I am writing this blog post from Austria – Country number 21 since starting TREAD the Globe and our 4th Country on our around the world drive !!

We can’t believe that the trip has finally started and even though we have been on the road for less than a month, we have seen so much already.  The next couple of years are really going to be amazing.  We’re still in Europe so I don’t think the realisation that we are actually driving around the world has quite fully sunk in yet.  

We’re loving the Polarsteps app.  If you haven’t downloaded it already, then you really should.  It’s a free app, that is tracking our exact movements so you can see live where we are in the world.  I know a lot of you have messaged to say that you’re enjoying following our route as we drive around the world.

What to expect from future posts

Up until now our finance posts have given you details of our preparation costs specific to this trip.   Now we have started the next big adventure, we want to share all of our day to day expenses with you.  We have included every cost so far to help you see what we’re spending our money on and of course how much income we are actually getting from Youtube, etc.

It’s very important for us to spend as little as we can at the moment, to ensure that we can afford the expensive shipping costs  which we will have in the coming months.  We also want to make sure we save enough for emergencies as you never know what tomorrow bring!!

 So here is our first income / expenditure report from the road!   

JANUARY 2020 - INCOME & EXPENDITURE


INCOME

YouTube £189 (Last month £150)

 Last month we had 62,000 views which was about 12% more that in November.  This month we are delight to say that we have had 102,000 views.   We have had an extra 1,600 of you subscribe to our channel and we are so excited to have you join us on this epic around the world adventure. So if you are one of them then WELCOME!

With the increase in both views and watch time, we saw our income also increase from £150 last month to £189 this month.  We also received news from YouTube that we achieved 1,000,000 views since our channel started.   Wow!!  We are so happy and excited that you are all enjoying our content – every thumbs up, comment or message means so much to us so THANK YOU.

Tread Tribe £24.60 (Last month £13.87)

We launched the TREAD Tribe for those who really want to support our travels and at the time of writing this we have 14 Tribe members.    This month the membership increased to £24.60

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. 

For those of you who joined us for the live hangout on our Tribe Facebook group, we really loved chatting to you and answering all of your questions – we’ll do another one soon.  

 

If you would like to know more about the Tread Tribe please

click here

 

House Rental £1,356 - (Last month £1,164)

Over the past couple of months we have had minor repairs to do which comes out of the income.  A reality of renting your house, there are little bits that need fixing.  However this month we are back to receiving the full rental.

Merchandise Sales £19.07 (Last month £212.29)

With Christmas last month and then the reality of January setting in,  our T -shirt sales have been low this month.  We sold just one shirt giving us an income of £19.07

 

Donations £297 (Last month £19.12)

Whenever anyone sends us a financial donation, (be it joining the TREAD Tribe, buying us a coffee, using Amazon links or a PayPal donation) we are really touched and we are genuinely blown away by peoples generosity, so a huge thank you for your kind contributions to help our travels.   This month is particular high as we received a very generous fuel donation from a family member – thanks  Sue & Mark xx.

Buy Me a Coffee £12.42 (Last month £0)

We received £12.42  from our buy me a coffee link on our web site.  Thank You  – you know how much we LOVE coffee !!! ha ha !!

Amazon Affiliate Links £9.05 (Last month £0.58)

We receive a small amount from our Amazon links, this month was £9.05.  which is the highest we have received so far.   If you’re one the the people that used our links then thank you! 

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.   If you want to buy another products, then just use our link then shop as normal.

TOTAL INCOME: £1,907 (Last Month £1,561 )

EXPENDITURE

Merchandise costs £21.70 (Last month £93)

Unfortunately in order to sell T Shirts we have to buy them.  Although we only sold one T Shirt this month the cost is higher, as we did a prize draw for our TREAD Tribe.  The winner got to choose a T shirt of their choice – Congratulations to Trudie (yes same name as our van although spelt differently)

Vehicle Running Costs £407.16

This month we have driven from the UK, to the south of France and across Northern Italy – doing a total of 1,878 miles.  The fuel cost in the countries we have visited so far are some of the highest, so we should see the price going down soon. 

 

Fuel: £ 373.29

LPG  £33.87 

TREAD Expenses £276.51 (Last month £1,063)

These are expenses that are specifically for TREAD the Globe. Whether it is for our website or to be able to publish content.

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: £10.24 (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 which 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. We hope you agree, it really makes a big difference having good music.

Site Ground Web Hosting: £14.35 (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: £126.08

In order for us to post on social media, to maintain our website, answer your messages and to upload our videos onto YouTube, we need mobile SIM cards.   We seem to have spent quite a lot on these so far for a few reasons.  

Each country we enter, we need to buy a new sim and so far each country actually charges you for the SIM card before you top it up (between €5 – 15 Euros).  Next month we’re crossing 6 countries so may be more.  

We are also at the moment keeping both of our UK SIM cards going.   Our data only SIM card  give us 19GB per month in most EU countries, so we use them as a back up, incase we can’t find a SIM card straight away.  We’ll cancel it when we leave Greece as it won’t work in most of the other countries.   

Web Site £63

We have done some tweaks to the site – for example adding the Polarsteps map so you can track us and the new count up clock.   I needed some technical help from our Web designer Dean.

Drone Insurance: £16.80

We thought it would be a good idea to have liability insurance just incase we have an accident and for £16.80 it seems worth it.

Living Expenses £225.53 (last month £70.98)

We want to share all our day to day expenses so these are our living costs this month.

Groceries:  £178.53

Eating out: £29.96

Laundry: £12.83

Electric: £4.21

We have solar panels on Trudy and she charges whilst we drive, however last week we wanted to catch up with our videos to keep them real time and we wanted to park up for a few days.  In the winter when we’re not driving, it’s cloudy and we’re charging all our computers etc, we ran out of electric, so we found a place to plug in for 2 euros per day. Perfect at that price!

Other Expenses : £18.50

There always seems to be some expenses that doesn’t fit into the other category.  This amount includes our Netflix subscription, parking, van washing Trudy and an accidental Toll !!


Total Expenses: £949.40 (Last month £2,344)


Monthly Profit / Loss

Yipee!! We underspent this month by £958

This is a great start, and we need to underspend every month to be able to afford the shipping costs .  To give you an idea, to ship from South Korea to either the USA or Australia, is is approx £5,500 just for the shipping.   This month is underspent by more than anticipated mainly due to the very generous donation from our family (Sue and Mark).  To give you an idea, we need to underspent around £600 + each month ….

We hope you find our expenses interesting.  We want to be transparent and open about all our costs, so that if any of you consider doing something similar, it might help you see if it’s possible.   The Youtube income is normally a close guarded secret, and many people think it’s easy to earn money from Youtube. We can assure you that it’s not, and if it was calculated as an hourly wage no one would take the job!!

If there are any more details you want to ask us, then go ahead and send us a message, email or leave a comment.

Although we are sustainable now, with the rental of our home and limited income above, we are trying to increase the income, so we are able to travel and share more experiences with you.   All of the money we receive goes towards our travels and the equipment needed to produce our videos.

Thank you for your ongoing support.

Chris and Marianne

xx