Lots of Links: The 'Can This Economy Get Any Worse?' Edition

Now that I am back from vacation, I am catching up on a ton of online reading.  Here's some links you might find useful:

• Could you eat on $30 a week? This is definitely something I want to try when we move into our new place (before we stock up on groceries so I will have no choice but to stay within the constraints of the goal).
• Avoid ridiculous baggage fees.  Holy cow! Yet another reason to travel with a carry on bag only.
• My falling credit score.  Mine too!  I think my credit score is around 600 because I haven't used credit in more than three years.
• Healthcare in the US and while traveling.  I really feel for this family.  It is a very sad thing when you have to leave your own country just to get decent, affordable healthcare.
• 18 Types of Residual Income.  I would LOVE to be able to live on residual income so I will definitely look into some of these ideas.
• How the recession changed me.  Exactly.  I could have wrote this.
• Without a job, California woman forced to live a lie.  More fall out from the recession.
• Picking your own apples can take a cider press to your wallet.  A very good point, this is why you have to weigh every financial decision.
• Why it is better to need less than have more.  Amen.

A Quick Goal List Update

I finally got around to updating my goal list. I am a little disappointed that I am half way through the year and have only completed ten out of 44 goals! :(  I guess I should have planned better as many goals require a lot of time and nearly all of the goals require a lot of money!  I will keep plugging away on the list but maybe next year I will aim for a list of more realistic goals...

Oh The Places You'll Go (And the People You'll Meet!)

One of my favorite things about traveling is the people I meet along the way. In fact, the main impetus for our Asia trip was to meet up with a few people we haven’t seen in quite a long time. Here’s my people stories (money stories included!):

• Ms Tamura is the lady I went to see in Japan. No matter what, I decided that this was my year to visit her. You see, I have never met her before but we have been writing to each other for over twenty years and after a number of times of intending to go to Japan (but never making it) and after realizing that she is in her mid 80s I figured it was now or quite possibly never. It’s kind of a weird story how we started writing to each other. When I was an exchange student in Japan more than 25 years ago, I went with my host father to his night job of teaching English at a nurse’s school. I met the director of the school who was a very nice lady and we started writing to each other when I came back to the states. A few years later I got a letter from Ms Tamura, the new director of the school, stating that Ms Sasaki had passed away. We have been writing back and forth ever since. I appreciate that she has put up with my lousy (and impolite!) Japanese for so many years and that she always has interesting things to tell me in her letters. On this trip I was so happy to meet her finally. We got together with my old host family, who acted as interpreters since my spoken Japanese is worse than my written Japanese, and went to meet her twice during my stay. She is just as amazing in person as I thought she would be. Apparently she is/was quite the rebel as she used to drive a Harley and now drives a “big car” (I didn’t find out the exact make of the car but big cars aren’t all that common in Japan). She was going to be a nun but changed her mind, has traveled extensively, and really reminds me of my grandmother. I wanted to take her home with me! Money story: when I was leaving, we exchanged gifts. I gave her a few simple things and she gave me what I assume was a very expensive pearl and diamond necklace judging by the sudden intake of breath by my group and their shocked expression. They kept exclaiming that it was a treasure. I was shocked too. Lesson: you never know when you will be given an amazing gift (but it seems to be much more likely to happen when you travel).
