Well, I finally did it. I started my Europe fund! I decided that if I'm going to travel the world someday, I'll need to save for it! Which reminds me of a similar story...
About four years ago, my sister and I had a dream of taking the train and going to the American Girl Place in Chicago. After a few months of saving, we got discouraged and decided it was a hopeless effort, so we divided our savings--a few dollar bills, and a jar full of coins, and each took half. However, there was a single dollar left, making our total odd, so with discouraged faces, we gave the dollar to our mother so that the split-up money would be fairly distributed. We laid the bill on the table and said something like, "This is for you. we had an idea, but it's not going to work." But my mom would not let us go without finding out what it was that wasn't going to work. So, we told her the whole thing and right then and there, with her encouragement, we decided to make it work. And penny by penny, saving spare change, consigning clothes, and having garage sales, the money added up, and in November, we boarded a train with our two friends and their mom. Our weekend was filled with exciting taxi rides, a stay at a nice hotel, a Nancy Drew movie night, shopping with our dolls in the enormous sections of doll clothing and accessories, dinner at Ed Debevic's and so many more fun memories!
All that to say, dreams like these can come true, so as for Europe, I'm going to keep dreaming. :)
