Little Black Guidebook

Its been a long time since my last iPhone Travel apps post. We did eventually get a iPod Touch and have been loving some apps. Now that the new iPhone OS 4.0 comes with multi-tasking I may be taking the full-time plunge and getting an iPhone this summer. Here’s what I’ll look forward to having with me once I have 3G goodness instead of straight-up WIFI. What are your favorites?

Apps that lighten my load:

USB Drive = Dropbox (Free)
I have lost more USB drives while traveling than I care to count. Now I use Dropbox instead. 2GB of free space available on the iPhone, on the web and synched between all my computers…perfect.

Camera =
I think photo editing on your iPhone is a stupid idea, way too time consuming to do that on a small phone, I’m spoiled by my home setup. But photo taking? Absolutely necessary and occasionally you can leave the camera at home if you have some good apps. I’m told ProCamera ($2.99) or Camera Genius ($1.99), both are improvements over the iPhone native camera, although I haven’t tried them myself yet.

Presenter Remote = Remote (Free)
Forget buying/bringing a presenter remote, just install this app.

Wireless Mouse = Air Mouse Pro Wireless Mouse ($1.99)
Cheaper than any mini-mouse and more functional too. I rarely want a mouse with my Macbook, but when I do this replicates the functionality of a wireless mouse and lightens my load.

E-Reader = Amazon Kindle (Free)
Amazon’s Kindle is a staple of the First Class section, but I don’t have the budget to keep up with the First Class flier gadget whims. While they are still amazing devices I knew that once Amazon released their free Kindle for iPhone app I knew I would never drop $250 on Kindle. Some people swear by the Kindle’s digital paper readability and would never read an entire book on a tiny iPhone screen, but it lightens my load and works for me. I’m more of a paper kind of girl anyway. Of course, there are other apps to ditch paper with. Any classical novel with an expired copyright can probably found with the Stanza app and its access to Project Gutenberg, tons of classic novels are free.

Apps that make trips smoother:

TripIt (Free)
Does one thing and does it well it takes all of your confirmation codes automatically puts it into an itinerary complete with additional hotel information and links that you can share with others. Even Tim Ferriss loves it.

Flighttrack Pro ($9.99)
I wouldn’t pay for an app unless it was awesome and this one is. For the frequent traveler needing it once pays for it. It does what it says and is the best flight tracking app out there with push alerts, real-time flight itinerary updates, automatic synching, and maps that work offline. Flight cancelled? It even helps you find alternate flights. Integrated with TripIt too.

Around Me (Free)
Allows you to quickly find out information about your surroundings. Doesn’t replace a guidebook, but helps.

Apps that solve problems of traveling:

Mint (Free) and Paypal (Free)
Maybe I’m the only one who has missed a bill payment while traveling internationally, but if not Mint.com and Paypal.com apps will save your bacon.

Shape Travelista
Travel is hard on the gym plan. “Don’t let a business trip derail your workout ever again.” Workout app designed with the traveler in mind.

Location specific apps

Well there are tons, and this list can’t go on forever. Point being, apps make travel awesome. In no way can they replace a good guidebook (even though Rick Steve’s guides have apps now) or should absorb you into not paying attention to the world around you. Take off the head phones and wander a bit.

March was the single most expensive month of my life, but that’s ok and here’s why. We weren’t planning on purchasing a car, a piano or a PlayStation this month, but we were planning on purchasing them and we had saved for them by putting money aside to pay cash.  We saved and then watched for the right deal.

Car: The 2010 Subaru Forester we bought was used. Rather than buying new we purchased a 3 month old vehicle for $7k less and we still have 33 months of warranty left. The owner drove it up to Alaska and then decided he wanted a big truck. His poor planning is our gain.

Piano: I have been taking lessons again for 4 months by driving to the University and borrowing one of their pianos, but now I have my own. Estate sale sold me a Grandma’s barely used piano which was worth $4,500 for $1,500 after a little negotiation. I had my piano tuner’s jaw on the floor when I told him what I paid.

So despite the fact that I spent more money this month than I did when I got married I would consider it a success. Planned spending after saving is ok. The main spending I wanted to control was the frivolous and discretionary spending.

Here’s how we did on the frivolous and discretionary fronts:

Food/dining = $1,155 went to $630.83 for a savings of $524.00 a month. Wow that category was out of control.

Entertainment = $225 went to $128.97 for a savings of $96.03.

I think we’ll try again to work on those two categories and start making transfers into our goal savings account for our next trip. Its looking pretty empty at the moment and its good to have a goal to save for.

