Yes, I’m already thinking about Christmas.  Actually, most of you probably are too I’m guessing.  If you are like me, you feel like the Fall season flies by.  School starts, then you have birthday parties and football games.  Then, before you know it it’s Halloween, with Thanksgiving right on it’s tail, and then there is it.  Christmas.  It’s here before you have time to get all your shopping done early, like you say you are going to do every year.

Oh wait, is that just me?  Well, anyway.  I HAVE to get my shopping done early this year.  We are traveling to Australia for Christmas and I have to PACK all of the gifts.  And still have room to bring them back, plus others.  It’s going to be interesting.

So, first of all…saving MONEY. My family and my husband’s family all decided a few years ago to draw names for the adults.  With my family, for example, it’s me, my husband, my sister and her husband, one of my Aunts, one of my cousins, and my parents.  These are the people I would usually buy for before we did the name drawing, with the exception of my cousin, but she wanted to participate in the draw names, so she’s in!

We all agreed on a dollar amount.  We chose $50.  This way everyone can get one good gift, opposed to a bunch of little things worth ten bucks that you don’t really want anyway.

We use Elfster.  You enter all who are participating and you can also exclude certain people, like husband’s/wives from getting each other, which is cool.  Then, it randomly generates your pick and emails it to you, secretly.  We always keep it a secret who we have.  Though, I always know who my hubby has since I do all the shopping.   It’s also got a place where you can put your wish list for your Santa to see what you want.

We only do Elfster for the adults since everyone wants to buy for all the kids.  So, we save money with our niece and nephews in Australia by buying things here and taking (or mailing) it to Australia.  Good stuff is way cheap here in comparison.  I’m talking WAY less.  Plus, I can get summer stuff on sale, since they are going into summer in a few months.

For our boys, I just keep reminding myself that it’s not HOW MUCH we spend.  Our youngest, doesn’t even know about Christmas, for starters.  And our oldest is happy with even a few things.  If it’s something he can pretend play with, he will be busy for hours.  Honestly, he would probably just be happy with candy, since he rarely gets any.  I just have to remember this and not get caught up in the Christmas buying frenzy.  Luckily, my husband’s family is further along the less is more end of the spectrum than my family.  I’m really looking forward to that this year, actually.

Now, for saving SPACE! Since we have to pack all (or at least most) of our gifts for the kids this year, we have to think SMALL.

So, I’ve been trolling Amazon looking for ideas for small, packable gifts that will still make an impact and be fun for our older son, who is four.  Our youngest (currently 13 months) won’t really care since he still won’t really know what’s going on and will really only want what his brother has anyway.  That’s how he rolls.

Here are some of what I’ve come up with so far:

• LED head lamp – like for camping.  He would LOVE this.
• Wikki stix – are these fun?
• stomp rocket
• Wishing Chair Again by Enid Blyton – I’ve been looking forever for the over sized version of this and finally got one off ebay for a steal!  So siked.  He asks me all the time if I’ve found it yet.  He loves the first one, Adventures of the Wishing Chair.
• Brain Quest -  these are great for planes too
• My Very Own Name book – we already got him this too as he wanted one after seeing the one we got our youngest for his birthday
• Gift voucher for something like a jumping castle place (you know those places that have about 10 jumpy houses).  We have one near our house and he’s always asking to go after going to a birthday party there.
• I want to crochet both my boys stockings before we go, but I am unsure if I can manage it.  I don’t know how to crochet, but my Mom is going to try to teach me this week.

Hmmm, I actually thought I had more ideas than this.  And frankly, I have no clue about what to get our youngest, who will be 15 months by then.

Any ideas ??

You can find more tips of all sorts at Works for Me Wednesday.

My sister-in-law is visiting from Australia, hence the hiatus in postings.  She’s been spending lots of time with our boys and we’ve spent hours, after they go to bed, drinking and laughing and telling stories and just general, catching up with her.

It really nice when family from Australia comes to visit us in between our own visits over there.  It really makes it so much more bearable and is also so nice for them to see where and how we live and meet our friends and visit again with my family.

Since our oldest son was born four years ago, we have been over to Australia three times.  My in-laws have came over to the U.S. twice and now my sister-in-law.  That is more than some kids see their grandparents that live in a different state, much less a different country!

We feel very fortunate that we are able to do this.  Granted, we probably won’t be able to keep up this same rate, but our traveling will also get that much easier as our boys get older…so, you never know.  We knew when we got married we wanted to make it a priority for our family to do that one day, so that is what we are trying hard to do.

Next week my posting will get back to normal, I think…whatever that is.   I am planning a revamp of my blog too, so stay tuned!

Now, back to fun with my sis-in-law!

I don’t know how many times, when speaking about traveling, that I’ve heard, “Oh, I would love to go ‘insert country/place name here’.”

My response is always the same, “So, what’s stopping you?”.

Now, as we all know, for most people, it’s money.  But I can tell you that the majority of the people who say this to me, have the money.  They simply choose to spend it on other stuff.

I still remember a conversation I had with my Mother years ago.  It was after I had returned from living in Edinburgh, Scotland (where I also traveled all around Europe).  She made a snide comment about how she would love to travel to those countries too.  I don’t remember the context, but it was jab of some sort to something I was saying.

At the time, her and my Dad had been buying all sorts of house plan and design magazines.  They were wanting to build a bigger ‘dream’ house that consisted of more bedrooms.  This was also at a time when both my sister and I were already out of the house.

Well, I simply told her that if I was planning on spending my money on a huge house full of rooms that nobody would be in, of which I also had to buy more furniture for, then I wouldn’t have the money to travel either.

She had a choice and I simply pointed that out to her.

