To get my UK work visa, I need to have £1,800 (which is roughly $2,800 depending on the exchange rate) in support funds. After I submit my visa application, I will have to keep this amount in my bank account until the visa is in my hands. I plan on saving more than this so I can live comfortably in the UK and travel as much as possible. We’ll see how that goes.
As some of my family & friends know, I have been a superdork when it comes to planning for this. I even created an excel spreadsheet that looks something like the one below, to encourage me to save money and it really worked! I set up some checkpoints so I could see how close I was getting to my goal (London) based on my savings. These amounts aren’t accurate but I just wanted to show what I thought was a good way to self-motivate to save money.
I also found an excel formula that counts down the days until I leave for London (it’s: =DATEVALUE("5-January-2014")-TODAY()&" days until I leave for London" for those of you who are equally dorky). It made it really fun to check and update my spreadsheet every week.
Somewhat off topic...those who know me well are aware that I'm a big fan of Chris Hadfield (Canadian astronaut who recently came back from the International Space Station) and as I get closer to leaving; my favourite quote of his only becomes more and more amazing. It’s meant to be career advice (it was his answer to a kid who asked what he should do to become an astronaut) but I see it as a great perspective/outlook and fantastic advice for managing realistic expectations and achieving your goals at the same time, whether they are career goals or simply personal ones. I leave you this time with the quote (in illustrated format):
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