Auditor General’s Report – Sept. 2010

Sadly, when I called up the Auditor General’s office and asked Sheila Fraser to do a guest post on the state of where my finances were, she politely declined. Something to do with having her hands full with the Harper government, stimulus packages, “Canada Economic Action Plan” sign budgets, and the like.

Oh well.

Just before I drove up to Carrot River, Saskatchewan for my sisters wedding, I stopped in to see my travel agent with the list of departure/arrival cities I was interested in. It took about an hour, but we managed to create a route that was both within the allotted kilometres for the Star Alliance as well as the amount of “coupons.” Coupons, in this sense, are the legs(including surface segments) of the trip. A flight that has a connection somewhere is considered to be 2 coupons. For a Star Alliance Round-the-World ticket, one cannot go over a total of 39,000KMs and can only use 16 coupons.

But we did it!

Cost: estimated to be around $7287 when all is said and done.

A bit more than I was expecting, but still pretty damn good considering the flights I’m actually taking. But even then, it got me worried. When I pay for these flights, will I still have enough money left over? I’ve gone into this entire thing with the plan to have at least $20,000 for spending money(accommodations, food, etc). Is that still achievable?

My current financial standings:

Account	Balance
Savings account 1	$5,132.95
Savings account 2	$5020.00
Savings account 3	$5000.00
Main Savings	$9127.27
Sister owes	$600.00
US Chequing Account	CDN$2046.53
TOTAL	$26,926.75

Take away the amount that the flights will cost and that leaves me with a total, after paying for flights, of $19,639.75 as of September 8, 2010. And with 82 days or so left before I leave. . . . I’m not worried anymore.

Hell, at the end of this week, with my next paycheque from the pizza place, I will have very close, if not more than, $20000.

And there’s still five more cheques from the job after this one.

Add in the money from my vacation pay that’s been slowly building up($3300 from the hotel by November, $2000 from the pizza place by november) and I’m going to be golden. I may not get the full amount from the vacation pay(all depends on if I am forced to take it all at once or can take it incrementally while I’m gone. If all at once. I’m assuming that 50% will go to income tax) but even then, I’ll be great.

With the amount I have available to me right this moment, I’m looking at a monthly budget of $1402.84. Considering all my major expensive transportation costs are paid for, I think that’s pretty damn good. Everything between now and when I leave is just bonus!