Our Journey: Why It Took So Long to Fund a 6-Month Sabbatical
Let me begin by saying that I’ve dreamed of a ‘proper’ trip for many years. I distinctly remember, as a teenager, gazing at Google images of Bagan, Myanmar, and vowing I would visit one day. Now, having fulfilled that dream, during a short-ish trip back in 2018, I can say it’s definitely a contender for my favourite place I’ve ever been!
But anyway, it’s taken five years – perhaps slightly more actually! Which sounds like a long time to be saving for just a handful of months, doesn’t it? It doesn’t sound at all like what those people say online about quitting your job and becoming financially free in the time it takes you to watch one of their brain-rotting introductory videos. Just like their mentees ‘Phoenix’ and ‘India,’ who have now had six-figure turnovers in their first year. No, it’s nothing like that. Five years sounds a lot like prolonged sacrifice for what is basically a glorified holiday, right?
Well, as a chronic sceptic (or realist, depending on my mood), I don’t believe in or advocate any of the social media buzz that is filling people’s minds with romanticized dreams of becoming nomadic business owners on tropical beaches. I’ve harped on about that in other blogs too much already! I believe in realistic goal setting and proper plans – it’s the engineer in me… Well, actually I’m a terrible engineer, but I do like a good plan!
Ultimately, the plan can be boiled down to creating a beautiful chunk of money, substantial enough for you to go on your dream trip. The fine details of how you do it are really up to you. There are some fundamental pointers and perspectives that I will go into in a future blog, but I can’t be too prescriptive, because everybody’s situation is different. For example, you might be fortunate enough to have a large salary and low overheads, so saving could be quick and easy. Or, you might be able to stomach becoming a complete hermit, living off super-noodles and bags of lettuce, to maximise and expedite your saving! Really, it is each to their own, there is no right way. However, I will explain how I did it, and crucially why I did it this way.
Why Did It Take Five Years?
So, why did it take us over five years to save up the money? Well, as I have said in previous blogs, Covid rained on our parade, like a viral handful of turd flung all over our hopes and dreams. But, in the aftermath, it did get me thinking more seriously about risk and how uncertain everything is! Which is a bit of a sobering thought when faced with going on a six-month-long sabbatical that is unavoidably rather pricey. Then, when you get back, particularly in the UK, things continue to be rather pricey. In fact, I am not sure ‘pricey’ is a strong enough word for the UK… How about arse-puckeringly exorbitant!?
Anyway, unfortunately, I think you should assume that you will, in fact, return from the trip, so having a financial safety net of some description for your return is a must! Now, that isn’t to say that you definitely won’t crack the code and transcend us mere muggles to become a successful nomadic entrepreneur while abroad and move to Bali… It’s just not likely, is it?
The Safety Net Plan
After some deliberation, we decided that having a house as a ‘safety net’ for our return was a good idea. Rental costs in the UK are exorbitant, and trying to find a good place to come back to from halfway across the globe, seemed somehow impractical. Buying a property allowed us to better control our expenses, have a guaranteed place to return to after the trip, and even lease it short-term while we travel to earn some extra income! Truthfully, the primary reason it took five years to save for our trip was buying a house. It’s an expensive, annoying, painful, laborious, stressful, tedious, difficult, and arguably insane endeavour, but now we have some contingency and have reduced a chunk of our risk to a delectable, rich, velvety risk-jus.
Another factor we considered was the location of the house. We prioritized the area over the ‘quality’ of the house, opting for a ‘fixer-upper’ within our budget. Our logic was that a good location would make it easier to rent on a short-term basis – all part of the plan!
Reducing Monthly Costs
To reap the maximum benefits, you need to reduce your monthly mortgage costs as much as possible. This will have a compounding effect and improve just about everything, allowing you to save more and make it easier to price your property competitively when putting it on the market. We even went one step further and only looked for properties we could afford on one of our salaries. This made the search harder, and some compromises had to be made, but I would advise this to any couples looking to do similar. Of course it helps with saving, but handily, it further reduces your risk for when you return with considerably emptier pockets! If you are doing this alone, it’s still doable; just scale the house prices or the saving period as necessary!
