THE CASH

     A huge mental barrier that most people can’t get over is the cash.

     “So this has been fun thinking about world travel and all, though where am I going to get the money for flights, backpacks, camera, hotels, trains, beer, food, souvenirs and on and on???”

  Recently I got this question, it can be worded many ways thou this seems like a pretty honest one.

 “I can’t seem to ever save enough money. I want to save and I have some saved but I want to enjoy my everyday life as well as go travelling. What I mean by that is I want to be able to afford to go out with people now and again, or to get my mom a nice birthday gift. Anyway I thought I would write you back and tell you what my experience has been and wondered if you had any advice.”

This probably THE BEST question ever. Everyone gets overwhelmed with the end result before figuring out the goal. Let’s do this step by step & make it more achievable. First off get a 2nd job then get your research on.

 Let’s say you want to go to Thailand, you live in North America and you want to go for four months. First off you’ll want to ballpark flight costs. Look through at least three different booking sights to get a general feel of round trip tickets. Maybe they are $1200. Next up grab yourself a guide book from the local library or browse through the one at the book store. Typically they have a section on average daily prices. Say $15/day for a hostel, $5 for a meal & $2 for a beer. Now you’re up to $22/day. Now factor in scooter rental or maybe daily transport with an average of maybe $8/day. Now were at $30. Next up you’ll probably want to have some fun and go on some tours. Say you do three a month for an average for $200 a tour. Now you’re up another $20/day bringing up to $50/day.  This is a rough estimate, thou the guide book is typically pretty close with the local pricing and if you want to save more, couch surf, rent a place long term or stay in dorms & self cater.

 Now were sitting at $50/day x 30 days/month x 4 months or $6000 plus the $1200 flights or plus $1000 for pre-trip to do's about $8200 dollars.
  Now you’ll still need a backpack a bag, camera & all that jazz. Thou chances are you could at very least borrow all of that stuff. At different points I have & I have also lent it all out. 
  Back to the cash.
Now to make up $8200 you’ll likely need to work a bit harder and smarter. If you want to work for 6 months before you go you’ll need to save about $46/day, 10 months = $28/day, and so on. If you made $10/ hour @ 8hrs/ day you’d have about $70/day after taxes. Even if you spent half of that you could still do it in just under eight months.

  The flights are the same to go for a week as a year & you’ll learn how to trim costs along the way so it’s actually cheaper the longer you go.

  Maybe you live at home, maybe you have a mortgage, maybe you make $100/hour maybe you make $3/hr, who knows it’s all different for everyone and if you are looking for an excuse as to why you will never in your life be able to take the four month trip of a lifetime you will find it. However if you are looking for some stepping stones as to how you can, here they are. If you set the intention all of the blocks will eventually line themselves up. Basically you could plug away for years working P.T. and going to the movies and buying new sunglasses or you could double your work load & half your spending then share that success with everyone else who just did it on the beach six months from now. 

 I’ve done this many times over. I’ve even worked two years and taken one whole year off a couple times & this was always with crap paying jobs, thou none of my sunglasses cost more then $10!

   Any questions, comments or even better stories of how you made it happen please post below. Happy goal setting!