Nothing official yet (yes, the suspense is killer), but I can say there is probably a pretty good chance that we’ll be calling Geneva, Switzerland “home” next year. What do you think of that?!

Even though I plan on doing a lot of traveling, it will be quite interesting to constantly come back to a city as diverse as Geneva. They do speak like 50 gazillion different languages there. Just picture it, being surrounded by mountains — listening to French in one ear, German in the other — while a waiter brings you the best glass of Italian wine you’ve ever tasted. As for being placed in Europe, there really is no better location that centrally-seated Geneva.

Sure, giving up all conveniences and comforts of modern life can help you stash away loads of cash for your upcoming travels in a short amount of time, but just how much shoestringing is too much?

The answer would be a year’s worth.

A little over a year ago I was dead set on saving as much money as I possibly could for my round-the-world travels. Only now the effects and stress of being “less than happy” in the present day is becoming apparent in more than just a constant thought in the back of my mind. This past year has had a lot of triumphs, but there have also been many defeats.

Aggrandizing the cause in the beginning is one of the most exciting parts of preparing. Saying such things as, “If I don’t eat today I can save $20 for the trip!” seem so reasonable when thoughts of riding camels and trekking Nepal dance in the head.

Well people, I’m waving my little white flag. I’M TAKING A VACATION! Yep, you heard me, Brooke is taking some time away from her work, her trip, and her computer for a week of something that’s not this. I am taking my GRE on September 21, and have the entire next week off work for whatever I want. I was planning on doing an archaeological week in Colorado, but the program filled up as I was reserving a spot. Now, who knows. Maybe I’ll go to the Caribbean to see my friend, Bethany, or perhaps I’ll go to the southwest for some hiking. Any suggestions???

Moral of the story: There has to be some happy medium when saving for your trip. Giving up everything is ok for a short amount of time, but can be stressful longer term. Find ways to take time off and relax to help bide your time.

It’s 8:30 in the morning. I log in, check my messages and email, and update my tickets. A few minutes pass. I am called on the phones because it becomes too busy for our downsized help center to handle. My first call of the day has me rolling my eyes as someone panics that their computer won’t start. I am ambivalent. I yawn and pass a ticket to 2nd level. I’m still sleeping as I take the next call. Checking the clock, “Only 1 1/2 hours ’til break,” I tell myself.

This is my life. I used to say I was living day-to-day, but now it’s getting tougher, and I’m living break-to-break. Maybe it is that I know there’s something to look forward to at the end of the year and the anticipation is making it unbearable. No, I doubt that is the case.

Without the goal of saving up thousands and thousands of dollars for my upcoming travels, I’m not so sure I would have made it this far in the call-center job environment. However, sticking it out this long has brought me to some realizations and conclusions about myself and my future I don’t think I would have attained if I had been floating from job to job. Here’s a list:

1. I am in need of higher education and with a more definite focus. My undergraduate degree was too vague to get into any professional field.
2. I get tired of monotonous job duties. Each call may be a bit different, but I’m still at the same computer, at the same time every day.
3. I am much happier working on my own.
4. I would like to have something to show for my work. I would rather take part of a few different projects that I can complete and feel proud of.
5. I like being creative more than I enjoy following standard procedures.

These are some important attributes to take into account when trying to plan for career happiness. That brings us to our travel plans. I’m hoping to integrate furthering my education with traveling the world. It’s time to stop living break-to-break.

Put your hands up.

Now put one hand down.

You can now count the number of months until our Central America excursion, and the beginning of a long and interesting journey afterwards, on that one hand. Five months to go people. Five itty bitty, teeny tiny, count-it-on-one-hand months.

Wow.

I started planning this trip about 13 months ago, and there have been various moments, or landmarks, during this time where I thought I felt it. Buying the backpack proved I had every intention of going somewhere, whether it be circumnavigating the globe, or just to the beach. I had my bag. When I called to start the vaccine process, I thought to myself about how exotic that location would be. Then, when we bought the first plane ticket, I thought I felt it, as I finally knew where that exotic place was located.

When I say I felt it, I am referring to the feeling of dream becoming reality. When you’re constantly planning for an event so far in the future, the day-to-day struggles take away from the realization of the event’s magnitude. It isn’t until you hit one of these landmarks that you take a step back from the small details and see the big picture again. The excitement rolls over your body.

In all of these previous moments, I thought I felt it, but now, while looking down at my hand and knowing we are so close, I can’t help but think about all the items I still need to cross off my list, how much money I have saved, and where I see myself in a year. At this moment, I am inundated with excitement, anxiety, nervousness, joy… the reality of a decision made 13 months ago to leave this country for adventure.

It just may shock you.

Everyone knows I’ve been super fanatical about saving money for our RTW trip, and even though that specific plan might now be placed on the backburner, I’m not about to go and blow all the dough I’ve saved on some shopping spree. Oh, no, I still have travelling to do with that money. I am still super-money-conscious Brooke.

