Family

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Money – How to Pay For Around The World Family Travel

More Americans are choosing to take time off from work to relax or re-examine their priorities, so they can return to work energized. Some companies offer formal sabbatical programs, but how can the average person take time off to evaluate their direction, explore their passions, and make time for the things that are really important?

Whether you’re disillusioned with your career, yearning to follow a dream, doing pre-retirement planning, or taking time out after a layoff, now is the time to step back and reboot.

But I always here the same thing: “I could never afford that”

“You must be Rich!”

Our story is a simple one that probably mirrors that of many middle-class families in America.

In 1995 my wife and I both graduated high school and moved away from home to attend college, we acquired debt, graduated from college, found decent jobs, started paying off our debt, got married, rented a one bedroom apartment, wen’t back to graduate school, acquired more debt, bought a flat screen tv and surround sound speakers, purchased  a small townhouse with an affordable mortgage, moved to a nicer (and much more expensive) California location, sold our townhouse, had our first child, acquired a bigger mortgage and more debt to accommodate our growing family, bought a family van and acquired more debt, and then boom…. Our house lost all it’s value overnight, our jobs were threatened, our 401K’s decimated and my life was 100% actualized. This brings us to the year 2008!

I had become a slave to my lifestyle, and what made it worse? I had done it all with good intentions.

We have middle-class jobs

I am a family practice physician assistant practicing in a small rural clinic since 2004.  My wife is a Registered Nurse who has been working full-time until the birth of our daughter in 2007 when she reduced her hours down to 20 per week.

Timeline to Travel

In 2007, I read a book that inspired me to look at my life differently. In 2008, after the financial crisis, we moved out of our home and I started a blog that would eventually become a small (yet profitable) online business.

In 2004 we purchased our first home and sold it for a small profit, then in 2007 we purchased our second home and hit a wall.

This changed our lives and fortunately instead of running with the bulls we changed our direction and became smarter.

We made sacrifices like moving out of our home and renting it to college students for a year, becoming lean as a family and most importantly I studied every financial book I could get my hands on to understand what went wrong.

I lost sleep for months not to mention when the market crashed so did the hospital I worked for.

But, I stand here today as a testament to what financial education and some hard work and faith in the process can accomplish.

Making work serve your interests instead of the other way around

I mentioned I started a profitable blog in 2008. This has been essential to what is making this trip possible. Writing online at first was an outlet but learning to make money online has been one of the most amazing experiences of my life.

It is about creating services and providing the right information to people who need it and out of this grows something spectacular. In my case it was a business which as a health care provider was something I didn’t even know was possible.

My online business now provides roughly $3000 of monthly income. Sometimes more and sometimes less. This is the income that we will use as we travel.

As a family practice PA I can make about $75,000 take home cash annually and this is after maximizing out our retirement accounts.

My wife, working part time can bring in about 30K as well. Over the past 5 years we have been able to build a nest egg, and with the online income store up a bit of liquid cash. We soon realized that the costs of living here in California are ridiculous. With a small amount of income and $50,00  in liquid assets we are making this dream of RTW travel a reality.

Debt Free

money-problems-big

We are 100% debt free on this trip.

  • We rent out our house to completely cover our mortgage and make a very small $150 of monthly profit.
  • We rented out our family wagon to cover the monthly payment.
  • We paid off our school loans completely: My wife was Air-force ROTC and  I was a National Health Service Corps Scholar, because of this our loans have been paid off by the government.
  • We resisted new purchases in preparation for our trip. My old clunker has 250k miles and we ride bikes everywhere.

We Look For Passive and Investment income

When I first read Robert Kiyosaki’s book Rich Dad Poor Dad I thought he was full of crap. But years later after I started my online business and went back and read his book about Cashflow Quadrants it became clear to me.

I gained a clear understanding of what it was I was working for (Earned Income) and I was able to find a better path.

You MUST BECOME FINANCIALLY EDUCATED if you really want to travel around the world with your family.

We as Americans are EXTREMELY WEALTHY when compared to the rest of the world. Honestly, I believe that with a little planning and the right kind of investing a family with a plan to travel around the globe can swing it.

It is nice to have some type of dedicated and slightly predictable passive or portfolio income stream while you do it. So you should plan for this. One way is to start today to get your financial education.

Becoming Financially Educated

Once you understand what types of income you can generate and the options that are available you can make goals. You may decide that owning a home is not worth the liability. So you could sell it if you own or rent and look to purchase a property as an investment and earn revenue from this. Make home ownership an ASSET!

You could start a side business using a skill you have to generate some income and grow it into a profit generating passive income stream like I have. But this requires dedication and a whole lot of persistence.

I have used Relay Rides for the past year and a half renting out an old truck we purchased as a junker in 2004. We have made over $3000 on this car renting it out over the last year!

I started 6 other web properties and have been able to see these grow into their own revenue generating businesses as well.

Once you are financially educated you can free yourself from the confines of job = money. This is a process for sure.

To be continued…

 

Our First Time Hosting on Couch Surfing

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Family Couch Surfing

Our first and only experience with Couchsurfing.org was amazing!

I’ve been researching all the different, cheap alternatives to hotels and I came across Couch Surfing.  It sounded great:  Free place to stay, interactions with the locals and did I mention Free!

  • But how would this work with kids?
  • Was this even an option?

Going out as a single traveler or as a couple, this seemed like an obvious choice. Thankfully, the website had some good practical advice and yes, it was possible to do with kids.  It would be a little harder and not as flexibility was still an option.

One of the first pieces of advice was to be a host in your own home before trying it out on the road.  Especially for kids, this would get them used to the idea and make them more comfortable with strangers. I want to teach my kids the ability to meet new and interesting people and go outside their comfort zones.

