Step.1 EXPENSES & DEBT

Step.1  EXPENSES & DEBT

The most important step in starting a life of travel and adventure is getting your personal finances in order. Regardless of how much of a wasteful idiot you are, or how thrifty you can be by picking up pennies off the ground, it all comes down to how much money is coming in verse going out. If you want to do some traveling or take some time off, you’ll have to save up at least a few grand to get away. This is for flights, taxis, a couple of hotel nights, and first/last months rent for wherever you decide to live. You can’t reasonably stay in a tent or hostel forever. Well you can, but we won’t.

So if you haven’t already, open up a spreadsheet on your computer, if you have one, and decide how much you can spend in a month without worrying you’ll run out of money. And we're talking low amounts, like $500 a month for everything. If you need a job, you’ll get a job. You can obviously read and speak English, so you’re more qualified than 90% of the world's population. We suggest using Excel, which is very helpful for streamlining your budget. Title a few columns and rows, and remember to enter every expense from here on out. You should familiarize yourself with the program enough to have it be able to do your simple math, which is the starting point for all accounting principals. You can even buy a used $10 excel book on E-bay or Amazon if you’d like to learn the ins and outs of the program. We took an entire college course on Excel, and were surprised that we actually had to pay attention because it can be an incredibly complicated, but also helpful program. However, if you just want some help adding up numbers, pick a cell (little block), enter the = key, then click the first number cell to add, click the + key, click the next cell to add, click the + key, and repeat with all the cells you want to include and finish by pressing enter. Voila! You’re finally getting it. Now keep accounting, and make it a daily or at least weekly habit.

Look at your regular monthly expenses. What 
can you afford to lose? Have a car that costs $300 a month, plus insurance and gas? Sell it private party and do your best to break even. Most of the rest of the world doesn’t have a car per person. People walk, run, bike or get a ride for free or cheap. If you live in the 1st world (as in western Europe and her colonies; former included), you pay more for transportation than the average person in the world makes in a year. Last time we checked this was between $8,000 & $10,000 per year, which is more than enough to fund an entire year of adventuring.

If you have more expenses than income, you're a good American and also a debt holder. This means you can either 1) Add your monthly credit card payments to your list of expenses, which of course is mostly interest, late fees, late fees on late fees, and imagined fees dreamed up by our frigged up financial sector. 2) Pay your debt off now, if you’re able, which will save money in the long run, but seriously cut into your newly formed adventure fund. 3) Or of course, you can join club America by defaulting on your debts, keeping your cash off shore or under your mattress, and declaring bankruptcy!

Another thing; Keep        

receipts of everything! You never know when the latest piece of junk you bought from China is going to do what it was made to do; as in break, require repair, or be tossed aside to collect dust after you use it once. They just don't make 'em like 

they used to...           

         -Go To Step.2 Wasting Money