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I am often asked about the financial costs of traveling abroad indefinitely. When my husband and I initially announced to our family and friends that we would be embarking on an indefinite journey that would begin with two one-way airline tickets abroad, they were both confused and afraid. Although none of them had ever embarked on a comparable journey, they all assumed it would be astronomically expensive. How would we afford it? How would we generate money?
Now that we have been on this journey for more than a year I realize that it must intrigue people to know the story behind the curtain. They assume that constant travel must cost so much more than their current lifestyle, truly believing that they could never afford it.
While the specifics of our story can be both intriguing and encouraging, it is unrealistic to think that you could follow our blueprint. We all have unique skills and experiences that make us perfect for different opportunities. My husband is an artist, I am a writer, so without those skills as well as our unique backgrounds, I doubt our blueprint will be much help to you.
What can help you immensely, as it did us, is the Four-Hour Work Week’s Expense Calculator. This book was a catalyst for us to create the lifestyle we desired, by first outlining how much it would cost us. I encourage you to try this two part exercise for yourself by first filling out a dreamline exercise worksheet, which is essentially putting your ideal lifestyle on paper. Above is an example of how to fill in the dreamline so that you can get the idea of how to complete it. This exercise allows you to put a financial cost next to your personal goals regarding where and who you want to be as well as what you want to be doing. The numbers may be a lot less than you thought, be sure to set a timeline for your goals in months. The results may shock you. The final step requires inputting the required fields (on page 2) to get a realistic understanding of how much money you need to cover your current monthly expenses. Lastly, you will input that with the rest of the information on the first page to get the cost of your ideal lifestyle. Good luck and please share your results!
What do you think?