How I save money planning my holiday

Part 1: British Heritage Pass

This is one of those things that is worth purchasing in advance of your holiday. Buying the 15-day family pass costs $285.00 in Australia, and a quick check of the entry fee for the top 15 places that we're likely to visit shows that I'll save around 70% off the entry fees by buying this pass (compared to paying each entry fee as we travel).

For example, we'll be interested in visiting the following most popular attractions:
(prices per family or 2 adults/1 child, converted to A$ at current exchange rate of 0.47GBP)

The Roman baths and pumphouse__$61.70
Edinburgh Castle_______________$70.20
Stonehenge_____________________$41.50
Shakespeare's birthplace_______$36.15
Blenheim Palace________________$91.50
Holyroodhouse__________________$52.10
Leeds Castle___________________$89.35
Conwy Castle___________________$29.80
St Paul's Cathedral____________$45.75
Globe Theatre__________________$57.45
Dover Castle___________________$50.65
Warwick Castle________________$102.10
Kents Cavern___________________$50.00
Lancaster Castle_______________$29.80
Bamburgh Castle________________$44.70

TOTAL_________________________$852.75

There are 580 sites in total that are covered by the Heritage Pass. Since we're likely to visit many more attractions during our tour, we should save a lot more on entry fees than the $600 saved by using the pass at these 15 attractions.

There's currently (during March) a 10% discount on purchasing the Heritage Pass on VisitBritain.com.au, so the pass will only cost $256.50. In addition, by going to the site via a link on EmailCash.com.au I'll earn around $2.50 worth of points when I purchase the 15-day family pass.

There are also some side benefits of having the 15-day Family Heritage Pass;
1. I can visit places I've previously seen without worrying about the cost. If I had to pay an extra adult entry fee each time I'd be tempted to just send the wife and kids in without me.
2. We can stop and do a quick "dash" through some sites that we're travelling past that are of moderate interest. If we were paying the full entry fee each time we wouldn't visit places where we didn't have enough time to get our full "money's worth".
3. We're can visit the sites that have higher entry fees. For example, on our honeymoon we visited Bath, but we didn't bother going through the Roman baths and pumphouse as the entry fee seemed a bit steep.

There are shorter and longer period passes available, but the 15-day pass should suit our itinerary perfectly as we'll be spending 15 days in London and driving around England/Scotland before we go by car ferry to Ireland. We'll have another couple of days in Wales and England at the end of our stay, but I'm not sure it's worth paying another $100 to upgrade to the 30-day family pass. I'll have to check our route to see what attractions we could visit in the last couple of days of our stay.

You have to enter you expected travel date when you purchase the pass, but the card uses smart card technology to log it's usage, so the valid period doesn't start until you use the card at the first property you visit. The validity period is based on calendar days, so we won't be using it on the first day we arrive in London at 8pm!

Copyright Enough Wealth 2007

Started booking our European Vacation

Well, I finally decided to commit to taking a five week overseas holiday to Germany and the UK in August/September. I booked our airfares online through webjet.com.au and a London hotel (Marble Arch Inn) directly online. The return airfares Sydney-Frankfurt-London-Sydney for two adults, 1 child and 1 infant cost $8,663.39 (including fees & taxes and $340 for family international travel insurance) and a 'family' room (for four adults and two kids) cost 500 GBP for four nights. This seems quite reasonable for a London hotel, as the other 3-4 star hotels I checked out had room rates starting from $235 per day for two adults/two children. My parents will be coming with us on this holiday, so we're sharing the hotel accommodation in London and will drive a small mobile home around Germany and the UK. The booking fee will be immediately charged to my credit card, and the balance of the airfares charged within the next seven days. I have enough saved up in my ING Direct "holiday" account to cover this, and the balance of the holiday costs won't be charged until August, by which time I'll have accumulated the remainder of the costs.

I haven't taken a "proper" vacation for about five years, so I have eight weeks annual leave accumulated plus my eight weeks "long service" leave vests in July. So there's no problem taking the time off work. The question mark was over the cost of this holiday (estimated around $18,500 all up) and whether I really want to spend two days in economy class flying from Australia to Europe and back, just to spend five weeks driving the family around Germany, England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales...

I've been to Germany and the UK many times before (but never to Ireland), but DW has only been to England and Wales once (on our honeymoon), and the DS1 is old enough to enjoy (and be educated by) his first trip to Europe. I had thought about postponing this trip until DS2 was also old enough to remember something of it, but some of the relatives we want to visit might not be around in another five years time (my Great-great Aunt in England is in her 90s, and my Aunt in Germany is approaching 80 and in poor health). Also, with the Aussie dollar at very high levels and the oil price continuing to rise, this sort of holiday could be much more expensive in five years time.

