unremarkable
Jordan and Daniel

How can you….?

Two questions that have come up over and over again are “How can you afford to take a trip like this?” and “How do you have the time to take such a long trip?”. I would like to write a bit about each of these because many view what we’re about to do as so out of the ordinary and so out of reach that it is out of the realm of possibility for normal people. Well folks, I’m here to say that there is no magic trick in making a trip like this happen. We aren’t rich, our parents aren’t financing it, and up until a week ago, we each held full time jobs. The trip has been in the works for the last five years and it’s taken a lot of planning, saving, and discipline to get to where we are today.

The money

We’ve talked a bit in previous posts about our approach for purchases and goals, but up until now haven’t discussed how we saved for the the trip. The first step was deciding on a budget. After doing a lot of research, we decided on $80/day. We wanted to spend one to two years traveling, so we had a big chunk of change to save up. There are two ways to save money: earning more, and spending less. Since we both worked full time, we focused mostly on what we could do to reduce our living expenses.

We continued to drive our 10 year old cars instead of replacing them and taking on a car payment. We bought a roku box and cancelled our cable, which saved us $130 each month. We began meal planning, which saved us roughly $150 a month on grocery costs. We packed our lunches for work every day. We stopped shopping for the sake of shopping. We were able to cut our budget drastically but just looking at our costs and trimming out the extras.

Once we cut down on spending, we needed a savings strategy. Letting money accumulate into our checking account was not working for us… it was too easy to feel comfortable spending a little extra when it was just sitting there. I’ve heard the advice “pay yourself first” many times, and it is what made saving for the trip possible. We set up an online banking account with ING. At the beginning of each month, an automatic transfer took our savings target out of our regular account and into a “trip savings” account. We did not have debit cards or other easy access to the money, so there was no way for us to accidentally spend it. We essentially lived a self-imposed paycheck-to-paycheck lifestyle, where our primary account was nearly empty at the end of each month. Paying ourselves first helped us successfully save the extra money that we “found” by cutting our budget.

Now that we’re on the verge of leaving, we will set up our accounts so that our ING savings will automatically transfer a “paycheck” into the account we plan on using every two weeks. This will help keep us on budget as we travel and minimize our risk if our cards get lost or stolen.

The time

The only way to have time to take a trip like ours is to make the time. There will never be a convenient, easy time to take off and travel for a few years. There will always be jobs (or lack thereof), school, family, kids, houses, friends, pets, and a number of other reasons to make you stay put. Making the time by selling our home and quitting our jobs was emotionally draining. We lost a lot of money on our house, and quitting our jobs in a time of economic uncertainty was scary, but they were both necessary to make the time.

The tradeoff

Trading time for money is something that people do all the time. We go to work for 40 hours a week in exchange for a paycheck. We don’t always have time to do the things we want to because we have to go to work. We’re getting ready to do just the opposite… trade our money for time. We’ve scrimped and saved for years and its time to trade in all that hard work to follow our dreams.We will unfortunately miss a few weddings, a graduation, and several holidays while we are away. Life will go on for everyone else while we are gone. Eventually, the money will run out and we’ll have to go back to the regular 9 to 5. Until then, we’re breaking away from the norm and heading out into the world for the adventure of a lifetime!

Monday felt like Friday. Jordan had the day off and I wrapped things up at FTD with a feeling that tomorrow held no schedule, no work, and a road trip. We headed out to dinner. Tomorrow must be Saturday.

I was immediately reminded of “A Map for Saturday”, a documentary that we watched countless times and have shown to many friends. In the documentary, a similar feeling is discussed, this isn’t quite a vacation. Vacations are an event, with hotels, planes, amusement parks, natural wonders, and a knowing feeling that, on Monday, you’ll head back to work.

On Monday, I said goodbye to dozens of people and had ice cream cake (thanks everyone!), but really it felt like just another day. As I left work, sans laptop and blackberry, it began to dawn on me, I was finally finished. There was an odd juxtaposition, a sense of finality for me, but for everyone else, it was just another Monday and everything just kept… going.

We spent our first “Saturday” leaving Chicago behind, bound for beautiful Toledo, OH to visit my brother Marcus (picture to the right) before we leave the country. After lunch we continued onward to Zanesville, OH where we’ll be spending the next 10 days.

What about tomorrow? It’s Saturday all over again.

