Thursday 14 July 2011

Holidays - or actually just new plans

I haven’t yet been on this year’s holiday and already we are planning next years. Next summer is my fiftieth birthday. We want to celebrate by visiting either Syria and Jordan or Jordan and Palestine. We can't do both as Syria won't let you in if you have an Israeli stamp on your passport so we are stuck, there being no such thing as a Palestinian stamp. Where we go will depend on how settled everything is out there. I am not quite ready to get blown up yet, no matter how interesting the area is. Twice in my life I have come close. Once in Paris (remember when Marks and Spencer’s was bombed, I was there earlier that day) and once in Singapore, when the hotel I should have stayed in fell down. I don't want to push my luck any further.
So that is the plan. We will all be there for two weeks. Then we all come back home except Fahed who will spend a couple of months with family but also sorting out his ‘pension’. He wants to sell the land and the flat we have, buy some more land and start building work. Our current land should have increased well in value but not sure that it will have with the unsettled atmosphere out there at the moment. By next year we should know if we should sell and make an escape or sell and by the next thing. We need to plan based on buying more land. SO I have approximately three quarter of a year to save up £12,000. I don't know if we can do it but we will try our hardest. Everyone is on board with the idea so that makes things a lot easier.
Fahed has two jobs and the money from one is included in our normal monthly expenditure. There is room for economy here but not much. SO the plan is based on additional income.
£3600 from Fahed’s other job
£1950 contribution from Ahdel (instead of housekeeping)
£1000 fahed tax refund – as he has two jobs one of the jobs is always taxed on emergency and he normally gets around this much back.
£2500 Liz mileage – I do quite a lot of mileage at work and claim it back annually. This is an estimate but probably pretty close.
£2000 ebay – Only if we can sort ourselves out and really get into it.
£3000 – income from letting the house in Crete. This is what we could potentially earn, after tax has been paid over, for long term rental of the house. We can't do short term rental as the house is not of the standard necessary to get a license for holiday accommodation. Anyone want to stay in my house in Crete? It is lovely and will be even more lovely after the work we complete in the summer holidays.
I can't think of other ways to raise income at the moment. Any suggestions gratefully received. Of course we will work on the flip side of bringing down costs but that is an ongoing battle anyway.

3 comments:

  1. Oh wow. 2 near misses. I hope you are a cat and have 9 lives. Crete sounds lovely but I am not sure that it is in my vacation plans.

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  2. Miaow, that's me. You can stay at the house there any time you like. I have a friend with a good but very affordable restaurant locally. All you need is a cheap flight and some dog sitters.

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  3. And directions to the house from the airport I presume! Do they have taxis for transportation?

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My wonderful husband has died. He was in hospital for some weeks but this was very unexpected. I won’t be reading or writing for the foresee...