It’s a dream come true.

New Zealand.

This September.

How ON EARTH are we able to do this and why?

HOW?
Vacation hooked onto business.
My husband has business in Melbourne and got approval to tack on vacation for us to go to New Zealand on our dime.

I fly to Australia on United points and the cost to hop to and experience New Zealand is on us.

We hadn’t planned on this trip, so we had not been saving for it specifically, but we had been saving in general.

Any $ not spent during the month goes into savings and a large percentage goes into liquid investments. Investments that are not for retirement. All post-tax, so any gains are taxed at 15%, not 25-40%. And no penalties.

So, Dave Ramsey might cringe at how we are doing this-using credit card with chip and pin for reservations and paying overseas. （normally our plan is to sweep the $ into checking from savings and pay by debit as we go-we may still do this some）.

WHY are you justifying this?

Venn diagram.
1. AGE
We are still fairly young at almost 50 and almost 60. No massive hikes or extreme sports involved. My mom and Papi talked about NZ for years but lung cancer took him too soon.

2. HEALTH – Endometriosis is like cancer and right now I’m in remission and my kidney is not trapped to my colon anymore. Make no mistake, it is a deadly disease because of the frozen pelvis syndrome. Kidney uterer trapping is quite common.

3. US DOLLAR – is strong there. Look at prices, take 34 pct off.

4. MAIN COST IS PAID-air tickets to Australia in business class are free for us. This will probably never happen again.

5. We are totally debt free-condo, ranch and all.

6. We have been saving.

It’s not a matter of “deserve”. No one “deserves” anything, sick or not.

It’s not a matter of “lucky”.

It’s a matter of “earning”. We have been diligent, living below our means and working as a team for years. No expensive bags, shoes, clothes or toys to impress anyone.

And doing that, we are prepared for this amazing opportunity.

Hobbiton, here we come!