“Work hard in silence, let your success be your noise.” -Frank Ocean
Income
The past 6 months have been quite a journey as we explore and work hard to get our version of location independence underway. Our priority and focus are to get a digital income that can support us as we travel. We are still plugging away to make that part happen.
Education
The other side of that equation is moving the kids from public school to homeschool. We decided to start homeschooling at the end of eighth grade for our oldest son. He is ready to do it but wanted to finish out the middle school year. Our youngest will be in first grade when we start.
After a lot of worry and fear about ruining our son’s chance of ever having a life and career by homeschooling as a high schooler, we decided he will be just fine. By now I have done so much research on homeschooling through podcasts, websites, contacting local friends that homeschool, even reaching out to location-independent homeschoolers (wink-wink Jenn Miller), that I am confident everything will work out.
Finances and Budgeting
Ok, I said the “f” word, finances. But, hey, you can’t travel with debt and no plan. So we have completely eliminated shopping (except for groceries). No entertainment, no eating out, and no frivolous expenditures (coffee out, pedicures, seeing a movie at the theater, etc). It is not always easy, but a little sacrifice now will pay off in the long run. I know, we are a little hardcore.
The kids already understand that if we buy things we can’t take them with us while traveling anyway. It has made them learn to appreciate the things they already have. They get their own money they earn from chores or get from relatives, but they have gotten very selective on how they spend it.
We cut back on our pricey health care plans, eliminated PMI on our home, and stick to a pretty lean budget. No one said there wouldn’t be a few sacrifices in order to live the dream.
Our whole philosophy is to live on less now so we can spend our days traveling the world. We are getting our ducks lined up to make it happen. I don’t want to scare you away, that is just what we have to do to get our dream underway.
To Sell or Not to Sell
We are still on the fence about selling our home this Spring. If our income is secure enough to leave shortly after putting the house on the market then we are game to sell. However, if the digital income is still not enough, we may be better off waiting.
We even have been toying with the idea of house swapping. Or possibly taking short-term jobs around the U.S. for my husband’s work as a motion designer, while housesitting in those areas to save on accommodations.
These are just some ideas we are kicking around. Either way, we won’t be on a school schedule and will have the freedom to make choices based on what works for our family versus when school gets out.
Parting Thoughts
So that is where life stands today. We will keep plugging away and see what happens.
My desire in sharing our personal story is it will give you hope that you can do it too. I know we will make it happen, but in journaling our experience I want other families to see it was not an overnight success story when our time comes. I hear other people’s stories and feel like they just got up one day, sold everything, and traveled the world. They make it sound so easy.
There is a lot of hard work, sacrifice, and planning that goes into doing it. That is fine by me. If you want something bad enough you will find a way.
Cheers!