We have travelled in debt in the past and would love to travel debt free in the future.
That is our plan. Can we do it? Of course! Will itchy feet push us on regardless. Who knows.
We don’t regret throwing in the towel when we did, selling everything, buying a new car and hitting the road. We were young (still are) and wanted to be free. We wanted instant gratification. Are we older, wiser, smarter? We’d like to think so but if push came to shove, probably not…….. we have a life full of knee-jerk reactions resulting in good decisions and bad….. but our life is an adventure and we wouldn’t have it any other way.
The work we picked up along the way would have made much more impact on our back pocket if we had not been sinking most our funds into our car loan. Our loan repayments were substantial at approximately a minimum of $250 a week. It was quite manageable when we had steady income however, not so manageable while flitting about the country side. We never missed a payment but it did make us think about when our next lot of work was coming along. In our favour it did allow us to run a very reliable vehicle. If we didn’t have the car loan in 10 weeks travelling alone we could have had an additional $2500 spendings/savings. That is a lot of cash while travelling. A LOT!
As mentioned we are aiming to one day travel debt free so we need to look at ways to reduce our debt down to nothing while still being able to live and explore from our current base.
Let us share some of our hints and tips with you.
- We have a high-interest savings account with ING and every extra cent goes in there.
- We try to pay bills on time to avoid late fees and bundle what we can together.
- Each loan repayment we pay is higher than the minimum which means we are always in front of our loan. We won’t let it break us.
- We apply Tax Return payments and any unexpected cash straight to your loan.
- Tighten the budget. It’s amazing what we can go without……and most you don’t even miss them.
We have found when we put our minds to it we can get money stashed and quickly.
Please share your ways to stash your money and get things paid off quick sticks?
One thing is for sure the bible says we are to owe no man. It seems like you are already working on that…whether you know it or not. Thanks for sharing!