The Budget Bucket List

After reading my July 9 blog titled, "Making A Bucket List," a friend pointed out that "affordability" is a limitation on where we are able to go and what we are able to do. I agreed with this point.

Not only is cost a limitation, so is time and physical ability. Can we get the time off to fulfill one of the "dreams" on our list? Are we physically able to accomplish what we set out to do? For example, one of the items on a friend's bucket list is a trip to Mt. Everest base camp. This journey would take over 3 weeks of time, several thousand dollars, and would be a challenging hike to a high altitude. Not everyone can do this.

So what about doing things that don't cost much money or time? Bucket list items don't need to involve travel to exotic places. For example, one of the things on my list was to go to the top of the Empire State building. I did this last year and it cost less than $50, including the train ticket, admission and lunch. Another bucket list item was to hike in Central Park. Again, this was low cost in terms of time and dollars.

Maybe the solution is to have two bucket lists. One list could include those things that are "stretch" items that would be a once-in-a-lifetime fulfillment of dream. A second "budget" bucket list could be those things that we'd love to do, but don't cost much in terms of time, money or physical effort.