Financial action: do less instead of more

My partner and I are planning to visit friends and family in Britain. Our original calculation showed that we’d have to sacrifice 1800$ each for this fortnight-long trip in August.

The high cost is partly due the expensive time of year for transatlantic flights, but an August trip allows us to enjoy the Edinburgh Festival Fringe so we’re reluctant to change our dates. (Such a cut-back would compromise the quality of the trip, resulting in the illusion of economy).

1800$ represents several months of unemployed living to me. In a way though, I’m glad of the financial challenge. Rich Dad advises that we stop thinking along the lines of “I can’t afford it” and start asking “How can I afford it?” instead. The conventional wisdom is lazy and stops you from thinking. The open-ended question forces you to rise to a challenge and to exercise your brain. So I began to think about an AdWords campaign capable of generating the required revenue.

Some back-of-the-envelope calculations showed that we didn’t have to launch a money-making campaign at all. Frugality will save the day after all. Admittedly, this is the laziest way of ‘making’ money there is, but it would be silly to ignore.

- we saved 25% by shopping hard for the cheapest available flight
- we saved 50% by planning acceptable financial cutbacks for the June-August period, including the duration of the trip
- the final 25% doesn’t need to be saved since it equates approximately to our regular living expenses

We’ve theoretically paid for our trip by doing less instead of doing more.