I had an excellent holiday – enjoyed lots of quality time catching up with family and friends.
Where are the customers’ yachts?
Managed to squeeze quite a lot in, including:
- Weekend at an arts & music festival
- National Geographic dinner event, with Professor Brian Cox as guest speaker – absolutely mind-blowing!
- Michael McIntyre live in Hong Kong (funny, although jokes about housework fell a bit flat as pretty much all ex-pats have cleaners/maids…)
- My Dad’s 80th birthday bash
- My Gran’s 92nd birthday celebrations (maternal grandmother, in case anyone’s trying to do the maths…)
- A couple of days in Macau – my gambling exploits ended with a HK$100 loss (about a tenner!)
- A ‘hairy crab‘ evening with the siblings
- Two ‘Superhero’ cinema trips (‘Thor: Ragnarok’ and ‘Justice League’)
St Paul’s Church Ruins in Macau, which you might just be able to see behind all the tourists…
Budget Blown
The last few times I’ve been on holiday, I’ve hardly bought anything but this time, not only did I do some Christmas shopping but I also actually purchased some new clothes – I know, whatever came over me!? 😉 So I spent quite a bit more than expected out there but it means much of my present-buying was done, so that was a result.
As mentioned above, it was my Dad’s birthday and there was a full-on formal banquet laid on, with the whole clan in attendance. It was fabulous to catch up with cousins, aunts and uncles I very rarely see and great to see all 4 generations get together. Although I knew I was going to be contributing towards the costs with my other siblings, I hadn’t put enough aside for it, so most of it came out of my ’emergency funds’, which I will have to ‘pay back’ over the next year.
This may put a little squeeze on my savings rate but I aim to tighten my spending further so am hoping there won’t be too much impact there.
Toilet Rolls
Some people (apparently) take toilet rolls with them when they go away on holiday – me, I brought some back! Groceries in HK are very expensive, much of the food is imported, so the own-brands of Tesco, M&S and Waitrose compete well over there versus imports from other countries.
However, I spotted that toilet paper in HK is cheaper than in the UK – half the price of an Andrex 9-pack for similar/better quality – so since I had space in my suitcase and I was under my luggage allowance, I brought back some rolls, haha!
And on that note, with the dark days hurtling towards the inevitable madness that is the Christmas holiday, I wish you all a very merry one and will see you all on the other side!
Looks like Zippy (from Rainbow) dressing up as Santa…
Merry Xmas weenie. My nod to frugalness this month was to put 50% of my bonus for January straight into my pension saving 4000 in tax. My future self will thank me for it! . Decided to take the other half and hold my nose and pay the tax as I want to have some fun with some of it and invest the rest. Sadly if this year has taught me anything it’s that for all my planning I may not even get to retirement so don’t scrimp on the things to you really enjoy which for me is travel. Thinking India or Thailand next year. I may be asking for tips to do on a budget!
Cheers FBA and great work on the bonus! It can’t all be ‘all save and no play’ – like you, travel/holidays are important to me, doubly so because they’re the few/only occasions I get to see my family face to face. Regarding budget for India or Thailand (although I’ve only been to the latter), the key is to plan beforehand – should be fairly cheap when you get there, just don’t buy too much tat but enjoy the food and experiences!
Sounds like you had an excellent time on your travels. Nice find on the cheaper toilet roll! Being frugal soul myself, this sounds like something I would have done. I also had no idea there were crabs out there which are actually furry! Sounds delicious though.
Enjoy the festive season! HTSC 🙂
Thanks HTSC – I have a feeling that from now on, I’m always going to be checking the price of the toilet rolls when I’m out there!
The crabs aren’t actually furry but they look like they are wearing ‘furry mitts’ behind their pincers! And yes, delicious (if you like seafood!). Hope you enjoy the festivities yourself!
Welcome been weenie, we missed you!
Hong Kong sounds ace. I was looking at it on Google maps in 3d mode the other day actually, its fantastic, like flying around the skyscrapers in a helicopter. You should give it a go (unless you’ve done that in really life in which case it would probably be a bit pointless haha). Now I really want to go there!
I then started looking Shenzhen and all the other cities to the north. That area is mental, it’s like they plonked 8 London’s right next to each other isn’t it?! It’s just wall to wall megacities. That was a great hour of procrastination on work time haha.
Any way getting a bit off topic.
Glad you had a good trip, don’t sweat the extra expenses and hope you have a great Christmas and joyful new year!
P.s. the zippy picture comment made me laugh. If it’s not supposed to be him then that is one weird looking Santa?! 🙂
Cheers TFS!
I’ve yet to visit the ‘space-age-like’ cities in China but perhaps I too will while away an hour checking them out on Google maps haha!
Yes, Zippy dressed as Santa – it’s the big eyes and the orange skin!
Hope you had a great Christmas and all the best for 2018.
Hi Weenie,
Sounds like you had an absolutely fantastic, if not manic, time out there – well done on enjoying it 🙂
As for the shopping spree – really? 😉 But more seriously, if it is a cheaper place to buy then why not lol and also probably cheaper than excess luggage costs!
I love the fact that despite being on holiday, spending money(!) you still had an eye for a bargain with the loo rolls lol
Happy festive period,
FiL
Now that I have some new clothes, I need to do a bit of a clear out to get rid of some old items for some space, though I’m far from being a minimalist!
I think I’ll always be keeping an eye on the price of loo rolls, haha!