5 Tips For Saving For that Lap of Aus

In this guide we will be sharing with you some tips on how you can save for that Lap of Australia so you can make your dream a reality!

DATE TO ESCAPE

Set a date!

This was the biggest decision to make when we finally decided! How we decided on a date was how long did we need to save money, move out, sell stuff and give work notice! We gave ourselves a year but if we were to do it again we would give ourselves two years so it didn’t feel so rushed!

If you put your mind to it and you really want to make your dream a reality, you will achieve it even if it takes time, Later is better than never.

BUDGET BUDGET BUDGET

Set a Budget!

I had researched travelling family’s and couples budgets for months and months and finally came up with a figure that we realistically could save and still live on before we left! Everyone’s budgets varied from $25k for a year to $80k. When I was looking at everyone’s expenditures I decided we would pick from a few budgets to come up with our figure! So I picked the highest fuel budget of $950 a month even though we weren’t running a cruiser or Juice Guzler but thought it would be the safest way to go! Food I used our at home budget of $300 a fortnight. Accomodation was the hardest one as we didn’t know where we would be staying so I chose a family of 4 accomodation budget and we always came in under the $700 a month! Activities I came up with our own budget as I had listed all the things we wanted to do around Australia, got prices and added them all up and added a buffer (thank god as covid then hit and prices went up) Miscellaneous I went off a couple’s budget I had found on the net but that seemed to blow out lol. Always save emergency money aswell and Money for when you return home. Our budget I set out was $40k for the year $10k for emergencies $15k for when we returned home

We were boring for a whole year to a lot of people but the year we were about to have was far from boring.

FOR SALE

Sell Any of those unused items around the house!

You really don’t realise how much you consume over years until you need to make a quick buck lol! So we got everything together and put aside all the items we didn’t need or we didn’t want to take up storage space as we were saving money to buy new stuff when we returned! So we sold everything from the fridge, washing machine, couches, entertainment units, clothes, camping stuff we didn’t use anymore, tools and kayaks and surf boards! We made quite a bit of money which went straight into savings or paid for things we needed to take on our trip! It was a great way of recycling by getting rid of the old and bringing in the new! But also a great way to clean everything out!

BE BORING

Say no to going out to events and dinner!

This was the hardest as we are quite social people and we love a dinner out or breakfast every weekend! At first I guess we looked quite rude to everyone but we had a goal in sight and the more we drilled it into them the more they started understanding! You need to be strong, even coffees every weekend add up and stop you from putting money away! For a whole year we were quite boring but we had so much to keep us busy with getting the car and caravan ready before we left! We would treat ourselves to a cheap Vietnamese dinner once every two months and that tied us over!

Our Biggest decision was to have everything paid off before we left...... and we are so glad we did!

GIVE THE BANKS THE FLICK.... JOKES

Try to pay all those debts before you leave!

Our Main goal after I set out three options to travel Oz was to have all our debts and direct debits paid before we left! So that meant own our car and Caravan, Pay my car Off and sell it and pay for all our insurances/registrations up front for the year that way we didn’t have to worry about money being withdrawn! The only direct debits we had coming out were our internet, Lightroom and Apple Music. We found if we had direct debits coming out as well we would have been on a much tighter budget which wouldn’t have made for a relaxing fun trip!

SPEND SPEND SPEND........ IM SO FUNNY

Buy all the things you need for your lap before you leave!

Preparing for the Lap tour always going to need items, such as things for the car and caravan, we purchased an inflatable stand up paddle board, spare parts for the car, camera bags, camera gear, laptop! We made sure we had this all before we left even if we weren’t sure we were going to use it as we didn’t want to purchase any items out of our budget or emergency money! Anything we didn’t use we sold on market place on the way which was a good cash injection when we needed it! We did however when the budget was on track allow us to splurge on a little shop here or there but that’s totally up to how your budget is looking at the end of the month.

SAVE SAVE SAVE

Save extra money for when you return home!

I’ll break this down for you from what I wrote above. We saved extra money for our trip and when we get home as the $40k was what we were going to be essentially living off for 1 year! We saved an extra $10k for emergencies and when I say emergencies I mean, Car problems Caravan problems Cost blow outs (spirit of tassie as one example) Anything we really needed that we didn’t want to take out of our monthly budget! This was used in full mainly with cost blow outs and 2 car batteries that we needed and a solar blanket! $15k for when we get home! So as we sold most of our items we didn’t want to have to wait to save for them before we found a house. So we now have money in the bank to buy everything outright again and not have any debt to start our new beginnings!

We hope these tips can give you that little extra push to start saving for that dream trip! Remember if you have any questions send us an email as we are happy to help.