The land down under

So I did it! I bought our honeymoon tickets today. I've been monitoring ticket prices to Sydney for a few weeks now and slowly they have been going up a few bucks everyday. Mr. Papaya Dog and I were talking about it last night and he suggested that I just buy the tickets now. We know we're going and we know the dates, what's stopping us? So I did it. I bought the tickets.

Actually, I think I got a pretty good deal. I was told tickets to Sydney from Seattle usually run about $1300-$1400 each for a round trip ticket. I found a great deal on Expedia that will get us there for a little more than $1300 each and includes a 3 night stay at a 5 star hotel in Sydney. It's going to be winter when we're there in August, but it's shouldn't be colder than 50 degrees in Sydney and up north it will be in the 80s.

Now that I got the big purchase out of the way, I can just sit on the honeymoon planning until April/May or until I'm sent away on another work trip and need something to do as I pass time in the airport.

We are on a budget but I don't want to scrimp too much on the trip. We've been doing a little creative money making to pay for the trip. We've been making all our online purchases through ebates. I know other bees have mentioned it before, but they have dozens of stores they work with and if you enter a stores website through the ebates site, you get a certain percentage of your purchase back in cash every quarter. It's only a few dollars here and there but it adds up. We have almost $200 already.

We're also selling stuff we don't need on ebay and craigslist and putting that money towards the trip. It's amazing how much stuff we've found laying around our apartment that we no longer use or have never even taken out of the packaging.

The last place I've been earning money is through my per diems. I travel a lot for work and on average don't spend all the per diem I've given. I usually have about $100-200 left over after every trip. Last year I went on 4 trips for work. That could be $400-800 towards the honeymoon.

How are you raising extra funds for the wedding? Part-time job?