The first question people have when we talk to them about us traveling the world is whether we are millionaires, won the lotteries or something in between. When in fact it’s a whole other story. I have mentioned it before, but planning is actually when it all starts. I remember it very well, it was spring 2012 and we were already engaged for 6 months. We were thinking about our future plans, when to get married, settling down, finding a non-standard job which would suit our requirements and make us happy. Would we even be able to find happiness here in the Netherlands? How would it be to live and work somewhere else on this enormous globe? We both haven’t had the opportunity to go abroad during our study since the circumstances were not ideal at the time. Also we both weren’t that excited to settle down right after we got married. We had bigger dreams, wanted to do different things in life than others. We thought about several scenarios how we could manage to do something awesome before we would settle down. And then BAM, the master idea hit us! As soon as we realized this, we started to brainstorm about the possibilities. What is it going to cost and how much money would we be able to save in such a short period of time? We were talking about lots of money since we would not only have to save for our world trip but also the wedding.
We started to read and look up everything to find out how other people did it (thanks google, you made it all so easy)! After taking up all those information, we realized we needed at least 1000 dollars per person per month to travel. Ofcourse this also depends of your way of traveling, which kind of luxury you’re willing to say goodbye to and which countries you’re going to visit for how long.
Further, we also needed a certain amount of money for the wedding. These two summed up…! Sigh. That’s what I did. How on earth would we be able to get that saved on time? We tried to work as much as possible next to our studies and also special thanks to DUO (study funder in the Netherlands) which was definitely a big help.
Our best tips for saving money:
1. Stop shop! Only window-shopping allowed.
2. Eat at home as much as possible. Not only better for your wallet, but also much more healthy.
3. Try fun activities which are free. For instance a walk in the nature or picknick at the park.
4. If possible move back to your parents’ house. Living expenses will drop dramatically. Every penny saved, is a penny extra to spend during the big trip.
Ironically even when we were able to save some extra money, we tried to travel as much and as cheap as possible. We flew for example with Ryanair through European cities, just to satisfy our never-ending hunger for traveling. This was sort of a way to make it up for the poor life we were leading and our long wait for the worldtrip.
Was this tough for us when we think back? It definitely was! We actually accepted to live like beggars being stingy over everything, thinking twice about going out for dinner, shopping or even buying the cheapest option of our basic needs. But was it worth it? I can give a better answer to this one after the worldtrip, but even for now I can say it was, because now we have something awesome to look forward to and I am sure the journey is going to be something I won’t forget the rest of my life.
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