Monday, October 20, 2008

I want my trip now.

I’ve been planning for my trip for a few months now. I’ve been putting money away for the trip as well. I figure if I don’t start saving for the trip now, I’ll probably won’t have enough for the trip when the time comes to book my flight. I’ve having one problem though, the more I put away, the most the trip is going to cost me. Does it have to do with my expensive tastes? Maybe, but at this point, it has more to do with the drop in value of the Canadian dollar.

Until the end of September, the Canadian dollar was close to par with the U.S. dollar, but since the beginning of October, the Canadian dollar tanked and is now around 83 cents US. This has really pissed me off. Because of the economic crisis in the US, the Canadian dollar has dropped big time in value, and why is it that I have suffer because of the greedy US bankers.

So at this point, I’m looking at going from a nice hotel near the convention centre, with a hotel bar, polite staff, to a Best Western, along the highway, where the next room is occupied by some big ass Truck who will smell of tobacco and hogs, who will be load as hell, with his girlfriend every night at 3:00am, as she moans, and he screams “here piggy piggy piggy”. I do not want to have to deal with that crap. I’m not an economist but I do know that the Canadian banking system wasn’t hit as bad as the US, so why is the Canadian dollar down so low? Why am I getting screwed over for my damn trip?

I know I’m several months away (between 6 and 8) from booking my trip, but I’m finding myself watching the exchange rates before making my booking. I plan to buy through Expedia.ca, but since I’m going to be flying in August, I doubt that I’m going to find a seat sale for that time of year.

Now don’t think that I’m expecting the return of the Canadian dollar being worth more than the US (but it would be nice), I just want something close to parity. I can live with something a little lower, but it really sucks when your dollar is only worth 80 cents US.

I’ve been doing a lot of math, and budgeting, and I figure that I can probably pull off the nice hotel, even with the 80 cent dollar, but if we start seeing the dollar dipping into the 70’s, that’s really going to hurt. I’m only factoring money that I know I will have, not counting a possible bonus. I just hope that I can enjoy this trip without constantly checking my bank balance.

My 2 Bytes

2 comments:

E said...

Ooooooh. I'm jealous! I want to go on a trip/vacation! I haven't been on an airplane in way too long.

You are definately doing it the right way: Planning and saving.

I'd say you should visit Vermont (my state) but there really isn't much to see here but Laurey and I would love to host you. Maybe someday....

L, E

J said...

I keep thinking about this too. We keep telling everyone we're getting married in Vegas, but we haven't actually made any plans and I'm not entirely sure we'll have the cash. I guess I should be figuring some of this out - May isn't that far away.