Day 308: Bling Bling Part 2

by Claire. Claire@TrippingOnWords.com

I'm sure the suspense from yesterday's post is killing you. "What is going on in the math fights that Lara and Claire are having about finances?!" you must be saying.

Today, without you realizing it, you are engaged in Part 2 of the Bling Bling Trilogy, in which we reveal for the first time how much it cost us to travel the world for 8 months. This elusive number has been something we have been asked about many dozens of times. And, until now, we have yet to reveal. But in the lead-up to the unveiling, I will provide the latest in the boring e-saga that is Lara and Claire doing the finances for the last leg of their journey. Most notable is that you will see I have bolded every time the word "different" or "discrepancy" is used in relation to our numbers.

If I were you, I would not so much "read" the section entitled 'The Bling Bling Document' as I would merely absorb it. The text itself is mind-numbing, but the idea is important: You, too, can be so bad at math that you can write things that make absolutely no sense only five seconds after they have left your brain.

Lara:

I was looking through my email to see if you ever responded to my different money charges from our trip (i.e. The Bling Bling Doc). It says you didn't, but more interestingly I can't find the document at all in my sent mail. I finished it in the turks and caicos...I am now guessing the email didn't get sent out at all with the crap internet connection, but if this is a repeat send and I'm just gmail idiotic...sorry.

Claire:

im laughing. because i want to be crying.
this is like reading Egyptian hieroglyphics.
i am really laughing. uh.
i mean i dont know.
i guess i just kinda would rather deal with it in kenya.
or on the phone.
but wont we have time in Kenya?
this is ridiculous.

Lara:
as for money...yes we can do it in kenya.
I think it's our only option in terms of comparing.
I'm pretty sure a phone conversation would make both of us want to commit suicide.

Random Interjection: our reminder video about Emergency Communties, the New Orleans non-profit we saw recently:



The Bling Bling Document:

Claire: So i did the math for everything BUT KENYA. This also means that my stupid CREDIT CARD FOReign TRANSACTION FEES ARE not included. The totals are that LARA OWES CLAIRE 611.986 USD. (for number info, I spent 5485.536 on joint; you spent 3038.974 on joint. ON THE OWING STUFF, I owed you 1107.82 usd and you owed me 496.53 usd. )

Lara: My totals are really <span style="font-weight:bold;">different due to a few issues that I reiterate later in the doc. 1. Egypt totals were REALLY different for me. I don’t know why this is. 2. My totals include Kenya because that number is of course different than yours because it’s a combo of my, your, and kelly’s numbers from that trip so we ended up with one number between you and me and another between Kelly and me. 3. Does not include your credit card foreign transaction fees. I also have one to add to the mix: that 32 dollar Chinese one held up at my bank. I’m going to include this in the charges I acquired over the break (diana’s robe, seahorse etc.)* ie a totally separate charge from these.

Claire: I wanted to talk about Kenya and compare books again as my numbers were not the same as what you had, etc.

Lara: We didn’t have the same for Kenya because the final number I had included our owes between each other, and the ones between you and Kelly with the three-way charges. I worked it so you and Kelly didn’t owe each other anything. I worked that all out that last night using your book as well as mine, and I thought we were just going with the final different number. This included your credit card charges (not finance charges) from that week according to Kelly and my books combined.

Claire: I used foreign transaction rate averages for about the week we were in each place. Obviously this is not “exact”

Lara: Ditto. I included mine below.

Claire: There are some slight discrepancies in how we wrote the stuff out, but majorly I could figure out everything according to this word document you wrote (you will see my track changes to add in Russia and Egypt which were not there yet)…

Lara: My Russia and Egypt are different than yours. Russia, not dramatically. Egypt there’s major differences. I wrote mine in there.

Claire: However, THERE IS ONE DISCREPANCY. I can’t figure out: I consistently in my notes show that the Claire joint Nepal total was 2437.12 usd. Yours on this word doc is 2327.43. So there is this 110 dollar difference here I do not get.

Lara: Crap. I did it out again…don’t know where this discrepancy comes from. I end up with the same math. And no major major charges that would explain it.

Claire: The second is that my stuff shows you owing me 590.5 NEPALI RUPEES (8 dollars). I DID FACTOR THIS IN.

Lara: This is in the document below also. Same exact discrepant number. So I factored it in too.

Claire: Yours has you owing me 913.5 INDIAN rupees (about 18 usd). I DID NOT FACTOR THIS IN. I did include this by mistake when I redid it, but I included 582.5 R because that’s what my math showed when I redid this time. Again, only an issue of a few bucks. I can easily remove this... These aren’t big deals, because it’s only a matter of 10 bucks total in difference. HOWEVER, THE BIG DIFFERENCE ON THIS WORD DOC YOU don’t have it written that I owed you 7225 THAI BHAT (190 bucks). I DID FACTOR THIS IN because it seemed like a big one that I didn’t get why I would have and you wouldn’t. CHECK THIS!!.

Lara: I have you owing me 7365. I then owe you 159 bhat. I don’t know why these aren’t in the document. I DID INCLUDE THIS. I figure your 7225 (which is less than a dollar off from these numbers) is a combo of these two figures......

* Some of the charges acquired over the past two months of non-travel: a bathrobe for a Singaporean friend, an adopted SeaHorse for blog fixer Andy.

Mind-numbing uselessness goes on and on and on.....Be glad you don't have to live this.....

6 comments:

Lara said...

Claire, I think this post makes it abundantly obvious that we are always entertaining, clear. and logical writers.

Anonymous said...

I have read all of the blogs and this is the worst. It is awful. Please delete it.

Claire and Lara said...

Is this Jonathan? It sounds suspiciously hateful.

Sunshine said...

Oh.my.word! That was dreadful.

(I'm sounding very hoity-toity today, huh?)

Anyway, yeah, I'm thinking that procrastination is not the best for y'all's situation...

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