Will Olivia be home for New Year?

Tuesday 23rd December, 2008 - £6,999.96 in debt…

No sooner have I got everything ready and wrapped for Christmas Day, I’m trying to sort out what I’ll be doing at New Year. And Santa hasn’t even been yet.

One of my options this year is a party in London. But there’s a good chance I’ll be moving house in a few weeks’ time, so I really ought to approach this in a sensible money-saving way and do my sums before I commit to anything. I can’t possibly travel up one day, go to a party, and then travel back the next day, so how much is two days in London going to cost me and will it be worth it?

Well, according to PetrolPrices.com, I can get petrol locally from 85.9p a litre, which equates to about £35 in travel costs there and back. But could I save money by using (sharp intake of breath…) public transport?

My options are train and coach. The National Rail website tells me I could book tickets from £50.50 in total(assuming there are still Advance tickets available when I book). Not bad, but still more expensive than the car…

Alternatively, there’s MegaTrain - a budget tickets website that can send me to Waterloo for £30 return, but I’d have to stay in London a day longer than expected. And I’d have to travel from Exeter, which is 40 miles away from me (about £10 in petrol). Hmmm…

Does this mean I have a perfect excuse to use my car instead? I hope so. Oh, hang on - I hadn’t considered travelling by coach.

As it turns out, going by Megabus (normally the dirt cheap option) would cost me £38. National Express has the most needlessly complicated website on the internet and doesn’t seem to offer the journey I wanted to book (although I might have given up too soon). And the Stagecoach website doesn’t seem to let you buy tickets unless you want a ‘Megarider’ (frequent traveller thing) or a ‘Unirider’ (student ticket). Ridiculous.

So it seems that going by car will be the cheapest and most stress-free option. Some might say that I’ve influenced the results of my intense research because I don’t want to go by coach, but I couldn’t possibly comment.