Road trip or Flying – What is the best option? – Part 2

June 10th, 2008 Vijaianand No Comments »

Last week I started a blog post sharing my latest road trip experience in a way to show to avoid getting riped off during this hot high gas price season and still have a good time going on a road trip. Let me get right into the topic as you all been waiting for a week. I talked about doing a Research before you making the decision. Obviously, next step is Decision making.



2. Decison Making



I questioned myself with 3 important questions that eventually helped me to make a decision.



1. Is Roadtrip going to work out cheaper than Flying with hotel expense on the way?


Yes. It is going to work out atleast 30-40% cheaper even after taking the High gas price into account. Last minute deals also came out higher than road trips. Also road trips are for many reasons like packing, taking big gifts and even packing sleeper bags incase we need it. For everything road trip
seems to be the way to go.



2. Do I have enough time to drive to – fro and also have time for sightseeing? Is it going to be relaxing vacation?

Yes, if I properly plan. I know Chicago is 20 hours one way(1200 miles via Baton Rouge to avoid slow traffic via Dallas which maps suggest)from houston. Its almost a day to drive down one way which is really tiring. Since I have a week on my hand, I am afford to spend a 2 days for travel. Also If I do proper planning and take breaks on time, I surely can avoid tiredness and have a good time inspite of long hour driving.



3. Can I take advantage of this road trip to spend a day or two on the way for sightseeing and see few more places?


That would add as a bonus for taking road trip. But it’s going to add up on expense. Its worth it as we spend hours and money to travel that far. I also remembered about my friend who is in St. Louis who is been inviting to come down. It is actually on the way to Chicago. If I check with him, I should be able to drop by and take a break in his place saving both lodge and food expense on one way and at same time check out St. Louis.



After answering these questions, I was more than convinced road trip is turning out to be better option especially seeming to work out well on longer trips. It’s not going to be cheap like a years ago but its affordable, cheaper than flying for last minute. So I stopped wasting time on finding flight deals.


3. Planning



I started out planning for the trip. If my memory serves better, everytime I plan on big things I use a technique called “Visualization”. Actually I been using this technique all along for years without even knowing its technical name happen to know recently.


It is simple and an easy routine. Let me sketch it out real quick. You just start to visualize the whole trip step by step starting from the day you leave and every other day. Do one day at a time and jot down the points or things you need or wanted to get it done. If you just follow and do what I said, you surely won’t miss a thing. Visualization is a key aspect I always recommended to people to use it on any occasions during planning.


I visuvalized and noted like essential things needed (car, hotels, maps, directions, places planning to go and so on.



For road trip, obviously I need a reliable car to travel long distance. Since I have my 3 year old Honda Accord with just 38000 miles which is in good condition and capable of minimum 30 miles per gallon. So I just striked it in my list.


Next, I started finding hotels for the main destination(Chicago). When I was searching for hotels, I was looking for a reasonable(2-3 star), affordable($50 max/day), convinent(with needed amenties), and closest(to save on gas) to my cousins place.

I tried on hotels.com, priceline.com to find some hotel deals. Hotels.com seems to be atleast $3-$5 cheaper and also have better hotels options on the list. I found hotels from best (5 star) to better (4-3 star) and good (2-1 star) ratings. I am ok with 2 star as I am not going to stay all day. It’s just for sleep and getting ready in the moring. I found a great deal with 20% discount on a Travelodge Motel for just $45/day but its only for one person. Its a tricky deal. They give you 20% off but add on price for additional person. I called the hotel directly and confirmed the usual occupancy of 2 person/room. So I gone ahead and booked for one person and plan to pay if needed when I get there.


I also booked for hotels to stay to take break while we come back for $60/day in Super 8 motel at hotels.com. That completes all the lodging needs. I did research on places to go in St. Louis and took print outs. I am also planned on few places to go in Chicago and decided to check with my cousin when I get there. I checked with my friend who just went on a Kentucky road trip and found alternate route to avoid traffice. I took all the maps and directions print outs.


By taking care of hotel bookings and sight seeing, Planning process is done. I still have to few more tips to share with you all and this post already too long. You have to wait for the next post. Before I even finish this post, I am leaving for another trip. I am going to Las vegas for 5 day vacation with my family. This time, I am flying as I planned this trip well in advance. Will share all about it later and I should be back next week to post the last of this series.

Road trip Or Flying- Which is best at this High Gas Price?

June 8th, 2008 Vijaianand No Comments »

Are you kidding? With high gas price making all time record numbers every day, are you about it?! This was the first question asked by my friend when I told him about my plan to go on a road trip to Chicago from Houston 3 weeks ago. That really didn’t stop me. I ended up going, more importantly for a week and made it thru the tough wave of gas prices in different states.


I know it is hard to think about budget friendly vacation these days with big shift in the tourism because of price increases in various aspects starting from flight tickets, boarding, lodging, car rentals, sight seeing tickets and not the least but the most important dinosuar level gas prices adding it all up to eat your wallet.



Many of you already cut down on your vacations just because of this very own reason. In this post, I am just going to share my real roadtrip experience by taking you all along for the ride and show how you can still have fun on roadtrips in cost effective way.


I. Plan





I know planning comes first before you ever start. I am not a neophyte for roadtrips. I have planned many of them and made memorable lines in my life chapter. At the same time, I also flew to many cities for vacations. Comparing them, I totally fell in love with driving on the American roads and anytime prefer to do roadtrips if I have lot of time in hand. This time I luckily got a week long time to kill in my hand. My wife just used this opportunity to bring up our month old topic of going to Chicago for my cousin wife’s baby shower.



1. Research At first I didn’t even blink my eye and gave thought about it because its only a week away and too less of time get a deal on flight tickets. I know its really hard to get reasonable price with the high gas price affecting this airlines too. It is a cockroach which is now everywhere and its going to be a tough task to get it out of the system for a while.