The last few weeks have been a whirlwind. As I’m sitting at home in my hotel room, it seems a bit surreal to think about. Our time left in Illinois is coming to a close. I’ve been a bit nonchalant about the whole thing, mostly because it hasn’t actually hit me yet. I think this is why my posts have been slowing down a bit… I’m still going about my day to day like like this isn’t really happening. My guess is that I won’t REALLY feel it until Thursday night, when I close the pharmacy gate for the last time.

Last week, we each had a going away party with our coworkers. On the drive there, I felt like I should be nervous, excited, anxious, sentimental, freaking out… something. I made the comment, “I can’t believe we’re going to our going away party” more than once, but nothing felt out of the ordinary. We socialized, ate, had a good time, reminisced about some good times, said some goodbyes, and ended with “See you at work tomorrow!” My last day is Thursday. Three more days. It will be the first time I haven’t been working or in school since I was sixteen. I still have a few things left on my to do list for work, like figuring out how to roll over my 401k, finishing up some continuing education, and getting my resume up to date. For the most part, I plan on enjoying these last three days of work as much as possible. I have been lucky enough to work with some great people.

We are leaving Illinois on May 15. I have one run left with my running club. We will visit our favorite Thai place one more time. One more breakfast at Omega. One more weekend in the hotel. One more haircut. Daniel has one more birthday. One more holiday at work. We have to drive to Ohio from Illinois one more time in our falling apart (literally, there is duct tape involved) car. I don’t want to get too sentimental about things, but I do hope to snap a picture at each of our “lasts”.

Plane tickets have been purchased and the timeline is final. May 15 through 24, we will be in Ohio. May 25 through 28 will be spent in Florida. Our one way ticket from the US departs on May 28 and lands in…. Bogota, Colombia! What happens when we get there? I have no idea. We haven’t planned anything, booked accommodations, or figured out what our next stop will be. All I know is I am ready for the adventure!

The Illinois Marathon was held last Saturday on the U of I campus. It seems like forever ago that I decided to squeeze in a marathon as my final hurrah before quitting my job to travel the world. The weeks of training were over and it was time to tackle some unfinished business: breaking 4 hours. I describe myself as a recreational runner. I am not naturally talented, I am not extremely fast, I don’t have the perfect body, and I don’t log 100 mile weeks. That being said, I am very competitive against myself. The goal of breaking 4 hours has been hanging over my head for awhile now and it is time to put it to rest.

Leading up to race morning, I couldn’t find my favorite shorts. The forecast called for rain (then heat, then cold, then wind). I started to doubt myself and if I really put in enough work. Taper madness set in. I felt sluggish. The brakes on my car started grinding. You get the idea… I wasn’t feeling completely confident. I didn’t even get excited about the race until the day before. Once race morning came, I got rid of the negative attitude and went into it feeling good. Daniel got his signature spectating sign ready and we drove to campus.

At the start, it was in the high 40s, overcast, and windy. I found my running partner in the corral and we waited around until the gun went off. There was a wave start, with a 2 minute pause between releasing each corral. It worked out wonderfully and relieved a lot of congestion in the early miles and aid stations. “We are going to break 4 hours” was our mantra. I became the Pace Nazi. Nice and steady was the plan: no miles faster than 9:00 or slower than 9:15. We stayed in a nice pocket between the 3:55 and 4:00 pace groups. The spectators were fantastic, the course was nice and flat, and I felt great. The first half of the race flew by and I clocked in right on pace at 1:59:05.

It started getting extremely windy and cold around mile 16 or so, but I managed to stay mostly on pace. I started reading spectator signs to distract myself. A few favorites were “Your training lasted longer than Kim Kardashian’s marriage”, a three person series of “Go harder.. Go faster.. That’s what she said”,  ”Official marathon shortcut maps: $1″, and of course Daniel’s “Worst. Parade. Ever.” Around mile 18 I started to get excited, because it felt like I could actually make it in under 4 hours. At the 24 mile point, I got a burst of energy and took off. I made the turn into the stadium and hauled ass to the finish at the fifty yard line.

I crossed the finish line in 3:58:22. It is official: I am a sub-4 hour marathoner! My last two miles ended up being my fastest all day. I had a fantastic run and a great time. The race was extremely well organized, the volunteers and spectators were top notch, and I enjoyed the course. Daniel was able to see me at 4 different places along the course – he’s basically a professional spectator at this point. He had a great time cheering; a runner even tossed him a jellybean in response to his worst parade sign! Marathon number three is checked off my list as a huge success. South America, here I come!