My dad is going to book us a six-berth motor home for two weeks driving around Germany/Austria etc., and we'll hire another one for driving around the UK and Ireland for three weeks (it'll be a bit rushed, as usual). At a cost of around $220 per day, the van should be cheaper than hiring a large rental car and staying at motels or B&B's each day (especially since I'll be splitting the motorhome rental costs with my parents). The time saved not having to pack and unpack every couple of days and hunt for accommodation each day (our itinerary is fairly flexible) should also be benefit compared to staying in hotels. However, I haven't been on a caravan holiday for many, many years and it will be interesting how my parents, kids and wife get on together for six weeks in close quarters ;)

Copyright Enough Wealth 2007

Eight Weeks Annual Leave - Fingers Crossed

In the last half of the Australian federal election campaign, and both sides continue with the carrot and stick approach. After this morning's interest rate hike both sides are trying to convince voters that they would be better at keeping interest rates down. The Liberals are having a hard time sounding convincing since they said that they'd keep rates low during the last election campaign, and rates have risen six times since then. The opposition Labour party is running a negative TV ad campaign about this, but is also trying to deny the Liberals claim that interest rates would go even higher if Labour was in office. Labour has trouble sounding convincing when denying this claim, as last time they were in power interest rates were in double digits, and because they can't say anything like "rates would be lower under Labour".

Meanwhile the Liberals announced another policy aimed at winning votes. This time they promised to allow workers to take four weeks annual leave (without pay) in addition to the standard four weeks annual leave with pay that we currently are entitled to in Australia. It's a typical Liberal party policy - it appears to give the workers a benefit, but at no cost to employers (well, they might have to hire a casual to cover extra workers on leave, but it shouldn't cost much since the workers aren't paid if they take the extra vacation time), and the employers have to agree such requests (although most employers would have to offer this option in order to keep good workers, now that unemployment is below 4%).

Hopefully this another policy that the Labour party will also adopt, as the Libs don't seem all that likely to retain in power at the moment.

If this does become law, I'd love to take an extra four weeks leave each year. It would only reduce my total salary by around 8% pa (which I can afford), and, combined with my long service leave that vests next year, would mean that I could work only four days a week all year, still have a couple of weeks annual leave over Christmas/New Year each year, and still earn over 90% of my current wage.

Hopefully it comes into force immediately (if at all), since I'm thinking about changing careers to teaching in five or so years time. As teachers leave is all taken during the school holiday periods this change won't affect teachers at all.

Copyright Enough Wealth 2007

Saving for a European Vacation

We would like to take an extended overseas holiday late next year - perhaps 6 weeks driving around Germany, England, Wales and Ireland staying at B&Bs or motels. We would like to arrive home before DS2 turns two next September, as this would allow him to get the cheaper "infants" airfare. DS1 will be 8 yo next year, so he should benefit from the experience and be able to remember the highlights (especially with the help of digital photos and video!). I'm just not sure whether to go for 6 weeks or just for 3-4 weeks (we can always go again in a few years time when DS2 is old enough to benefit as well). Also, With young kids six weeks away from home may end up too stressful for all of us. I've invited my parents to come along, as we can share the car hire costs and they can help with supervising the kids (and mum can provide some translation in Germany - mein Deutch ist sehr schelcht).

I've done a rough budget for the trip and figure I need to save $750 each fortnight into an ING online savings account to have enough funds put aside for a six week trip ready by next August. I'm not including this account in my monthly net worth updates as it will all be gone again once we've been on vacation, so it would just be a short term "blip". My rough budget for the holiday is:

Airfares - Aus/Europe return
 2 adults:                    $4,000.00
 1 child:                     $1,500.00
 1 infant:                    $  500.00
Car hire (7 seater van)
 40 days @ $70/day =          $2,800.00
Petrol
 40 x 100 km ~ 400L @ $2.00/L $  800.00
Motels/B&Bs
 40 x 2 rooms x $50/night   = $4,000.00
Entry Fees
 Heritage passes etc.         $1,000.00
Food & Beverages (mostly self-cater in motels)
 40 x 4 x $25/day             $4,000.00
TOTAL                        $18,600.00  
+ miscellaneous 10%           $1,860.00
Holiday budget               $20,500.00
Savings Plan $750 x 28 =     $21,000.00

I'll need to get more accurate figures later this year when we make a final decision on our itinerary and start making bookings. As everything except the airfares is proportional to the length of the holiday, a three week vacation would be roughly half the cost of doing a six-week "grand tour". If we do decide on the shorter holiday I'll leave the balance of the funds sitting in the ING account and use it to fund our next European vacation in a couple of years.

I also have to check into the need for travel insurance - I think we might be able to emergency hospital treatment in the UK under the NHS (under an agreement between the Australian and UK governments). And in any case my parents would have the biggest risk of needing medical care while travelling, and I don't think they can get affordable coverage as they are both in their 70's.

Copyright Enough Wealth 2007