I feel a little sheepish whenever people look at me like, how do you afford it?
Yes, I pay for it all by myself… no, maybe it’s not the best way to spend my money, but I figure I’d rather err on the side of having meaningful experiences even if it costs money.
Money can come back; my time won’t.
I don’t know anything about your financial life but this is how it works for me:
- I ended my lease
- While traveling, I am not paying rent back home. My rent ended in May, and I will find a new place in September. There’s an extra 1500, plus wifi, plus utilities… no matter what there’s a couple grand!
- Sold some stuff
- Packed my keyboard, dresses, blankets in a car, tried to sell the rest. Most doesn’t sell, some I stuffed away for my next house and kept it with family, some actually sells for more than I expected!
- Save up baby
- To be fair, I saved up for the past 4 years to get to do this. I also have minimal expenses. I’m single and dogless. When I don’t buy the clothes or the appetizer or the drink, my mind is literally thinking “one day I will spend this on travel” and that motivates me. If you can save 5 dollars a day by buying the cheaper menu item at a restaurant or something, dude that’s 7,300 dollars in four years. You know what kind of EPIC trip you can take on 7,300 dollars?! Dang you can prolly backpack to Argentina and back.
- INVESTING
- Do you know about investing yet? I gotta tell you about investing. Instead of having your money sit there in a bank account, it can literally grow on it’s own. It can go down, too, but it tends to grow 6-10% a year. Or like last year, where some of my investments doubled. Thousands and thousands of dollars of free money. The first time I made a couple extra thousand dollars just by clicking buttons I was stunned, and became a believer right then. Don’t know where to start? Put a few dollars in VOO the general stock market through a reputable company like Vanguard. The idea is you save the money, invest it, then spend the increase while you still have the original amount. Or just let it grow, probably even better…
- Do the deals
- I travel hack a lot, or work the system or whatever you call it. I open accounts here, grab that special there, if you know how to responsibility pay off credit cards each month, you can get a lot of free stuff. But apparently most people can’t handle it because otherwise they wouldn’t be giving away so much free stuff. Open a credit card, get the bonus, use it like a debit card, only spend money you have (and no more than normal or necessary) and pay it off in full at the end of the month.
- Read books about money.
- Your Money Or Your Life by Vicki Robin. That’s all you have to know.