A big part of this blog from the beginning has been financial transparency.  I’ve shifted from sharing the details of our daily spending (what we used to do), to sharing the details of the business side of the blog.  It seems many of you are most interested in this one segment of our financial journey.  :-)

May saw the lowest dip in income generated online, since the release of Unautomate Your Finances back in March.  This was expected and anticipated, although I did nothing to help it.  I had planned on guest posting and exposing new lists and audience to my first guide, as well as attempting to push forward the launch date of my forthcoming guide, Sell Your Crap.

Neither happened.

Instead, I posted only a few posts here, with absolutely no guest posts, no new exposure, no attempt at media mentions, and no additions, bonus, or specials on the first guide.  Not exactly a great business plan!  :-)

The only silver lining is that almost all of the income I received in May was very close to passive.  A far majority (as high as 90%) of the sales were initiated from old “evergreen” posts and content.

Here are the numbers for May:

Net from UYF Sales:  $481.81

• Total Guides Sold (April):  33
• Income (less Paypal fees):  $577.35
• Affiliate Payments:  -$95.54

Additional Income:  $525.97

• Freelance Writing:  $400.00
• Thesis/ScribeSEO:  $0.00 (under payout threshold)
• Unconventional Guides:  $125.97
• Amazon:  $0.oo (under payout threshold)

Direct Expenses:  -$110.90

• Hosting:  -$14.95
• Aweber:  -$29.00
• ScribeSEO:  -$27.00
• E-junkie:  -$5.00
• VodBurner:  -$9.95
• Kiva MasterMind: -$25.00

Net (Income – Expenses):  $896.88

A couple notes to highlight.  First, I had two new business products I affiliated with in May, but which technically paid the first few days of this month.  This is $1000+ dollars of income that was “earned” in May, but paid in “June”.  This helps prop up the month a bit.

I will also have a couple affiliate payments that didn’t meet thresholds and thus rolled over to June’s payout date.

This months brings the average of the last 3 months (since UYF release) down to:  ~$2100/month

While I’m not ecstatic about that number, it’s not terrible for a start.  The goal is to double it by the end of summer.

June’s Business Plans…

June will see the release of Sell Your Crap, my second premium guide.  This will have several modules, have extremely targeted value across different mediums, and will probably end up in the more traditional $30-$40 dollar range.

I don’t expect sales for Unautomate Your Finances to dip in June actually.  In fact, they will probably go up due to promotion regarding Sell Your Crap. I’d like to see UYF net between $800-$1000 itself.  My goal for the second launch will depend on the final content included in the guide and the price point.

As you all know, 90% of my effort and content will remain 100% free.  I’ll continue to openly share our journey to eliminate our debt, our battle to avoid accumulating clutter, and the ups and downs as we attempt to pursue our passions!

For those of you on a journey to produce online income yourself, feel free to e-mail me any specific questions you may have!

Hope everyone has a fantastic June!

Xoxoxo,

-Baker

Over the course of this blog, I’ve shared the details of our debt, our income, and our spending.  Back in March, I took a big step in the business side of this site by releasing my first premium guide, Unautomate Your Finances.

As I continue to take steps to grow my business, I want it to remain open and transparent to the members of the community who help support it.  Last month, I gave a breakdown of March’s sales and income, as well as results from the product launch.

Every month moving forward (launch or not) I want to continue this habit of reviewing/sharing the past month and forecasting out the current month.  Here’s April’s numbers and my business plans for May…

Net from UYF Sales:  $1012.73

• Total Guides Sold (April):  83
• Income (less Paypal fees):  $1344.17
• Affiliate Payments:  -$331.44

Additional Income:  $746.24

• Freelance Writing:  $500.00
• Thesis/ScribeSEO:  $120.45
• Unconventional Guides:  $105.57
• Amazon:  $20.22

Direct Expenses:  -$185.90

• Hosting:  -$14.95
• Aweber:  -$29.00
• ScribeSEO:  -$27.00
• E-junkie:  -$5.00
• VodBurner:  -$9.95
• Tech Consulting:  -$100.00

Gross (Income – Expenses):  $1573.07

As anticipated, income in April is down from March (launch month).  Despite this, I’m not too disappointed in these numbers.  I wanted Unautomate Your Finances to hit the $1000 mark for the month and it just barely crossed right at the end.

May’s Business Plans…

I fully expect another 15-20% dip this month in passive sales of the guide.  With that in mind, I’ll be looking to help boost traffic and sales in order to try to keep income from UYF sales right around $1000 net.  This may include going after more interviews, reviews, and guest posting opportunities to achieve that.

I’ll also be sharing two business products this month from two of the people I respect most online.  As you can see from the above numbers, I am very careful about who I affiliate with or what content I share with everyone on this site.  Here are some reviews you can look forward to:

1. Danielle Laporte’s “Firestarter Sessions”.  Danielle’s hot new multimedia guide is coming out on the 12th and we already recorded an interview that I’ll be sharing with you.  Frankly, it’s one of the best interviews I’ve ever had the pleasure of giving. Danielle blogs over at WhiteHotTruth.com and is one of the most authentic and passionate bloggers I know.
2. Chris Guillebeau’s “Empire Building Kit”. Chris launched his Empire Building Kit last month, but only left it open for 24 hours!  Luckily, I was able to snag a copy and have been devouring it (tons of content, video interviews, and 365 daily e-mails over the course of a year).  On the 18th, he’s opening it up for another 24 hours and I’ll be affiliating with this second opening.  I’ll be doing a write-up of my experience so far, what I’m using the product for in this business, and a special bonus guide on what I learned from the first UYF guide launch.  It’s going to be a lot of fun for anyone interested in small business.

So from May 12th –> May 18th, we’ll just call it “blow up your business” week around here, as two of my favorite people finally share their expertise with the world! 

Sell Your Crap…

Last, but not least, I’ll be working heavily on my second guide, which will be titled “Sell Your Crap”.  I think it’s more realistic that it’ll be released in early June, however it could hit the digital shelves later this month!  Either way, it’ll be consuming a big part of the business side of things around here in May.

As you all know, 90% of my effort and content will remain 100% free.  I’ll continue to openly share our journey to eliminate our debt, our battle to avoid accumulating clutter, and the ups and downs as we attempt to pursue our passions!

I appreciate your support and am looking forward to an exciting May!

This post is going to serve a couple purposes.  I want to update everyone on our travel “situation” (especially those who don’t follow me on Twitter or on Facebook).  And I also want to shed light on a tough crossroads that Courtney and I have found ourselves.

