Saving is a Mindset. How We’ve Saved to Travel

When we first began to tell people that we were quitting our jobs and had bought a one way ticket to Lima – I’m sure many of them thought we were crazy. We essentially had no plan.

“What will you do when you get back?”, they would ask.

It was a question we didn’t know the answer to. But what was after didn’t matter so much. We were getting ready to embark on a journey that was indefinite and what was next was to be determined.

That unpredictability that would leave some feeling uncertain excited us.

Our goal was to be gone for at least six months. We would go for as long as the money would take us, leaving just enough in our bank accounts so that we could start fresh again somewhere else.

Six months turned in to ten. After almost one year filled with adventures and experiences we could only begin to describe in photographs, our world was forever changed.

At the time of returning back to start fresh, we were craving stability and a place to call home. But little did we know that love for wanderlust and new experiences would take a part of us that we would never have back.

Oops!… We Did It Again

It didn’t take long after landing in a new city and getting jobs again, that we began to dream about that unordinary, nomad lifestyle. Normalcy was just the ticket to getting us to what was next.

We had moved to St. Petersburg, Florida, a place pretty spectacular for settling down a little while. A vacation spot for some, a home for us. We became tourists of our own city, exploring what it had to offer. And then after two and a half years, an engagement and a wedding, we found ourselves accepting an opportunity to move to Italy for a few months.

It wasn’t as simple as just getting to Italy though.

Like before, it took being flexible and open to whatever was thrown at us. We had to be okay with picking up our lives again, leaving the friends we had made, packing up our belongings in to a storage unit, and choosing what was important enough to bring with us.

It took leaving the most important thing, the fur children, and most importantly deciding where they would live best over the time we would be away.

In order to make sure our dog was to live her best life while we were gone, we chose two incredible human beings to take her. This involved taking a one month road trip across the states from Florida to Oregon and then back to Georgia to get her there. The gas getting there was the most expensive and unavoidable part, but the camping and grilling out cut all other expenses down drastically.

We had already promised my brother a trip to visit him in Ecuador while he was there living and working for the Peace Corps, so that too was factored in. They use the US dollar in Ecuador, but still the cost of living is significantly cheaper than in the States.

We then flew from NYC to Rome. NYC was where we found the cheapest flights to Europe out of the States. We spent three weeks exploring a bit of Rome, Bosnia, and Montenegro, ending it with a night in Croatia all before landing where we are now: the countryside of Allerona, Italy.

Saving is a Way of Life

Rooming with monkeys on a private island, hiking through the jungle to reach the most beautiful Colombian beaches, and becoming a connoisseur of gelato throughout cities around Italy isn’t something you get by living frivolously.

It also depends on who you are and what you do for a living. Us though, we’re not rich. Not even close. Neither one of us have had six figure jobs or one day came across a lump sum of money. Going after a nomad lifestyle has taken an ongoing mindset of choosing experiences over material things whether at “home” or on the road.

We’re the people who make an extra stop on our grocery run to another store entirely, because the milk is $0.75 less. While we’re waiting for the train to our next destination, we’ll walk outside of the station and down a few blocks to purchase our water or soda, because we know we’ll save a couple bucks. When traveling, we choose the $0.25-$2 local transport that will take us twice as long opposed to the $5-20 taxi, because after so many of those – they add up significantly. We’ve chosen up to 24 hour bus rides opposed to the few hour flights to save a couple hundred dollars.

We find opportunities to save in every decision.

We’re passionate about where travel will take us in the future, and with that being the case money is prioritized over time to a certain extent. The time it takes getting there is part of the adventure anyway.

It’s About Mindset & Lifestyle

Creating this lifestyle where we choose where we go and what we want to do is all about our mindset.

Our mindset on life is that anything is possible. The world is our oyster. The future is a complete mystery. No dream of where we want to go or what we want to do is too wild.

It’s about lifestyle. It’s about choosing to steer away from material things and thinking about every dollar you spend and how that dollar could go towards experiences rather than that new phone or sweet pair of shoes.

We don’t obsess over a budget, but we stick to life choices every day so that we can travel and not only that, but continue to take control over living a life we choose.

We Live With Less

We choose to live simply and spend less. This includes everything from rent, clothes, shoes, groceries, the mechanic we use, and even to the extent of buying the generic brand at the grocery store opposed to the one that has a prettier box but costs $4 more.

It takes giving up the things we don’t necessarily need, and ultimately having less things.

Limiting our rent expense, generally the biggest expense, is one of the first things that we always consider. Making sacrifices as far as accommodation is a must. We’ve never had a mortgage and we’ve never needed the fancy penthouse apartment downtown.

