Press trip, Rwanda: 4/5

Dear Miss Kennedy

We’d like to invite you to visit Rwanda next week. We know it’s really short notice, but it’s not like you need to arrange a visa before we travel, so all we need you to do is pack a suitcase and bring your camera.

We’ll fly you up, issuing your ticket the day before so that you have to rush to the bank to get the necessary forex for the entry ‘visa’ at the airport. We do ask that you meet the group at ORTIA at 06h30 on the morning of travel, but we won’t show up until after 07h00 to help check you in. Instead, you can wander aimlessly between the check-in counter and the sales counter to confuse the hell out of the airline staff. But we’ll upgrade your seat to allow you to have a business class experience on board.

We’ve arranged for five other media people to accompany us on this trip. Some of them you’ll get on really well with, some will bug the bejesus out of you, and others will barely make an impression.  We’ll be late for just about everything and then spend time arranging for you to do your job at various attractions, because we haven’t thought ahead to arrange the necessary permission.

We’ll put you up in a couple of really nice hotels and feed you a mountain of tasty food.  We’ll ferry you around in a large clunky vehicle. We’ll take you into the forest to see the Golden Monkeys, and arrange permits for a gorilla viewing at the last minute. We’ll also arrange a couple of last-minute interviews with really interesting and relevant people, but as a result of just about everyone running late, we’ll be late getting to the airport.

We do hope you’ll be able to join us.

Sincerely

PR for hotel group and airline

Dear PR for hotel group and airline

Thank you for your kind invite. I’ve been keen to see Rwanda for a while now, so yes, I gladly accept.

I do have a Yellow Fever certificate, but it’s not technically legal. I’m also not going to the trouble of getting malaria medication – it’s a hassle and it’s expensive. Instead, I’m going to be paranoid about mosquitoes; get ready for citronella-scented everything.

I don’t have time to get into any sort of shape for a forest trek, but I’d like to visit the monkeys, so I’ll be sure to pack my all-weather walking shoes and a butt-load of determination. The shoes are a little loose, so I do hope there’s no mud that will threaten to suck them off my feet. And being that I’m not at all fit, I’ll be the one lagging behind the group; the one who needs assistance with steep inclines and ant nests; the one who slides down muddy slopes on my butt after losing my balance in aforementioned mud. I’ll also be the one who wants to leave early so that I don’t hold the group on the way back to the vehicles. I’d appreciate your co-operation with this.

I will decline a visit to the gorillas the next morning. I know I’m not fit enough for the climb and I dislike the idea of being sweaty and covered in mud for the last-minute interviews. I know it’s a once-in-a-lifetime thing, but I’m worried that it might cut my lifetime short.

The only things I really want to do are visit a coffee plantation, buy coffee and tea to take home, and visit a market to buy some fabric. I see that none of this is on the itinerary. In that case, I might have to coerce one of your drivers to taking me into town, and driving me to an ATM and various shops to see if I can get the things I want. And if that doesn’t produce the necessary results, I’ll do some duty free shopping at the airport. Considering that we’ll be late checking in, I’ll be late getting to plane, and in my haste I’ll forget my laptop at the last security point and require an escort to help me retrieve it. Subsequently, the flight will be delayed by about 30 minutes.

I look forward to seeing firsthand the beauty of this tropical climate, not to mention getting a few more stamps in my passport.

Many thanks

Kate

The Challenge: Month 1

Okay, yes, I got bored of blogging about my finances last month, but I thought I’d give a quick update.

I can say that it’s no fun having to live on such limited funds, but it is doable. I was lucky to receive an additional R500 to help get me through, but even so, things were tight.

Here are a few things I learnt last month:

·         Cash is king. Swiping a card allowed me to ignore the state of my finances until there was no money left, at which point I had to do some creative accounting to make it through the month. With cash, I’m always aware of how much money I have to spend.

·         A weekly budget works better for me than a monthly one. Here’s the thing – I like to shop, whether or not I have money to spend. Doing a monthly shop is mostly wasteful for me because I don’t feel like preparing the food I stock in my freezer. I still go to the shops, even when I don’t need anything. I just want things that I don’t have. So, by buying things only as I need then, and not in anticipation of wanting them, there’s less waste. Yes, my freezer is empty, but that’s only a problem when I’m lazy. There are a few things which I’m happy to buy in bulk – milks, eggs, bacon – but for the most part, it works better to shop every few days instead of once a month.

·         Separate petrol budget. A tank of petrol lasts me about 10 days, so I’ve allocated days each month that I can fill up my car. I don’t stick to this strictly, but within a couple of days of these deadlines, I do make a point of stopping by a petrol station.  And instead of just adding petrol money to my weekly budget, I’ve kept a separate tab for this. Otherwise I find that I spend money on other things, expecting that I can get around on petrol fumes if I have to.

I’m continuing with this method of budgeting for April. I’ve even allocated two amounts for entertainment without extending credit to do so.

It’s small steps at this point, but I expect it to get easier as I become accustomed to living with less. 

The Challenge Week 1

I’m currently on day seven of my new budget. I was hoping to report that I religiously stuck to my allocated funds, but alas, I wasn’t so good. R350 really doesn’t go far these days. It was, however, the first payday I can remember that I didn’t rush out to spend money.