For anyone who doesn’t know, we are currently back home in Indiana. We’ve been home for a couple months now.  Undoubtedly, this yields two questions…

1. Why did you decide to come home?
2. When/where are you going to go next?

Unfortunately, neither of these questions have a single sentence answer!  (I know, right)

Why we decided to come home…

From the beginning, we had designed our initial overseas adventure to last a year.  In the end, we cut it a couple months short of that when we chose to leave Thailand early and fly back to Indiana.

Our decision to come home was prompted by two factors:

1. A private issue in our family that, while it didn’t require that we come home, encouraged it.
2. The fact that we were incredibly burnt out.

It would be convenient to say that #1 played the largest role…  that it was out of our control.  But that’s not the case.  The reality was that we were burnt out and looking for the first justification we could.

Our international travel has been divided up into three distinctly different experiences.  When we first arrived in Australia, we had no clue what we were doing and were frequently changing locations.  We were running on pure adrenaline, having just set forth on something we had previous thought to be impossible.  There was stress, but everything was new and interesting and compelling.

As the weeks wore by, we started to encounter our first real troublesome set of problems with visas and finding jobs.  In other words, it only took a couple weeks for our new fairy tale to turn back into real life…  it happened quickly.  Admittedly, we lost some of the “living in the moment” attitude in our quest to make the lifestyle more than a month long vacation.

As many of you know, our search led us to New Zealand where Courtney landed a teaching gig.  This entered us into the second clear phase of our travel.  We spent right around 6 months living in one location in downtown Auckland.  Courtney worked the 9-5, as I played stay-at-home-dad and poured nap time and evenings into this blog.

This was our true first taste of living abroad.  Really living.  We were spending less than we earned (while stationary) and if we had wanted, we could have stayed indefinitely (Courtney was offered to stay another two years at the school).  It felt good to know that we had “accomplished” a big part of our goal, but it was far a fairy tale.

After saving a little bit more money, we then entered into the third phase.  We spent two weeks driving the South Island of New Zealand.  To be honest, this was my absolute favorite part of the entire experience (I think Courtney’s too).  We had spent 6 months rather stationary and were ready for another adventure.

But we didn’t stop there. Looking back I don’t regret our decision to head to Thailand.  Part of me may have chosen to either stay in NZ or come back home for a pit stop if I had to make it again.  But missing out on Thailand would have meant missing out on a lot of new experiences and growth, not to mention missing out on meeting several amazing people.

For starters, we found out that Thailand really wasn’t for us.  We didn’t dislike our experience and it seems like an amazing fit for a decent portion of people.  It just didn’t speak to us.  We didn’t connect on a deep level.

To be honest, the cards were stacked against Thailand. We were on more limited funds by this point.  We had just spent two weeks camping and driving.  We had unreasonable expectations on what it would be like (and how cheap it would be).  On top of that, we were experiencing a new “phase” with Milligan.

When we started traveling, Milligan was just 13 months old.  She could walk, but wasn’t interested in that form of transportation for too long.  When it was time to nap… she napped, whether that was in a hostel, a backpack, or a bus.  Most importantly, she hadn’t yet realized that screaming in a foreign place, surrounded by strangers, got her a boatload of attention very quickly.

Towards the end of our stay in the apartment in New Zealand things were different.  She wanted to walk everywhere.  She only liked her backpack about 20% of the time.  If there were cool things going on, she’d want to be up and exploring… not napping (missed naps are never a good thing).  Oh, and she quickly realized that screaming on a completely packed, completely silent rail train in the middle of Bangkok got everyone’s attention… quickly.

It wasn’t all bad, though. Most of the time in Thailand was actually spent in a private, pool-side Bungalow, across from another location independent family.  Milligan quickly made friends with the all female staff and genuinely had a blast.  But the on/off nature of her journey into the “terrible twos” weighed on Courtney and me.

Looking back, I don’t think that Milligan was the problem.  I think that self-generated stress on my part clouded my perception of what was going on.  Under stress, I only concentrated on her tantrums and not the 80% of the time she was smiling, running around, and saying Thai phrases like “thank you” and “bye-bye”.

I think my short comings were in my failure to be fully present, because of the stress of this blog (specifically monetizing all my hard work) and the stress of ongoing travel.  I think very little of it had to do with the environment or our schedule, both of which found decent grooves.

Whatever the cause, we were presented with an opening to come home… and we took it.  It wasn’t a snap decision.  We thought out the pros/cons and just decided there was nothing wrong with cutting the trip short a few months.  We did incur extra cost, but were able to mitigate a lot of that by finding a deal on airfare.

We ended up dipping into our emergency fund to make it home (on the flights), but it was a decision that we deemed worth it.

Since coming back to Indiana…

After two pit stops (including a weird one in Hong Kong) we finally landed in Chicago a full day after we boarded the plane in Ko Phi Phi, Thailand.  As we went through customs, I handed our passports to the guy working the incoming arrivals section.  He scanned all three passports, checked our faces against our photos and then looked up at me and said…

“Welcome home.”

We still had a short flight from Chicago to Indianapolis, but I actually teared up after hearing those words.  It may be hard to understand the situation and I fully realize there are thousands of people whom spend much more away on much more important causes (military, international volunteers, etc…).

At the time we were under plenty of stress, had minimal sleep on 24 hours worth of flights, and knew our families were waiting for us after our 35 minute flight to Indy.  I just felt… relieved.

After a couple weeks of staying with family, Courtney and I reevaluated what we wanted to do.  We knew we needed a break, but weren’t about to sign a year lease somewhere.  A year just seemed way too long to commit to anywhere on the planet.

Ultimately, we found a three bedroom house for rent and negotiated no deposit and only a 6-month lease.  We knew this would give me time to finishing launching a product that had been in the works for months and months and would let us weigh some of our future options.

Well, we’ve been here going on 2.5 out of 6 months now. As you know, I finally did finish and launch Unautomate Your Finances (thank you again!).  Courtney decided to take a two-month maternity opening at a local school (actually one we both attended in elementary) and for the first time in her life Milligan is going to daycare with a local homeschooling family.

So that’s the update. It’s not as sexy as some of the past, but we are already feeling recharged.  It’s awesome to have the support of our family and I know they enjoy having Milligan around.  I’ve been able to make some big strides with turning this blog and my writing into a full-time business.

Coming home was a fantastic decision.  That said, we are itching at what to do next.  We are at a crossroads.

What’s next…  where… when… how long…

We don’t know.  We don’t know where.  We don’t know when.  We don’t know for how long.

