Hi All! Now that we’ve announced that Ellie and I are planning on building out a van/bus to be our home on the road, let’s start to dive into how to afford van life. It’s only been a month or so of preparation for us and we already feel like we’ve learned so much! We’re on that grind!
While van life is such an intriguing lifestyle, one that many of us strive for, there are definitely some things that seem extremely difficult and often terrifying. As you’ll find below, we’ve listed out some of the parts of all this that were most financially intimidating to Ellie and me.
Nomadic to-do List
- Saving the money to start
- Purchasing the vehicle
- Converting the vehicle
- Having enough money saved to travel
or
- Finding a way to make money on the road
Being that we are so early in our journey towards traveling full time, we are still on step #1: Saving the money to start. This stage could look very different for a lot of people, but in today’s post, we are going to outline what this looks like for us and share a few strategies for completing this step! We’ll start with the three basic points that are guiding the whole saving process for us.
- Build a budget
- Spend less
- Make more
Now, a few things to keep in mind before we get started. For us, it was incremental that we work through these three steps in the order listed above. While I would highly suggest that everyone at least explore each point, depending on your current income or spending habits, step two or three might not be as essential for you in completing this journey.
1. Build a budget
This step is fairly self-explanatory but could not be more important in the process. It accomplishes a few imperative things.
Rediscover your income
Number one, it forces you to<strong> put an actual number on how much money is coming in each month. It’s easy to have an idea of what this number could look like and begin to live by that idea, but without laying out each individual source of income, you could be off by hundreds or even thousands of dollars. Getting the most accurate number in your head for how much money is coming in will give you a much better idea of how much you are comfortable sending out each month.
Put a number on your expenses
Speaking of money going out, the second hugely important aspect of budgeting is seeing just how much cash is going to your individual expenses. This is another area where you probably feel as though you have an idea of what is going where, but you may not be close. For example, being that Ellie and I are both creatives, we use our fair share of Adobe products. Lightroom, Photoshop, Premiere Pro, etc. After setting up a budget and looking through our bank statements, I found that we were separately paying for our Adobe Creative Cloud subscriptions! That’s an extra $40 a month, or $480 for the year, that we were spending that could have gone into our van savings! For most people, setting up a budget for the first time could end up saving you hundreds of dollars every month. All you gotta do is get the numbers in your head.
Accountability
The final aspect of budgeting can be very helpful to those that are married or dating. It is being able to talk through the numbers with your significant other. This allows both partners to hold the other accountable for their spending in certain areas. Everyone has a guilty pleasure, and for many of us, those are expensive. I love to accumulate different tools. Every new car repair that I do requires a new tool in the toolbox. This habit can of course get extremely expensive. Building a budget with Ellie and laying out all the numbers with her allowed her to see this. I have since held back a bit and Boom! More savings!
2. Spend Less
This specific strategy goes right along with that of budgeting and they play off of each other very well. Obviously, the goal here is to reduce the outflow of money from month to month. A very helpful way to do this is to track how much money is currently going out and set a goal for yourself that is realistic yet ambitious. Oftentimes people will cut back on how much they eat out each month or cut down on different entertainment expenses. Remember, don’t cut out all of the fun expenses every month, but recognize what is really important to you. Your goal is to lower your outflow, but being too strict on spending can cause a burnout binge before long.
For us, saving to purchase and convert a rig is really important. Now that we’re spending less, we’ve been able to save a few thousand dollars towards that goal, even on two relatively small incomes. Like I said before if you already stick strictly to a budget and are living very frugally, this might be a step that you don’t have to pay much attention to. In that case, pay extra close attention to the next step.
3. Make More
This specific step is easier said than done but will go a long way toward being able to save for your goals and dreams. There are a few options as to how to approach this idea.
Pick up extra hours at work
This is probably the easiest to do but the payoff might not be quite as large in the long term. This option is to pick up a few extra hours at work. You could even consider taking on another part-time job to log a few more hours each week. Anything to bring in just a bit more cash can really go a long way.
Build an online business/side hustle
The second way to bring in a bit more each month is to create an additional income stream for yourself. This could be just about anything with how the internet enables us nowadays. For many, this will be something digital like creating a blog, a youtube channel, a dropshipping store, or anything in between. Arman Assadi has an awesome post on ideas for different digital businesses. Do keep in mind however that if you go this route, you might not see any payout for months. It’s definitely a long-term strategy and will require a lot of work to get started.
Once you have your business up and running though, it has the potential to be easy income. There is no limit to how much you can earn going this route! The best part is that this is an income stream that you can continue while on the road. Building a digital business/side hustle is a perfect way to afford a nomadic lifestyle.
Get a few gig jobs
If you’re not so keen on starting your own but are still interested in doing something that you control your schedule and earning potential, take a look through craigslist or a similar service to get an idea of what gigs people are hiring for. Things like cargo hauling, landscaping, and moving services are a hot market right now. You can bring in a bunch of additional income if you are willing to work!
Well, there you have it! These are the ways that Ellie and I are attacking our dream of living on the road and making sure it comes to fruition! We may put together some more in-depth posts on the specific business ideas or money-saving tactics that we are implementing later on down the road. If that’s something that you’re interested in be sure to leave us a comment below and we can banter back and forth a bit!
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