Keeping Sane and Content
Saving slowed while we renovated the house, which, by the way, will have taken three years to complete when all is said and done. But this wasn’t the only reason it took us five years to save up! We also managed our lifestyle to make the years of DIY and saving sustainable for us, both physically and mentally… This meant allowing ourselves to embark on ‘mini-travel’ trips (see my blog on this topic!).
It’s all well and good to switch into ‘saving mode’ and start saying ‘no’ to all opportunities that involve using your debit card, but you don’t know what effect that will have on your mind over time. Some people can handle it, I am sure, but others may start to resent the trip they are so desperately saving for… This is NOT what you want, trust me. The last thing you want is to begin to wish you didn’t want this trip! A couple of things could happen:
- After a gruelling period of being a tight-fisted troll under a jagged rock, you finally make it to the trip, only to come to the painful realisation that you’ve tainted the whole experience for yourself and no longer feel the wanderlust. You may even feel like you’ve invested so much time and effort that now you HAVE to go through with it…
- By spending every waking hour saving money for the trip, or thinking about saving money for it, you may have put it on such a high pedestal that it’s doomed to disappoint. It will probably never reach the level you need to make the sacrifices feel worth it!
Make Your Day-to-Day Fulfilling
That’s a bit of a doom and gloom outlook, I know… Us bald blokes are always a bag of laughs. But if you see potential risks in what I described above, I recommend following our approach and saving steadily. Try to appreciate the process for what it is and strive for a balanced life as much as possible. One way to think about it, is to ensure your day-to-day life remains fulfilling enough to carry on with, even if the worst happens and your trip gets cancelled unexpectedly! For instance, as mentioned earlier, we made sure to travel in some capacity each year – it also helped us maintain our razor-sharp travel instincts. Thanks to these trips, I can still spot a shabby stand selling cheap meat on a stick from a thousand paces, with one eye closed and a hand tied behind my back!
Maintaining a balanced lifestyle alongside our savings strategy was crucial during the five-year wait. But if we had needed to extend our timeline by another year or two, we were prepared; it was sustainable for us.
The Side Hustle Conundrum
One more topic to touch on before I wrap up: ‘side hustles.’ Mary-Ann and I spent a lot of time trying to figure out ways to generate additional income streams. Which on the surface, is a bloody fine idea! However, as obvious as it may sound, we quickly discovered it’s not as straightforward as it seems. We all know that a side hustle requires a lot of work, is challenging, and demands inhuman levels of perseverance. But often, it falls apart before you even have a chance to put in the effort and showcase your glorious, god-like perseverance! It may sound trivial, but you really need a solid idea, which is increasingly difficult in an era where every man and his dog seems to be hustling.
Mary-Ann and I found the fruitless time, stress, and frustration of trying to develop a viable idea overwhelming. We wrote an impressively terrible book that I can’t even bear to look at these days, I attempted to launch a protein shake line, and we both dabbled in social media ventures. While a side hustle undeniably requires talent, business acumen, and creativity, it ultimately comes down to a numbers game. You’ll probably need to invest a significant amount of money upfront to have any chance of making a return later, which isn’t ideal when you’re saving for a sabbatical! Personally, I don’t believe it’s a risk worth taking in this scenario. So, unless you’re sitting on some kind of ‘goldmine idea’, I’d focus on the sabbatical, then have a blast at hustling once you’re back and ready for a new project.
In Summary
So, in summary, why did it take over five years to save for this trip? Well, aside from buying too much wine, we focused on laying out a solid, low-risk plan to ensure we wouldn’t be left high and dry when we return. Crucially, we managed to maintain our sanity and contentment throughout the process, which I consider essential, especially in today’s world!
Hope this was enlightening in some way!
Stay bald folks.
Toodles,
Jack