Well, we do know we have a little over 3 months left here at least.  Courtney will be finishing out her temporary teaching gig in 5 weeks and I’m diligently working on product number #2 (“Sell Your Crap” guide). 

But in 3.5 months we have a really, really big decision.  One that has been weighing on us.

First, I firmly believe we could do anything. That’s a good feeling to have, but at the same time, not one that helps with the decision making process.  We’ve consider going to South America, RV’ing around the U.S., staying in Indiana for another year, and even staying permanently and having babies and houses (I know, right).

To be honest, there is no clear choice.  Both Courtney and I feel that it still isn’t the right time to plant our roots.  And even if it was, neither of us is fully comfortable with Indianapolis as the choice.

The only reason in the entire world we’d stay in Indiana is our family.  Problem is, that’s a big reason.  We are really blessed to have an overwhelming amount of support while we are here.  Not a weekend goes by where we aren’t visiting family in some fashion, sometimes 3 or 4 locations every weekend.  It’s something we really missed while traveling.

But is family, and only family, reason enough to stay in Indianapolis? It’s tough.  Every other day I waiver, but it doesn’t feel right.  At least not right now.

The longer we stay here, the more the area is drawing us to make it permanent.  We are accumulating more and more stuff, despite trying to keep things minimal.  Courtney is slowly being pulled to consider a more permanent position and I’m even having thoughts of real estate and property management again (part-time).  It’s like an unidentifiable life force that gets stronger and stronger each week we stay.

But we just spent the last 2 years fighting against a very similar life force that was taking us down a path we didn’t necessarily want.  In fact, the core of this blog… the core of our philosophy and journey has been not to allow those life forces to pull us in a direction we didn’t want to go.

As it stands, neither Courtney or I want to stay in Indianapolis longer than another year.  We’ve decided that.  But staying another school year (until next summer) has a lot of benefits.  Courtney could get a full-time position and with the projected success of my business/writing income over the next 3-6 months, we could likely attack a BIG portion of our student loans.

At the very least we could once again buckle down and save tens of thousands of dollars if we wanted.  It’s not only possible, it’s likely… if we chose to stay another year.

But I’m scared.

I’m scared that staying that extra time will generate even more excuses.  I’m scared the life force will catch up to us and we’ll have a mortgage, and a bowling league, and a big screen t.v.

In addition, staying a year, but knowing you are leaving is tough.  We’ve done it the last two years in different spots.  You want to join a church, but know you will be leaving.  You want to deepen relationship with local friends, but know you’ll be ditching them in less than a year.  There are countless activities where you say…  well, this would be nice to do if we weren’t leaving.

So you end up living a half-assed, gimped life, because you are scared of entering into an experience that will keep you tied down.  Too much thirst for not being tied down, means you suddenly find yourself living with single-serving friends, in single-serving social settings, pursuing single-serving passions.

I’m not sure there is a way to have both.  I’m not sure there is a way to live “in the moment” and as passionately as if you planned on doing something the rest of your life, but then pack up and leave it.  Lots of “lifestyle designer” and “travel hackers” claim to have found it.  But I’m not sure I believe any of them.

I know one thing.  We are neither “lifestyle designers” or “travel hackers” and we certainly haven’t found the sweet spot.  And honestly, the spot is going to be different for each and every person/family.  A female solo-travler, a male solo-travler, a young couple, a retired couple, a young family of 3, or a family of 8 roaming the countryside.  They aren’t even all fruits, let alone the same fruit.

Ultimately, I think that we still want to have travel as part of our permanent lifestyle. But I think it looks different from our first trip out into the world.  I think it involves having a home-base (wherever we decide home is) and traveling for 6-month on/off.  Maybe 3 months in one location, 3 months in another.  Staying in one place and really getting to experience one culture.

Let’s get an apartment in Argentina for 3-month and then hop over to a cabin in Alaska for another 3, before returning home for the summer/winter.  Something like that.

We’ve not even touched 95% of the world and I’m not o.k. with getting hit by a bus tomorrow and knowing that.  The older Milligan gets the more of the world I want her to experience.  That’s the real priority for me.

So here we are.

I know there isn’t a right answer.  And I know a lot of you may not be able to relate to the specifics.  But our journey, both the ups and downs… the impulses and the hesitations, are a core part of this blog.  And sharing our experience, not only captures it, but helps me reflect on it.

I don’t want “do what you love” to just be a saying in the banner of this site.  Courtney and I both deeply believe in it and want it to be a core principle of our life.

But how can you “do what you love” when you have no idea what you… love?

Heck, maybe I’ll just throw up 10 options and have you all vote on it.  That seems unlikely to backfire…  o.O

Note:  If you made it this far…  thanks.  I’m pumped to have you along for the ride! 

photo by monkeywing

It’s alive…  it’s a-liiiiiive!

I warned you yesterday it was coming and as it turns out I wasn’t bluffing!  Unautomate Your Finances is 100% live and downloadable…  right now!

And you know what?  I’m proud.  I’m really proud of it. I’m glad I took the time and the space to do it right.  I’m glad I didn’t half-ass it when I had the chance.  I’m glad I didn’t rush to launch it last week.

It’s here… and I’m pumped.

To be honest, focusing all my energy and passion into compiling this guide has been emotionally draining.  It was a big, big project I bit off (25,000 words is at least half of a substantial print book).  But it was a important process for me to go through.

In the end, looking back through our experience over the last 2 years and my experience sharing it will you over the past year was… enlightening.  And the end result… the product that sits ready for you today… well, I’m just excited now.

Seeing the end result has re-energized my passion for personal finance.  It’s reinvigorated my commitment to not only create an empowering financial life for Courtney and me, but to share this journey with as many people as will listen.

Some of you that have been around a while on this site have wondered when I was going to be back to “full steam”.  Well, I can assure you…  this guide is me kicking back down the door and announcing I’m here to stay!

And one last thing.  I can’t promise you that every premium product I release is going to impress you.  I can’t sit here and predict that I’ll hit a home run every time.  That would just be silly.  But I can tell you this…

Unautomate Your Finances will impress you. I’m positive of that.  I poured everything I could into it.  I packed it with every ounce of inspiration, psychology, and tangible tip I had.  And, most importantly, I kept it all very affordable (priced way less than almost everyone I respect in the online world suggested…).

Look, I’m not great at the “selling” part of this equation.  But I am good at one thing:  being transparent and being passionate.  So how’s this:

If you are on the fence… give me a shot.  Give the guide a test run. I set out to really blow some minds with this first one.  I’m trying to convert raving fans.