Spring Europe Trip: Packing List

I’m not going anywhere this spring (sob), but if I were I could totally go two weeks with just these items: Dress, skirt, dress shirt, long sleeve shirt, short sleeve shirt, cardigan, trench coat, guidebook size purse (with all important cross-body strap and closed top), pants (that go with both button down shirt and more casual shirts and is sink washable), and two pairs of shoes (both flat, comfy for walking and which can dress up skirts and pants). It all sort of goes together and can be mixed and matched (long sleeve t-shirt under dress, button down with pants or skirt, t-shirts with skirt or pants, etc.) for a wide variety of occasions and most of it is sink friendly.

Contrast this with: Confessions of an Overpacker

“I realized why I overdo it. I stared at my closet, overflowing with jeans and cardigans. That’s what I miss when I’m away: choice. Call it superficial, but having more than one or two t-shirts reminds me of home. I make a lot of sacrifices to live abroad. When the homesickness sets in, I can find some solace in my suitcase.”

“When your baggage is your home, sometimes it’s nice to have a two-story suitcase.”

I relate, but I can’t do that. It stresses me out lugging so much around. I would rather give myself a budget to buy it there if I need it than to lug it around for sure, but we’re all different.

My desire to wander is unsupressable. I am dealing with it in two ways. First is the big Moving Overseas exercise. 2nd, I’m planning my next trip. So pause all the home improvement posts for a sec and let’s talk logistics.

New Jersey and New York public transit. All I have to say is, “Thank goodness Google has a public transit route planner!” I have the perfect storm of obligations occurring next month all in one-week that will have me flying into Newark, going to Philadelphia, West Point New York, New Brunswick New Jersey, and New York City. The turn around times just don’t make renting a car feasible. Its too expensive to rent, park, navigate and the trains just seem way more convenient. But it does take pre-planning of routes, trains, back up plans, coordination and flexibility. A car just goes with you when and where you want it to.

Tale of two methods of travel.

Take the first leg of my trip for example, Newark Airport to Langhorne, PA to visit my Grandparents.

• My parents: land +1 hr to collect bags and get to rental counter, +1 hour to pick up car and arrange family and bags in car, +1 hr stop for dinner once safely outside of airport pricing zone, +2 hours to drive to Grandparents if all goes well. This works for them, there are 4 of them to worry about now that 3 of us are grown and its more cost effective and less stressful for them.  (arrival time at Grandparents 11pm)
• Me and hubby: land carrying our bags, +1 hr to get to train station in time for 6:40pm train after grabbing a quick bite to eat when we land at the airport or eating prepacked snacks; arrive train station where Grandparents are waiting to pick up 7:57pm; arrive Grandparents house 20 minutes later) (arrival time 8:20pm, cost $14.75 each train ticket)

Next up I have to figure out trains from PA to Grand Central Station, NY then on to Garrison, NY to meet the ferry to West Point. Then ferry back from West Point, train to New Brunswick, then train back to New York and once more back to Newark for the flight home. Hopefully it will all work out smoothly, and thankfully if the plan doesn’t work and I have to adjust things as we go along, we don’t have pre-purchased Italian train-tickets and no Italian language skills.

Even with English not being a barrier, do you know how hard it is to figure out public transportation in American cities sometimes? There are exceptions like DC’s metro, but even then have you tried using Metro buses? Its like a secret club, once you figure it out, you’re in and party to some good, cheap transportation, but its not really accessible to tourists or travelers without a lot of effort on their part. Of course, I’ll admit, by the time I figured out metro buses, I was glad those obnoxiously loud Hard Rock Cafe clad tourists weren’t crowding my metro bus like they were my Foggy-Bottom metro stop during certain hours. I just wanted to sit in peace with my headphones wearing my business suit (but no flip-flops or sneakers so I wasn’t a completely assimilated to DC commuter).

Wow, now that digression came out of nowhere. Here’s hoping for the best.

I’d never heard of the carry-on should = 10% of your body weight rule before. That would be tough to do. Especially now that I’ve lost 4 lbs worth of luggage allowance from my high point.

You do know that one of the easiest routes to back injury is placing bags into overhead luggage bins when you fly,” said Doktor George. “You should really make sure you take care as it’s so easy to throw your back out.” “What are you suggesting, then?” I asked. “It might be time to rethink your luggage,” he said.

via: 1bag1world

I’m sure my husband read this subject line and went, “Heh, this won’t last as he glances at the J.Crew box I still need to return.” Well keep reading dear.

One of my inspirational reads is the Man vs. Debt blog. He writes about his world travels with under 2-year old daughter and wife in tow and how getting his finances in order has allowed him to be location independent. I read for the travel inspiration, but ocassionally some of the financial points stick too. The author Adam also writes for Untemplater and recently posted this 30-day “No Spend” Challenge.

Now my finances are probably in more order than 90% of people my age, but I like forcing myself into challenges just to see if I can do them, if the outcome of that challenge would be important to me.  Given the nice change I saw in cash-flow during my no-spend day I figure a 30-day challenge will have  a big impact in the travel fund.

