"Many people are in the dark when it comes to money, and I'm going to turn on the lights."
- Suze Orman

Some days you merely survive. Mostly Monday's, when the freedom of the two-day weekend finds you back at the desk of the soul sucking corporate gerbil wheel of a job that you loathe.

On those mornings when its all you can do to flat iron your unwashed hair or pull up your scratchy pants, your quest to simply get through the day shifts into a painful longing for more.

You ignore it - as you have before - slamming it shut in the unrealistic pipe dream drawer at your desk. Answering the phone, opening emails and mustering an appropriately chirpy yet professional response to your co-workers "Hi!" instead.



And then you log on to Facebook and theirs your insanely annoying, over-caffeinated, slightly neurotic friend blogging from some exotic location lamenting the choice between a seven-day river boat tour of the Amazon or climbing the Andes mountain in Peru.



Something in you snaps. If this chicken donkey can navigate the dark, murky streets of Colombia, alone, with nothing but a debit card and nickel of common sense then theirs no reason why you a check-book balancing, vibrantly charming, rationally-minded, savvy adult can't. At the very least you'll have the decency not to blog about your own awesome, vainglorious adventures including that sexy, swarthy Chilean you'll meet in that hostel in Belize.



Having made up your mind you feel a jittery energy in your bones. That feeling of loathing and dread starts to melt as the light of being emancipated from the unwieldy chains of the corporate gulag starts to flicker in the dark, barren cave of your soul. With a pep in your step, you go to lunch.



While ordering your daily ($8) smoked salmon with dill mayo sandwich, at your favorite deli, kicking in a big glass of ice tea and sweet potato fries for ($4) more, you start to wonder how your going to finance this soiree with Javier in the Belizean jungles.

Back at your desk, you check your savings account. After dusting the cobwebs off the account, you find theirs just enough in there for a good coffee-maker and a house plant. Chewing on your nails - which is badly in need of your weekly ($29) mani and pedi appointment with Ming-Sing Lee at Nirvana Nails and Beauty - you thrash yourself for having not kept that promise to have 10 percent of your paycheck directly deposited into your savings account like Suze Orman told you to.



Your head hurts and mercifully its time to go home after winning that ($28.50) bid on Ebay for a pair of Elvis Presley salt and pepper shakers. Leaving the office, you find its raining and you forgot your umbrella. You don't want to ruin your ($56) blow-out from your Dominican hairdresser, so you jump into a ($23) cab. Sitting on the couch ($150 if sold on Craiglist), breaking another promise to go to the gym ($65 a month), your too tired to cook ($48 worth of groceries from Whole Foods rotting in the fridge) so you order Thai ($16 plus tip) and watch that show you hate on cable ($53 a month) instead of reading those used books ($12) you bought at that library side-walk sale.



Logging on to that crazy, mouth breathing traveler friend's blog you learn she financed her trip by giving up her gorgeous, well decorated loft apartment ($1250 a month) to sleep on her sister's couch rent free for five months, after selling all her possessions that wouldn't fit into 5 X 10 foot storage unit. You blanch unable to believe that this ($250) Prada sunglass wearing,($56) night cream buying, buppie wanna be gave up shopping ($95 monthly average habit) completely and started doing her own hair (which probably showed), wearing the same clothes (in creative, yet imaginative ways) dumping all her friends to avoid weekly dinner & movie night ($35 average tab), and started packing her lunch (saving 3 trillion dollars).



It also helped that in a fit of late-night, Trader Joe wine swiveling haze, she followed Suze Orman's advice to start a 401k three years ago. By the time she cashed it out, thanks to that incompetent jackass, frat boy running the country it was enough to buy three rounds of pisco sours at a Colombian dive bar and eight days at a hostel that makes Guantanamo Bay look like the Ritz-Carlton but I digress.

By now dear reader, you, probably, get the point. There's no big surprise here on how to finance your own dream trip around the world. Short of winning the lottery, or a dead relative leaving you a lil' sumthin sumthin" in the will, or a really happy "customer" leaving a big, wad of sweaty cash on your nightstand, it'll take some good old-fashion scrimping and saving to party it up with Javier.



At any rate, with the credit crunch and a collapsing economy, now maybe the time to give the Suze Orman approach a try. On your next weekly "window shopping" excursión through DSW Shoe Warehouse, hold up that $85 pair of "the perfect red" Charles David pumps and ask yourself would Suze O approve? Is this worth sexy, swarthy Javier groping and kissing you in the Zapotec Civilization wing of the National Museum of Anthropology in Mexico City? I know for me it wasn't.



Now drop the pumps and walk home to your cable-tv-less, ramen noodle pantry pack, furnitureless apartment. Stare at the walls and let your eyes go unfocused, letting Suze O bathe you in her marvelous penny pinching light. Which you would if you hadn't had your gas & light service turned off saving ($70) a month! See you in Argentina, donkey!