Monday, Jan 20, 2025 at 18:43
I suspect that a lot of the 'full time traveller you tubers' have little in the way of a back up plan & that their full time lifestyle will cease when their money runs out. Few make 'liveable' money out of Youtube. Recently Karstan & Maxine said that each youtube video they release nets them around $600. Helpful money but not a salary. Many would get less. I would hate to be feeling the pressure of 'producing content' all the time, to be seeing my chosen lifestyle compromised by trying to appeal to others
As early retirees who choose a full time travel lifestyle our lifestyle whilst not as 'flamboyant' as some is one that we love & which we think is sustainable for as long as we want, or as long as our health allows.
The key to being in this position was a combination of frugal living, owning our
home & becoming debt free as early as we could - when I was in my mid 40's. We gave financial advisers the flick 20 years earlier than that after twice being shafted by them & lived a life of only buying what we could pay for & 'making do' whilst paying off what debt we had(mortgage) as early as possible. We weren't high flyers earning big money. Both of us were nurses. I retired from nursing in my early 40's and ran our small self sufficient hobby
farm (not a business) for 20 years & my wife continued working as a nurse until she was 59.
We sold our rural property & downsized, to a small house on 2.5 acres a short drive outside a major rural victorian city, & built a large shed with comfortable but modest accomodation inside, plus a large workshop. The shed has it's own driveway, separate to the house which we rent out. The nearby city has most major health
services & any other
services we may need in the future, but the location is just enough outside the city boundaries not to be 'threatened ' by burgeoning housing estates, but continues to increase in value as city
services get closer.
Rent plus us each getting small pro rata pensions from the UK largely keeps us going on the road, topped up now & then from our super/savings. Finding ways to live for free or very little have helped enormously. We spent almost two years on
Cape York for a cost of $0. During that time we paid a few bills back
home & saw our bank balance rise modestly. Currently we are negotiating what we hope will be another similar opportunity in the
Kimberley for 6 or 7 months. Living for nothing for half a year whilst having unique experiences without working our butts off means travelling for the other half of the year becomes a lot more affordable. We could get paid jobs if we wanted them, but we don't want to be employees. Too much like hard work with accompanying expectations & a different relationship with the property owners than we have with unpaid/mutual benefit arrangements.
Our income is close to, but under the tax free threshold. We live, quite comfortably on approximately the equivalent of the age pension. We could spend more, but believe living on this amount is sensible as later when our funds decrease & we eventually apply for an aged pension that we will be able to maintain our lifestyle if that is what we want to do.
That is about as much as I'm willing to divulge about our finances, but if you want to know more about our lifestyle
check out our (100% commercial free) blog. :)
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