They did end up building a house.  But, a smaller one.  One, much more suited to them and for when they retire as it’s nearly paid off.   Furthermore, they have since traveled to Australia, France, Italy and other places around the U.S.

I think it often just requires some practical thinking, maybe even a bit of out of the box thinking when it comes to savings and travel.

Out of the Box Savings

I was reading one of my favorite blogs, Free Pursuits, and a article about saving and living below your means.  He writes about two methods of saving that I just love.

1) Pretend you are a teacher. Teachers often get paid 75% of their salary during the school year so they can have their summer off, but still get a paycheck.  In my city, I know you can opt for this, but it’s not automatic since I had a friend get caught out by it once when he forgot to sign up for, but thought he did, thus having to work all summer!

So, if you want to save for a grand or extended vacation,  simply do a similar thing.  Figure out the cost of your vacation and cut your pay accordingly, saving the rest.  Pretend that new amount is your new salary and make it work. This last part being the tricky part of course.

2) Or, want to quit your job and take a year off? Corbett suggests saving 1/3 of your salary for 3 years and then you would have enough saved to take a year off!  It’s so simple, yet I have just never thought about it that way before!  Can’t save 1/3 of your salary?  How about 1/4 for four years or 1/5 for five years?

We all know how fast time goes by and if you have a year off to look forward to?  Well, that would be pretty motivating to me.

When my husband decided he wanted to travel (he lived overseas for more than 2 years), he decided to rent a cheaper house (with roommates) so he could save more.

I remember taking side jobs from all directions when I was saving for travel.  I babysat, waited tables at night after working temp office jobs during the day, whatever.

But, I do think that simply deciding to live on less and actually doing it is one of the best ideas out there.  Even if it’s only a little bit, it’s still going to add up over time.

Even an extra $20 a week over a year is $1040! Depending on the deals you find, that could be a week (or longer) in Europe!

What are you favorite ways to save money for something specific like travel?

Next, thinking outside the travel box on accommodation!

To be honest, I rarely get jet lag anymore when we travel to Australia.

Coming home, however, is another story.  For weeks my husband and I wake in the middle of the night with “the blares”, as my Grandmother used to call it.  Eyes wide open and not tired at all.  Then walking around in a caffeine-regulated stupor during the day.

However, there are things that we do to limit the amount of jet lag that we incur.  Here is what we do, along with some other great tips gleaned throughout the travel blogosphere.

What We Do

• Get a good night’s sleep the night before.
• Don’t leave things to the last minute.  Be packed and ready the day before, even if your flight is not until that afternoon or evening (stress causes adrenaline which inhibits relaxation).
• Drink lots of water.
• Get up during the flight and stretch.
• Where comfy clothes and shoes that are easy to take off.
• Try to sleep if it’s an overnight flight.
• When you arrive, get outside into the sunlight and fresh air.
• DO NOT go to sleep until as close to ‘bedtime’ as possible.
• Get up the next day at a reasonable hour.  Don’t sleep in late.
• Don’t take naps, at least until your body regulates itself (or unless you are a kid who needs naps).
• Eat healthy.  Don’t eat lots of junk/sugar and continue to drink lots of water.
• Drink beer, as my husband is telling me to add, is NOT on the list.  As tempting as the free alcohol on international flights are, I drink water instead.  Unless the kids are especially trying, then I ring the bell for a real drink.

Other things that I have read

• Delicious Baby has a ton of great tips like eating food at local mealtimes and encouraging activity and exercise.
• Scientists in Edinburgh say you can wear sunglasses to reduce jet lag.  I must try this on our next trip.  I always pack my sunnies for when we get there.
• Momversation recommended some travel yoga, I like the look of this and might get it.  Great for car trips too, which I loathe far more than plane trips.

What are your jet lag tips?  Or car travel tips for those who do lots of car traveling?

See more great tips at Works For Me Wednesday at We Are That Family.

There are some great things going on in the blogosphere right now, travel-wise.  So, I thought I would feature some of them.  Summer is often the time for travel, after all.  Of course, we probably won’t be going anywhere because of our Christmas trip to Australia, but hopefully we will at least get a camping weekend in sometime!

Travel full-time for less than $14,000 per year at I Will Teach You To Be Rich – a TON of great tips.  A lot easier to do if you are childless, for sure, but there are a lot of families who do it.  I would love to do it for six months to a year and maybe one day when the boys get older we will.  I will definitely be revisiting this post for some great reminders if we do!

Baker at Man vs. Debt, who I’m pretty sure is either in, or on his way, to Australia now wrote 27 Last Minute Considerations Before Moving Across the World.  This family has guts and I love it.  They have ditched most of what they own and are taking a couple of backpacks and their little daughter and moving to Australia, without a work visa.   He’s written a great list of what to consider when you make a move like this.  I wish you luck, mate.

Travel around your own city and your kids  (age 5-12) can earn a prize (if you state participates) with REI’s Passport to Adventure!  Even if your state/town doesn’t participate, you could download their online journal and create your own passport to adventure and your own rules and prizes for your kids.  What a great way to kill boredom this summer!

I like this post asking readers what their dream lifestyle is on Moving To Portugal.  It’s an old post, but since I’m always thinking about what “my dream” is and trying to get my husband to figure out what his is (how can you not know??!!), it resonated with me.  My dream lifestyle is to have our mortgage paid off and to have employment flexibility to be able to travel more and visit Australia for longer periods (or vice versa if we moved back to Oz).  But I would love to take our boys to Edinburgh, where my hubby and I met and loads of other places.

Do you know of a great expat blog that I should check out?  Or seen a great post on travel lately?  Please let me know so I can check it out.