I Wish That I Knew What I Know Now… [Part II]
Tuesday, May 18th, 2010
A Kiwi Cup of Tea
Anecdotes for New Zealand Nomads, Neighbours, and Natives
by Sarah M. Duncan
There is an advantage to being a poor traveler. There is an advantage to scraping money out of thin air with a crow bar to pay for rent, food, internet and the odd cup of joe to give me this requisite buzz while I type. The benefits? This rather penniless era of my life allows me to reflect on decisions of spending past, identify and then weed out the problems of spending present, and grace you with my personal epiphany: a new and improved budget for spending future. So don’t say, “Bah Humbug,” Ebenezer, this is serious.*
GHOSTS OF SPENDING PAST
AucklandWhen I arrived in Auckland, I felt like Paris Hilton without the sordid history—rich. My US dollar was going a bit farther than normal, and I proudly had—brace yourselves—3,000 dollars.** Whoa, nelly! That’s money in the bank, y’all. I knew eventually I would need to get a job, but for the time being, looking at those pretty numbers… well, crown me King Midas.
I had spent the last few years in a large buzzing town, but Midwestern Illinois could never compare to the proud leering buildings and scenic scummy sidewalks of urban grandeur. The last Metropolis I had lived in was my one true love, New York City, and although I never forgot our love affair, it had been a few years previous. Landing in Auckland, I instantly recalled what it meant to live in a lively hub. Here I was, a lone bee in a bee hive swarming with ambition and taxis, with a solicitous plethora of take away/fast food places, outdoor markets, and restaurants, each of them oh so alluring. Like New York, Auckland quickly seduced me into a long full embrace… and promptly pinched the contents of my wallet while I was lost in inner-city delirium.
Big cities like Auckland and New York aren’t necessarily malicious, but they are an abstract form of the Dickensian pick pocket; they feed off the loose dollar of the kind and unwary. People who grow up in places like New York, London, Tokyo, Berlin, Paris, Moscow—they learn, early on, how to function and keep a hold of their precious money. But for us small town folk, we are destined to learn the hard way. Walking down Queen Street in central Auckland, I was dumbfounded. I had never seen so many Sushi places in my entire life, and when they were selling 8 piece Vegetarian Sushi at only five dollars a box, I developed, one might say, a wee bit of an addiction. What was five dollars in the grand scheme of things? And another five? And another five?
Doing the math? Fifteen dollars in the grand scheme of things. Standing alone, it wasn’t much. But when I was doing that every day, in the ‘grand scheme of things’ I was hemorrhaging money. Adding insult to injury, I didn’t both to keep a checkbook or a written record of my transactions. I simply relied on my memory. I do have a great memory, but this was still a very unreliable method.
Unsurprisingly, by the time I left Auckland I had spent about 1,500 of my 3,000. And here’s the kicker: I was only in Auckland for two weeks. Yes, some of this was for accommodation, and yes, I did have to eat. The point here is that I didn’t have to eat OUT. I’m a bit embarrassed to admit I hadn’t even considered going grocery shopping and making food in the hostels, but if I could, as Cher sings, “turn back time,” I would have done this as much as I possibly could. Had I cooked for myself, I would have saved myself about one thousand dollars, thereby upping my financial chances to do more future travelling and/or participate in certain worthwhile but expensive activities like skydiving or visiting the Doubtful Sound.
I ate a lot of delicious food, but I wasted a lot of my funds because I did not stop and think. As stated before—I don’t regret anything, but I want to save you the same headache.
Stop and think. Do you need that curry? Didn’t you have sushi for the last three days? Will you really wear that bracelet? Those heels? Aren’t heels a bit impractical as a traveler? (Yes.) Wouldn’t a peanut butter and jelly sandwich do the trick? Or a scrambled egg? Even a frozen dinner? Couldn’t you make your own pasta at home?
The answer is yes. It is always, always yes.
The only catch to this advice, of course, is if you are sitting here reading this, shaking your head sadly because you do not know how to cook.
No excuse. It’s a life skill, trust me on this one.
Learn, mate.
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*The first paragraph is a play on the ghosts of Christmas past, present and future in Charles Dicken’s The Christmas Carol, featuring Ebenezer Scrooge as both the antagonist and protagonist. There is also an excellent film entitled Scrooge with a similar plotline, starring Bill Murray.
**I’m aware that’s not that much money. That’s the joke.
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by telling you about the time I stayed overnight in the Christchurch Casino, playing the pokies to blend in, drinking coca cola and reading in a toilet stall all night because I didn’t have enough money for a hostel.
It’s been several years since I first backpacked around Aotearoa, and what could better than fresh news from young travellers to have an up-to-date perception of 
Howdy! Not all Americans say howdy, but I thought it’d be fun to further the stereotype. My name is Sarah Duncan and I am a twenty something (it’s bound to change it I keep simultaneously living and contributing) travelling writer, actor, and comedian.