Saving For the Honeymoon

What's the one thing people wish they had more of, even moreso than money? Time. While I can't make more time (drats!) my fiance and I have been saving our vacation time for our honeymoon.

Last I wrote about it, we were still on the fence about possible destinations. As the wedding approaches, we are more convinced that Hawaii is the place to go! There are some great hotels we can stay at using rewards points and it's someplace I've always wanted to travel to. (My fiance has been to the Big Island while on an extended layover trip but he was all by himself.)

Airline miles are getting harder to come by (and save up) as my fiance hasn't had to travel for work in a while - a good thing - but we have enough to cover one roundtrip ticket.

And the most important thing, after paying for the trip, is how are we going to be able to get away from work for an extended period? That's where vacation time comes in.

With my fiance's recent promotion he gained an additional week's vacation! Which means he now has three weeks a year. We will need to use a day or two before the wedding to travel and get ready, save a couple of days for two weddings of our friends in the fall, as well as the Christmas holidays. That leaves about two weeks for the honeymoon!

As for me, since I've been with my employer for over three years (though in different offices) I just received an increase in my vacation accrual! As of January, I accrue 5.5 vacation hours every two weeks. Right now I have:

Vacation - 57.75 hours

Personal - 35 hours

Comp - 15.75 hours

Since it's the busy time of the year I can expect to accrue at least 20 more comp hours in the weeks to come. By July it looks like I will have over three weeks vacation saved up, not including personal or comp time.

Hawaii here we come!