If for any reason you aren’t impressed, send me a one sentence e-mail asking for a refund.  I’ll grant it instantly, in full.  You don’t have just 30, 60, or even 365 days… this is available as long as I’m alive. I call it the “As long as I have a pulse” guarantee. 

Head on over and get a copy of the guide!

Some site changes:

Fans of the site will notice some changes to support the new guide.  I’ve added a small badge over into the sidebar and a banner on single post pages.

I’ve also added the MvD Store to the Navigation Bar.  Right now, it just directs to Unautomate Your Finances, but as I expand my products I’ll start to fill out a more diverse store front for you. 

Ways you can help the guide:

I’m insanely fortunate to have such a passionate following.  Many of you really, really believe in what our community has become here and I appreciate all your support.  If you’d like to help get the guide out in the hands of more people, here are a couple shortcuts to help:

• Give it a thumbs up on StumbleUpon!

• Share the guide on Facebook!

• Retweet the guide out to Twitter!

• Bookmark it on Delicious!

Note:  These links all help the actual landing page, not this particular post!    Thanks so much!

******

If you are a blogger, community organizer, or business owner and have an audience or customer base that could benefit from this content, there’s a 100% free affiliate program for genuine people who want to share!  E-mail me for details:  Baker @ ManVsDebt.com

Today, Courtney and I wanted to share the next leg of our adventure:  Thailand.

After being faced with a very tough decision, we’ve finalized the following schedule:

• Courtney will finish out her teaching through Dec. 16th.
• We will be flying from Auckland to Christchurch, NZ on Dec. 17th.
• Dec. 17th -> 30th, we will be touring the South Island of New Zealand as planed.
• On Dec. 31st, we will fly from Christchurch, NZ into Melbourne, Australia.
• On January 7th, after a week in Melbourne, we will fly into Bangkok, Thailand.

What the…  didn’t you guys just get set-up in Auckland?

Yes, we did.  In fact, we worked very hard to get sponsored for employment, secure a work permit, and adapt to downtown living.

And Courtney’s employment has gone very well.  She loves the school she is at and they had opportunities to offer if we wanted to stay for another school year.  Over the course of the last month or so, we’ve had to decide between three options:

1. Stay in New Zealand for another full year.
2. Return home for the holidays and reassess our situation.
3. Continue to travel to a different country.

All options had positive and negatives.  Staying in New Zealand is only possible if Courtney works full-time in order to have the proper visas.  Continuing to travel is only possible with an increased income and in an affordable country.  And returning home carried a risk (even if small) of not leaving again.

In the end, we decided to rule out committing for another year in New Zealand.  While we’ve honestly enjoyed our time here, there aren’t enough unique benefits to overcome the strengths of being closer to our family, friends, and the increased working opportunities that come from being in the U.S.

But returning to the U.S., even if temporary, wasn’t the perfect solution either.  If monetarily possible, we wanted to try to get a more diverse cultural experience on this side of the world before making the long haul back to the other side.

And so, after much research, reflection, and forecasting we decided to dedicate at least two months to exploring Thailand before returning home or committing another year’s time in New Zealand.

Why Thailand?

Well, it fits nicely for several reasons.

First, it’s a more unique culture experience than either Australia or New Zealand.  Neither of us have been to any part of Asia, so we’d like to see a small slice while we are relatively close.  Thailand appears to be a great gateway to the rest of Southeast Asia.  It’s not too risky, but hopefully will stretch our comfort zone a little.

Second, it’s relatively affordable.  If we needed to (which we may), I could increase my freelancing to fully cover our living expenses (especially in the short-term).  It’s much more reasonable for our mobile income to support our travels there than many other more ‘westernized’ options in this region.

Third, I have some contacts/friends in the area.  For example, Cody McKibben of ThrillingHeroics.com calls the region home and has already spent a considerable amount of time advising me on different issues.  I’ve also talked to a handful of other people who live in Thailand or who will be traveling to the region during the same time.  These connections help us a great deal in making our plans.

How long?  Where to after Thailand?

That’s a great question.  We want to leave it as open as possible as we don’t know what to fully expect.

However, our initial guesses put us staying for two months, before heading to the U.S. in early March.  The visa that looks most desirable last 60 days.  In addition, we are considering heading to Austin, TX for the SxSw conference in March.

Either way, it’s unlikely we stay past April as Milligan turns two years old in the middle of the month.  Those of you that travel with kids know that two years old is a big deal.  In general, she will no longer be considered an infant, nor allowed to fly as a ‘lap seat’.  This will cause our cost for international airfare to increase by a significant amount.

While it’s likely we will visit our family in the spring, we aren’t going to book the flight until we see what Thailand is like.  If we did return home, I imagine that remaining mobile will still be big part of our plans.  We’ve brainstormed what traveling around domestically could look like and have also brought up that neither of us have been to Europe.  Things could get interesting next summer. 

Help us with planning!

For now though our focus is on our self-tour of the South Island of New Zealand in December.  We also have a week to plan in Melbourne (will probably Couchsurf), which includes New Year’s Eve!  Lastly, we’ll be brainstorming potential spots to hit while in Thailand.

So long story short, if you have any recommendations for us… let them fly!

If you live in or have recently traveled to Melbourne or Thailand please leave your tips, tricks, and can’t-miss experiences below. If you’ll be in either of those areas yourself, we’d love to meet you!

photo by flydime

Since we left for overseas in early June, our budgeting has been on one hell of a roller coaster ride.  For the year and a half leading up to the trip, we were budgeting ninjas!  We had grown comfortable, become great at predicting expenses, and really found our budgeting sweet spot.

Long story short, we had no idea what we were in for!  Traveling like this was a shock to our budgeting system.  We’ve had extreme success in areas like lodging and food, set against the occasional huge spike in categories such as airfare and visas.

These ups and downs prompted us to finally launch the financial transparency project here at the start of October.  It was great timing as we were starting to settle in more than we had in the months prior.

From a psychological standpoint, the project has been a huge success.  Courtney and I have felt much more compelled to justify any impulse purchases.  As we hit our budget limits for the month, it forced us to look twice as hard on whether we could hold off on those categories (although we still exceeded our limits in some cases).