My version of the challenge:

NO SPENDING on anything non-essential. Things like:

• clothes/accessories
• electronics
• lunches/dinners out
• online purchases
• “good deals”

Allowed discretionary spending

• investments
• Auto-paid items (Netflix, cellphone, Weight Watchers)
• shared non-lazy experiences

A note on shared non-lazy experiences: Just like a diet, the whole family isn’t going to suffer. I will make an exception to the challenge, for instance dining out, if my husband suggests it (he rarely does, its always me) and its because he genuinely wants to treat us and not because we are being lazy, ie. we haven’t thawed anything to cook that night.

Challenge starts now and runs until the 7 April. Anybody want to join in? What are you cutting back for?

Books of a Wannabe Mad Scientist, originally uploaded by xtacocorex is watching curling.

This post: “Selling Back Really Old Textbooks Online” is a good description of a way to make money selling old books online for money. I’m all about that right now, given that every spare penny goes in the travel fund and that I am very anti-clutter at the moment. But this method is way too labor intensive for me. I’ve been to the post office dozens of times because of “ship by” dates when selling things on Amazon and eBay and its no fun, not to mention a waste of gas.

A slightly less profitable, but far less labor intensive method would be to setup an Amazon seller account. Ship Amazon all your books and let them ship them to each buyer and deposit the profits into your account directly. Ship once and forget. You set the price you’re willing to accept. This also lets people get Super Saver Shipping on your items. Sure you’re stuck with Amazon and might not get highest price, but you’re also not stuck running to the post office.

Add $409 over the last 2 months to the travel fund.

Constant Comment Tea Tag (Back), originally uploaded by Alien Spouse.

Ok, saving for Europe spending challenge #2 was to get through our most routine money spending event “grocery shopping” without spending unnecessarily. Results were mixed.

I love tea and usually splurge on loose leaf good stuff, but I did manage to settle for some Bigelow Tea Constant Comment this week. I also made a menu and a list and I stuck to it where food was concerned.

But then I got to the personal products aisle. My favorite shampoo/conditioner, which I can actually feel the difference after I use it was on sale. Ahem, it was $7 instead of $10 for beautiful, organic, makes my hair lay straight and smell like heaven shampoo. I could have bought Dove for $2 per bottle and been fine, but I had been so good with my food purchases and it was 30% off so it snuck its way home with me. Deduct $10 from Europe trip savings.

I find saving money to be like dieting for me, it just doesn’t work if I feel like I am depriving myself. I come up with justifications, cheats, and can turn a bad day into a bad week/month/etc and suddenly I’m having a garage sale and wondering “Where did all this stuff come from?”.

Dieting is something I have given up. I have dieted and lost the same 40 lbs twice in my life. But I have also lost 25 lbs the right way, slowly over the last two years, where it was not a diet, but truly a lifestyle change and I know how good it feels to not be lecturing myself, but to be thinking about things in the context of taking care of my body.

If I approach money with more of the attitude that I now approach food with I may be healthier overall. So I’m going to change all my self lecturing over my shampoo to a quality vs. price decision. It is just worth it to me and I’ll find another creative way to replace the $10 in the Europe fund.

Uploaded by ajburgess

The saying: “If you fail to plan you plan to fail.” usually holds true for me. I did get lucky and my failure to plan worked out. My work provided lunch at a meeting, which avoided the choice of buying something or going hungr. I totally missed that today was no spending day and didn’t pack anything. Oh well, chalk that exercise up as a try again later.

Amount saved $16.00 for lunch and gas at lunchtime. ($8×2 for me and hubby as he also forgot lunch and got my leftovers) = 11.6 Euros or the price of 1 ten pack (un carnet) of Paris metro tickets, which I know we will go through this fall.

Next challenge, get through the grocery store without anything not on the list and not absolutely necessary. Somehow my cabinets are full and yet we both looked at the fridge yesterday and said there was nothing to eat except for frozen pizza. Clearly we need to evaluate what we have and then make a list around a meal plan and cook some of these staples or donate them to the food bank if we aren’t going to use them.

I saw these clips of Oprah in Denmark (happiest citizens on Earth) over the weekend and was struck once again  with how less things can lead to more life. I’m no minimalist yet  trust me, but I have been trying to eliminate things that get in the way of living, wether by taking up my time to maintain/clean them or mentally cluttering my life. I have made over $400 on Amazon selling used books, videos, video games, etc. over the last two months and cleaned out a lot of our unused media in the process.

Now I’m up for a new challenge, not bringing new stuff in the house. This attempt to save money and space will result in extra savings to put towards our Europe trip this fall. First challenge is not spending money for ONE day.  I don’t mean this literally as in dumpster-diving for dinner, but I won’t spend money that day. I will plan ahead and pack lunch, etc. so some may consider me to be front-loading my expenses. Trust me, this will save money over my average day.