Tag Archives: finances

How To Plan Your Trip

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Preparation is the name of the game. You can’t go to a foreign country and expect it to be like your home. That would be boring to travel somewhere and it’s exactly the same as what you left.

 

So here’s some things to consider:

  1. Decide how long you can afford to be away from home for.

10 days is an ideal time for a short trip, 6 weeks at the most. Do you really want to use all of your annual holidays in one block? That makes it a really long year! If you can, ask your boss for time without pay if you want a really extended holiday. Most businesses are really good on this one if you’ve proven yourself a good employee. Ten days should be your minimum time away. Allow one day each way for travel and that’s not  much time to see everything you want.

 

  1. Decide what you want to do and where you want to go.

Get it in your head that you can’t do everything you want in one trip. Write out your bucket list and make these a priority for your trip. You don’t want to come back so totally exhausted, but you do want to come back with some awesome memories. Plan out beforehand what is most important to you and go do these.

 

  1. Budget

Remember that your biggest expenses besides the flight will be accommodation and food. Places like Indonesia and Bali have cheap food, but most places are quite expensive to eat at. Try getting public transport over hiring a car if you can, as hiring is quite expensive. Always put insurance in your budget. I cannot over emphasize how important it is to get insurance. While it’s a huge investment, it’s better than getting a bill for a million dollars if you have a heart attack in the US.

 

  1. Save

Set up an account that you absolutely refuse to touch, which is specifically for your travel expenses. You are better to save rather than put everything on a credit card and spend the next year paying off, with huge interest attached to it. You might have to give up extras like buying the latest clothes, music, going to the movies or eating out as much as you would like. You need to sacrifice to get what you really want.

 

  1. Search Engines

To save yourself lots of time use travel search engines such as Webjet, Skyscanner, Travelstart just to name a few. When you find the flight/s your happy with, go directly to the airline website as sometimes it is cheaper and you can save on card fees. Join their frequent flyer clubs and sign up for specials. That way you get points for flying and can use these for reduced flight costs. While it may be a pain getting endless emails, there’s nothing like a delete button! When you accrue enough points you can get extra services and lounge entries as part of the deal.

Once you start saving and searching, you’ll start dreaming about the endless possibilities for your trip. Forty years ago I did a study on the Manyatta of Kenya and who would’ve thought I now live here. A dream has to start somewhere.

 

What are your best tips for travel preparation?

Dentists and Rats

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Admittedly, I haven’t been to the dentist for 15 years, but I was surprised to find parts of my left back molar in my hand as I was eating popcorn at the movies. I love their popcorn, it’s caramel coated. I didn’t love feeling a giant gap in my tooth.

The last time I went to the dentist I had 3 wisdom teeth out – no wonder I make the decisions I do! It was one of the most painful experiences in my life.

I’ve never liked going to the dentist. At primary school we used to call it ‘the murder house’. As an adult I figured out that dentists were most likely bullied at school and this was their revenge, and to make lots of money doing it.

I mean, who wants to look inside the mouths of people every day?

I was thinking of a quick fix, even getting it pulled out. Not going to happen to this chick. It was a crown or nothing, and I had a few other holes, another cracked tooth and the final wisdom tooth that had grown sideways which had to come out.

The drill is a horrible but effective tool.

The drill is a horrible but effective tool.

I got depressed. Where was I, a missionary, going to find the $1,000 to get this done, even some of it? We’d just spent $400 on Pete’s broken arm and we’ve got to find a few thousand to get our visas renewed next month. Pete was really good about it, probably the same support I’ve given him over the last 3 years and the numerous hospital visits he’s undertaken.

I hate going to the dentist the same as I do with rats. I hate rats. Snakes, spiders, even getting robbed at gunpoint, fade into comparison to visiting the dentist or having a rat in my house.

Whenever I get unwell I will do ANYTHING not to go to a doctor here. Pete and others assure me there are some good guys, but I don’t want to find out any day soon.

At least the chair was comfy.

At least the chair was comfy.

I’d heard of a dentist about a 5 minute drive from our place, on the 4th floor of the mall. The place is called Skye Dental. The night my tooth broke I went up there but they had closed. I returned the next morning for the verdict.

It was bad.

Just to get a consultation, x-ray and clean it was $120. Dr. Yakub told me that dentists like to do mouths in quadrants, which meant I have to get one filling, a tooth out and a temporary filling in one go. The next visit $284. The last part, for just one tooth – a whooping $710. No one can even see where that money is going!

But what choice do I have?

Today I got the first part done. Pete insisted on walking me all the way there in case I chickened out. What was I going to do, he had the car keys.

I came prepared this time. I had my playlist ready to go, headphones on.