Our October Numbers

New Zealand Income: $2395.19 NZD – [$1720.23 USD]

New Zealand Expenses: $2907.04 NZD – [$2087.84 USD]

U.S. Income: $668.80

U.S. Expenses: $521.04

Places we failed to project properly:

• Didn’t know that one of Courtney’s paychecks would be 60% of normal, due to fact that she hadn’t accrued full holiday pay.  Although, she’ll make this up over December holiday.
• Rent is paid weekly in New Zealand and this was a 5 week month for our rent.  We only projected 4 weeks.
• Utility bonds (deposits) were more than we anticipated.
• We did not plan for expenses accrued when obtaining Driver’s License.
• Our washer was broken upon moving in.  Spent $40 NZD at LaundryMat before it was fixed.
• I bought two extra domain names, causing ‘Business Upkeep’ to exceed projected.  (Although they are good ones for future projects)! 

Here’s how our discretionary spending categories ended:

The above screen shot shows both positives and negatives.

The negative side is we did exceed 3 of the 5 categories we wanted to actively control.  That’s obviously not a good success rate.  However, upon closer noticed we saved more in our ‘blow’ category than we overspent in the others.  As we started to go over, we intentionally spent less out of this category to make up for it.

However, the point of the ‘blow’ category is not to simply make up for our other mistakes.  If that were the case, our whole budget would just be one big Misc account.  We subdivided these categories intentionally, because we wanted to control them.  So we need to buck up, make less excuses, and spend our ‘blow’ category on experiencing New Zealand while we are here (not covering our Subway visits and household purchases).

Changes for November

Most notably we are going to be adding a discretionary budgeting category for our upcoming South Island trip in December.  Since we’ve already started incurring minor expenses, I want to keep a separate tally of these to make sure this event doesn’t get our of hand.  We’re currently budgeting $2500 USD for this, which includes airfare, extending visas, getting driver’s license, renting a camper, any hostels, bungee jumps , food, gas, insurance…  you get the point.

This new budgeting category will remain on the finances page through the end of the trip in late December.

Other big changes include raising the ‘Business Upkeep’ category from $50 to $500! That’s not a typo.  The e-book will be launched in November and there are some expenses leading up to launch (including some minor work on the site).  The point of an increased expense budget is, of course, increased income this month.  I expect this to rise significantly over October.  *crosses fingers*

We also are expecting for Courtney to receive a $2000 NZD relocation grant sometime in November.  This is something she qualifies for as part of accepting the job to teach in New Zealand.  Unless something unforeseen falls through, we plan to allocate this against the cost of the South Island trip. 

How was your October?

How did your budgeting (or lack of budgeting) turn out in October?  How are you adapting or changing your budget for the final two months of the year?

Lastly, feel free to include any tips and/or observations for us.  Budgeting while mobile like this has been a much more difficult undertaking than when we were more stable back in the U.S.  We’d love to hear your suggestions!

It’s been a while since I updated everyone on our ‘War on Debt’.

Why?  Well, I don’t know for sure.  Maybe because very little has changed since we’ve been overseas.  Maybe because there have been more sexy things to talk about.  I guess our foot has kind of come of the gas a little.

“But… but… you talk about passion… and intensity…  and focus…  like every other post!”

Yes.  Yes, I do.

“So…  I guess this is awkward…  this kind of makes you a hypocrite, right?”

Well… it’s complicated.

This was an actual conversation I had with myself not too long ago.  “It’s complicated” was the best I could come up with.

You know, I try really hard to walk-the-walk.  It’s something that’s very, very important to me.  I try to be transparent, open, and most of you know I don’t hesitate to point out my failures.

But this issue really gets me.  After all, the name of the site isn’t:

www.mantravelsaroundtheworldwhilehepaystheminimumonhisstudentloans.com

Hmmmmm, I wonder if that’s taken.

In my defense, though…

In my defense against myself, I would like to point out three things to me.

1. It wasn’t always this way. Courtney and I spent 16 months with the pedal to the flippin’ metal.  We purged everything from our life.  We lived on 1/3 of one salary.  We slaughtered $18,000 in consumer debt and saved up nearly $17,000 in cash for our trip.  The last few months before we left, we even moved back in with family to keep the intensity maxed.  I’m proud of this stage of our journey.
2. We planned for this. Everything was intentional.  We knew we’d pay the minimums on our student loans for a year, which is why we saved extra.  We’ve always planned to have our $5,000 emergency fund no matter what (even if it meant pulling the rug out from the trip and going home).  And we told ourselves it was o.k. to spend the rest on this trip.  It was deliberate and we sacrificed for it.
3. We’ve stabilized our income/expenses. It took a little longer than expected, but we’ve accomplished finding a job, getting an apartment, and creating an overseas lifestyle where we could spend less than we earn.  We are able to live on less than Courtney’s income here and my freelance work pays for the minor business expenses and the student loan payments.  There’s not a lot of room, but technically we are cash flow positive.

Now that the excuses are out of the way…

Let’s face the facts now.

Fact: Courtney and I spent between $8000-9000 so far on the trip (the far, far majority of that on international airfare).

Fact: We could’ve stayed home, delayed the trip 18-24 months, both worked full-time (and me on weekends, too) and been 100% debt-free.  That would have required us to maintain the same intensity we had for the year and a half before our trip.

Fact: I could be working full-time here, as well.  We’d love for one of us to stay home with our daughter, but I *could* be working and sending money back to pay on debt.

Fact: We are planning on dropping another $2500-3000 USD on a 3 week tour of the South Island (NZ) in December.  (Although once again this is planned and we are paying for everything upfront and without credit…  oops, there go the excuses again).

Fact: We aren’t saving a penny for retirement.  We’ve prioritized the trip, building up business income, and our debt all before retirement.

Fact: We haven’t exactly been a shining example of traditional personal finance wisdom.

Don’t get me wrong, half of me loves what we are doing.  It really does.  But the other half wonders whether we copped out.  Whether we quit early, got lazy, and started justifying.  Sure maybe we didn’t fall into the typical ‘lifestyle inflation’ pattern, but isn’t what we are doing just another form of it?  Lifestyle Design Inflation, maybe?

Our remaining debt…

I’ve also added the table below to our permanent Finances page for future reference.

Note:  For those of you that don’t know, back in the first week of this blog I gave military-sounding codenames to our remaining debt.  I’ve decided to keep them…  I kind of like the way they sound!

As you can see, we still owe a respectable amount of debt.

For the time being, we are still going to maintain paying the minimum payments.  Our ‘year’ that we gave ourselves ends this coming April, at which point the plan in to re-enter attack mode.  Until then our priorities are as followed:

1. Never do anything that requires the use of NEW debt.
2. Never let our emergency fund dip below $5000.
3. Always at least pay the minimums.  None of that ‘deferring’ student loan crap.
4. Travel and experience the world as frugally as possible.
5. Build a mobile income of at least $3000/month.  (It’s no secret I plan for MvD to be a big part of this)
6. Have at least one of us staying home with Milligan.
7. Pay extra on student loans.