I had to buy OTC medication that the medical aid doesn’t cover, which ate more than a third of my cash. I also had to spend a little money on supplies to make a birthday present for a special little girl. And yesterday, I splurged on takeaways. The total of the overspending sits at R220, which I’ll have to cover over the coming weeks.

These three purchases aside, I think I’ve done pretty well. I was careful with my grocery shopping, which means I have four meals in the freezer to get me through those nights I can’t face cooking. I also made a point of telling a few friends about my situation. Now that they know about my lack of discretionary spend, I can’t rock up with treats without having to explain myself.

I do realise that I’m in a much better position than many others who are trying to get by on minimal funds. There is food in house, as well as toiletries and cleaning products, which means I don’t have to spend money on these things right now. I have been grateful this week for the eggs, bacon and coffee that were purchased last month. They came in very handy.

I was also treated to four meals this week. On Wednesday night I was invited to a hotel stayover in Midrand where I was let loose on a prawn and roast lamb buffet. I made the most of the experience, since I knew it was going to be a long while until I was able gorge on such expensive and delicious food. On Thursday morning, I stayed for breakfast and cappuccinos.

On Sunday A-Friend took me out for lunch in Cullinan, which also came with cappuccinos. And then she fed me T-bone steak last night for dinner. These four meals alone are probably more than some people eat in a week, so I know how fortunate I am to be able to keep my stomach full. But I don’t do well with hunger, which is why I caved yesterday and bought takeaways.

I get to draw cash tomorrow for the coming week. I’ll have to plan carefully to make sure I don’t run out of anything important. I have to remain vigilant and not allow myself to not care about later in the month. I might not have succeeded this week, but I did a hell of a lot better than I ever have before, so I still believe I can make it work. 

A new challenge: sticking to a budget

I have two weakness – food and money. Okay, you can make this three if you add in house cleaning.

In these three areas, I just don’t give a shit. More accurately, I don’t give enough of a shit to limit myself. I try to eat healthy, stick to a certain number of meals and snacks a day, plan my daily food intake. But I lose interest after a few days (sometimes weeks if I’m really pushing myself). 

I spend money without much regard to whether I can actually afford the stuff I’m buying. I take friends for breakfast, I buy clothes for my two favourite kids, I stock my house with fruit and veg that end up in the bin because they go off before I feel like eating them. 

And I’m just not concerned with living in a mess most of the time. However, I am trying to force myself take more pride in my little shoebox – washing dishes daily and putting away the things that clutter the counter.

I’ve tried budgeting before – listing out all of my expenses to see how much money I have left over for things like groceries and coffee with friends. But I’ve never been able to stick to it. I always forget about money I’ve spent, or overestimate how much I’ve got available for a certain activity. I’m also really bad when it comes to spending money on other people – I have gotten into a fair bit of debt over the years spending money I shouldn’t during a crisis or holiday.

This morning I looked at my salary from different angle. It’s been over a decade since I last earned a weekly wage, so I don’t usually budget weekly anymore. But today, after my salary was paid, I added the amount to my spreadsheet of expenses, took the leftover R1,400 and divided it up into four weekly wages. I was shocked at what I saw.

Essentially I have to find a way to live on R50 a day. Eek. Petrol doesn’t count, it has its own budget, which is quite tight and will require some serious management.

Let me give you a little look into my current situation. I am living alone, on a single income. I have a small bond and I'm paying off a car. Both the townhouse and car are insured. I have medical aid. I pay for a cleaner to come and put my house in order twice a month. I have a pet parrot. But I also have two credit cards (both currently maxed) and two store cards (both with decent available credit). And then there the ridiculous overdraft and a personal loan from living beyond my means for the last 10 years. Despite all this, banks are jumping at the chance to give me more credit and the telesales people are offended when I tell them that I’m not interested in getting into more debt.

So I’m not surprised at my current situation, but I’m not happy about it either. Part of the problem is that, being single and living alone, I am not financially accountable to anyone else. There’s no one asking me why I bought a new book when I don’t have the money. No one to question where the new DVD came from, or how I could pay someone to paint my nails when I have to service so much debt each month. It’s easy to forget that I don’t have money for a Seattle grande cappuccino when I’m putting in petrol, or extend my overdraft when I discover that I have no more money for petrol.

I keep saying that when I get a better job, I’ll be able to get the situation under control, but the reality is that unless I change my spending habits, even a new job with a better salary isn’t going to help. While I don’t relish the idea of living on R50 a day, I know it’s possible. Heck, I know someone who fed a family of four on this amount a few years ago.

A friend is in a similar situation. She doesn’t have debt, but her salary doesn’t allow for much discretionary spending. So we’ve decided to be each other’s accountability partner to see if that will help us manage our money better.

The idea is that we’ll sit down once a week and go through the money we’ve spent to see if we were able to stick to our weekly budgets. If we went over budget, we’ll need to explain why and where the money will come from to cover it.

My hope is that having to justify a giant cup of coffee will make me think twice about buying it. 

Having never done something like this before, neither of us is sure it’ll work, or whether we’ll become offended by someone making us explain how we spend our money. But it’s certainly worth a try.

Aside from petrol, I’m moving away from the culture of card swiping and going back to cash. I’ll draw R350 a week and once that’s gone, that’s it until next week. I’ll be scouring newspapers for grocery specials and adding up the shopping basket as I put things in.

It’s going to be tough, but the end result will be completely worthwhile. I’ll let you know how it goes.