Alyssa took a long, slow sip of whatever fruity drink was in the coconut she was holding and turned to me. She said, “I don’t wanna go back.” We were rounding out the end of a week vacation in Thailand and already felt like we needed another. The whole trip was a whirlwind of long flights, jam-packed days, and a non-stop attempt to squeeze out every last drop of the trip that we could. The culture we’ve built around vacations in America is unsustainable. We decided then and there we were going to do a big one, which brought up the question, “How Exactly Does One Afford to Travel Long Term”?
Saving
It may sound like the” no shit” kind of advice, but you’re going to have to start saving…now. For us, we had some money in savings but only something like a rainy day fund. We were nowhere close to being able to travel long term. So, we came up with a plan.
The first part of that plan was to put a budget in place. We both agreed to start tracking every single dime we spent. The thought of implementing a savings stipend was grey at best. Before we could dial in a savings plan, we had to know where our money was going. And man did we get a slap in the face. Here’s the sheet we use.
Plug the dam
Our biggest enemy was ourselves…go figure. From excessive Ubers and Lyfts to astronomical money going down the drain in the form of bars and restaurants, we were financially bleeding out. That ended up being our first step and the first step we suggest. Plug the dam!
Prevent overspending
With the pain points of your budget identified, you can then start to figure out how much you can actually save. We cut back “X” amount from our bars and restaurants spending and allotted it to savings. But we didn’t just say we would do it, we set up automatic withdrawals to make sure it happened. That’s our second tip. Don’t give yourself the chance to justify overspending. If it’s already out of your account, you can’t spend it.
Be reasonable
You’re not doing yourself any favors by overdoing it. We ran into this bump a couple of times as we found ourselves wanting to save more and more. More than once, we put so much into savings we were short on paying bills. Then, we had to transfer it back out of savings, yada, yada. All it did was cause a headache.
Give yourself a reasonable savings/spending amounts each week. It’s a marathon, not a sprint. This logic goes for spending, too. It isn’t reasonable to completely cut out any and all leisure. It’s begging to fall victim to a binge and purge situation. You know when you tell yourself you won’t have a cheeseburger and then all you can think about is how much you want one? It’s pretty much the same as that. Budget for some fun and stick to the budget.
Stick to the budget
You’ve done the hard work, now stick to it. After you’ve set your budget based on your earlier spending habits, do your best to stick with it. The thing about a budget we had to learn was it is, by definition, supposed to be malleable. If you find two months in that you can’t keep your groceries under where you’ve set the budget, adjust it. But don’t fudge the numbers. Accuracy will benefit you more in the long run than looking good in the moment.
Working while you travel
As our savings account started to add up, we felt good about hitting our goal. The next emotion was a mixture of excitement blended with curiosity. What if we could come back after our trip with the same amount we left with? Lyss will be headed to grad school and I wouldn’t mind finally putting in the work to open a restaurant. Our nest egg could help make both of those things a reality.
To figure out what we needed to make, we took some tips from Tim Ferris. In his book, The Four Hour Work Week, he lays out a pretty straight forward way of determining what you need to make, whether it’s by the hour or the week or whatever time frame you want. Take the total you need for a year, and divide by 52 weeks to see what you need per week. If you want to dial it down to the hour, you can severely limit the amount of “work” required each week, but weekly was good enough for us.
Freelancing
We set out to spend $500 a week as we traveled, based on monthly rental costs and standard spending, so we started to look into what we could do to make at least that. For me, freelance writing was the first on the list. I’d already done it in the past and I could hit the target with about 10–20 hours a week. So, I set out to get writing contracts or work towards building a better relationship with the clients I’d worked with in the past. If you’re interested in this option, check out the article I wrote about getting started freelancing. The biggest things to remember are:
- Start working towards it sooner than you think. There’s a ton of competition and, especially right now, you’re going to see a lot of rejections before you land a gig.
- Don’t sell yourself short because you will get burnt out quickly. That being said, everyone has to start somewhere. Build your portfolio however you have to. Later, you can make better money
- Start freelancing before you have to depend on it for a living. This ties in all the advice prior. Picking it up as a side gig before you actually need it allows you the flexibility to find the best fits.