Our site has gotten away from us recently, and in an attempt to regain the old pre-trip funding character we loved, I’m going to share a little tip that might help speed that whole saving process up for you all — how to give up cable TV.

*GASP!* Give up cable TV, are you nuts?!

Yes, I am.

But, besides that fact, there’s something else you must know. Way back when we were a couple of “wet behind the ears” RTW trip savers, we thought that subscribing to a DVD-in-the-mail service was the way to go - only a couple bucks a month for many, many movies. However, I’m not so sure anymore. We cancelled that back in April as we just couldn’t take watching anymore bad movies. No, you no longer have to spend more money a month just to watch B-class movies while you countdown to take-off. I give you:

http://www.tv-links.co.uk/

Hundreds of TV shows, multiple seasons, all at your finger tips, 24/7. Love the Sopranos, but don’t have HBO? No sweat! Want to relive your childhood with shows like, “Salute Your Shorts,” “You can’t do that on television,” and “The Secret World of Alex Mack”? You got it! I hope you all enjoy this little morsel of television goodness. I know I do.

Welcome back! We are building a new site for our “new” trip plan. Keep checking back for more updates!

I turned 24 on May 29th. I don’t think I’ve ever had a birthday outside of Illinois until this one, and even though it was fabulous, it was also definitely costly, and a bit surreal. You must be thinking, “24?! That’s so young!” And yes, it is young, yet I have this overwhelming feeling that I’ve lost something. What happened to all those ages that you look forward to? Driving at 16, voting at 18, drinking at 21… my big years have come and gone and here I sit, a 24 year old woman with nothing left but the chance to rent a van at 25 and social security.

For many years, I have been mistaken for way younger than my actual age. You know, the usual, “Are you even old enough to drive?” when paying for gas at the age of 19, the intense scrutiny of my ID when trying to get into the bars, and my favorite, “What high school do you go to?” Then abruptly something seemed to change. Instead of asking me what high school I went to, they started asking when I was going to get married. Instead of examining my ID with a microscope, they let me slide through the checkout with a case of beer and not a second glance. At what point did I go from looking 16 to 24? All this has really added to the surreal vibe of my latest birthday.

Even so, Brian has done his best to make it a great one. No surprise party this year, but with all the drama in our lives recently, I told him that I don’t care what happens as long as we have cannoli. And that we did! With a trip into the city, a museum, dinner, wine, dessert, trains, and subways, we were well over $100 on this birthday outing. It hurts a bit to think about since $100 was my monthly fun budget back in Normal, but I needed it. I needed the fun, and I definitely needed Brian telling me that 24 might be the best year of my life.

*The picture to the right is of me and a fantastic cannoli in Sicily 2004. I cut most of me out so you can’t see how insanely obese I became from my semester abroad.
Update: Even with all of our recent splurges in NY, we are well on our way to our 50k goal. We have 35-ish grand between us, and 7 months to go! Now if I could only get a dollar for every time a bum hit on me or I got yelled at out of a car window…

Can you kill your car twice? Well, yes, metaphorically. The first time I killed my car, I had just paid off my loan for it. This time, I’ve simply sold the bugger!

How exciting is that?! I am now officially car-less (and no longer directly contributing to global warming), but don’t you worry, I don’t really need one on a regular basis (lucky me!). I put an ad in the local paper on Tuesday, and by Saturday afternoon, it was gone and out of my life forever!

I didn’t have a very grand car, so I only sold it for $5500. Five thousand will be put directly into a CD for a return fund, while the other $500 will go directly to my trip fund. I love making leaps and bounds in travel funding like that

So, I bet you’re wondering what else has been up with us? Nothing except just working on getting out of here and to NY. Brian is finishing up his busy semester, and I have been packing/cleaning the apartment. On top of that, I have been working a part-time job scoring tests to make some extra money. But, before you get your hopes up, this month is not going to be so hot in the money sector. I have a couple of doctor appointments coming up, one of which was not planned and very necessary, that will drain the funds pretty heavily.

To make up for this little setback in funding, Brian and I have decided to downgrade Western Europe. We’ve been talking about it for some time, but finally made the official statement, “no, we can’t see every country in Europe on this trip.” The main course of our Western Europe stay will be Spain & Italy, with a touch of Greece and a sprinkling of Portugal and Switzerland. Mmm, I can taste Western Europe now.

P.S. - Only 8 months until we leave, 7 1/2 months until I’m done with work, 6 1/2 months until I put my notice in.

P.P.S. (or is it P.S.S.?) - Oh, and we bought our first flight to Guatemala on Dec. 27th! Take-off is confirmed.

I don’t know if I’ve said it yet, but saving for an around the world trip is both exciting and stressful at the same time. When you’re thinking about the possibilities of traveling to certain parts of the world, you know that every last dollar is important. As you can tell, I’ve taken hold of that thought and have been doing as many things possible to pinch those pennies, because let’s be honest, those couple bucks can easily extend a stay from a day to week in some exotic locations.

