Why is it that we just can’t seem to go travelling when ever we like?
For most of us it’s because we have so much debt that we possibly can’t begin to contemplate a life on the road or taking an extended holiday of more than a week or two.
How much do you think we need to travel? Our budget is $100AUD per day (for the both of us), Yup that’s it. Some people will think that it’s imposable to travel on such a tight budget. Trust us it’s not.
You do have to make sacrifices so below I want to share a chart that explains things quite simply. It shows how we used to live, how we live now and our perceived future travel budget, as we are still working toward our goal of travelling full time in 2015. It’s a guide, but if you want to get a more detailed picture take a look at Elena’s Expenses page.
Our previous outgoings – Jan 2013
| Outgoings | Per/Month |
| Mortgages (on 4 houses) | $3500 |
| Credit Cards/Student & Personal Loans | $1500 |
| Power / Water | $400 |
| Property Rates (on 4 houses) | $600 |
| Insurances (Cars, Motorbike, House) | $140 |
| Supermarket food | $600 |
| Dining Out / Take-out / Lunches | $300 |
| Mobile Phones | $80 |
| Cable TV | $80 |
| Internet | $70 |
| Petrol | $250 |
| Total | $7520 |
This was us, a typical family with the large house, swimming pool and a few toys in the garage. But after a motorcycle accident and a realisation that life is short we started a dramatic swing towards being financially free to live the life that we want to live and not one that is dictated by financial institutions and employers.
After selling the house in July 2013 and clearing out a few things we didn’t need our outgoings started to change. We soon realised that I lot of what was holding us up from our goals was tied up in what we call localised debt. This is the debt’s that trap you to one place. Like Power, water and the killer a mortgage. We got rid of the extras like cable TV, now for some that’s a scared area of the house and the question arises “how can you live with out TV?” – quite simple. You just watch free to air and download everything else from the internet or watch a full series on You Tube. But if your planning to be travelling the world you won’t have a lot of time to sit and watch TV. You’ll be researching new destinations.
Our current outgoings – Nov 2013
| Outgoings | Per/Month |
| Mortgages (3 houses) & Rent | $3000 |
| Credit Cards/Student Loans | $250 |
| Power / Water | $200 |
| Property Rates (on 3 houses) | $400 |
| Insurances (Cars, Motorbike, House) | $85 |
| Organic food | $1000 |
| Dining Out / Take-out / Lunches | $80 |
| Mobile Phones | $50 |
| Internet | $80 |
| Petrol | $160 |
| Total | $5305 |
Now that we have gone through the process of downsizing life is a lot simpler. We own less and for the first time that we can remember our bank accounts are getting bigger. We have less credit card debt and no longer feel the need to head off to the shopping mall. Our groceries have been switched to Organic and are delivered to our door. This way there are no temptations in buying more than we need and we are eating far more healthy produce. We don’t go out to café’s and restaurants as much as we used to for 2 reasons one is the price and two is that we don’t know how the food is prepared.
Our projected outgoings – Nov 2015
| Outgoings | Per/Month |
| Mortgages & Accomodation | $1300 |
| Credit Cards/Student Loans | $100 |
| Property Rates (on 3 houses) | $400 |
| Travel Insurance (annually) | $20 |
| Groceries | $200 |
| Dining Out / Take-out / Lunches | $100 |
| Mobile Phones | Free to Skype on WiFi |
| Internet / Wifi | WiFi is free in most places |
| Total | $2120 |
By the time 2015 rolls around we want to have zero credit card debt, no houses and fit our belongings into a back pack. The goal is to be able to get on a plane without having to check in our luggage. On a couple of previous trips (see Cambodia and Thailand blogs) we managed to keep our luggage to under 7.5kg!
The dream is to be able to wake up in the morning and be moved to another country by nightfall at any given moment. This sounds strange and inconceivable to some, but to us it’s our new passion and dream to be free of all the trappings that are literately that….. Trappings.