• When I first planned my trip to Japan, I figured I would meet up with my host sister Kiyo from way back when and then I would be on my way to visit other people. I was astounded that not only did she meet me at the airport when I arrived but she never left my side for the entire time I was in Japan! We have kept in touch over the years and write back and forth quite often but her dedication to making my trip a success was above and beyond anything I expected. Not only was she my guide and translator, but she would not let me pay for a single thing during my stay (I literally mean not a SINGLE thing!) I withdrew a couple of hundred dollars when I arrived at the airport thinking I would hit the bank the next day when I got a better idea of my expenses and that money was still in my wallet the day I left (I subsequently gave it to her kids when I left as a gift). She literally paid for everything—meals, water, multiple—expensive—bus, train, and airline tickets, and when we went to southern Japan to meet up with her parents and Ms Tamura, her parents then paid for a resort we spent the night at and food for every meal! They all insisted that since I was their guest, I couldn’t pay for anything. Again, I was super shocked at the generosity and hospitality that I received there. I felt kind of bad that the costs were so many and from my calculations, so high (I am guessing it totaled around $1500) but apparently her husband is a well-paid engineer at the largest cell company in Japan (it says he has a doctorate in engineering on his business card and they own a big, brand new house in the middle of Tokyo). Even her two kids were generous to a fault. Holy cow. Again I was stunned. Money lesson: same as above, sometimes the financial blessings just rain down on you when you least expect it. She also mentioned how much I did for her and her friends the couple of times they came to the states but I really can’t remember doing that much for them so the corollary may be to treat your guests amazingly well and your good deeds will come back to you at a later date.
• I met up with my sister in law unexpectedly in the Philippines. We didn’t even know she was there as she lives in New York and hadn’t mentioned traveling anywhere this fall. She knows I don’t eat much Filipino food and asked what I had been eating during my stay. I told her Shakeys and fried chicken and rice then I asked her if there were any Indian restaurants in the area because I had noticed quite a few Indians walking by on the street. She said she didn’t know of any but would ask around. A couple of days later a lady called me and said she was a friend of my sister in law and said she would like to bring me some Indian food. I said fine, thinking my SIL had picked it up at a restaurant and was having it delivered to me which would have been very nice in and of itself. So the lady arrived with a homemade, six course Indian meal and I nearly fell off my chair! Not only that but she stayed and ate with me and explained that the meal was a special vegetarian meal made by her sister in law in honor of the death day of the lady’s husband (apparently in her religion, on the anniversary of someone’s death, the family makes food and gives it away to other family members and friends to honor the person who had died). Not only that but it turned out the lady is a fairly well-known artist from India who was now living in the Philippines. We talked about art and religion and spirituality and family and travel and spent a very enjoyable couple of hours together. Money lesson: same as the other two…you never know when people will go out of their way to do amazing things for you. I am definitely going to pay this forward because it was one of the most unexpected and nicest things a stranger has ever done for me!

