argentina and dolla bills, y'all

somehow the husband and i convinced ourselves that we are going to argentinian patagonia in 2010. That's one year away. So I've begun to emmerse myself in planning and I am so unbelievably excited. I am also unbelievably overwhelmed. Why does Patagonia (and Argentina for that matter) have to be so diverse!?! It's not just a few glaciers; its glaciers, lakes, rainforests, the oceans, the southern most city in the world...

So, I started planning, plotting, and asking. Trying to get this figured out. How long can we go? How long should we go to do it justice? Etc.

So Hubs and I had a good/stressful talk about funds last night. We come from very different angles when it comes to money. I never thought about it growing up, got my first job when I was 17 because it seemed like I should, and was always told "what's better is better". He got his first job when he was 14, bought himself a car when he was 16, paid for his car insurance, and paid for most of college himself. So things can be tense when we talk money. When we got married, I had a substantial amount of debt from the honeymoon and misc. wedding costs plus remnants of college spending (i need a new pair of shoes AND jeans. let's stop at chipotle when we're done...). We paid all of that off in January, no credit card debt what so ever. AMAZING. but now we have a mortgage (not really a big deal, we're not absorbed by it) and his student loans (nothing too crazy, but they're there, accruing interest). So we were talking about the possible 7500 tax credit we qualify for thanks to the feds and buying our house. He wants to put it toward his loans, I want to put it toward Argentina (it would cover the entire trip). I understand his thinking (and respect it as well) but my thinking is, the loans will be there for awhile, regardless of the 7500 or not (7500 will take a nice chunk out, but not all of it). If we don't focus on it, Argentina could slip away from us very quickly and easily. We're not settled on this issue yet, but we're getting there. We're working on our kitty (thanks to having roommates) and I think today might be a day to buy some posterboard and create and goal savings chart.

¡salud argentina! ¡estamos en nuestro camino!