I consulted the boss today (my bank account) for the first time since early August when my friends arrived, the Olympics were attended and any idea of watching my spending was thrown out the window into the sewer and washed away out to sea. The bank account does not seem to be healthy at the moment and, while I’m not at all surprised, I think it’s about time I start paying more attention to what I do with my money.
So far during this trip I haven’t thought twice before spending money. If I wanted to do something, save time by flying, order an expensive meal or stay somewhere a bit more expensive, I didn’t really give it a second though. It’s been great but now it’s time to return to my roots as a budget conscious traveller.
It’s not so much that I’m running out of money, my fear is more about what I have coming up during the coming six months. The next four months will be super cheap given that I’ll be travelling around Myanmar, Laos and then taking a 10 week course in Thailand that has partially been paid for. It’s the bits after that that I’m worried about, combined with the fact that I won’t be able to get much work done (this seems like a common problem lately…) until the course ends in mid January.
After January is when things will start to get expensive. I’ll be heading to Australia sometime before the end of February and plan to stick around for about four or five months. I’d like to either study either Spanish or take guitar lessons (or maybe both) and I’ll be back in the clutches of my Aussie mates who will no doubt be going out a lot. Courses can be expensive and the airfare to get to Oz will put a dent in the bank account as well.
Then after Australia the plan is to go to Buenos Aires, rent a place and continue studying Spanish for about six months. I was originally going to go by cargo ship but that’s not an option from Australia so an airfare of about $2000 will need to be paid sometime next year, not to mention the costs involved when renting an apartment.
So… I’m thinking that now might be the time to reel myself in a bit and start acting like a budget traveller. It’s been a ridiculously fun eight months but the purse strings are about to be tightened and the freewheeling ways are a thing of the past. At least until I get my bank balance up again. If my earnings can stay steady while I’m Myanmar, Laos and on this course then I should be in great shape come January. But there’s always that fear that my lack of work ethic will finally bite me in the ass and the bottom will fall out of my earnings. Time will tell I guess! I’m actually pretty curious myself to see what happens.
So I’m off to Burma on Monday which means that I’ll once again be out of touch. I’m going to work hard for the next two days on getting some posts ready for this blog, getting a few new pages of content up on my travel sites and catching up on Wanderstruck (I’ve added a few new posts, photos and even a couple videos so check it out).
I’m slowly learning that working on the road is a lot harder than I thought it would be. It’s still better than a cubicle though!
Leave a Reply