Wow the time goes by so fast and at the time of writing this our leaving party is tomorrow !!!
We are so excited to be sharing all aspects of our travels with you. Planning such a trip is not easy and the costs keep adding up – just when you think you can stop spending something else crops up – and we’ve said no to buying a lot of things. December has been a challenging month financially with some quite large expenses. We have stopped spending now and as we hit the road in a couple of days the spending will be reined in and we’ll only be spending money on what we have to.
We hope you all had a great festive period and we both want to wish you a very Happy New Year.
What to expect from future posts
Our around the world drive is here and so from January’s post onwards our finances will be a bit more detailed. During this epic adventure we want to give you all of our living costs be if , food, fuel, site seeing or SIM cards. One of the things we have found difficult is budgeting the trip because it’s hard to find out actual costs. We want to make it easier for you incase you are planning any kind of adventure to these countries, regardless of how you travel.
DECEMBER 2019 - INCOME & EXPENDITURE
INCOME
YouTube £150 (Last month £129.25)
As we near the start of our next big adventure we have seen our channel grow in December. Our views were 62,000 which is a 12% increase on Novembers. Watch time also increased by 8%. This is very positive as you can have lots of people clicking on a thumbnail but that’s irrelevant if people don’t actually watch them.
We also saw our subscribers increase by 508 this month – so welcome if you are one of them. As a result of this then our monthly income also rose by 14% compared to last month to £150.
Tread Tribe £13.87 (Last month £0)
For those of you new to these posts – we launched the TREAD Tribe for those who really want to support our travels.
There are various levels and in return we offer some added perks for examples access to the TREAD Tribe’s facebook group where we do live chats, and personal TREAD postcards from us on our travel. Membership starts from $1 (£0.76) per month
We have increased by 4 Tribe members in December & received $13.78 (£10.45). Patreon take a small % in fees. ( we actually showed this in Novembers finances but there is no income the first month of membership so should have been in Decembers)
If you would like to know more about the Tread Tribe please
click here
House Rental £1,164.90 (Last month £982)
This month we had to carry out some maintenance repairs on the house so the rental is a bit down. This is the reality of renting a house. Things need fixing and as the landlord we have to fix them.
Merchandise Sales £212.29 (Last month £256,39)
With Christmas this month the sales maintained to similar level to last month.
We will be having a draw, to give one T-shirt away to the first members of the TREAD Tribe (when we reach pledges of $50 / month) and you can also get discount codes when you sign up. So for as little as $1 per month you get the chance to win a free T shirt and you’ll know that you will be helping to keep us on the road.
Paypal Contributions £19.12 (Last month £19.02)
We are always blown away by peoples generosity, so a huge thank you for your kind contributions to help our travels. Incase you wonder why such an odd amount, payal takes a small commission.
Buy Me a Coffee £0 (Last month £0)
Amazon Affiliate Links £0.58 (Last month £)
We received small amount from our Amazon links this month.
Lots of you have asked about which products we use or recommend and so we have recently create an amazon shop. If you would like to look at this then please click here.
This is a very easy way for you to help us, and it doesn’t cost you anything. Just use our link then shop as normal.
TOTAL INCOME: £1,561 (Last Month £1,397 )
EXPENDITURE
Category 1: Marketing costs £57.58 (Last month £134)
As we are away for so long on this adventure we placed an extra order for our TREAD the Globe keep in contact cards. It’s a great way of being able to hand to people we meet so they can stay in touch and follow our adventures.
Category 2: Merchandise costs £93.76 (Last month £115.71)
Unfortunately in order to sell T Shirts we have to buy them. This month it gave us £118.53 profit
Category 3: Visas / Passports £56.30 (Last month £0)
This month we had another visa to get for our trip – the one for Turkey. Thant’s all of the visas we can get until we arrive in Kazakhstan and have to get our visa for Mongolia.
Category 4: Vehicle Preparation / Running Costs £979 (Last month £ 728)
This month we have had to spend out on the final preparations for Trudy and it has been quite expensive.
Servicing £ 844. (new brakes, oil filer, hoses etc
Snow Chains £69.95 (legal in some countries)
Spares £22.49 (brake fluid, coolant etc)
Bottle Jack £42.39 (I’m sure we’ll need to charge a tyre so this is essential)
Category 5: TREAD Expenses £1,063 (Last month £245.87)
This month we have been buying the last few bits to make sure we have everything covered and we are able to produce videos for you all to watch here’s what we spent this month.
Tube Buddy: £15 Monthly
This is a google chrome extension that makes any Youtuber’s life a lot easier. It allows us to bulk change elements of our end screens and descriptions of all our videos, as well as lot of other perks.
Tech Insurance: £12.49 (Monthly)
We have our Mac Book Pro insured – just incase.
Canva Pro: £10.11 (Monthly)
This is an online image creator and is great for us, we create all of our thumbnails using this software and effects like the diary cam on our videos.
Epidemic Sound: £10.00 (Monthly)
This monthly membership allows us to access lots of music for our videos, without having to worry about copyright issues. We spend a lot of time listening to tracks to match the video. Hope you agree, it really makes a big difference having good music.
Site Ground Web Hosting: £12.50 (Monthly)
This is an ongoing cost, once you have a website built, you still need to pay a company to host it for you.
Mobile Phone sims / Internet: £46
Keeping connected is essential on the road. We use mobile SIM cards for our internet connection. This month is slightly higher as we bought an additional sim for our tracker so we can see where Trudy is.
USB adapter. £12.15
Exercise bits: £22.47
We need to keep fit on the road and I suffer from leg back stiffness to need to do few stretches – so have exercise mat and some massage balls
Drone Guards £5.98
We want to keep our new drone flying and sometime the unexpected happens so we’ve bought a set of blade protectors
Compass £ 9.99
You never know when this may come in handy and being very remote this could literally be a life saver.
Filming Equipment £94.85
We have gone through our filming equipment to make sure that we can continue to produce the best videos and photos that we can for you. This was for various items such as filters, new camera strap and quick release plates.