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Aberdeen
It occurred to me at the weekend that I had missed something out of my budgeting when I was doing all that at the start of the month.
We are going to have a pretty major trip somewhere to take the EFG to university in September! It may be as local as Lincoln, which we could do in a day, but it might be Aberdeen or Aberystwyth, Keele or Reading. The first two I am sure are going to involve an overnight stay, and Aberdeen would probably need several nights, as well as a tank or two of diesel....this is going to cost me!
She has also been invited on "visit days", and would really like to attend the one in Aberdeen in March. At first estimate, this is going to cost about £500 for the train fare and one night in a hotel for the two of us! Since this might very well be the place she decides to spend the next three or more years, I do think she deserves the chance to have a look around, however briefly!
So I reckon I need to aim for about £1000 in that account, one way or another. It might not entirely cover the cost of a long trip, but it would provide a buffer in that month. This is in addition to the already planned savings, and will have to be siphoned off from other things as and when that is possible. Once I find out what her firm and insurance acceptances are going to be, I might be able to modify it, but whilst Aberdeen remains a possibility, I think I had better aim high!
6 comments:
Good job you thought of the travel costs early enough in the year to be able to put money towards the cost. Shows the virtue of planning! I hope EFG finds a University and a course that she really likes, bit of a bonus for all if it's a little closer to home than Aberdeen, but that can't really be the priority, can it? All good wishes, Vee x
Have you looked into flights to Aberdeen. They can be cheaper than the train & a lot quicker. I have a friend who stays in Birmingham who always flys up to Aberdeen as she lives in orkeney because of the cost & time
Thanks for thinking of us, Kim, but where we live the regional airports are not terribly accessible. I'd have to drive about 90 minutes at least to get to the airports: I could choose between Luton, Norwich, Birmingham or East Midlands - and some of those are more than 90 minutes. Then I have airport parking to consider as well. And the flights don't seem to be much cheaper than the train - the EFG can get a return to Aberdeen from our area with a 16-25 railcard for under £95, and a full price ticket for me is £142, whereas the cheapest flight I can find is £147, and the EFG would be charged that as well. Given that I hate flying, I think I will stick to the trains, especially since most of the flights I looked at include a stop in Manchester - and that means yet another landing and take-off! I did think of it, but it isn't any cheaper.....
Vee - this IS the course she likes so I really hope that she likes the city when we get there - I liked it 24 years ago, so I hope she does too! This is probably the one she is going to firmly accept, so she will be going there if she gets the required grades...
The FH isn't happy about it, though, because he seems to be under the impresssion that if she gets ill, I shall have to hot foot it up there and bring her home! I can't get him to realise that I had flu in St Andrews, and my sister had an operation in Reading, and we managed! Yes, if she was seriously ill, of course I would go, but he seems to think you fetch kids home from uni the way you fetch them home from school if they have a bellyache!
I can't recomend Aberdeen highly enough, my son started there Sept . 2013 and loves it, we're from Northern Ireland.
http://www.travelodge.co.uk/hotels/437/Aberdeen-Central-Justice-Mill-Lane-hotel
Aberdeen is fairly compact so once you are there you can walk wherever you need to go. Our eldest is in her second year there.
The Christian Union is very lively and the churches are all very student orientated with student lunches and church crawls etc
would you have any Church contacts you could make connections with to stay over?
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