I was at a loss for a blog topic this week, so I put out a call on Twitter & Facebook to see what folks where curious about asking us. We got lots of great questions!
One that surprised us was a follower who thought our monthly expenses that we log were shockingly high.
He confessed to associating nomadism and small living to frugal minimalism, which is totally not our goal. We can be thrifty and we’re not attached much to stuff, but we are certainly not extremists when it comes to frugality or minimalism.
Conversely, it’s interesting how many associate a life of full time travel as being a life of extravagance and high cost. We constantly have folks asking us how on earth we can afford this lifestyle, even after they understand that we work online and earn a moderate income.
That’s one reason that we choose to post our monthly expenses, to add just one more datapoint that is somewhere in between frugality and extravagance. Afterall, including food, our living & traveling expenses for 2010 were just around $26,000 (or $35 per person per day). And for us, that’s mighty cheap living for 2. Especially considering we have what we consider a very high quality of life with lots of travel and adventure.
You see, our goal in being nomadic is not to be highly frugal or minimalist. We’re not consumed with counting the number of things we own. But our goal of perpetual hyper mobility can certainly result in many of the same outcomes of minimalism.
But we are concerned with the space things take up; and when living off our solar powered RV, how much energy they consume. And we’re not driven by spending the absolute least amount of money possible. We’re both highly skilled and experienced tech workers who are capable of earning as much money as we’re willing to work – and we *love* our work as technology consultants. Our lifestyle has afforded us the financial agility to pick our work gigs based on how inspired we are by them, and that is a luxury.
Our goal is to create a sustainable mobile lifestyle for the long term. And for us, that includes being able to afford the things that keep us comfortable. Our cutting edge technology (our laptops hardly ever reach the ripe old age of 2), making sure our accommodations include our desired level of privacy and comforts (ie. hostels and couchsurfing likely aren’t sustainable for us) and eating healthier high quality foods.
Right now, we’re choosing to live on a luxury resort tropical island (at a killer discount rental rate) that makes our cost of living higher than being in say, Thailand. Sure, we could really scale back our costs – but that’s not our goal. If we travel to cheaper economies, it will be by choice, not necessity.
We do consider ourselves conscious consumers, however. We consider the things we purchase and try to not over buy or over burden ourselves with stuff so that we can keep mobile.
We’re more interested in the right fit for our lives, not the lowest cost. We were drawn to small trailers for our RV travels because we like the expanded flexibility of where we can go, not to travel as cheap as possible (and our Oliver is one of the most expensive small fiberglass trailer options out there.)
Being nomadic doesn’t necessarily equate to a style of travel or spending.
Our way is not the only way, or the right way. One can totally enjoy a nomadic life by living as cheaply as possible and not needing to work much at all. One can camp across the world, stay in hostels or couchsurf and enjoy a completely mobile lifestyle full of adventures for much less than we spend. And one can stay in luxury accommodations the entire time, and spend far more than we do.
There is no right way.
Basically, being nomadic doesn’t mean anything other than having a life that is mobile. As far as how much it costs or how much stuff you take with you – is entirely up to your personal criteria.
—–
Have questions for us about our nomadic lifestyle?
Many of the other questions posed to us on Twitter and Facebook where things we’ve already posted about. So we suspect we’ll soon put together a post that pulls up some oldies from our archives. We’re always open to answering whatever questions you have! So ask away… we’ll either include it a summary post, or perhaps address it in a future post.
Howdy, My wife and I just started on this full time rv lifestyle two years ago and it seems like five years because this way of life is so different from living in suburbia. We bought a Casita 17′ and last year I saw the Oliver down in Quartzsite. I like the Oliver but the cost is prohibitive for us. I hear they stopped production for awhile? It is probably because of this Depression. Not many will buy an expensive Oliver I think. Could you tell us more about the Oliver? I like the ground clearance the Sportsman model had. Does your model have good clearance? I try to get into the small canyons with my Casita and even with my high axel model and bigger tires I have a nerve wracking experiance ha. Just got a Honda 2000 generator and am itching to try boondocking with it now. It is just big enough to run our A/C but nothing else while it is on. This lifestyle is so good compared to most even in this country. Thanks for listening and I’ll keep my eyes peeled for you on the road. Joe
Hi Joe.. thanks for stopping by. Oliver has been on ‘indefinite hiatus’ from making trailers since mid-2009. It’s really a shame – they’re such a great product. Unfortunately, they were ramping up just as the economy was ramping down and only made about 45 of them, and a lot of RV businesses were hit hard as a result. Oliver is a niche product – aimed at those who want a small trailer not for cost savings, but for other reasons – but yet want a very high quality luxury build. We loved them for that, plus with how accommodating they were to doing a completely custom build for us. Casita and Scamp certainly serve a different market, even though on the outside, they look quite similar to an Oliver. Hopefully Oliver will eventually start making trailers again when the demand returns – as far as we’re aware, they have everything in place and are making high end bathtubs using the same skills, equipment and staff.
