HOW I SAVED UP $25K IN 4 MONTHS
This was the part where I wished I had prepared much earlier. There’s no denying that you need money to travel for 12+ months. How much? That’s totally dependant on your travel style and where you go, but I budgeted my trip (being conservative) to be roughly $25k. If you want to see an example of how I estimated this, please leave a comment and I’ll share a google doc with you.
The idea of the trip only became real to me when I told my manager a few months before D-Day, giving me just 4 months to make $25k. To make things worse, I didn’t have any savings large enough to even buy a round-the-world ticket. For years I lived by comfortably, going out, eating out, drinking heaps, buying things, without ever thinking about saving up, which I think is the symptom of being too comfortable (or carefree?). With the high cost of living in Sydney, plus a mortgage to pay in Melbourne, I didn't have a salary to net $25k in 4 months. So how was I going to achieve this? I did a quick google search…
Aim at the sun, and you may not reach it but your arrow will fly far higher than if aimed at an object on a level with yourself – J. Howes
Okay Mr.Howes, that’s inspirational but no where near rational. How about:
Make a plan, put them on a spreadsheet, and do it.
I did a bit of research into my cashflow and I was surprised how much money I could save by downshifting a few notches, and spending money on just the bare essentials (similar to my earlier post on packing). Not only that, how much I could make by selling stuff, renting out stuff, or quite simply getting a part time weekend job.
Quite literally, that’s what I did. I stopped going out, stopped eating out, stopped drinking beer each night, stopped smoking, changed banks, sold heaps of crap and worked a weekend job to save as much as possible to reach this target.
If you put my average weekly expenses on a scale of 1 to 10, I’ve basically shifted from about an 8 to a mere 2, and increased my cash inflow by about 20%.
If I carry on at this pace for 4 months, I may not hit it, but I’ll be closer than ever to reach $25k. Money is hard to make, so why not put as much hard work to save?
Those were my thoughts, and that was exactly what I did. Though it was daunting at first, with lots of self-doubt and the constant fear of missing out on fun with friends and all that, I knew I wanted it badly, and that was enough to get me out of bed each morning without even putting on the snooze.
In just a few weeks in, I was shocked to see my savings grow consistently in line with my plan. Yes there were sacrifices made, but these were minuscule compared to the grand masterplan of having enough money to travel the world and do all the stuff that I always dreamed of.
Several weeks in, I realised that this plan was not only working, but also fuelling me to think of other ways. It was like chain reaction of ideas. For example, taking advantage of the cash pay outs from annual leaves/vacations/holidays, deposit/bond from your leasing property that you get back, as well as tax refunds (if you’re in Australia) where you can claim back a portion of withheld income tax. I moved all my savings to the bank with the highest interest rate at the time, I even competed on a weekly PS4 FIFA10 competition and actually won a few prizes, which all went straight to ebay. I started a garage sale in my neighbourhood, as well as at work to sell stuff and make more money. I was on fire.
Anyway, the point that I wanted to get across, is that things may seem out of reach at first and we often give up at that instant. But if we put our minds to it, persist, and explore every possible angle, there may be things that we’ve simply overlooked. Our mind is strong enough to come up with ideas, but only if we really wanted it to.
I know that this may not apply for all who are reading this, I mean, I do not have a child to feed, nor a pre-existing debt to pay off (except for the mortgage which luckily I found tenants to cover most of), and I was fortunate enough to have a good job, as well as flexibility with my time. But the learning here that I think applies to all of us, is understanding the true power of setting a goal and working towards it. I hear it all the time, but could never apply it until now. It’s a powerful stimulant to move you forward, as long as the goal you set is something that you really really, REALLY want.
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Well congrats for making efforts to save the money and all the best for your world travel :)
Thank you vishal09!
Great post. So many people over look cutting spending and selling stuff they aren't using. Did you go in your trip already? If you need a place to stay in BC Canada hit me up. I live in a sweet little hippy town-Nelson BC.
Yupp I've already left on this trip, and in fact I'm already back from it. I am basically reflecting back the stories and sharing what I've learnt along the way. Thanks for the offer :) I've always wanted to go there and learn how to build log houses! Maybe I will one day and if I do I'll be sure to hit you up!