Sitting and looking at our countdown clock, we have just 25 days until the big off.   I say it every month, but seriously where does the time go!   It seems to be speeding up.

November has been a month of trying to finalise all of the planning and equipment that we need.   We laugh that our to do list was 3 pages long and as the weeks go by, it’s still 3 pages.  Every time we do a couple of actions on the list, we remember a few more things to do.    Writing them down does really help clear the brain – better on paper than floating around my head !!

With the preparations and getting ready, there are lots of costs involved.   I have prepared a detailed spread sheet, by month, for the whole 20 month trip.   As you can imagine, it’s really important to budget such a trip, as what do you do if you run low on money on the other side of the world and you can’t afford the shipping costs? your visa is running out – the pressure will be well and truly on.   We’ll be monitoring our finances as we go, to make sure we stay on track.   The spreadsheet I have created is great, you enter in the starting bank balance and month by month add in the individual income and expenditure.  As you correct an amount in one month every month after automatically updates itself.  I’ll be updating this as we go.

When we started planning the route, we had a good idea of where we wanted to go and the rough shipping routes, but we had no idea of the costs involved.  In fact we don’t really know even now, we just have a better idea, based on various conversations we have had and online research.   As the one who looks after the finances, it’s a bit responsibility to get it right and to have a plan B if it goes wrong !  

We were shocked to get an actual quote to get into Australia after Russia.  To give you an idea the shipping quote was approx £5,500, + £2,000 for a carnet (paperwork for the van), £850 flights for us, £500 port fees (approx).   There is also a possibility that the port aurthorities in Australia say Trudy isn’t clean enough and then there’s a mandatory £500 cleaning fee.  This is a whopping £9.350 to spend 4 months in Australia and then we have to spend £6,000 shipping to the USA.    The plan B is, that if we get to far end of Russia and can’t afford this then we will have to ship straight to the States which would save £9,350 ! 

We have had to have little contingencies like this throughout the trip.  Of course, it’s impossible to know if we have unexpected mechanical issues, or how much income we generate via YouTube, etc, on the way, so you’ll have to watch this space.   It’s just a little hard for me, as I like to plan and of course you can’t.

In the meantime, we have been trying to only spend what we have to getting ready.  Sorry to those people who we’ve said we can’t visit them before we go, due to petrol costs, or we have had to refuse to go meet friends, to go out for dinner.  I’ve even had to stop my Aikido training (my main hobby and passions) as the cost to train, just isn’t the priority at the moment.  We’ve questioned every item we have bought (and there’s a lot of them).   

 We want to make it clear, so that if any of you are planning to do a similar thing, it may help you make that BIG decision.    We are realistic, and know that to make our lifestyle fully sustainable, income from making YouTube videos, or writing blog posts, is not easy and if it’s possible, it will take a lot of time and effort.  

And by sharing this, you’re coming on this voyage of discovery with us – every step of the way.