It’s my sincere hope that come April, we’re able to have a mobile income that allows us to maintain a frugal mobile lifestyle of travel.  We want to give ourselves $3,000/month to live.  Anything above that will be thrown at our debt according to our own Debt Tsunami method.

1. The Scouting Party. It’s not only the smallest, but is the last debt in my name.  We’ve been looking forward to the day we could put a bullet in it’s head for a long time now.
2. The Special Forces. It’s the second lowest balance and by far the highest interest rate.
3. CitiBank Guerrilla Troops. I hate CitiBank more than I hate Sallie Mae.  This is a random loan that requires a special way to pay it and a special log-in.  It annoys me.
4. Nellie Mae Airborne.  The remaining Sallie Mae’s at this point are lumped together (in two separate loans).  This makes a third loan, is close to the next lowest balance, and is relative in terms of interest rate to the others.

So, what do you think?  Am I a big, fat hypocrite?

There it is folks.  The raw and honest plan for the next 6 months of our life.  Like I said…  it’s complicated!

You can be honest, now.  Do you think we quit early?  Should I quit preaching about passion, intensity, and focus if I’m not going to back it up?  What about you… are you walking-the-walk?

I finally get to unveil a new feature on Man Vs. Debt that I’ve been putting off for way too long.

From this day on, Courtney and I will be publicly sharing our financial life on a permanent page of the site.  We’ll be tracking our income, expenses, balances, and budget out in the open.  I’m certainly not the first blogger to share part of their financial life, but it’s our goal to make this as interactive and thorough as possible.

For some this may seem very radical, while for others nothing may seem unusual.  The name is adopted from the concept of Radical Transparency and I have to give credit to Leo Babauta for finally prodding me into action with his own project.

Why?

That’s a fantastic question.  Besides the personal benefits we’d receive from tracking privately, there are three primary reasons why I’ve decided to publicly undertake this project:

1. To practice what I preach. It’s no secret that I’m a firm believer in the power of tracking your income and expenses.  It was one of the keys to our own financial turn-around.  I’ve found that many people love to talk about the benefits of this practice, but few actually follow through consistently (this include us bloggers, too).  Since we started traveling, Courtney and I have fallen off the bandwagon.  No more.  If we are going to talk-the-talk, we are going to walk-the-walk
2. To prove it can be done. This might seem a little extreme, because we all know it can be done.  Heck, maybe we’ve done it ourselves or certainly know others.  Even still, I want someone to be able to look at our tracking and say, “There… right there…  here’s what they are doing… here’s how they are doing it…  if they can do it…  we can do it…” Am I dreaming?  Maybe.  But if I can model the value in this to just one other person, it’ll be worth it.
3. To leverage group accountability. Yep, I’m using you.  Whether anyone ever views the page or not, I have a perceived notion that all of you will be watching me!    Even in the days leading up to this project, I’ve witnessed this effect.  There have been several times where I might have splurged a little bit, but knew that I’d be launching the initial data here.  It will put added pressure on us to plan and justify our expenses ahead of time.  And don’t worry, we’ve budgeted plenty for ‘blow’ money, so we’ll have room to fudge up. 

Why should I care?

Maybe you shouldn’t?  Maybe no one will.  I’m not 100% sure of the result. There are clear benefits for me and I believe that sharing the information has the potential to help others, too.

Recently, I’ve had a noticeable increase in the amount of people asking me questions about our expenses while traveling.  This will also allow interested people to see the difference in expenses and cost of living.  Our finances will play a large role in deciding whether we travel more, stay here, or return home post-December.  I’m sure a few will be interested to see the numbers behind our decision.

Aren’t you trying to build a business?

Well, duh. I have no problem letting everyone know that I’m planning for blogging (and related activities) to fully support my family’s needs in the future.  In fact, I’ll be starting to monetize select parts of the work I’ve been doing in the coming weeks.  For me this is the perfect time to start sharing our finances.

Whatever income I’m able to build will be with the help and support of you guys, so I have no problem being up front and honest with those numbers.  Sharing my business expenses will also help keep me focused and lean.  Once again, right now these expenses are very minimal (as is the income), but as both the numbers grow, I hope someone somewhere can learn from watching me go through it live. 

Why PocketSmith?

The data that I’ll be sharing is displayed through custom-designed WordPress widgets that automatically pull from my PocketSmith account.  Meaning this will save me a ton of time, energy, stress…  man, it’ll save me a lot.

A little over a month ago, I was turned onto PocketSmith by another blogger.  I usually don’t dig too deeply into budgeting software (I prefer pen & paper as many of you know), but a couple features caught my eye.  The methodology is focused on ‘forecasting’ your upcoming expenses, which is really just a unique spin on budgeting.  And to be honest the ’spin’ works for me.

I actually like going into the calender view, plotting my expenses, and watching how it affects my forecasts.  The main principles of the software are incredibly simple, but by setting up multiple calenders you can make it as comprehensive as your little heart desires (although my heart loves to keep it simple).  Liking a budgeting software was a little weird for me, but it got even more weird when I found out the PocketSmith team was based in New Zealand.

We ended up meeting in person and this project is the result of many, many hours of work on their end (much less by me).  We actually have plans to enable complete access to our personal PocketSmith account in the future, meaning anyone would be able to go in and view (not edit) our calenders and visually track our progress on goals, debt, and other categories.  We are still working out the kinks in that, however in the mean time the PocketSmith team build these custom widgets to automatically share my data here.

I’m very conservative with who I partner and affiliate with, but I genuinely love both this software and the people behind it.  And don’t tell the PocketSmith guys, but I got the sweet end of the deal in this picture! 

Share your thoughts!

Hop on over to the dedicated page and share your thoughts on this project!  What do you think about it?  What would you like to see added?  This is sort of a ‘pet’ project of mine right now, so I’d really appreciate your feedback!

photo by Okko Pyykko

Net Worth Up Another $1,920!  Not Too Shabby!

May was another good month for us, but I’m afraid that the next two or three won’t be as pretty.  In a little over a week, we start our new journey into Australia where for the first time in a long time we will be spending more than we earn.  We have an intense plan to make this arrangement as short as possible as we job hunt down under!