You can get a full tour of our customized Oliver at: https://www.technomadia.com/oliver
For those who wish to learn about living cheaply in a converted van, trailer, or RV, I recomend http://cheaprvliving.com/ . The (relitivly new) forums have active and friendly discussions, and the RTR was quite fun and educational. More gatherings are in the planning stages.
I just discovered you today, purchased your e-Book, and am now enjoying your blog posts. Thank you for sharing all of this – I am finding answers to so many questions pondered since selling the house in 2009 embarking on our own nomadic adventures. We house and pet sit across the US while working online, and my hope is to one day (soon) go the home on wheels route (I want an Aistream BAD!). Thank you again, I am so impressed with the content here!
Thanks a bunch for discovering us, Valynne! And we very much appreciate your contribution towards our efforts by choosing to buy our eBook. Looking forward to seeing you around here.
I hear ya, but it’s really all perspective isn’t it? We’ve been on an open ended world tour for the last 5 years and spend 25K a year or 23 dollars a day per person. We live LARGE ( 38 countries on 5 continents usually in expensive places like Europe & Bora Bora) yet, like you we could spend much more or much less. We enjoy sustainable travel, living frugal ( and building our next egg as we roam) and minimalist living for the FREEDOM it offers, but we love luxury too so spend most of our time in it. Who says families have to over pack to enjoy? We’re doing this year around the world with 18 flights and more stops with just one small carry on each. We enjoy being conscious consumers and want to raise our child that way. We love the luxury of TIME that this life affords us as well as education for our child. There are MANY ways to do this, but tweaking it to your own needs is first and foremost!!
Indeed – it is about differing perspectives, and making it your own.
Amen…when Greg and I share our ultimate goal of being digital nomads with people and talk about selling most of our things, some people look at us like we’re crazy…and while we are in some ways, this lifestyle we’re embarking on is one that we are tailoring to us. What we want it to be. And that might be different than someone else considering the same thing. We have changed a lot of our views on consumerism in the last year, and continue to do so. But, like you, we like the technology that keeps coming out! We’re big technogeeks and that isn’t likely to change.
Our goal right now is to minimize the amount of money we spend on things and services we don’t even use, to stop accumulating *stuff* and get rid of the debt and distractions that keep us from pursuing our dreams. After all…this (to us) is what finding the freeway is all about!
Getting rid of whatever anchors you feel are holding you back is key. And those anchors will vary for everyone. The important part is being able to identify them, and take the steps to free yourself. Best wishes to you guys in your journey!
While you may not consider yourself minimalist…you are really, in comparison to so many others. Consider how little you live on vs. someone with a suburban home and all the toys that go with it!
It’s all a matter of perspective, and like you said, no way is the right way! We go through periods of being extremely frugal, but at the same time, we won’t deny ourselves a pricey excursion (like the Galapagos) just because of the money – somethings are just once in a lifetime and can’t be turned down!
Great post Cherie! Cheers
Oh, for sure the term minimalist could be used to describe the amount of stuff most nomads own… but I think that’s different than identifying as such and setting it as a goal. Significantly cutting down the amount of stuff is a key skill of a nomad to keep mobile. So indeed they do go hand-in-hand.
But at the same time, we’re not driven to constantly avoid buying things just to keep our possessions under an arbitrary number. It’s more like we have a minimal amount of stuff because of our choice to be nomadic than anything else.
I totally agree with you guys as well. Being frugal is great, when possible… I mean who doesn’t like saving money! BUT pinching pennies too much can defeat the purpose of living this lifestyle in the first place. We go to so many amazing places, and often times we need to spend money to make the most of them. For example, last week I was on a cruise that stopped at a few islands. The cruise itself was cheap, but the excursions can add up. But DUDE… I’m in Mexico, just a few hours from the amazing Mayan ruins. Am I going to NOT GO… just to save some $$? Of course not! I forked it up and had the experience of a lifetime!
Same thing with the gear (laptops, cameras, etc). These things help us to maintain the lifestyle. In fact we rely on them. Sooooo wouldn’t we want the most reliable, fast stuff out there?
So yeah, I totally get where you’re coming from. We do everything we can to save money up until the point where it would detract from our overall quality of life.
Sounds like you had a great time on your cruise!!
We don’t just go spend to spend either, and do avoid spending on things that aren’t important to us. And we do look for deals when possible. But we’re not going to avoid doing things that will bring us great joy just to save money either.
It’s all about balance.
We’re very much in the same boat. It’s sort of interesting that many of the non-travelers we meet assume we make loads of cash and spend excessively, and many of the nomadic folks we meet assume the opposite – that we budget excessively and are trying to deliberately reduce our expenses by living in an RV.
To be honest, we spend about as much traveling in our RV fulltime as we did when we lived in San Diego…. it’s just on different things (gas! lol). We live like most people and work full time, it’s just that our home can move and we visit different cities in our time off. 🙂
It’s amazing how far spread the misconceptions are about the cost of full time travel are. Nice to know there are others out there in similar boats/RV/etc 🙂
For us, our cost of living is down quite a bit. However, we both lived separately before hitting the road together, so tough to gauge.