When we reach out to new things and people our brain explodes with possibilities we never imagined.

“Stranger, Danger”

Here in America, we teach our kids “Stranger, Danger”.   I never liked this very much and it explains a lot about our culture as Americans.  I want my kids to be able to trust their instincts, but when they get into a situation they’ll need to have enough courage and knowledge to get them selves out of it.  If we teach our kids to just avoid every stranger, how can we teach them anything about being a kind and generous person willing to help and meet others?  I want my kids to feel confident with adults and kids.

Signing Up

So, I signed up and was a little apprehensive about letting someone into my home.  After all, “Stranger /Danger” takes on a whole new perspective when you take in a complete stranger into your own home.  Meeting and talking to people in public is one thing, but letting them stay in your home?   That just boarder lined crazy and irresponsible parenting.

If I wanted my kids to go beyond there comfort zone, I had to show them I was willing to try too.   If I couldn’t do it in the comfort of my own home, how were we going to try it ourselves?

Living in Santa Cruz we got many requests off the site. I’m sure we got even fewer since you can create your own profile and as a family of four we may sound less than “ideal” for many travelers. I was very clear that I had two small kids, went to bed early, woke up early and I would be busy with kids routines during the day.   I also let people know what we were doing next year so we could have some travel info exchange. This seemed to attract the “right” people.

Turns out there’s a lot of traveling single women looking for a safe place and the idea of a family away from home sounded “safe” for them too.

Meet Sophia from Germany

Having red hair and a light complexion, I have to admit it helped that she looked like our long-lost cousin.  I lived in Germany for 3 years as a child so I thought this would be fun.  I was determined to ask if Gummies were really pronounced “gooomie” like I remembered.  Turns out I was right!  Couldn’t wait to have a “I told you so” moment with the husband.

Free Truly is The Great Equalizer!

Having her stay for free put less pressure on me to be a host.

Turns out, she didn’t have any expectations about me being a host. My husband wanted to offer our place on AirBNB, but Free is the great equalizer and I really believe “Less is More” and you “get what you give”. I ended up taking her surfing, but the other days she was busy meeting other people and exploring Santa Cruz herself.

I was amazed at how the power of the internet helped her meet up, and get rides around and from city to city.  Talk about trust! To top it off, she was the epitome of ingenuity using resources I never knew were available as a traveler.   It was her first time and mine. We quickly confessed we wouldn’t be telling our mothers.

The Kids Reaction

The kids absolutely loved her!  I was quickly fired from bedtime book reading during her stay.  She had great stories to tell.  She especially had great stories about meeting, trusting and following her gut to get out of sticky situations.   Having someone with an accent and from another country really sparked the travel bug in the kids.   They were sad to see her go and wondered if we’d ever meet again.

Again another lesson in life:  Some people we may meet only once in our lives but they can still have a great and every long-lasting impact.   You never know what connections you’ll make or if you’ll ever see people again in your life time.

Will we do it again?

Since her stay we’ve had many other requests but we’ve just gotten so busy it never seemed like the right time to do it again.  I turned my hosting to “off” status for now, but I do hope we can try to do this on the road.

When we get back I hope to offer our place on occasions so we can wet our appetite for new and interesting like minded travelers. It might buffer the withdrawal a little when we aren’t able to travel.

Who knows? Maybe we’ll meet some people on our travels and be able to we’ll meet them again by opening up our home and hosting for a few nights.

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The Nine Qualities of Highly Successful Families

Strong, Healthy Families

From the early 1900’s, family studies focused mostly on the weaknesses within families.

Beginning in the 1960s, however, a few outlier scholars started trying to identify the traits healthy families have in common. Herbert Otto, of the University of Utah, made one of the first lists. It included: shared religious and moral values; consideration; common interests; love and happiness of children; working and playing together.

By 1989, there were enough of these lists that the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services invited a dozen researchers to a conference in Washington, DC, and asked them to find common ground on this issue. As the organizers stated on the eve of the conference,

“Researchers, policy makers, and the media have focused considerable attention on how some families are failing. Much less attention has been paid to strong, healthy families, and the characteristics that make them successful.”

Each scientist in attendance had already published a list of the qualities successful families share. For the first time, though, organizers closely reviewed two dozen of these lists to see if they could establish consensus. According to them, it was remarkably easy. The master list contained nine items.

The Nine Qualities of Successful Families

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1. Communication

Family members talk to one another often, in a manner that’s honest, clear, and open, even when they disagree.

2. Encouragement of individuals

Strong families appreciate each member’s uniqueness while cultivating a sense of belonging to the whole.

3. Commitment to the family

Members of successful families make it clear to one another,and to the world, that their allegiance to their family is strong.

4. Religious/ spiritual well-being

Researchers concluded that a shared value system and moral code were common among highly functioning families. But they said these values were not contingent on membership in any denomination or frequent attendance at worship services.

5. Social connectedness

Successful families are not isolated; they are connected to the wider society, and they reach out to friends and neighbors in crisis.

6. Adaptability

Strong families are structured yet flexible, and they adjust their structure in response to stress.

7. Appreciativeness

People in strong families care deeply for one another, and they express their feelings often. Even if some members are not naturally expressive, they communicate their emotions by doing meaningful things for others.

8. Clear roles

Members of successful families are aware of their responsibilities to the group.

9. Time together

Members of strong families spend time together doing things they enjoy.

The conference results were pubslished in a study by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services called: Identifying Successful Families: An Overview of Constructs and Selected Measure

While nothing specific came out of the project, it did coincide with (and perhaps help legitimize) a much more popular effort in this space, written by Stephen Covey:

The Seven Habits of Highly Effective Families