Ruby Loves Adventure

Copacabana Beach, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Early today I was chatting with my friend about goals. She said she finally quit her job and is trying to look for another one at a multinational company. Staying 10 years at a local company, she realized she had enough, and looked for something better. Same friend told me her goals: she wanted to go abroad. It took her approximately 3 years before she made the leap.. and I'm glad she did. 

So, why are goals essential to your success?

Let me back up a bit here... and tell you some goals that I wanted to achieve:  

1. 1998: I wanted to go to London: Blame Boyzone, but yes, I wanted to see them live
•  2008:  I finally got to London, for free on a business trip. (Yes, business class all the way). You can see a very, very old post here. 
• Lesson learned: You will always find a way to make your goal into a reality, regardless of how much time it takes.
2. 2001: I wanted to move abroad. The Philippines got too corrupt, annoying, and the president was an imbecile. It really got annoying come 2012, when I definitely decided to move, by hook or by crook. 
• 2013: I moved to the USA. My original plan was to move to London but sadly, it didn't work out. Had another offer in Birmingham but since the USA came first, I decided to go with it. 
• Lesson learned: Sometimes what you want may not always be what you get. And sometimes what you get may turn out to be even better than what you wanted in the first place.

Those are just some of the goals I made happen for myself. There's a few more that I can mention: travel more (started backpacking around the UK in 2011, and Asia from 2012-2013)

Cambugahay Falls, Siquijor

How did I make it happen? Does this mean I'm successful?

First off, success is subjective. You can define your success in your own way.

Your goals are essential to your success because:  

1. It gives you focus - they say when you write down a goal, the more you get to make it happen. And that's true. I kept on writing down what I wanted to do, I told people who would dare listen what I wanted. I wanted to be the person who made things happen, and not just someone who says something and does nothing. A goal keeps you focused on what you want to happen, and then you move on to step 2


2.  You get creative - When you have a goal, especially a challenging one, you get more creative about how you would reach it. You start thinking outside the box and you're getting frustrated. Getting frustrated is amazing. It gives you something to obsess about: How do I do this? What do I do? What resources can I tap on? And that, my friends, is the start of step 3


3.  You make things happen - These goals tend to multiply: you get more and more of it. When you have a new goal, write it down, and set a date to review it. In my case, I write down goals whenever, but short term goals (ie within one month), I check the last day of every month. These are written down at least the month before. It feels so good to tick off things from my list and making things happen. The bigger goals, like moving from one country to another (not so easy, especially if you live in the Philippines), can go in a longer term goal and be on a separate notebook. 

It is so much fun to look back and realize hey, I made this dream (goal) happen!

Hopefully this has inspired you to make a goal. As of writing, here are a list of our goals to help inspire you:

1. Be financially independent (FI) - I became convinced I want to retire early after reading "Your Money or Your Life" and "Rich Dad, Poor Dad" - I've always wanted my money to work for me instead of me working for money. In fact, I even convinced Peter to get in on the FI mindset! We're slowly making our way there, and we're taking the necessary steps to do it. 


2.  Get married on a budget - Weddings are expensive all over the world. And ever since we got engaged, I've been trying to think of ways to make our wedding very affordable. Our starting budget is $3,000 but it looks like it can balloon to $5,000. Keep posted. We're posting our progress here on this blog.


3.  Travel a lot (weekend, vacations), even with a full time job - 2015 has been good to us, travel wise. Here's hoping 2016 will be even better (note: planning trips to France & Slovakia in 2016, as well as mostly local travel).


4.  Monetize this blog as another income stream - Still a work in progress, but hopefully we can do it. Still trying to learn the ropes on this.


5. Get sponsored trips - We love to travel after all, and sponsored trips will be the icing on the cake!

Good luck on your endeavors! 

Apologies for our absence - Peter and I have been busy trying to recover from our Philippines/New York trip and just recently, over the Easter holidays, we came back from Atlanta! Aside from that, I got really busy with other projects, such as planning my Financial Independence and side hustles! Oh, and I finally finished this blog after our Europe trip. Busy, busy!

Zoo Atlanta!

Why Atlanta?  Well, we had been discussing it for a while and we always wanted to visit this city because of its hustling & bustling activity. Plus, why not? It's only a 5 hour drive from Jacksonville.

