Planning the European Adventures

Europe is still in the works.  I've made some serious progress, but still need places to stay in Rome, London, Paris, and Zurich.  Turns out old school-BFF, Kelli is moving out of her current place and into a place where she'll have three roomies and no space for me and Boo.  BUMMER.  I was totally banking on three free nights.  And accommodations in Europe are way pricey.  So, let me know if you have any suggestions for those 4 cities.

I don't want to stay in a big bunk room at a hostel, because I still want some privacy, but I'm thinking about risking it with this site called Airbnb.com.  It's where you can rent people's apartments or homes and they are twenty times cheaper than some hotels.  I researched it a bunch and it doesn't sound sketchy.  Hopefully we can find some good deals there at least for a couple cities.

A long time ago I made a post [here] about budgeting & Mint.com and my serious love and gratitude for it.  I'm still using it every day.  It's been awesome to set goals on and we've been able to check off some big expenses by disciplining ourselves in the spending department.  Sometimes I hate having to be so structured with our finances, but I know that it is so good for our lifestyle habits and to be good stewards of the Lord's money.  We also set up automatic transfers on our bank accounts so the money we need to save automatically goes into bank accounts we only use for special expenses.

We have one called "Tithe."  10% of our paychecks automatically go there so we can give as needs come our way.  We also have specific ministries that we support monthly and that is automatically withdrawn from this account.

Next we have a large chunk go into our Savings Account, mostly to save up for buying a car one day.  We'd like to pay cash and not have to finance it.  We are blessed to not have car payments right now and it's so freeing.

The last account is our Fun Fund.  If there is money in it when we want to go on a trip, then we can do it.  If not, sad day...we have to say "no".  Travelling is our favorite thing ever, so we are always dreaming up new trips.  Sometimes two years out, like the European Adventure.  And...Mint.com has helped me set goals for our trip by helping us to save the right amount based on budgets for flight, hotel, car/travel, food, activities.  It is so wonderful and really helping us be disciplined about the trip and not just spending frivolously.

Tomorrow I'll post about a couple places we're going to stay...if I have time!