Note: the top picture is Kiyo, Ms Tamura, and Kiyo's parents.  The second picture is Ms Balchand.

Back in the US...And a Financial Wrap Up for Our Trip

We got back yesterday from our Asia trip and besides being jet lagged, I am happy to get back to blogging.  Here's a post about the Philippines from my other blog.  And now the part you have all been waiting for...the final tally for our 19 day trip to Asia:

• Round-trip airfare Seattle to Manila  $1,814.20
• Hotel in Manila for nine days $429.77
• Hotel in Davao for nine days $422.77
• Round-trip airfare Manila to Davao $229.53
• Round-trip airfare Manila to Tokyo  $568.40
• Spending money $5,500.00

For a grand total of $8,964.67

And now some explanation...

• We could have got our round trip airfare to Japan for about $30 total through the military but that is a very hit or miss proposition and the possibility of being stranded in Japan for literally weeks until there was space to fly was very possible so we opted for regular airline tickets. 
• We stayed in hotels in Manila and Davao because although we could have stayed for free with family and friends, we feel like it would be too much of an imposition (we use a lot of air conditioning, hot water, toilet paper, etc which is relatively expensive there plus we like our privacy--and I'm really picky about the cleanliness and modernness of my surroundings...). 
• I did stay for free with my friends in Japan (and got all of my other expenses in Japan for free there as well but that will be tomorrow's post!).
• We used a low cost local airline for our trip to Davao and got what I felt was a good price on the tickets (although they get you on the baggage fees so it is best to pack light!) but I opted for the higher priced ticket to go to Japan (I could have flown the cheaper airline to Japan but it landed late at night in a city I didn't need to go to so this was more expensive but more convenient). 
• Our biggest expense was spending money.  Although the Philippines can be pretty cheap for budget travelers, when you are returning "home" as my husband did since he is from the Philippines, going there can be fairly expensive.  It is expected that he will pay for food, transportation and spending money for all of the friends and family members he sees in the Philippines (that's just the way it is done) and it is also a given that he will give money to all of his friends and relatives as well (another cultural thing).  So we ended up buying meals for more than a dozen people each day and giving massive amounts of cash as gifts to nearly everyone.  The last time we went there we spent way more so this was better as far as money goes but overall still pretty expensive!
• We did have a wonderful time and everything worked out well.  We were fortunate in that we currently don't have any bills or house payments so we could easily pay for the trip and we also felt it was important to go at this time because some of the people we went there to see are getting up to their 90s and you never know how long they will be around.
• We have saddled ourselves with a few financial obligations related to our trip after coming home.  At the grandsons's school, we found that they have hardly any school supplies for about a dozen classes with 50 plus students in each class so I will put together a box of school supplies to send there (hopefully friends will help me by donating supplies to go in the box too).  My husband's son lives in what it literally a hut made of bamboo and palm fronds so we have committed to providing the funds to build him a better house (around $10,000 spread out over a few years), and I will be sending gifts to my friend and her extended family in Japan (about 13 people) because they literally paid for every single thing during my stay there (to the tune of over $1500!).

Overall we had an amazing time and look forward to going again (probably in two or three years).  Of course we will need to start saving for that trip now.  Our next adventure entails moving all of our household goods to Las Vegas in a couple of weeks, finding and making an offer on a house there, then going to Connecticut for a month or two in mid October.
p.s. I am going to be happy when we get settled into a new place and stop traveling so much!

Quick Update, Still in the Philippines

Just a quick update...I feel like I haven't posted here for a month but I think it has been more like a week (which is a long time in blogger time!).  We are still in the Philippines but I haven't had internet access because the internet at our hotel costs an extra $5 per day and it is way slower than dial up so I just said forget it.  Then just yesterday I found a little internet cafe right behind our hotel so I am here today catching up on email and my blogs.
I had a wonderful time in Japan last week (info here from my other blog) and since we will head back to the US in a few days, we are wrapping up our time here with friends and family (mostly by eating and shopping).  When we get back  I will figure out exactly how much this trip cost (a lot according to  hubby). 
Here's a picture of my friend's aunt's nearly 200 year old farm house and a picture of the sunrise over the Inland Sea. Hope you all are doing well--sorry I haven't read anyone's blogs since we left the states so I will have a lot of reading to do when I get home!

We Made it to the Philippines!

We landed last night in the Philippines and now the fun begins!  Actually now I need a nap...the flight was 16 torturous hours long (the worst part about Asian travel is actually getting here because it takes so long!) but I am happy to report that the weather is beautiful--humid and warm but not too hot.  The food so far is great (we like to eat at a small Chinese restaurant in Makati Manila) and the hotel is pretty nice but relatively cheap for being in a major city (about $45 a night). 
Hubby's cousin picked us up at the airport last night and took us to our hotel and it just so happened that they had karaoke going in the hotel's night club so the cousin jumped up and sang and he is awesome (he is the lead singer in a famous band in the Philippines so people were pretty shocked to see him singing there).  The worst thing about Manila? Trying to cross the street without getting run over.  It isn't for the faint of heart and since the traffic never actually stops you just need to step off the curb and walk and hope people stop for you! 
I'm trying to keep track of all of our expense for the trip so I will be able to give you a complete financial run down at the end (note that as soon as you step off the plane, hubby starts tipping people so that part may be hard to quantify).  So far he has tipped: the guy that opens the door for us at the hotel, the three people who waited on us at the hotel night club, the guy that brought up extra towels, the guy that brought our luggage to the room, the waiter in the restaurant, an old woman that was begging in the street...I guess this is all part of big city life but for the past few months we have been, more or less, small town people where you don't have to tip everyone you see!.