The Road To Travelling! £15,000 In 12 Months! Follow My Journey :)

Savedotmoney

:hello::hello::hello: The Road To Travelling! £15,000 in 12 Months :hello::hello::hello:

"Don't regret the things you have done, regret the things you didn't do"

Current Savings - Total: £10,333.79/£15000

Welcome to my thread,

My name is Carl, I am 24 years old and I wanted to create a thread to keep a record of my journey to when I travel next year beginning 31st May 2014. I currently work full time and have already secured a year off travelling with my employer. It's booked, now it's time to get ready!

I am currently single having had two long relationships since the age of 16. The most recent one ended a few months ago and I have now made a promise I will learn more about myself and travel the world. It's been a tough sometimes but what doesn't kill you makes you stronger!

I am so excited to have this opportunity and I will make sure I make the most of it. I want to invite you to read my diary and follow me as I prepare for one of the most challenging journeys of my life so far. I don't usually do things like this so it will be interesting to look back and read it.

I will be drawing on a lot of advice from forum members, family and friends over the next year. Let's do this!!!

My target for my savings within 12 months from now until 31st May 2014 is £15,000. I believe this is a good achievable target! I will be documenting all of my figures/progress in separate posts below. Like most on this forum I have my own debts to clear and bills to pay so I will be writing about my progress with these.

I am to leave with a clean slate and return to start a fresh. I want to prove to myself how strong I am.

My diary:

1. My savings fund
2. My debts
3. My travel plans
4. The to-do list!

Savedotmoney

1. My savings fund

Total: £10,333.79

Breakdown:

Monthly saver 4% interest in Club Lloyds (£400 per month paid in by DD): £2400

Cash: £7933.79

Savedotmoney

2. My debts

Updated as of 22/01/2015.

All my debt is clear!

All I pay now is £12.50 a month for my 3 mobile phone rolling contract.

Savedotmoney

3. My travel plans

Here's what I am going to do so far!

- Flight to Ibiza on 31st May 2015
I'm staying in Ibiza for four months to work and increase my funds for travelling. I've always wanted to work a season in Ibiza. I've already paid deposit on my accommodation with four others (who seem nice). I have a job interview on 14th March 2015 and if I get the job I'll have a decent bar job before I go out there.

- Visit Belgium for Tomorrowland 2015 on 23th July 2015 until 28th July 2015
All my flights are booked and I managed to get my Tomorrowland ticket after an hour of trying. Over 100,000 tickets sold out within an hour! How lucky!

- Return to Ibiza for until 29th September 2015
Finish the rest of the season.

- 30th September 2015 flight booked to Perth Australia :eek:
Stay in Australia for four to five months and then fly on to New Zealand around February 2016 time.

Fly to Thailand and onwards! Countries to be decided.

At this moment in time I'm thinking of extending my break to two years and moving on to South America after Asia.

Savedotmoney

4. The to-do list!

• Arrange necessary jabs (I've had three jabs, yellow fever, Hep A and some other one I can't remember! I have typhoid and possibly a Hep B booster left)
• Pick countries to travel to - DONE!
• Sell items of property that are expensive that I do not need - I've been selling all sorts on eBay! I need to keep track of what I've made off of there.
• Buy travel insurance as a necessity! I'm still trying to figure out what is the best policy and how much I should really be paying.

Sell items of property that are expensive that I do not need

I've been on a selling spree and with the help of my Dad we are going to hold 3 or 4 boot sales in May to help raise money for my travelling. I have so much toot to get rid of stored away so I will update how much this raises!

jwil

Good luck, sounds fab!

Savedotmoney

jwil wrote: »

Good luck, sounds fab!

Thanks jwil :beer:

This week I've put a lot of my property on eBay that is not a necessity, fingers crossed I get the most I can. I'm going to use the proceeds from it to put towards paying two of my debts off. These need to be cleared before I go away, they are credit from Very.co.uk and also a Barclaycard initial Visa. I've paid around £270 off this month from my wages, I've updated my balances in my first posts.

I've also put away another £1000 in my savings, total updated!

Yesterday was bank holiday so that was double bubble, I will make sure that all goes in the savings as extra for next month!

killerpeaty

Hi Carl, sounds amazing what you plan to do.

I'm 24 and also a saver. You're more likely to get decent interest from current accounts than anywhere else at the moment, have you looked? You'll also avoid misusing your ISA this way (once you withdraw you lose that tax protection!) and you can join the clutches of us rate tarts.

Good luck.

Savedotmoney

killerpeaty wrote: »

Hi Carl, sounds amazing what you plan to do.

I'm 24 and also a saver. You're more likely to get decent interest from current accounts than anywhere else at the moment, have you looked? You'll also avoid misusing your ISA this way (once you withdraw you lose that tax protection!) and you can join the clutches of us rate tarts.

Good luck.

Thanks for that suggestion! Obviously I have paid some money into my ISA and my regular saver is ongoing. The regular saver pays at 6% which I will leave. My ISA is at 2.5% I believe. Would you take all your money out of the ISA or leave it as it is and start a new regular account with 5% interest rate? My bank account requires me to pay in at least £1k per month and some of these high interest rate bank accounts require £1k also. I am not sure I want the hassle of moving all of my bank accounts again if that makes sense. What do you suggest? :rotfl:

Savedotmoney

It's been a while since I've updated this so I'm going to get back to up to date and let you know how I've got on.

Long story short, I had a LOT of debt when I first started this thread. I have managed to clear it ALL. I have no debt at all now and all of my wages go towards savings. I've just sold my motor and cleared £12,500 which I'm really pleased about. I'm now on the road to saving £15,000 without the stress of the debt hanging over me. I also cleared a £3,000 credit card!

My savings for travelling currently sit at £7,266.84.

I have only saved another £2,200 since I started this thread but I have also used some funds to clear debt and some to prepare for travelling! Here are some milestones I have achieved:

• Got my New Zealand working visa
• Got my Australia working visa
• Booking a flight to Australia
• Booked a return flight to Belgium for Tomorrowland
• Booked my flight to Ibiza

In my calculations I've used about £1,700 on flights and prep for travelling so I need to make that back before the end of May which I am confident I can easily do with overtime, eBay, boot sales and other means! I'm in the process of setting up my travelling blog so I will post that soon.

I now save £1,800 per month minimum without other sources of income and overtime. My calculations mean that by time I leave in May, my savings will be £7,200 + £7266.84 = £14466.84 which is below my amount that I wanted saved. If I can make up the £1,700 then I'll be going away with over £16k. I need to work hard to get that back.

Anyway I hope you can subscribe, I'll be updating regularly now

I am going to phone the Doctor tomorrow to talk to them about my jabs.

Savedotmoney

Time for an update - I've updated my savings total to over £10,000 now! I've had three jabs done and I possibly have two left. I've booked my connection flight from Ibiza to Brussels where I will take a flight to Australia. That's all my flights done! I've started up my new blog which I'm working on http://justmybackpack.com.

Starting to get pretty nervous now, just over two months to go!