The exciting part of saving comes with the realization of how much I can achieve in life when I put my mind to something. I have been able to set a goal, a non-traditional goal, construct a plan to achieve that goal, and actually follow that plan through to the end. Even more exciting is the realization of how in control of my future I really am. I’ve always been somewhat of a dreamer stuck in a traditional life pattern: do good in school, then move on to do good in work… just work-work-work while following the standards. When I was in high school, I used to dream about moving to Australia for a year before going to college (what people call a gap year in other parts of the world was unknown to my circle of family/friends). Everyone thought I was nuts and wrote it off as another one of my dreams. “You should just go to college right away.” I hated it. I hated being told I couldn’t do something because they just thought it wasn’t the “correct” path for me to take. I ended up just going to college right away, but my dream remained in the back of my mind, waiting to make a reappearance.

The stressful part of saving, however, is also apparent. I always set my goals high because it makes me work harder, and thus, achieve more than I would otherwise. This high goal has caused me to be a little too obsessive and concerned about money. I now understand the value of a dollar, but with that comes a tragedy every time I have to dish out a little more money than I was expecting. With this in mind, I bring you the story of bad banking.

I used to have a small, online business, and since I’ve started saving for the trip, I haven’t had time to focus on that… so it is closed. I cancelled anything and everything that goes with that, except for my small business checking account with National City. There was literally $3 left in the account and on my list of things to do (to do: cancel bank account), but I just haven’t gotten my silly ass over to the bank to do that. To make matters more interesting, I still had the account address at my mom’s house in East Peoria, so of course all my statements mail there (I think you know where this is going).

Not a big deal. This was not a big deal because everything pertaining to that account besides the account itself had been closed.

Or, so I thought.

I went to visit my mom this weekend, and in the process picked up my stack of mail that has piled up over the weeks since I last visited. I was cleaning and organizing the apartment yesterday (the landlord is showing it on Tuesday to a prospective tenant) and I opened my mail from National City. In it was a lovely little letter that read a little something like this:

“On 03/28/07, there was not enough money in your National City checking account to cover the debit items we received that day.”

My immediate thought was that someone got a hold of my account numbers and went charge happy. I took a closer look:

Debit: $9.99      Action: Paid/Acct Overdrawn      National City Fee: $34.00

It turns out that GoDaddy.com decided to automatically renew an email account I had associated with the business (even thought I *thought* I cancelled that a few weeks ago, but, alas, not 100% sure) for a measly $10, and since I had $3 in my account, it brought me to a grand total of $40.00 in the hole. I was so angry!

I know, I know. Only $40, what’s the worry?!

I look on further and read the fine print. Brace yourself:

“If an account is overdrawn and remains so for more than 4 consecutive business days a $8.00 continuous overdraft fee will be charged each day it is still overdrawn.”

Take a second to think about it. This happened on March 28th. Yesterday was April 15th. I am cheapo Brooke who wouldn’t even spend $30 on a camera charger because it wasn’t deemed necessary.

My hands got a little tingly; my stomach dropped. I reluctantly log into my online account to see that this tiny $10 mistake turned into a whopping $112 burden. Normally, this wouldn’t make me feel so crummy, but I have been working so incredibly hard (2 jobs) to get that $112, and there it flew, out the window. I broke down and started crying with frustration.

Brian helped to alleviate the situation. We went to get some cash to put into my account and cover the expenses, and tomorrow I am definitely going to close out that account. I still can’t believe that daily overdraw fee - no thanks National City. You may offer free small business checking, but charging over $100 for a $7 error hardly seems right. Nay, I say! Nay to National City!!!

And that, my friends, is a lesson in *bad banking.

*bad banking refers to both my lack of upkeep on the account, and national city’s outrageous overdraft charge.

So, you have a great day at work as things are calming down and you’re all caught up. The stress of the last couple of months starts to fade away, and that crick in your neck from constant computer ticket attack mode is slightly less noticeable. You feel great, and you feel even better when you find out that your vacation pay is on the way… oh yes, a week’s pay directly in your pocket. This is you:

Elated, flabbergasted, you struggle to find the right words as you realize this will make up for the $500 you’re behind from buying the wonderful camera with which you used to take these hysterical pictures. Finally, back on track!

“Out of my way world!” you say with gusto as you excitedly dial, no wait (you’ve decided to play it cool), as you confidently dial the nearest health department. You explain where you’re going and halfway through the list of countries the doctor interjects, “You’re going to need everything, you.”

“Everything?” you say.

“Everything.”

In a final attempt to make the most of an unexpected turn of tone, and mainly to keep the cool-vibe you’ve had going thus far, you throw caution to the wind. “Sign me up.”
“Ok, that’ll be 20,000 travel shots at $20,000 a piece.”

The blank stare on your face turns to horror as you realize not only are you getting a million jabs, but you are also going to pay a million dollars for them. So much for back on track! This is you:

Maybe next time little girl, maybe next time.

*See the vaccinations we end up getting, and how much they cost us, here.