Travel Archives - Making Sense Of Cents

How A Minimalist Lifestyle Can Bring You Happiness

September 26, 2018 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 41 Comments

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How A Minimalist Lifestyle Can Bring You Happiness #MinimalistLifestyle #Minimalist #Minimalism I should start out by telling you that I haven't always been a minimalist. I used to purchase crazy amounts of clothing, random items for my home, honestly wasn’t interested in a minimalist lifestyle, and so on.

I would hoard all kinds of things, hoping that one day I would find a use for them. I actually told myself I needed those things, which lead to overspending when I should have put my money to better use.

Then, a few years ago, I realized that I had an unhealthy relationship with material things. It wasn’t just that I had too much stuff, it was that I was overspending to compensate for being unhappy with my job, among other things.

Things really started to change for the better when I quit my day job to blog full-time. And, once we decided to travel full-time, at first in an RV and now a sailboat, I’ve had to donate or give away the majority of my belongings. Getting rid of all of that stuff was hard, but now I pretty much only have the things I need to get me through the day or week ahead. [Read more…]

We Spent $43,486 To RV For One Year – How to Spend Way Too Much Full-Time RVing

August 24, 2018 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 22 Comments

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Michelle's quick note: Today, I have a great guest post from Brooke and Buddy Baum. As you all know, I absolutely loved RVing. However, it's not for everyone. So, when I had the opportunity to hear this RVing story, I jumped at the chance to share it with you all. Enjoy!

We're Brooke and Buddy Baum – digital nomads, bloggers, travelers and nature lovers. We recently ended a year-long stint of RV life that taught us so much about life, marriage, travel, freelance work … and the importance of making smarter financial decisions. If you are looking into RVing, we hope our story helps you make a better plan than we had!

We spent $43,486 to RV for just one year. Ouch.

We threw up in our mouths a little just typing that out. That's no small number, especially when you take into account that RVing was a budget move for us. And this total doesn't even include normal life expenses. It is only RV-related costs, including the down payment, RV payments, insurance, campgrounds, fuel, and the loss we took to sell it. [Read more…]

When was the last time you did something that scared you?

August 13, 2018 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 35 Comments

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Scaring yourself is a good thing – it means that you're pushing yourself to do something new and outside of your comfort zone. This can help you grow as a person and continue to improve. #scareyourself #motivation #dreamlife #lifetips I'd be lying to you if I said that our new sailing adventure didn't scare me.

We are currently around three months into our new boat life. We are very happy with our purchase and the huge life change that we have made.

We are excited for our future, all of the amazing places we will visit, and all of the learning experiences that we will get to have.

However, making this huge lifestyle change has been a little scary for me.

The first month of boat ownership was an interesting one. Before we bought our boat, we were constantly told that there are two best days in a boat owner’s life:

The day you buy you boat.
The day you sell it.

And, for a moment there, I thought that was right, haha! [Read more…]

Welcome To Paradise – We’re Living On A Sailboat!

July 17, 2018 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 75 Comments

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It’s official, we’re now living on a sailboat!

To be specific, it’s a Lagoon 42 catamaran that we named Paradise.

Now, we are still very new to this lifestyle, but we are very excited!

We’ve wanted to move onto a boat for a while. In fact, we wanted to live on a sailboat before we even started RVing.

Our switch from RV life to living on sailboat started earlier this year, when we made the journey from Tucson, Arizona (where we were wintering in our RV) to Fort Lauderdale, Florida. We started looking at sailboats online, both on the west coast and east coast, but Florida just had so many more options.

We pulled up the RV jacks and made the long trek to Florida. Along the way, we stopped in multiple places, sort of a last RV trip hurrah to see our friends and family that live all over the U.S. [Read more…]

You Wouldn’t Work For Free, Right? So, Why Do You?

June 28, 2018 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 54 Comments

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You Wouldn't Work For Free, Right? So, Why Do You? Do you often find yourself at the end of the year with unused vacation days?

If so, then you are essentially working for free.

According to CNN, 23% of workers surveyed said they used all of their vacation days in the previous 12 months. That means that 77% of people had unused vacation days!

Also, this same survey showed that the average U.S. worker uses less than HALF of their paid days off.

So, I did some more research because I find this subject so interesting. According to CNBC, on average, American workers gave up around $604 in lost benefits by ending the year with unused vacation days and other paid time off.

I find this topic interesting because when I used to work for others, I would never use all of my paid vacation days. [Read more…]

From Backpacker Working For $3 An Hour To Sailor With An Online Business

June 27, 2018 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 15 Comments

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From Backpacker Working For $3 An Hour To Sailor With A Digital Business My monthly Extraordinary Lives series is something that I'm really enjoying doing. First up was JP Livingston, who retired with a net worth over $2,000,000 at the age of 28. Today's interview is with Kach Howe. She has been to over 100 countries and all 7 continents. She is now sailing the Caribbean with her husband and cat.

She's not retired, though – she's still working!

In this interview, you'll learn:

How she has been traveling for 5 years and has traveled to 100 countries;
How she now lives on a 1971 Finnrose 37 sailboat;
How she affords to travel;
How they taught English in Peru for $3 an hour and how that motivated her to find ways to make more money;
How much sailing costs them.

And more! This interview is packed full of valuable information! [Read more…]

The Digital Nomad Lifestyle – A Day In The Life

June 18, 2018 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 76 Comments

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“What do you do all day?”

I am regularly asked what my average day is like. It's always such a difficult question to answer, as there is no routine day for me. If you know me at all, then you know that I pretty much hate schedules, haha.

My hatred of schedules is probably one of the main reasons for why I love living the digital nomad lifestyle.

Telling people that I work online and travel is always an interesting conversation. Telling people “I'm a blogger” just leads to so many questions, which I completely understand. But, when they find out that I’m a full-time traveler too, they get even more confused!

Now, blogging is a lot of work. I may not work a ton everyday, but there are many days when I'll work 16 hours a day. There is almost always something that needs to be done when it comes to my blogging business, and I have a whole long list of things that I want to do when I have more time. [Read more…]

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