Dr. Yakub promised me that it wouldn’t hurt. Who ever believes a dentist?

I guess dentistry has come a long way in 15 years. I remember the needle being the absolute worse, but it wasn’t. I had 3 injections and only felt one (slightly). This is because he put this numbing dawa (medicine) on the site first. Even when he pulled out the back tooth I felt nothing.

When it came to the broken tooth, he had to get off the old filling first. The drilling sound is still as awful as ever, but I turned up the music loud. What I really struggle with is the gagging reflex. You feel like you’re drowning even though you’re not. Then they put that sucking thing in and it’s a shocker. It was made worse because I’d drank lots of water when exercising that morning and really needed to go to the toilet.

Straight after an hour at the dentists. Pretty bad shot, no makeup, numb face and the dentist looks interesting too!

Straight after an hour at the dentists. Pretty bad shot, no makeup, numb face and the dentist looks interesting too!

The other horrible thing about my visit was the metal ring they put around what’s left of your tooth. It’s not pleasant. He had three goes at building the tooth and the ring kept slipping. So I spent my time not drowning in saliva, trying to ignore the sucking thing and letting go of the pain as the metal ring was shoved up into my gum. The only pleasant thought was ‘at least I’m making him work for his money’.

I’ve given birth twice, climbed the world’s second highest free standing mountain (Kilimanjaro) twice, moved countries twice, been robbed at gunpoint and watched as our oldest daughter has taken on the challenges of being disabled. But for me, going to the dentist and rats top it all off of the things I hate most.

I’m impressed with how professional and compassionate the staff of Skye Dentists are. I had verbal diarrhea because I was not happy with going, but they let me rant on. The equipment is excellent and the after care is good. Dr Yakub explained what he was about to do and never rolled his eyes when I gagged.

I’m still not sure where we will find the money from for the next part as it’s about half of what we get from our supporters each month. But, for the next 2 weeks I will focus on work and see what happens.

Meantime, I’m really enjoying the numbness in my face.

If you would like to help the Creans get insured while they are volunteering in East Africa, feel free to make a safe, online donation HERE.

About Money Matters

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In light of what has occurred in the last few hours I thought I’d write my thoughts on giving online. If there is anything that will pull a person or organisation down is how they handle their finances.

I am sure all of us have received via email or social media a request for money for some need, or we have received a million dollars from some unknown relative. This week I’ve had someone offer our organisation $7,000 if we give $4,000 of it to another African organisation they have nominated. Also, an overzealous family member Facebooked a lot of our friends asking them to give money to help get Pete home to see his dad before he dies, and put the money in their own personal bank account.

So here goes:

1. Always Check the Spelling

It is more than obvious if the spelling, the grammar or their English is incorrect that you should just hit the delete button. If someone is asking for money they should at least have the decency to spell the words right.

 

2. Emotional Blackmail

I hate it when people post up photos from famine areas, use emotion to twist you into giving or give the ‘this is the last ditch effort’ type of ploy. If people feel to give, then let them do it.

 

3. Give Intelligently

Ask yourself ‘Can I afford to do this right this very second or will next week be better when I can give more?’ Find out more about the situation. Make sure your money gets to where it is meant to go and not in someone’s personal pocket (we call it lunch money here). Think about the way you can give that has the most impact.

 

4. Ask Questions

When will this money be spent, by whom, will I see the results, why do they need it right there and then? It’s okay to ask questions and if more people did they would be giving to areas that really bring about change.

 

5. Bank Accounts

Red flags go off if people ask me to give to their personal bank accounts. Where is the accountability and how will I be receipted? For us, we have a personal bank account in New Zealand that friends and family put money into to help keep us in Africa. That’s only because we haven’t set up a Trust there (yet). However, if it’s a business we have a partner trust people can give into and get a tax deductible receipt. In Australia, the US and the UK we have partner organisations who collect donations on our behalf and issue receipts.

Ensure everything is kept above board.

 

6. Ask the Person Involved Themselves

We’ve had some people who out of the kindness of their hearts asked for money on our behalf for personal costs. We became aware of it because a cousin sent me a message on Facebook telling us about it and did we know them. Hence, 3 hours later I am still cleaning up the fallout of that. Thankfully my cousin did that otherwise we would’ve been oblivious to it all and it really could’ve done some damage to our credibility. If you get a request from someone you think you know give them a call and ask them did they send it out or what is the best way they can help.

We want people to keep giving, no question about that one. However, we also don’t want to bring into disrepute the good work that volunteers around the world are doing. We have many friends who work with babies, children, the elderly and the special needs in countries some haven’t even heard of. Let’s keep supporting them because they really do need it. The vision is always bigger than the resources and while money doesn’t bring happiness it does help bring positive change to millions of people on our earth.