Anyway, I started pondering around my favorite last time resort websites, to see my luck on getting last min deals. First Orbitz.com to get a average fare per person for roundtrip. Then I went to my favorite site, Priceline and started bidding for flights with various different combination to see whether I atleast get a reasonable price 25% lessthan the round trip fare from orbitz. No luck, it all came out to be close $384/ person. Then I visited my other saved sites like Farecompare, Lastminute.com and Sidestep to compare the prices average at this time of the year. It seems to be no chance to getting lower than that one. Farecompare.com


After seeing that number, I remember my wife suggesting for a road trip as the final option since we have good amount of time in our hand. So I got to google maps to figure out the mileage for the road trip. Then I jumped to google search to see whether I can find a fuel gas calculator and compare with airline charges. I couldn’t find what I was looking but happen to hit on the AAA website to find how much will be gas expense.


FuelGasCalculator is the tool to find an aproximate estimation of gas expense for your trip by AAA. I was really amazed with the options like car model to determine average mileage. I typed all they wanted including to and from and details and got the gas expense for two way around $300. That is with an average 30miles per gallon for my Honda Accord. It is just almost 60% of savings just for travel.

Thats just for travel after taking high gas price into account. It doesn’t mean all other expense going to be cheap. So I took my research further asking few questions,


1. Is Road trip going to work out cheaper than Flying with hotel expense on the way?



2. Do I have enough time to drive to and fro and have time for sightseeing? Is it going to be relaxing one?



3. Can I take advantage of this road trip to spend a day or two on the way and see few more places?


I love to continue but it will get too long on this post. So let me answer these questions on the next one. Hold on for a bit to catch the more fun part..

Time is of the essence – Part 6 (Kids Education Savings -Final)

June 1st, 2008 Vijaianand No Comments »

Sorry to miss out on posting last week blog. Now I am back on track after a week long vacation break. Yes, a fun Road trip to Chicago from Houston with my family for a get-together and sight seeing. Road Trip, you might wonder at this current high gas price?!





Yep, you don’t believe it!! I came out as a winner compared to flying since its a last minute plan. You can expect a blog about it pretty soon. Let me jump right into core topic.



In the last few weeks, I been shedding lot of light and sharing as much information I know about Kids Education savings under Time is of the essence main topic. Starting with a detail analysis , moving on to different investment paths and the previous post with various savings plans available for kids education savings. I have covered many points on Kids Education savings which I feel important and essential under financial planning.





This final post, I am going to share my own realistic approach on the same line. Many of you might know, I always like to walk the talk. It is my core belief. My previous post can stand as examples. Advice is not just for others, its for yourself. You can only advice others if you truly follow your own statement. People will only trust and believe a person if one do things they talk about. Anyway, let me reveal the strategy of my own son’s education savings plan.

My Approach


Time to share my secret. I started my son’s education savings as soon I heard my wife is pregnant. I opened a 12 month CD with $250 monthly deposit in DCU which yielded around 5% last year. I know its not big return. (I shared this idea when I talked about different investment routes – Kids savings Part 2 post)I just wanted to give a kick start and get to a habit to manage my monthly budget to putting aside this amount every month.





I sticked with my initial plan and it gradually become a part of my budgeting. I renewed the CD one more time last year which just got matured 2 months ago. I didn’t really jump to anything as I wanted to start a 529 investment plan.




I analyzed and did my own research, finally ending up opening 2 good funds which can return at least 10% year over year. I opened 2 different funds with 2 different companies in 2 different plans.





I decided to open 2 funds in 2 different companies to diversify and be on a safer side. I also plan to do 2 different plans, coverdell and 529 because I can reap the benefits of both for short term and longer run. That’s my idea.



My First Fund Choice




I happen to come across Permanent Portfolio funds currently managed by US Bank corp from Timothy Sykes(hedge fund guy). He recommended from his personal experience, a all time more than 10% return fund, Permanent Portfolio Fund – PRPFX.





I did my initial research and found the fund to be amazingly interesting. I was astonished with their return as of date more than 10% year over year and 100% since the inception. See the chart below.




It had really interesting combination of holdings from Gold, Silver, Swizz Franc, US Stocks and Bonds. Check out the detail fund information from their fund fact sheet. I opened a monthly Automatic investment Coverdell plan with a $100 initial deposit. They charge $35 as opening account fee from that initial deposit. Every month I signed up for auto draft of $150 from my $250 savings.


Second Choice


You all know Vanguard is one among the top 3 fund management companies. They have really good funds and at the same time reasonable growth and return funds. I was initially debating whether to go with Vanguard or TRoweprice since I have International Market fund with them.


After my detail analysis, I found TRoweprice don’t have a good fund for 529 which has performance proven for long with good return. So I decided to do Vanguard this time. I planned to do 529 Aggressive Growth Portfolio which is 100% with blend pattern. It also has good return as of last year with 10% year over year. Check out the chart below. Check out the detail performance of the portfolio by check their fund sheet.


Since Vanguard as a Minimum $3000 deposit, I used my matured CD amount directly as opening deposit. My initial 2 years CD savings served a real good purpose as a initial opening amount to kick start 529 fund in Vanguard. I also signed for monthly automatic addition of $100 to this account which totals my $250 allocated in my monthly budget for my son’s education savings.


I hope to maintain these 2 funds and use them when needed. i also plan to add one more in the future to be better situation to handle the need. Better to be planned and cautious now then sorry later..


This concludes the series of Kids Education savings blogs. I hope it was useful and informative. Let me know what do you thing. I am planning to shift gear from “Time is of the Essence” topic and post blogs which are in my list for a long while on different areas. Watch out..

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