Thinking of travelling..

Ok, so I'm thinking of going to Portugal this summer! Why you ask?
Well for one thing, half of my family is from there, so it's a chance to learn about where I come from. I have lots of family there, so I dont really have to pay for accomodations, and I wont have to pay for many meals either. I pretty much just have to pay for my flight and spending money.
I have been wanting to go for a long time. As time goes on I feel more urgency to go.

I feel like i should go while im still young and have nothing to hold me back you know? Yes, I still have student loan debt. And no, I dont make that much money. But I dont spend much either, so saving the money is really not a problem. I dont make that much money, but I am still making more money that I ever have, and at least I still have a job in this crappy economy where people are losing their jobs left right and center. Plus, if I put it off until next year, who knows? Maybe I wont have a job this time next year. Maybe something will come up and I just wont have the money.

Right now, I have enough money saved to more than cover this trip. But, the money I have in savings wasnt really saved for this purpose. In previous posts, I have talked about how I am so close to paying off my student loan, how I want to pay it off as soon as possible. Can I pay off my OSAP and still save for Portugal?? It's possible...not overly likely thought.

I figure the flight will run around $1000. Spending money...im not sure..around $1000 to $1500, depending on what the euro/dollar exchange looks like.
So I will need around $2000-$2500 total. This is just a basic estimate. Once I do more research and talk to more people I can get a better idea.

So here are my options money wise...

1. Only pay the minimum on my student loan and save aggresively for the trip. Once I feel I have enough money saved for the trip, I can once again pay more to my loan.

2. Continute to pay off my loan as fast as possible, then dip into my savings for the trip.

3. Find a good balance between paying off as much OSAP as I can while also saving as much as I can for the trip. Then if i didnt quite save as much as I wanted I can take a bit from my savings if i have to.

4. Just focus on my OSAP and plan to do the trip next year.

Then there is the option on when to go, and for how long.

I am thinking maybe like june/july. It might be really cool to be there for my birthday (july). Summer is the best time to go, also the most expensive, but I have cousins that are in school and I dont really want to go when they are in school.
Since the flight is so much money, im thinking 2 weeks BARE MINIMUM....2.5-3 weeks would be more ideal. I dont really think I will have a huge deal getting the time off work, because my boss likes me, and I am a really hard worker. Im sure i am entitled to atleast one week paid vacation, and if the other 2 weeks are unpaid well i dont really care. I have been at my job for a year and a half and have yet to take a sick day. I'm never late, never need to leave early, have stayed late many times when I was needed and came in on days when I was suposed to be off, and I think I deserve a vacation!

Anyways...those are my thoughts...what do you guys think??

Back from vacation!

Well after my little hiatus there, I am back and ready to blog once again. I went on vacation and that is why I haven't written for awhile. I took a week off work and went to visit a friend from college. Boy did this trip cost me! Here is what I spent:

Rental car: $277.00
Spending money for trip: $360.00
Gas money spent: 113.00

Luckily i had saved about $740.00 so it didn't set me back a huge amount. The money spent while on vacation was for various things such as going to the bar, eating out, shopping, admissions to various attractions + parking costs etc. While I was there I spent about $120.00 on clothes and a new bag that came out of my bank account and not out of the money I had previously saved. So basically I spent A LOT! Not to mention I also went to Ikea the other day and spent $390. This went on my visa. I am not proud of it, but I don't have the opportunity to go to Ikea every day, and I bought some organizational stuff for my bedroom. My room looks great and is a lot more organized now. Hopefully it will stay this way.

After this trip I was ready to get back into money saving mode. But not until I did a little book shopping, oops. A co-worker told me about a used book store in town, and I decided to check it out. The prices were not as great as I had hoped, but still better than Chapters! Here's what I purchased:

Perfect Match by Jodi Picoult: regular $21 got it for $10.50
No Logo: Taking Aim at the Brand Bullies: regular 22.95 got it for $10
..so basically half price.

I wanted to get a personal finance book but they didn't really have much at the used book store so I went to chapters and bought Personal Finance for Canadians for Dummies. At $29.99 it was a little much I thought, but after beginning to read I know its going to be a great book for me.

I also plan to sell some of my old books to the store. You dont get cash back, but a store credit you can use toward purchases. I've collected 8 books I no longer want, so I will be taking those there plus when I'm done with the ones I bought there, I can take them back as well.

So what do you guys think? Have you ever been to a used book store? Or do you prefer the library?