Peter might be back to tell you more about our adventures, but so far here's a breakdown of our expenses. Everything in the breakdown is per person, split between two people (we're a couple)

• Gas: our main form of transportation is driving. For 3 days of sightseeing & from driving from Jax to Atlanta 
• $50.50 each 
• Sightseeing:
• $79 each for the Atlanta CityPass (to be reimbursed by Arrival+) 
• $11 each for the Atlanta Skyview (via Groupon)
• Total: $89
• Dining: 
• $ 80 - We had lunch at Golden Corral when we were driving to Atlanta, then ate at food trucks or cheaper food joints for dinner. 
• Others (Souvenirs, etc):
• $31.25 - That's a lot of money for souvenirs. It's mostly from me though. I got crazy at the World of Coke (its expensive but cute), and also had to get the quintessential magnets that I bring home to our souvenir pile. 
• Hotel: 
• $72 - For two nights (split with the boyfriend), at a Best Western near the airport. It was one of the cheapest we could get (was too cheap to use points to redeem for a short stay such as this). 
• Total spent: $323.75 ($244.75 once the Arrival+ points kick in)

So, since I've gotten into the points and miles game recently, I figured I'd also post my plans on how to travel for cheap in 2015.

Why so early? Because to travel for almost free, you need to book secure your award tickets as soon as you can. And it also means jumping on various promos to get as many points as you need. Oh, and this isn't a backpacker trip... we're traveling using hotels, cars, and doing all that we want to do: paying $30 for dinner? that's fine, we can offset it somewhere. Paying $50 for a tour? Yes, also fine - we can reimburse it. No holds barred, no budget constraints (much) - just trying to do whatever we want in the hopes of reimbursing as many of it using points.

So, our travel plans for 2015 are as follows and bits and bobs of what we want to do, we don't have specific itineraries yet. I'll update this page as soon as I have booked more flights/hotels and our overall out of pocket cost before the end of 2015. Note - most of these tricks only apply to the US, but you should know that YOU CAN TRAVEL IN STYLE WITHOUT PAYING MUCH - all it needs is a bit of planning and knowing what's out there! :)



Tampa (January 17-19)

• Busch Gardens - paid $45 in cash for entrance during the AMEX Daily Getaways (too bad we didn't have an AMEX card when we bought it, would have been much cheaper - paying $45 for 1 ticket is 50% cheaper than the normal price (around $100)
• Lunch - $17 (buffet) out of pocket
• Parking fee - $17 out of pocket

The flight to Cancun, Mexico was to leave at 11:15 in the morning.  We were going to wake up early, and drive to the airport early, and be at the airport early.  The key word running through here is "early."  That was the plan.  Problem is, we live in Jacksonville, which is in North Florida.  The flight was departing from Miami, which is in South Florida.  300 miles (roughly 5 hours of driving) separates these two cities.

So as you can see, to be there early was a priority, and before we went to sleep the night before, we were determined to not be on time, but early.  We set a departure time of 4 a.m., but then we got bold and said, "Nay, we shall leave even earlier than that.  Set thy departure clock at 3:45 a.m."  We were feeling confident.

We set our wake-up clock at 2:45 a.m.  We actually woke up 2 minutes before that.  We were feeling good.  "See, we don't even need the stupid alarm, we can wake ourselves up whenever we want.  I can smell Cancun already!"  This is where things began to go awry.  We leisurely showered, had breakfast, had some tea, relaxed, and by the time that was over, it was 4:15.  Well...crap.

The driving map from Jax to Miami

We stumbled out of the apartment, set out on the road and the car clock showed 4:25.  We were still confident of getting there early.  "I'll just go a little faster", I said, like I can just shave off an hour as if I was Sebastian Vettel.

The ride was going smoothly, the road was empty, but we needed a bathroom break. 10 minutes.  We resumed the ride.  Another bathroom break.  10 minutes.  We still said we were going to make it in time, but instead of our voices being confident, there was a noticeable anxiety in saying we were going to make it, as if we knew that we were not going to make it, but saying it out loud would just ruin the whole ordeal.

I went a little faster, and was gaining some minutes back when I saw cop lights behind me.  Since I was going 78 in a 70 mph zone, I didn't think much of it and went to the middle lane so the cop could go past me and catch the bad guy somewhere up ahead in traffic.  The cop moved to my lane.  I slowed down.  The cop slowed down.  "What does this lady want?" I asked as I moved over to the right lane so the cop could catch the bad guy up ahead.  I looked into my rearview mirror and saw the cop pointing at me to pull over.  Well...crap.

We finally made it to Cancun

20 minutes later and $140 poorer (I failed to move over for an emergency vehicle, even though I slowed down), we were now in half-panic mode.  We had one more very brief bathroom break and parked the car at a Marriott hotel (we had a deal arranged with them).  Their hotel shuttle took us to the Miami Airport.  It was 10 a.m.  Our boarding was 10:40.  We sprinted to the curbside check-in.  The guy told us we had to go inside.  We dashed inside, all our bags swinging wildly, dodging bewildered travelers left and right.  We went to the check-in kiosk and it told us we had to go see an agent.  We ran to the agent.  The agent gave us a weird look, looked at our tickets and dryly said, "You missed your flight." Well...crap.

