Deidre and I spent close to 4 hours last night working on our joint budget plans, to help us save money for the upcoming trip to Australia. We're doing a 'first', for both of us, and combining our incomes into one single amount and paying almost everything from our joint account. It's really quite exciting to think that we could have up to $11,000 saved in the next 5 months, by combining our incomes and being stringent with our spending.

According to the budget we did last night, we can do it. We'll save $7,000 for the holiday, which includes airfares, car hire, accommodation and spending money. And on top of that, we'll have about $4,000 'surplus', which is the money left over from ALL expenses, including savings.

The 4 hours last night was spent detailing almost every single cent of expenditure in our lives, and putting it down into the budget. We also detailed not just what our expenses are, but what we want them to be, eg. spending money on the house to buy a washing machine, fridge, wireless kit for the laptops, etc etc. And STILL we come out on top.

Now all we need to do is maintain the discipline to stick to the budget. That, as usual, is going to be the challenge.

Anyway, here's the planned itinerary.

December 10 - Wellington to Sydney to Adelaide.
Stay overnight in a hotel in Adelaide as part of package flight deal. Hire a car for a week.

December 14 - Adelaide to Berri
Drive up to visit my parents for the first time in over a decade. They live about 3 hours north-east of Adelaide, in a small town called Berri (pop. 7,000).

December 17 - Adelaide to Canberra
Flying to Canberra and visiting all my friends there, and show Deidre around my 'spiritual home'. I hope she loves it. Hire a car there for 5 days. I'm SO looking forward to catching up with all my friends.

December 22 - Canberra to Sydney
Drive to Sydney and drop off the car, using public transport while there or friends. We're staying in Sydney for almost 2 weeks at this point, spending xmas and the new year with Deidre's family and friends. I'll be catching up with my friends there too, mainly Peter H and Dan. Dan and I are going to spend a couple of days together, around Dec 27-29, because we won't be together on new year's eve. He and I will need a couple days by ourselves, just to catch up on old times.

January 3 - Sydney to Wellington
Back to Wellington, and then back to work on 9th or 10th January.

I'll literally be having an entire month off work. And it's going to be fun!