We’ve chosen renting smaller spaces over larger ones. We chose the house in Atlanta with character at $950 a month, and the less than 500 sq. ft one bedroom one bath apartment in St Pete, Florida for $1,000 a month with all utilities included.

Living in a smaller space has made it easier for us to live with less, which also made moving all of those belongings in to storage much easier when we’ve been ready to pick up and move again, and cheaper 1) for the monthly rent to store it at a local unit and 2) to move once it’s time to do it all over again.

Retail Prices Are Not Our Friend

We’re always exploring what better deal is out there.

We don’t buy new phones. We always go for the gently used and have been able to find great ones over time that are like new and get the job done. We use eBay or Craigslist. The prices are substantially better.

We don’t buy brand new furniture, ever. We’ve scored some pretty good finds through Craigslist. It just takes dedicating the time to browsing around. Throw a new couch cover on it and voila, good as new.

We’ve never bought brand new cars. They lose their value from the moment you drive them off the car lot anyway.

Things don’t have to be brand new to treat you right.

We Avoid Buying On Impulse

It’s easy to see something you want, buy it right then and there, and be awarded with the immediate satisfaction. Only then to realize months later, that you’ve never used it or didn’t for very long.

If we do want something, we spend time browsing our options before walking out of the store with it or hitting that “buy it now” button. We resist the urge to buy something we don’t necessarily need right then and there.

When we do buy, we always shop around for discount codes and the best deal. There are hundreds of companies out there selling the same things at different prices. We do our research to find the best option.

We Cook A LOT

To say we love food would be an understatement, but we don’t need fancy restaurants to get great food. Fancy clearly is not our style.

Restaurants can charge triple what we pay to buy the ingredients ourselves and make an evening out of it in our own kitchen.

When having someone else cook for us, we love heading to the ethnic part of town where we explore the Asian markets, Chinese restaurants, Vietnamese pho, that hole in the wall mom-and-pop spot with the best philly cheesesteak in town, or Mexican restaurants that are actually authentic. The prices are super reasonable and the food always has us coming back for more.

Tip: If the menu is in both English and the language of where the food originated from, chances are the food is going to be of the best you’ve ever had and the prices will be a third of the price than they are on the main strip in town. Plus, the unique experience that comes along with it is 100% free.

Asian Markets Are Our Second Home

We always go for discount grocery stores, our local produce markets, and Asian markets first. Fruits and vegetables are always significantly cheaper.

We also go for the generic brand whenever we can. Sure with some things you can’t, but with most you’re paying for the pretty box. We sacrifice the prettier box to pay less. It doesn’t always mean sacrificing quality. Most times you can find cheaper costs with equivalent quality.

We Limit Trips to Coffee Shops and the Bar

It’s amazing how quickly you can spend $100 for two at a bar. Or how quickly a coffee run a few times a week adds up. We’ve had to choose to say no to going out often, and limit the times we do. We choose store bought beer and having friends over when we do drink. I’m a coffee addict, so the french press is a staple in our household. Luckily in other countries, it’s wildly cheap.

Low Cost Vet Clinics All the Way

We’ve saved hundreds annually on shots and flea and heart worm prevention medicine alone and it’s the same stuff you would buy at any other vet.

We Divide the Money and Find Opportunities for Return

When we have left to travel, we’ve separated our funds in to two accounts: one for travel and the other for starting fresh again.

For our travel fund we’ve chosen checking accounts that reimburse all ATM fees, have no international fees abroad, and have a small return on purchases.

For our “starting fresh” account, we stick that in to a high-yield savings account. We put $18,000 in the account back in June and have earned $169 on it in four months. That’s 169 espressos in Italy!

Nomads Balling on a Budget

It’s also important to know this: we do not travel luxuriously.

It’s the main reason we’re able to do what we do.

We’re always exploring and finding ways to get the most bang for our buck. We purchase the cheapest flights we can find, even when that means longer layovers. We walk blocks (or kilometers) away from the tourist strips in town to avoid buying food where prices can be triple what the locals pay. When we search for accommodation we go for the bare bones and sort those price points from low to high.

It’s a nomad lifestyle. We don’t always know where we’re going, what’s next, and we make many sacrifices along the way to continue on the path of a life we choose. And we’ll be honest, it’s not always glamorous – but we wouldn’t have it any other way.

We choose experience over material things each and every day. Material things can easily grow old, and in the end – what are they really? Experiences, though? They are full of adventures that no one can ever take away from you.

“I’ll look back at this and smile because it was life and I decided to live it.”
Anonymous