Travel Hacking New Zealand and Australia
Northern Expenditure | A Personal Finance and Money Saving Blog in Alaska
by MaggieBanks
9M ago
I have cousins in New Zealand, so I’ve always wanted to visit, so we decided to use all the miles we hoarded during the pandemic and finally go. Here’s the price break-down of how much that trip cost and a few tips for if you’re planning a trip yourself. All costs are in US dollars. Accommodations for 22 nights – $2,044.20 ($1,218.68 of it was 3 nights in Queenstown). Tip: Have relatives in New Zealand and have friends that live with a view of Harbor Bridge so you can watch the New Year’s fireworks from their balcony. This was seriously a fill-the-bucket list item. It was INCREDIBLE. For rea ..read more
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Q2 2023 Plan Update
Northern Expenditure | A Personal Finance and Money Saving Blog in Alaska
by MaggieBanks
9M ago
It’s feast or famine here at the ole’ Northern Expenditure blog (okay, mostly famine these days, but I’m going to post a NZ/Australia cost breakdown this week as well, so a bit of a feast even though I’ve been silent for six months). If you’ll recall from the last time I posted, we have two goals this year: Finish a draft of my novel Finish the home addition Good news! The first one is DONE. I managed to finish a draft of my novel before the summer craziness set in. It has been sent to two rounds of beta readers who have returned very helpful feedback, which I will incorporate when the kids ..read more
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Q4 2022 Plan Update
Northern Expenditure | A Personal Finance and Money Saving Blog in Alaska
by MaggieBanks
1y ago
I’m only 6 weeks late, so it totally still counts, plus we were out of the country for the holidays, so I actually have a reasonable excuse. We took a 3.5-week trip to New Zealand and Australia over the holidays and it was glorious. I will write a separate post with a break-down of the costs for that trip (with pictures), but this post is our life update as of the end of 2022. So here it goes: Addition update: Our walk-in closet is now fully installed, so I’ve moved all my clothes into it. Since we’re not quite done with the bedroom, it now just means I have to walk across the house to get my ..read more
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Q3 2022 Plan Update
Northern Expenditure | A Personal Finance and Money Saving Blog in Alaska
by MaggieBanks
1y ago
It’s fully fall and our six-pack of skeletons from Home Depot are dressed in costume as trick-or-treaters on our front lawn (yes, this purchase will continue to make me happy every single year. Tempted by that 12-foot skeleton…). They can all be seen here, in their debut last year: I might have purchased a six pack of poseable skeletons and spent my Saturday dressing them up around the house… pic.twitter.com/2clvo9mCQa — Maggie Banks (@northernexpense) September 4, 2021 We’ve also had our first snow, so I did what any reasonable human does and went to the library to check out ten Rom Coms a ..read more
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Dipnetting 2022: Inflation Hits the Waters!
Northern Expenditure | A Personal Finance and Money Saving Blog in Alaska
by MaggieBanks
1y ago
It’s time for the annual Banks family Alaskan dipnetting update for 2022! If you have no idea what I’m talking about, I’ve explained the dipnetting process here and even shared our salmon recipe if you want to know how we cook it. Each year, because I’m me, I calculate how much we pay per pound for our salmon in our big dipnetting adventure. To be clear, we don’t entirely do it because it’s cheap. I LOVE dipnetting. It’s my favorite sport. It’s my favorite holiday. It’s is quintessential Alaskan life. I love it so much. I digress. As a reminder, last year, we caught 33 salm ..read more
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Q2 2022 Plan Update
Northern Expenditure | A Personal Finance and Money Saving Blog in Alaska
by MaggieBanks
1y ago
Wait, what happened to Q1? That’s what you’re asking, I know it. Well, I guess life happened. We are in the process of building an addition after all! The good news is, I already mostly achieved my one goal for 2022: solve my migraines! Turns out iron supplements solved it. I now have 1-2 migraines a month and an amazing medication to take when they start that stops the headache. Modern medicine is a miracle. Also, I’m ignoring the current state of the world in this update. I’m tired. Addition update: We got our solar panels installed and I will never not geek out about them (okay, maybe in th ..read more
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Q4 2021 Plan Update
Northern Expenditure | A Personal Finance and Money Saving Blog in Alaska
by MaggieBanks
2y ago
Well, we wrapped up 2021. Woof. The kids are now all fully vaccinated with the oldest getting a booster this week. That is a big thing we’re grateful for. We’re also grateful Omicron was not quite here yet during the holidays, so we got to have our two usual families over for Christmas dinner and it felt somewhat normal. Omicron is def here now, so we’re back to hunkering down as much as possible and wearing our N95s everywhere (if you haven’t found a good, comfortable one yet, I recommend this one. I love it. Not even an affiliate link, just want you to have a good mask!). My migraines ramped ..read more
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Q3 2021 Plan Update
Northern Expenditure | A Personal Finance and Money Saving Blog in Alaska
by MaggieBanks
2y ago
This has been an eventful quarter. We went on our first trip since the beginning of the pandemic. We traveled to see our parents in the Pacific Northwest before school started. It was lovely to see them and siblings and cousins, but by the time we went, Delta was starting to take over and things were not very relaxing and traveling was stressful. So, when we returned home, it was time to send the unvaccinated kids back to school and scream into the void. We’ve so far only had one known exposure at school and no one has managed to get it yet (knock on wood) despite cases in Anchorage being astr ..read more
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How to Insure Against Your Money Fears (And When an Annuity Makes Sense)
Northern Expenditure | A Personal Finance and Money Saving Blog in Alaska
by MaggieBanks
2y ago
I just finished reading Die With Zero (affiliate link). The basic premise is that your money is worth more at different stages of your life (ie: when you’re younger you can do more things, so you shouldn’t wait until you’re old and retired to enjoy your money). The book is a good balance to all the “do nothing but work until you can retire early” literature available, but the most interesting idea to me was the fact that you can insure against all of your money fears. People often save WAY too much money because they fear leaving their kids in the lurch, ending up in a retirement home, or outl ..read more
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Dipnetting 2021
Northern Expenditure | A Personal Finance and Money Saving Blog in Alaska
by MaggieBanks
2y ago
Each year, we go dipnetting as a family. In a matter of 24-48 hours, we catch enough salmon to last us all year. I’ve explained the dipnetting process here and even shared our salmon recipe if you want to know how we cook it weekly. Florin and Penny were solid contributors. There are two ways to dipnet: Stand with your net in the water and wait for a fish to jump in, or add more poles to make it longer and walk as the tide goes out. The walking way catches more fish, but it also takes more mass and strength as the pole is longer and you have to put it in the water, walk wit ..read more
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