Stock trading
**This is risky. Be cautious and do plenty of research before jumping in**
With the introduction of apps like Robinhood, anyone can now make (and lose!!!) money with the stock market. Fractional shares allow you to invest as little or as much as you want. While the ease of access has been lowered, stocks still take some serious research before you dive in. We recommend How to Swing Trade and How to Day Trade For A Living as the bare minimum literature before diving in. Trading in a real-time simulator for a couple of months before using real money is another good way to get the feel for the art.
- **If you’re going to use Robinhood as your trading platform, stay away from day trading. Many of the transactions are very quick, and Robinhood simply isn’t equipped to efficiently allow its users to day trade.**
Get creative
I truly believe creatives will lead the world into the future. Anything that can be automated is doing exactly that, and more and more jobs are being lost to technological advances. However, people’s creativity cannot be replicated the same way. Find a talent to teach people, a craft to sell, or anything else creative you can imagine. Then, find the people who are interested in what you’ve got and give it to them. The more niche, the better.
Budgeting while you travel
This may sound monotonous, but begetting for your extended travel is just as important as any other time. The last thing you want is to cancel part of the trip because you didn’t keep a closer eye on what you were spending. Also, you run the risk of canceling out the fun of the adventure if you have to tighten the purse strings because of a lack of attention.
The same logic as your normal budget applies here. If you’re unable to make money and maintain your original savings, make sure you keep a tight budget. Track every dime spent and adjust your categories as needed, but you must stick to your budget.
Realize that some weeks will require more spending than others. As long as you’re tracking, they will all balance out. For example. we expected to spend more money in places still on the euro vs. places like Croatia or Budapest, where the exchange rate is much more in our favor. That concept plays into planning time in places where you can get more bang for your buck. That doesn’t mean you have to stay in only economically developing countries, but be aware when spending will be higher or lower.
You also have to maintain the concept of being reasonable. Frugality is awesome, but not if it leads you to overspend because you haven’t balanced your trip to include fun, less-frugal things. Balance is the way to success for most things in life, and this includes your budget.
Underestimated savings
Another important point to discuss is the amount of money you save traveling compared to standard living in America. Our rent in Portland was over $1600 alone. Start tacking on standard expenses like groceries, utilities, and everything else, and the costs add up. By simply eliminating those types of costs, we’ve set ourselves up to travel longer.
What about if I own my house? That’s definitely something to think about. We simply ended our lease at the scheduled time and went on our adventure. We also understand that’s not the same situation everyone is in. That doesn’t mean you can’t travel more, too. Budget the costs in, find a way to make money while you travel if needed, and look for way to save/suspend utilities while you’re traveling.
Also, there’s nothing stopping a home owner from getting creative. Can you rent out your space while you’re away? Are you willing to Air BnB it out? There’s always an option, whether it fits into your comfort level or not. It comes down to what you’re willing to do or sacrifice for the freedom of extended traveling.
Is Long Term Travel Exciting to You?
If you’re reading this and it gets you excited about the possibility to travel more, good. We firmly believe anyone who wants to travel more can find a way. That’s not to say it may take some time. It will probably take more planning than you think. And it will definitely take some sacrifice.
Ask our friends. We cut out going out for the most part, we canceled trips and sold off coveted concert tickets to save, and so many more things to make this dream a reality. And we couldn’t be happier with the results. Even though we may not be traveling the world as we imagined, we’ve given ourselves freedom. We’re free to decide our own schedule, alter our timeline as we want, stay or go based on the way we feel about a place.
Long-term travel, experiencing the world, learning a new culture, and everything else we daydream about as retirement goals don’t have to happen at the end of our life. If you want it, make it happen. Don’t waste the best years of your life waiting for the day you earn freedom. Start working today to make your dreams of freedom a reality. Happy Travels!
Originally published at https://gofindyourhappy.net on September 9, 2020.
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This post was previously published on Medium.com.
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