A testimony from Katrina who owns Edelweiss Patterns
A few years ago, I was most pleasantly surprised to hear about a dream trip to England — a tour that focused on London and Bath, studied historical costume at some world-famous museums, and included a weekend at the Jane Austen Festival!
As a long-time fan of British history and literature, I thought this sounded like a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. But looking at the costs involved, I knew I would have to do some serious saving to make it happen.
After talking with my family and working out a budget, I committed to going, and paid my deposit. The next ten months were spent working hard and spending very little, but the luxurious trip to England made it all worth it!
In fact, I saved enough to have several hundred British pounds of spending money — and I even had to transfer quite a few pounds back to American dollars once I got back to the States! The memories I made on that trip will never be forgotten, and these are the principles I followed to save what I needed:
1. Keep tithing!
As a pastor’s daughter, my parents had raised me with the firm belief that you cannot withhold your money from God and expect your finances to be blessed. Even when it seems that you need every extra dollar, God is the one who has given us the money and the least we can do is give Him 10% (Malachi 3:8-12).
2. Pay your bills and save the rest.
After tithe, I would pay my monthly bills and leave the rest of my paychecks alone. If it wasn’t an actual bill, it didn’t need to be paid for or purchased!
3. Cut all clothes spending.
I know, this is a very hard one! Believe me, as a total fashion enthusiast and historical costume fan, it was very difficult to see the new spring styles coming out and know that I couldn’t get anything.
In addition, it was tempting to buy fabrics to make clothes (no, you can’t save much money that way, but it sure is fun!) But I’m happy to say that despite working retail during the entire year, I stayed quite disciplined and did no “impulse” shopping.
Even though you may not have the type of wardrobe we’d like, you can still make do with the clothes you have when there’s a real goal in mind. It did mean that I really needed to purchase some new things once I came back from the trip, but you know what? That’s okay!
4. Buy your makeup during promotional sales.
I didn’t want to cut this from my budget, but I put forth effort to buy it as inexpensively as possible. At my local malls, the major makeup brands have big promotions every couple of months where if you spend a certain amount (usually $20), you get a whole promo bag of makeup.
At the time I used mainly Clinique, and when I would purchase my facial cleansers through them I would end up with a bag of lipstick, lip gloss, mascara, and face creams. One time I was nearly out of lipstick and the “free” bag I received had a bright red tube of lipstick in it — just what I needed!
5. Work as hard as you can.
While I usually didn’t work full-time, a promotion I got in my job over the course of that year meant that I had a new department to work in. And that department needed all the help they could get!
While I might have usually worked around 26 hours a week regularly, I was soon being scheduled for 30-40 hour weeks because they could tell that I loved what I was doing and did my absolute best on the job.
I know it doesn’t seem like a lot of fun to go work 8 hours days on a sunny Saturday when the rest of your family is going on an excursion up the mountain, but if you really keep your goal in mind it makes it so much easier!
In the end, I had paid cash for the entire trip a couple of months before I had to leave. It felt so good to write out the final trip payment directly from my checking account!
I had also transferred several hundred dollars into British pounds, paid cash for my airplane ticket, and (finally!) purchased fabric to make my costumes for the Jane Austen Festival.
The resulting trip to England was beyond anything I could have imagined! My tour group visited many landmarks in London, studied at the Victoria & Albert Museum, toured Kensington Palace, saw Jane Austen’s house in Chawton, and had the most marvelous time at the Jane Austen Festival in Bath.
At one point I felt like I had stepped into a BBC adaption of “Pride & Prejudice”, with the whole town of Bath filled with ladies and gentlemen in Regency costumes. Besides touring fashion museums, having afternoon tea, and attending historic churches, we also were privileged to attend an English country dance. It was marvelous!
Well, four years later, I have now signed up to take the same tour again in 2013. So you know what that means? I’m saving like crazy! It may mean giving up a few things between now and then, but I can promise you that it will be totally worth it once I get back to England.
Katrina is the owner of Edelweiss Patterns, which specializes in vintage Sound of Music costume patterns. When she’s not designing patterns, she blogs about her historical and retro costume reproductions, participates in swing dancing, and enjoys the gorgeous Pacific Northwest where she lives.
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Jessica says
Really enjoyed this article! I dream of visiting England some day. I am a Jane Austen fan, too. 😉
Rachel says
Swoon! I dream of going one day… But when I do, it will be paid for in cash!
🙂
Jamie Rohrbaugh says
Wow, what an awesome trip! Way to go, Katrina!!!
Teena says
How did you hear about the vacation? Sounds like a trip that needs to be on my bucket list!
Katrina @ Edelweiss Patterns says
Hi, Teena! I found out about the trip from http://www.sensibility.com, which is the main website for Sense & Sensibility Patterns. This tour is really amazing, and you can visit the website for this year’s tour here: http://sensibility.com/2013tour/Welcome.html
Nicole @ Amazing Frugal Mom says
I firmly believe in not taking vacations that are not paid for. When I was 21, I foolishly booked a cruise with my fiance on a credit card, thinking that since we made good money (we worked together), it would be paid off in no time. Well much to my surprise our company laid us off-and many others–the day before we left for our trip! Nothing puts a damper on a vacation more then not knowing how you are going to pay for it!
Lana says
What fun! I love the picture from the festival. Huge Jane Austen fan here too!
Angi Schneider says
What an accomplishment. I bet that vacation felt extra good since it was paid for ahead of time!
By the way, I spent quite a bit of time on your site yesterday. Our homeschool drama club is doing The Sound of Music and I’m helping with costuming. I wish we had more time/t to be able to use your patterns. They are amazing. My son is Max and my daughter is Gretl so I’m just altering some thrift store clothing to make them time period appropriate. But, oh, how I enjoyed drooling over your patterns.
Katrina @ Edelweiss Patterns says
Thank you, Angi! I’m so glad you enjoyed the website, and I hope your children have fun in their roles!