Forewarned is Forearmed

Well we're actually 3.5 months into our trip now - which is generally how long it takes me to completely disconnect, so I can simply while away the hours lying around reading a book. Which is precisely what I've been doing the last few days. I wake up with the sun and enjoy a light breakfast (instead of hitting the alarm multiple times and dragging myself out of bed), then my day is spent swimming, reading, listening to music... with little else. No matter how much I snooze in a hammock or doze on a sun lounge throughout the day, I'm still exhausted by bed time and can sleep uninterrupted throughout the night. My mind slows completely, my imagination is ignited - with no anxiety or endless 'To Do' lists running through my head.

This is what makes all the hard work saving and planning for a trip worthwhile. But it takes time for this feeling to set in - and that is what makes travel different from holidaying. Not that holidays aren't relaxing, or great fun. Of course they are. But for one thing, they're generally shorter - which means inevitably you return to the reality of home or work sooner. And in these days of smartphones and free wifi, many people remain 'connected' for the duration of their holiday, so it's harder to obtain the sense of peace I described earlier. 

Glass Half Full

In my previous entry I talked about frugal living and some of the measures we took to save for this trip. I just want to clarify that most of our cost saving measures involved changes to our lifestyle, as there was little we could do about fixed expenses like rent and bills (we already kept those as low as we possibly could). And obviously we didn't have a mortgage and didn't have any children - so any lifestyle modifications we made only impacted on ourselves.

I do understand that many people feel they're already doing it tough - be it because of unemployment, or because they're studying, or because they're raising a family - and so there's little room for saving when they're just trying to make ends meet. However for many of us, there's possibly a few areas where changes can be made to save money. And the only point I want to make is that instead of being daunted by the challenge of saving money (and forfeiting your goals), try and be inspired by it. Because frugal living can actually be liberating and rewarding...

Frugal Living

As mentioned previously on this blog, I was no stranger to budgeting and frugality. I've spent much of the past several years working in media production, where budgeting is par for the course. Prior to working in the media industry I balanced my studies with part time administration work - so I've spent many hours reconciling my employers' spending and balancing their books. I'm good at it. I get paid to do it. And believe it or not, I actually enjoy it.

Combined with the fact that I HATE any form of waste, I like to live as sustainably and self-sufficiently as any urban, inner-city professional can and I try to be as healthy as possible - frugal living comes pretty naturally to me.  I'm also pathetically, hopelessly, BAD at shopping (no seriously, I am). A trip to the supermarket can take hours, as I scan the shelves for every available option before intently reading the list of ingredients and weighing up the health implications versus the potential savings of every item I put in my basket. As for clothes shopping... 99% of the time I get so overwhelmed and exhausted by the vast array of choices, I end up leaving having accomplished nothing more than circling an air-conditioned mall for a few hours and getting sore feet.

Regardless - being tight-fisted is one thing, but saving enough to fund a few years without income is a completely different matter. That required a whole new level of frugality. I explained in my previous post how we came to reach the figure that we did ($30,000). Now without going into too much detail, let's just say that's close to half my annual salary (as a freelancer, the exact figure goes up and down). So that meant living on half my annual salary (or less) for at least one year. The first step? Knowing how much I was currently spending.

How Much is Enough?

Once the decision was made to uproot ourselves and head off into the unknown, there was just the small matter of how we were going to fund such an adventure... Because as much as I'd wished otherwise, taking a hiatus from your career to drift aimlessly around the globe can be a costly exercise (at least initially).

Of course, I could always be true to the stereotype of the irresponsible, consumerist-driven Gen Y and simply put the lot on a credit card to be dealt with in some far off, distant future. But I'd deliberately avoided ever getting a credit card. Throughout my 20's I'd taken pride in never owning one, so I wasn't about to start now. Truth be told, I was far too much of a control freak to ever be comfortable with debt, no matter how minuscule. I'd spent much of the last few years at work forecasting and managing budgets, so I had developed a fascination with frugality and saving that bordered on the obsessive...

Combined with the fact that I worked in a notoriously precarious industry (of which I'd been burnt in the global recession of 2008, when I'd been made redundant and couldn't for the life of me secure further employment), saving "for a rainy day" may well have been tattooed on my forehead, it was so ingrained in my thinking.