Here are some of the financial events during the month of May for us:

• We are instituting 3 consecutive “No Spend Days” for the end of this month. That’s why I’ve decide to update the Net Worth and Budget a little early this month.  Our financial situation shouldn’t change one penny, at least until the 1st!
• My income slowly dwindled away throughout the month. I did a view miscellaneous consulting arrangements, and tied up some loose ends and transferred management of the properties I was taking care of.  Focused on a couple projects that have potential for monetization over the next couple of months.
• Courtney went back to a two paycheck month. We will receive only one more paycheck in June from her hard work, which we plan to stretch as far as it’ll go!
• We sold both of the cars. We sold the Nissan 240sx on the private market and finalized the sale of our Alero to a family member.
• We finished selling a lot of our personal belongings. Courtney made several hundred dollars at local garage sales and online listing portals this month.  Actually we don’t have much left to sell at all.

Overall, it was a fairly average month.  Although we paid down very little on the student loans (mostly due to when the interest/payments hit the accounts this month), we were able to sock away some additional money in savings.  Job hunting in a foreign country is scary, but luckily having our savings on steroids helps calm the nerves.

Potential Problem Areas With Out Budget!

Although we still have around a week left, our successes and failures with our three month budget are starting to become very clear.

• Grocery [$-172.80] - Luckily the bleeding has stopped here, since we now have enough food to get us by until we leave.  I documented our struggles with our grocery budget on a video post earlier this month.  As I noted, we could have done a lot more in terms of comparative shopping and couponing to help this category.
• Eating Out/Entertainment [$3.42] – We combined out Entertainment budget into our Eating Out budget, at the beginning of May when it became clear we weren’t going to make it any other way.  I’m proud to say that we staying within this categories’ limits.  My wife received a $30 gift card to a local restaurant as an award for being a great teacher from her school!  This helped us eat out once without having to front the cost!
• Medical [$-154.48] - Our medical budget took an unexpected hit from dental work that we decided to have done for Courtney.  Originally we hadn’t planned to have this done before we left, but decided to make an exception while we still had insurance through her employer.  In reality, we should have planned for this from the get go, but thought we could get by without it.

Some Of The Categories We Owned!

• Gas/Oil [$131.99] – It should be noted that we blew a tire out on the interstate which cost $66 dollars to replace.  Luckily, we had given ourselves a little room, in addition to being very diligent about carpooling whenever possible.  We have one more ~$30 tank probably and then we are done!
• Child Care [$135.00] - $100 of this was a mathematical error on my part when I counted the number of weeks we needed to have Milli in daycare.  The other $35 was for random sitter or two, which we never used.  We were fortunate to have family members that jumped at the chance to spend time with Milli when we needed it.
• Insurance [$84.71] – Apparently I also miscalculated how our insurance was billed.  I guess we paid over a month in advance technically.  This was down to $12.35 (which is what I expected), but when I canceled our policy effective on our leave date, we were sent a check for $72.36!  Once again, I made an error that benefited us.  I’d rather be lucky than good!
• Hair [$30] - I’ve been shaving my head for going on a year now to save money.  Recently, my wife has chopped off her hair as well (no, not shaved, just short).  This is mainly for convenience for traveling, but as a side benefit we have far less costs wrapped up in trims and products.
• Gifts [$60] - We had a couple occasions that came up that were going to require a gift.  Instead of spending money, we decided to give away our stuff.  For example, a friend of ours got married that loves boardgames.  Guess which happy couple got a wide variety of our extensive board game collection?  You guessed right!  We could have sold some of the more complex games, but they will like them and it saves us from having to sell and re-buy a picture frame or kitchen gadget.

Overall, we missed the boat on calculating several of the categories. Luckily, sometimes it fell in our favor.  We did a great job of cutting corners where we could, which I’m proud of.  In the future, I really wouldn’t suggest a three month budget to people.  It did help us keep track of things as the deadline for moving grew closer.  However, estimating the expenses is exponentially more difficult.  I think for Australia we will be sticking to zero-sum monthly budgets.

Future Battle Plans!

With my wife having her last day of school yesterday, we are now in full-bore Australia mode.  Our primary battle plans include securing basic employment and shelter and continuing to build online opportunities.  Once we have a dependable source of income again we plan to lower our savings and emergency fund to knock off a couple of the student loans in our cross-hairs.

Using the Debt Tsunami approach, we currently plan to execute our war on debt in this order:

• Sallie Mae Scouting Party – ($1,535.95) (4.21%) – Last debt in Adam’s name, lowest balance
• Sallie Mae Special Forces – ($3,365.23) (9.3%) - 2nd lowest balance, 1st highest interest
• Citibank Guerrilla Troops – ($4,999.54) (4.37%) - Lone Citibank debt, similar balance
• Nellie Mae Airborne Division – ($5,893.90) (7.25%) – Lone Nellie Mae debt, similar balance
• Sallie Mae Delta Unit - ($3,445.54) (5.875%) – Snowball the remaining Sallie Mae Loans
• Sallie Mae Gamma Unit – ($7,590.28) (5.8%) - Snowball the remaining Sallie Mae Loans
• Sallie Mae Beta Unit  -  ($11,299.97) (6.125%) - Snowball the remaining Sallie Mae Loans
• Sallie Mae Alpha Unit -  ($15467.54) (5.875%) - Snowball the remaining Sallie Mae Loans

How did your May turn out?  Were you able to stay within budget? Did you net worth take you for a ride? Let everyone know by leaving a quick comment below!

Over the last couple of weeks, I’ve had a flurry of questions through e-mail and twitter involving our upcoming move to Australia.  In reality, I’m honored that people feel connected enough with the site and my family to want to know more details.  It’s an awesome feeling.

By far the most common statement is something along the following lines:  Wait…  So you are actually moving?  As in having no immediate plans to return?  Why in the world are you doing that?  What’s in Australia?

In short, my wife and I are moving to Australia because we can.  I know that’s a little cheeky, but there really isn’t a huge underlying reason.  We are just going to see what life has to offer.  No more, no less. There are no jobs, family, friends, or even a single person we know that will be waiting for us.

We’ve been talking about backpacking for the last 3-4 years on and off.  It was something that we both felt was appealing on several levels.  We kept putting it off for one reason or another.  First we wanted to get married.  Then Courtney needed to finish up her degree.  Then we started a small business.  Then we wanted to be out of debt.  Then we got pregnant.

Society had set it’s trap and we we could smell the cheese from a mile away. We were living on someone elses predetermined plan.  Marry, Get Degree, Own Small Business, Make Babies, Get Promoted, Make More Babies, Buy A House… you get the picture.  There’s nothing inherently wrong with this series, unless of course it’s really the opposite of what you currently want.  It was the opposite of what we wanted.

