Round-the-world-trip with my family – How I budgeted my life and saved money to travel the world for a full year!

Two of the main questions we’ve been asked since we announced we will be leaving for an around the world trip with my family in July is: “How did you save money for such a big trip?” and “How much is this trip going to cost you?”.

To make a short resume, the 4 of us will be traveling for a complete year, this number includes me, my boyfriend and our 2 little boys of 2 and 3 years old (at the time of departure).

We are planning to travel for a full year with our family around the world. We have planned a budget of $75 000. This budget includes all the pre-departure costs as well as vaccines, travel gear, insurance and etc.

But…To be more realistic, we know that it will cost us around $85 000 to travel for a full year around the world for our family of 4.

Now, to save this much money for our round the world trip, you probably know as much as me that money doesn’t fall from the sky (although, I wish it did 😉 ). In the past few years, we worked a lot and maybe got a little lucky. I would say that we sometime worked too much but keep on reading you will understand more very soon!

WE WORKED

I won’t tell you any lies. A lot of the money we saved for our round-the-world-trip comes from all the hours and extra hours of work my boyfriend and I did. We were « lucky » to have jobs that would allow us to work this much – and to make more money. So, we did it, we rolled up our sleeves and we worked without counting the hours.

STICKING TO OUR BUDGET

We also made a budget. We looked at how much fixed cost we had every month and at how much we were spending to find a way to cut down our expenses. Then we stuck to it. Let’s say that if we had planned to save $200 per month, we had to find a way to save that $200 and to transfer it into our “round-the-world-trip” saving account. That’s how we saved a little more than half of our budget for this trip in less than 3 years.

WE’VE ASKED OURSELVES OVER AND OVER AGAIN: “DO I REALLY NEED TO BUY THIS/ TO SPEND MONEY FOR THIS”?

When trying to save money for any projects you may have it always come down to this. In our society where we’re always pushed to buy more, where we always have to look our best and where being generous is all about giving our money, or nice products away instead of giving our time and energy to the people we love, saving money becomes really hard. We don’t always see the difference between what we need and what we want. Let’s take a step back and look at the Maslow pyramid (the hierarchy of needs). If you already have everything you need to eat, to dress yourself and to put a roof over your head (to keep you warm and also protected from the bears), you clearly don’t need anything more than that. You don’t need a new jacket, or a new mascara, or a new car, or the latest trend magazine, nor you need to go out and try the new coffee shop.

I know I’ve pushed the idea really far, but when we’re dreaming of going around the world and to save $50 000, well you’ve got to do what you’ve got to do! Hahah! And it all begins with that thinking!?

Listen, I admit we, from time to time, went over the line, none of us is a saint, but as much as we could, we stuck to it so our dream would come true.

SELL EVERYTHING YOU NO LONGER NEED

In the past few years, we did a good clean up of our material life. We sold everything we no longer needed. When you have all that extra material that you sell for $5, $10 it adds up really quickly. It soon becomes a $100 here and there and that was being added to our “round-the-world-trip” saving account!?

BUY USED

Another very important detail, which allowed us to save more money for our trip around the world was to buy everything used. Our oven, our fridge, our washer and dryer, everything is used. Everything I can think of was bought used; our patio set, the kid’s furniture, etc. If you think about it, a used dryer would cost you around $100 and will last you about 5 years, whilst a brand-new dryer will cost you $1200 and last you 10 years. We also didn’t buy anything on credit, and we made sure to always buy at the best price possible. All those life habits helped us save money for our round the world trip!

WE WILL USE OUR RRSP

As you probably understood, during the past few years we were able to save money, but not enough to finance a project like this one. Therefore, we will be using some of our RRSP. We’re seeing this year as if we were retired for a year before retirement… but with our children!

WORKING AROUND THE WORLD

With my job, which is this blog and Elles Communication, I will keep on working while traveling the world. All I need to work efficiently is my computer and an internet connection, which you can find pretty much everywhere! I will pursue the contracts I am currently working on with Elles Communication and Sparks and Bloom. My boyfriend will do the same with his projects, as he is also self-employed. This way we will have a small revenue coming in every month.

In the few weeks before leaving for our trip and when returning, I will make sure to bring you more information on the subject.

In the meantime, feel free to ask me your questions!