in and you want to make some money/benefits on the side but it can also be a stressful thing and take away from precious daylight hours when you could be sitting on the beach enjoying the ocean. If you could get a timeshare in Hawaii after the sun goes down, then maybe it could be a good thing. :)

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Incidentally, I was googling my title for these posts (on swagbucks, of course) and found a cute website: www.thattravelingcouple.com A blog of journeys this couple has made and their decision to live in a new country each year while they're young...and baby free.