Upon the birth of Milligan we decided to make what some people would call a radical decision.  We decided to sell our small business, ditch a rather stable career (teaching), declare war on our debts, sell all of our possessions, and head off to Australia within 1 year.

Why Australia?

There’s not as good as reason as you might want.  My wife spent a couple months over one summer in Australia and absolutely fell in love with the culture and the beauty of the place.  I, personally, have never been.  But I’ve talked to a lot of people who’ve all confirmed the same experience that my wife had.  I’ve had multiple people independently tell me that they spent months traveling the country and can’t remember a single rude experience from the locals.

What about jobs?

What about them?  We plan on finding some when we get there!  My wife is going to try and find some employment in the educational system.  I am going to concentrate on building my limited consulting income, along with several online projects I’m working on.  I’m also very interested in potentially working in the diving and/or sailing industries (very competitive I hear).  If a cool part-time opportunity came available I would certainly jump on it.

How long are you staying?

That depends on two factors.  How we feel once we get there and, of course, the job market itself.  We’ve made a commitment to only stay up to two months without securing some sort of employment.  We aren’t willing to drain all of our savings and strand ourselves.  It should also be noted that we will have around $5,000 in savings we will be leaving back for student loans and emergencies.  We’ve already bought round-trip tickets and can move the return date by paying $200.  We are completely prepared to return home in as soon as two months or stay for several years.  We aren’t locking ourselves into anything at this point!

What are you doing with all of your stuff?

Selling it.  We are only leaving behind one box of possessions with family.  This box contains some dishes/bowls we got for our wedding, our wedding pictures, some of Courtney’s travel journals, and a few of Milligan’s baby scrapbook crap.  Other than that it’ll fit into our two backpacks or it’ll be sold or donated.  I’m creating a list of our possessions (100 Thing Challenge style) and you’ll see more on this later.

Financial Hurdles Left To Jump

• Sell Car (Nissan 240SX)
• Cancel Car Insurance (effective Jun 6)
• Buy 2nd Backpack (Adam)
• Obtain Local Skype Number + Voicemail
• Pay for Visas
• Finish Updating Resumes
• Create list of everything we own (more later)
• Solidify dwelling for initial 1-3 days
• Organize Milli’s medical records
• Buy life insurance
• Freeze Courtney’s credit reports

Financial Implications and Budgeting Issues

The graph above is the exchange rate over the last 120 days.  As you can see earlier in the year 1 USD could fetch between $1.40-$1.50 AUS.  Even though, every dollar is now only getting $1.30 AUS, it’s still a far better rate than last summer when the ratio was basically 1:1.

The exchange rate is not something we want to rely on long-term, but it helps when calculating a rough budget.

Housing

As I’ve discussed before, we plan on staying in very cheap accommodations while exploring Cairns.  I’m talking to several potential hosts through sites like CouchSurfing, GlobalFreeloaders, and Hospitatilty Club.  If one of these hosts works out it’ll give us 2-4 days upon arriving to seek out and find a cheap monthly apartment.

Our local research of the area has shown that there are 2 bedroom semi-furnished apartments starting from $170 per week. Although the sky is the limit, we’ve found our realistic options run through around $250 per week.  That translates into roughly $700-1050 per month.  Taking into account the exchange rate (at least initially) and these are $550-800 USD per month.  This is certainly comparable to the market here in the Indiana.

Our biggest problem will be making sure we can rent on a month-to-month basis.  I’ve had several people reassure me that Cairns is a very transient city and is comfortable with month-to-month or even week-to-week arrangements.  Luckily, I have a couple years of Real Estate negotiating skills from being both a landlord and a tenant on my side. We’ll see!

Utilities

Researching the average amount of utilities on a smaller apartment has proven to be quite difficult.  The best information I’ve received has been from actual people who live in Australia themselves.  Once again I found them confirming around the same percentages as we have here in the Midwest.  For example, most seemed to think their utilities were around 10-20% of their rent, which has been about standard for us.

I guess you can make a huge difference if you can learn to live without air conditioning as much as possible.  Heat, of course, will not be a problem.  It’s freakin’ hot!

Transportation

As I’ve mentioned a couple times recently, we are planning on using a combination of public transportation and bicycles, at least initially. This will help keep costs extremely low and allow us to maintain flexibility.  If we get into a position where we absolutely need a car (for a specific job), then we’ve heard that there are many cheap options available in Cairns.  Apparently, it’s common for people to buy cars in Sydney, drive them for a month or two up the eastern coast and eventually need to sell them up in Cairns!

Health/Medical

This is where we anticipate the biggest increase from our current budget.  Currently, we have fairly decent insurance through the school system where my wife is employed.  We will be forced to get private insurance once we arrive in Australia.  Luckily, if we are able to find employee sponsorship we can get different types of visas, which enable us to take advantage of the public health care system at that point.

Food

Although Australia is an island, they are large and diversified enough not to have to import everything.  I’ve read a couple pieces of literature that point to food costs being around 15-20% higher overall. We aren’t horribly picky eaters (although I’m vegetarian), so we hope to be able to adjust our diets based on affordable/locally produced options.

Communication

We will be keeping in contact with every traveler’s best friend;  Skype.  We’ve enjoyed $9.95/month unlimited calls to Australia for the last couple of months while gathering data.  We already have both an AUS number and a U.S. number with voicemails attached.  We are considering using walky-talkies initially for those times when we need to split up to run errands, etc.  Hopefully, this will allow us to avoid cell phones at least until we have secured long-term employment.  It also should be noted that Internet will be a splurge. Not only is it needed for Skype, but is necessary for several of the online projects I’m working on.  Including this blog!

Overall

Overall, we are anticipating around a 30% increase in our typical budget.  We will be doing our best to minimize any extra expenses, especially until we can test the job market out a little.  We’ve done enough research to be comfortable, but certainly not enough to be an authority on the issue.  In the end, there is no way to be able to know the true cost of a relocation like this until you actually do it. All the websites, pamphlets, and phone calls go out the door once you step off the plane and have to go put the pieces together.

We are looking forward to the challenge.  We are embracing the adventure with opens arms. Most importantly, we are completely alright with the possibility of returning after just a couple months if things don’t go smoothly.  Whatever happens, I’ll be sure to keep those of you that are interested informed!

Have you ever done anything similar in your life?  Do you have any specific tips for traveling in Australia or with a small child?  Do you think we are crazy?  Join in on the discussion by commenting below!