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Getting Back into the Groove

October 3rd, 2006 at 03:44 am

Today was my first day back at work, and it went well. I felt missed, and useful, and that is an awfully nice feeling. I awoke early, due to my time zone zigzagging, and had a good start on the day.

I�m getting back into my frugal groove, packing lunch and not spending; boy oh boy, it sure is funny how often I spent money on vacation. It wasn�t so much the high amounts, just a bus trip there, a cup of coffee, yogurt and fruit at the grocery store, an apartment, another cup of coffee�..at least six �transactions� a day to record. Also, I dealt in 5 currencies (U.S. dollars, Euros, Kunas, Konvertible Marks, and Pounds), and that�s a whole lotta extra number crunching. Thirdly, with four of us there was a lot of back and forth�I owe you Kuna for the apartment, you owe me KMs for the car�..we couldn�t always break our bills, or sometimes we�d be leaving one country so it wouldn�t make sense for one person to withdraw from the ATM while the other person had too much money and faced exchanging at a cost. Those three factors are part of what makes doing my September reconciliation daunting�.it may be next weekend before I crunch the numbers.

Posted in Minimum Wage Challenge, Travel, Good Frugal Life | 3 Comments »

3 Responses to “Getting Back into the Groove”

  1. sarah Says:
    October 3rd, 2006 at 04:24 am 1159845896
    1159845896

    Did you find using the ATM worth while. I took an ATM card with me to Turkey and found that the fees were very prohibitive . I'd been better off using travelers checks even though they are old fashioned.

  2. lrjohnson Says:
    October 3rd, 2006 at 06:24 am 1159853066
    1159853066

    I paid a maximum of one percent of what I withdrew, in one case half that. In total I paid 10.57 in fees for two weeks, reasonable to me. Not nothing, of course. I'm not sure what fees are for Traveller's cheques. My CU website says 1%; I might be able to get them to waive or find a free source. Not sure if my lower ATM fees have to do with being in a credit union. I've known people to have a hard time finding places to cash traveller's cheques or paying large fees to exchange. I'm pretty comfortable with the ATM method for now.

  3. LdyFaile Says:
    October 3rd, 2006 at 06:35 pm 1159896914
    1159896914

    It's getting more and more troublesome to cash traveler's checks. When I go traveling abroad I exchange a little money ahead of time (I can do that for free at my bank but the exchange rate is awful) just so I have pocket money in case I can't change money when I need it. I take as much cash as I want to spend, and am careful about how I carry it (my daily amount goes in my wallet, the rest in a money bag around my waist under my clothes). In Trogir, Croatia there was an exchange booth at the market that had a better rate than at the ATM. But there were other exchange places that had an awful rate too so it's definately hit and miss. I still prefer cash to travelers checks though.

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