I was invited to Poland!

Something I will have to think about. I am not really much into traveling so I admit mostly I will probably wuss out. Then again, if I can talk my friend into going with me... The idea of traveling to a very foreign country alone is just a little daunting to me. Doesn't sound very fun.

But I have a friend there for about a year and just invited me to visit and stay for free.

An interesting offer.

For now air fare looks in the range of $2k.

!!

So I was just thinking to myself, eh, it's not on my list of places to travel. BUT if I have some windfall between now and then (next summer) I will take it as a sign. & I will kind of leave it at that. Many other things I rather put my money towards, but if I have some extra, it is an opportunity to strongly consider.

& maybe I can find some more reasonable travel arrangements - just what I saw on first glance.

We also need to save our pennies for Hong Kong! Dh's aunt lived there many years and is returning in the near future. I know it will be a wonderful opportunity to take the kids. (Dh was able to go as a kid and had a wonderful adventure there).

My adult life of travel is so night and day how it was as a child. My parents never traveled much before my dad made a very good friend with someone in Japan. (Now he travels often to visit, and really enjoys Japan). A lot of my friends traveled Europe in college but I Was too busy working and paying my bills.

But no matter, I have seemed to catch up enough. In adulthood my parents took me to Europe and Japan. & Hong Kong and Poland are on my horizon now! I think I am feeling more brave after my trip to Japan. So it feels rather unlike me. I guess I am usually a little too practical too. But suddenly the thought of Poland sounds rather adventurous and fun. What the heck?

Though practical Monkey Mama has other financial goals to tackle first. & since I am not really huge on travel I am not going to cry if I miss the opportunity now. (There will always be others).

--------------------------------

Last night dh dug out some old rare coins he had kept. None of them are worth very much (we looked up a few last night) but he had his coins stored with his old concert tickets. Like every concert he had ever been to.

It's kind of funny because when we were teens we both learned to manage our money when it came to tapes and CDs and the like. I found an old journal where I bought insanely cheap music on a weekly basis with my dad. It was our thing. But really how I learned to manage money.

Once college hit I could no longer afford CDs. They just went through the roof and I didn't have the budget. I buy one occasionally now. VERy occasionally. & I roll my eyes when music artists gripe about napster and the like. Give us some affordable options and I would gladly buy more music, but it has just gone through the roof rather quickly. (Though the MP3 thing is a step in the right direction - we buy a decent amount of MP3s).

& of course we feel much the same way about concerts. Somewhere between dropping to one income and having kids, concerts have become completely unaffordable.

Occasionally we will price a concert, and then cringe. Say, nevermind. It's something I have noticed over the years, but thought it could be somewhat us.

BUT I do remember when I was a very broke, struggling college student, going to many many many concerts. So it kind of puts it in perspective.

So yesterday dh found all these concert tickets and starts reading them off. He was laughing because we were going to concerts like every weekend for a time - sometimes 2.

So it hit me. I asked him if the prices were on the tickets.

Um, yes. 1996 - most were under $10.

!!!!!!!

$20 for the BIG names. He had one $25 ticket and a $36 ticket for Lollapalooza.

The rest were in the $9 - $20 range.

Seriously!

We tried to buy a ticket for some show recently where the tickets were something like $15 each, but the fees to buy the ticket were $20 each. I think that was the last straw for us.

Whatevah!

So now I remember why I could afford to go to 4 concerts in a month when I was broke, and why now that we maybe make 3 times the income, combined, we can't even justify the cost more than maybe once a year.

Bah to the music industry.

There's some inflation factor there but most of the tickets had been purchased 10 years ago. Inflation has not risen that much, overall.

I can't help but wonder if the overall debt nation has contributed as well. Who buys these tickets? Who can afford the $75/pop for nosebleeds at a so-so concert (with all the fees and everything)?

Oh well, I won't sweat it. We certainly have other priorities these days. But it was really interesting to see all those ticket prices. Kind of what I had been feeling, but was nice to see my memory was correct.

It's kind of a bummer though because though we would love to take the kids to some more benign concerts (maybe when they are older) I think it's rather out of the question with modern prices. It will be more rare than common, which is too bad for this musical family.