Sunday 18 August 2013

#Spend20K Challenge

I just came across the #Spend20K Challenge. One of my hobbies is to enter a few competitions here & there as it's fun to enter & it's fun to dream when there is always the chance of winning. They always say that "you have to be in it to win it" so why not? Anyway as I like a challenge & often day dream about what I would do if I won a large sum of money, I thought this would be a fun thing to write about. Who doesn't want to win the lottery? or a big cash prize competition?

Well, the National Lottery is changing on 5th October, giving players more chances to win more prizes. Players will get £25 for matching 3 numbers in the draw (up from £10) and 4 numbers (from £60 to £100), and a new raffle guarantees at least 50 winners of £20,000 each draw! And the best bit? When the jackpot rolls, so does the raffle, meaning hundreds more guaranteed £20,000 prizes.

The challenge I have is to say how I would spend £20K if I had the chance, wow that would be easy to do several times over LOL!

Well for me the biggest dream if I had the money is to take my slightly larger than average sized family on holiday back to Turkey. Why Turkey you might ask?
Well, we discovered Turkey back in 2006. We booked at the very last minute for a 2 week holiday at a bargain bucket price staying in an apart-hotel in Marmaris. It was fabulous, we loved the food, we loved the weather, we loved the beach, we also loved that it was so cheap. Things I'm sure have changed now, but back then you got 3 TL (TL=Turkish Lira) for every £1 & each 1TL bought you the same as what £1 would buy you in England. I have to laugh at what I thought were rising fuel costs back then, I remember being outraged that fuel was 77p a litre & now its getting too close to £1.50! & I have to spend twice as much now to get the same amount of groceries as I did back then!
We booked budget flights & hotels planning a journey round the South West of Turkey taking advantage of the fact that all the prices were dropping drastically due to a decrease in tourism of 75% that year - why? It was 2006 & the World Cup so I guess everyone was visiting the countries involved in it instead.

We had a lovely holiday enjoying the sunshine, gorgeous Turkish beaches, boat trips round the Turkish coast, trips to Pammukule (translation: Cotton Castle) an amazing natural phenomena where the heavily calcium laden water has laid white deposits down making huge white travertines. There were Turkish nights with fire eaters & belly dancers & all you could eat delicious food & drink included. The Turkish people were friendly and the children had a wealth of new experiences. Travelling was very good for them. Breakfast was in the self catering apartment, honey & bread that we had bought, lunch was kebabs (about 50p each!) & we found the best Turkish food for tea in the places the locals went to, not the over priced tourist places.
A year later we had the good fortune of going back travelling in a big group made up of us along with my parents, one of my sisters & a friend of the family. It was amazing & while my parents were out there with us they loved it so much that they bought a house(!) & they have been back there several times every year, but since 2007 we haven't been able to go back & I have never seen their house.
We moved house & there has been a lot of ill health in the past few years so my dream for the first part is to buy passports for everyone & book a villa or an apart-hotel near my parents house & to go for a long holiday out there. Giving the kids fun, new experiences & having some recovery time after a very difficult, stressful few years.

Second on my wish list, would be to pay someone to sort our garden out. Our house is at the bottom of a slope & it is very difficult with a garden that is not flat & has a lot of drainage problems, it is often a muddy mess at the bottom & I long for the kids to have a lovely space to play in. I would like the very rough & ready patio extended, the fences mended & some kind of shelter built over the existing small piece of patio to extend the playing area when it rains. I would get a sensibly priced expert to help me with this. I have problems with sciatica & my husband has motorbike accident injuries so it's not something that we can do ourselves. I would also employ a friend I know to re-decorate the house because it desperately needs doing, but with all the little kids to look after there aren't any extra hours in the day for anyone to do it.

I'm not sure how much dream #1 & #2 would cost & how much would be left, but I don't think I would really want to buy anything else! I'm not greedy. I love fancy gadgets the same as the next person, but really I don't think we need any more than we have, maybe bar a TV in my bedroom! I would invest the rest so that we could take our kids to Turkey in other years & so that there is always something in the bank for emergencies, like when the car breaks down, when something breaks & needs replacing, when the kids need something important & to have enough for Christmas. I don't go overboard on Christmas, I shop in sales & keep it sensible, but toys aren't cheap & it would be good to know that we can afford it without worrying about it.
So dream #3 is to keep the rest to invest as a nest egg to cover eventualities & unexpected expenses.

Also I believe that if we were lucky enough to win a big amount, then something should also be given to those who are a less fortunate than ourselves. Maybe sponsoring a child in a developing country or donating some funds or buying some supplies for a local homeless shelter. Maybe an anonymous gift to a family member or friend who really needs it. Just a way of saying thank you & remembering that there but for the grace of God go I.

This post is an entry for BritMums #Spend20K Challenge sponsored by The National Lottery, with more ways to win more money on the new Lotto game. Find out more about new Lotto, which starts in October, here – www.national-lottery.co.uk
 (http://www.britmums.com/2013/08/join-the-spend20k-challenge-win-shopping-vouchers/).


http://www.britmums.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/spend20k145-badge.jpg

I apologise for the lack of photos but my own laptop as at the repairers & my mobile was stolen with all my photos on it!


2 comments:

  1. Have never visited Turkey so was lovely to hear about it a bit more in this post. Nice mix of spends. Highly approve of giving to others too. Commenting on behalf of myself and on behalf of BritMums and thanking you for taking part.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks - I thoroughly enjoyed the challenge :-)

    ReplyDelete