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Saving for long term travel

Saving for long term travel

255 days until 30 June 2011, our estimated departure date for this trip of a lifetime.

That leaves us 8 months to research destinations, organize our itinerary and book the necessary tickets/accommodation. But more importantly, that’s 8 months to save up as much money as we can to fund our travels.

We’re about 25% of the way to our savings goal but to ensure we reach our target, we need to push that extra mile and make a few more sacrifices. We’ve thought long and hard about it and have come up with three ways to slash our expenses and make extra money over the next 8 months.

Moving Back Home

Thanks to the generosity of Amy’s parents, we’re moving back there in December until we depart on our adventure. While this might not be possible for everybody, this 6 months without having to pay an expensive rent and the associated costs of living will allow us to really accelerate our savings. Instead of paying monthly living expenses of approximately $1600, we’ll soon be paying minimal board and this extra money will go straight to our travel savings.

Selling Belongings on eBay

With 2 months before we move to Amy’s parents, we have to find a way to fit a 2 bedroom apartment into a small bedroom. In order to do this, we need to declutter our lives and get rid of the junk. But as the saying goes, one’s trash is another’s treasure and hopefully plenty of those treasure hunters will be scouring eBay over the next few weeks.

Taking Lunch to Work

Until you start tracking your expenses, you don’t realise how much buying lunch each day at work really costs. During a typical month, I spend $100-$150 on buying lunches and Amy would spend a similar amount. Buying and preparing food the night before will slash this expense and should free up an extra $200 per month between us to put towards our travels.

These three steps will save approximately $10,000 more for our trip. On a travel budget of $100 a day, this means an extra 3 months abroad. Well worth it if you ask us!

If you have any other tips that can help us save a bit of extra money, please share them in the comments.

Flickr Photos: Alan Cleaver, The Shopping Sherpa

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