January 1, 2018
Work has officially begun. The first item on the checklist, TIMELINE! This has to be the most important step. You've sat at home kicking the ideas around for years, yet you've slowly accumulated so much debt over the years how could you possibly ever leave? Making yourself an honest timeline is how. We sat down and discussed where our first stop would be once we cut ties and sailed off on our new lives. Vietnam was our choice, and with that simple choice the flood gates of questions came pouring out. Once you start shuffling through those questions you begin to see a path, a path that shows you the route to your dreams.
The Path
We now have the destination, so we now know how much we will need to be "worry free". We looked at the availability of housing for one year, at a level of comfort that would allow us to settle in but not settle down. Our number, $300 usd a month for rent, 300 usd a month for food, and $400 usd a month for activities and cellphone use.
There it was an attainable number for a well off year abroad in Vietnam. Now you might be wondering if somehow we just chose to give up on traveling and decided to move to Vietnam. This is not the case. What we did was choose the place we wanted to see first and then gave ourselves a maximum time to budget at location to view all of the surrounding locations. Look at it like a forward operating base.
Now we have a destination and a budget of $12000.00 usd a year. To get there we have laid out a plan to remove debt for 12 months. Get down to the bare minimum to were at least $1000 a month goes directly to the travel fund. Then the following 12 months will be the funding phase. With a set time line, even though at this point only vague, the far off dream of traveling long term isn't just a pipe dream any more.
Today was our first day of Vagabonding.
Work has officially begun. The first item on the checklist, TIMELINE! This has to be the most important step. You've sat at home kicking the ideas around for years, yet you've slowly accumulated so much debt over the years how could you possibly ever leave? Making yourself an honest timeline is how. We sat down and discussed where our first stop would be once we cut ties and sailed off on our new lives. Vietnam was our choice, and with that simple choice the flood gates of questions came pouring out. Once you start shuffling through those questions you begin to see a path, a path that shows you the route to your dreams.
The Path
We now have the destination, so we now know how much we will need to be "worry free". We looked at the availability of housing for one year, at a level of comfort that would allow us to settle in but not settle down. Our number, $300 usd a month for rent, 300 usd a month for food, and $400 usd a month for activities and cellphone use.
There it was an attainable number for a well off year abroad in Vietnam. Now you might be wondering if somehow we just chose to give up on traveling and decided to move to Vietnam. This is not the case. What we did was choose the place we wanted to see first and then gave ourselves a maximum time to budget at location to view all of the surrounding locations. Look at it like a forward operating base.
Now we have a destination and a budget of $12000.00 usd a year. To get there we have laid out a plan to remove debt for 12 months. Get down to the bare minimum to were at least $1000 a month goes directly to the travel fund. Then the following 12 months will be the funding phase. With a set time line, even though at this point only vague, the far off dream of traveling long term isn't just a pipe dream any more.
Today was our first day of Vagabonding.
No comments:
Post a Comment