We eventually got lucky and rebooked our flight for no charge, but the lesson here is: Never be too confident.  Never take things for granted.  

And next time, drive to Miami the night before and stay at a hotel.  As much fun as it is to blaze across Florida to catch your flight, it's better to be safe than sorry.

Floating on a cenote

Floating on a cenote part 2 - 40 metres deep!

On the bus, going back to the hotel

Caribbean Sea in front of Westin Lagunamar

Me and the Caribbean Sea

Me, Peter & the Caribbean Sea

Me, Peter & the Caribbean Sea part 2

Our Oceanfront Room at Westin Lagunamar

We just got back from our Cancun, Mexico trip and it was epic!!! We stayed at the Westin Lagunamar Resort and flew American Airlines from Miami. Our total expenses for this trip rounded up to $450 for 5 days, 4 nights for everything!

Money doesn´t grow on trees

Upon reading Chris Guillebeau's book and reading other blogs, I began to hatch up a big idea, and that is: how to travel for absolutely free.

When I mean travel, it has to be in the context of accommodations and flights... maybe a few attractions here and there. I´m still trying to figure out the workings for free food, but so far, nada on that front (unless I sign up for this credit card but I have yet to work out if they carry foreign transaction fees and such)

Traveling in style in Puerto Rico

Travel doesn´t have to be expensive, I agree, I was a backpacker at one point in time, staying at hostels and eating at the cheapest places that I can find (mostly street food), but now that I have the means to do luxury travel for the cost of backpacking the world, then maybe it´s more worth it to be a luxury traveler!

And when I say luxury, I meant it in a sense of staying in hotels: 3, 4, 5-star would be nice.

At the time I write this, I have already checked out of a 5 day, 4 night stay at the Westin Lagunamar in Cancun, Mexico, and let me tell you, all our plans went out the window as soon as we saw this resort. It is just so fantastically beautiful.

With that, I will launch a couple of segments about where we traveled and how much we spent on everything. For this Cancun, Mexico trip, we only spent around $500 per person (US) for food, accommodations, attractions, tips, and souvenirs. Not too bad eh?

Thanks to travelisfree.com, I have been inspired to travel for free: and why not?

My service apartment when I first moved to the US

Travel Hacking - loosely defined within the US as to travel very cheaply through the use of points and miles. So, you may be wondering how I get to travel to these destinations for not a lot of money.

You have to note that:
 1) I have a 9-5 job, just like most people in the world, and I make a substantial living off it. No, I'm not rich, but I try to spend my money wisely and pinch every penny (I am a couponer and a travel hacker)
2) I am currently based in the USA. While some of these tips may not directly affect the countries you live in, you can always try to find variations of it in your country. It may not be as generous as the ones we enjoy in the US, but a little bit goes a long way, nonetheless.
3) And no, this does not include sponsored trips. I did not reach out to any companies, nothing. Everything is mostly organized by me and my boyfriend, using points and miles.

Mardi Gras in New Orleans, Louisiana

And, back to the story:
So, when I went back home to Manila from Jacksonville, FL (I promised my mum I'll go back home at least once a year), one thing that stopped me was the airfare. Living in a not so hub airport in Florida can suck - it can drive airfares up by around $300+ (13,500 Philippine Pesos) just by flying from JAX to another airport hub. So, to make it simple, the retail price of a plane ticket JAX-MNL and vice versa is roughly around $1300-$1400, but I cut down my flight expenses to $56 & 80,000 United points round trip. Here's how:

1) Credit Card signup bonuses -  In the US, before they give you credit cards, you need to have a credit score. My boyfriend had a higher credit score than I did so he signed up for the Chase Sapphire Preferred card (at the time there was a 40,000 bonus for a $3,000 spend in 3 months) and added me as an authorized user. That rocked up my credit score higher and we reached the spending requirement and got the 40,000 points. Yay! For those wondering how we reached the spending requirement, it was easy: rent payments. The apartment we live in accepts credit cards for rent payments and it's an easy $1275 + water & trash every month.

2) Mistake fares - did you know that the fares you see are manually inputted by people? Well, that or some serious IT screw up would happen that would drop a 0 in the original fare or upload a different number altogether in the published rate. Mistake fares are mistakes. Once you see one, book it!! You may earn frequent flyer miles for those trips flown too. While hotel mistake fares also happen, it does not happen as often as airlines. If it does & you also happen to go to that destination at the dates you need, then book it! If these companies cancel your tickets then at least you tried, right? Mostly they do, anyway.