I second being ruthless and selling any clutter off on ebay. I must have made aobut £4-500 from this. A fraction of the total budget we needed, but nothing to be sniffed at, as you can imagine!

Also agree with cycling. When I lived in London, cycling here and there instead of a bike/car was a lot cheaper and not really any slower! Certainly quicker than a cage... Petrol being one of the most expensive consumables it made a big difference and the savings went in the pot.

Added bonus is that I lost some weight too which shaved an easy 10kg off the total weight of the bike. (one's belly is definitely a great place to shed kgs from your prepped bike: far easier than trying shave grams off, by taking a spanner that was 2cm shorter etc)

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Adventure: it's an experience, not a style!
(so ride what you like, but ride it somewhere new!)

Absolutely agree with everyone on the eBay front (that's Trade Me if you live in New Zealand!).

Having "sold up" twice and got rid of all my worldly possessions (including a car) online, it's by far and away the quickest way to get the funds you need for travelling. And it's amazing what people will cough up for stuff you consider to be junk...

Jeanie

Great thread. Three come to mind:

One - Get a small notebook and each day write down what you spent your money on - just writing it down makes you realise how much you didn't need to spend. I also found it becomes a bit of a game to record $0 spend days you can achieve in a week. Also makes you appreciate how much of a consumer society we've become.

Two - Become vegetarian. My son did recently so I fell in line to simplify family cooking and am amazed how cheap it is. Also cook as much of your food from scratch as you can - it isn't hard and a lot cheaper and healthier than pre-packaged.

Three - keep your credit card well away from EBay. Its all very well to make money selling stuff on it. Its also to easy to spend it again on something that seems essential at the time.

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Martin

finally back on the road again


http://awayonmybike.blogspot.com/

Do not buy a newspaper local libraries have them in & you can order new books as well,

try Compare Supermarket Prices | Supermarket Shopping - mySupermarket there you can compare prices with Tesco, Asda, Sainsburys print off your shopping list

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We are the Pilgrims, Master, we shall go Always a little further: it may be beyond that last blue mountain barred with snow, Across that angry or that glimmering sea.

Learn to fix things yourself. If you have a car, buy the book and do all your own servicing. Learn how a washing machine works, then fix that when it breaks. Ditto the oven.

Use cider vinegar to clean things instead of those expensive bottles of coloured stuff.

Keep your fridge full, it's more efficient.

Keep the freezer defrosted, it too will be more efficient.

Turn the thermostat down one degree.

Replace all your bulbs with energy saving ones. Turn off lights in rooms not occupied (If you manage to get a woman to do this, please tell me how).

Ditch the gym membership and walk / run / exercise at home. Pressups and situps are free!

Cancel Sky and get freeview.

Use rechargable batteries, and charge them up at work! Ditto your mobile phone.

At phone contract renewal, use a re-seller - I just cut my monthly bill from £35 to £20 a month for the same deal, with a £10 per month cash back (redeemable every three months).

Copy all your CD's to your PC and sell the physical disks.

Buy good quality stuff so you only buy it once.

Go shopping without a list and only buy the discounted items, or 2-4-1 deals. Then have fun making meals up from the stuff you bought!

Join freecycle.org to give away your tat and get free stuff from others giving away their tat.

Awesome tips...

one thing that works for me is pulling out cash.

I pull out $100 each pay day to last 15 days until the next. this is my money for eating out lunches, entertainment, and generally just "luxury".

The rest goes to pay down my bills (yeah I'm THAT american with credit debt... going away slowly but surely) grocries (I usually pack my luch for work) and savings (saving now for a RTW trip in 2022 or 2024 when I retire from the Miltary.)

I'm going to start hitting up e-bay with my junk to pay down my debt faster which = adding to my trip budget sooner.

turning off my breakers in my apartment with the exception of my kitchen to save power when not at home(save an average of $10-20 a month more if I'm on a multi week trip)

keep the AC (or heat if your in a colder climate) just warmer (or colder) than your ideal... then strip down (or throw clothes on) to make up the difference.

be stingy about your lights. use one at a time... I even take out one bulb if the light holds two...

I've shut off my cable, but still have internet, I can see most tv shows that I'm addicted to (house atm) on Hulu... or down load them on my PC. that saves me close to $60 a month.

I try to barrow movies or down load them rather than purchase... or if I do purchase, I'll burn them and re sell them.

one that I need get away from is my cell phone. I have a Droid with all the apps and blah blah... I love it... but my bill is $75 a month. could go with a prepaid one eventually... but damn that's my life line! LOL

Look on craigslist for FREE stuff, then re-sell it elsewhere or on ebay.. you would be surprised what you can get!

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Great tips guys! There's two more things I found very helpful.

1.) Budgeting: if you give yourself a (realistic) bugdet and stick to it, it gives you much more control of your money. Just like the $100 'Ebbs15' takes out every payday for food for the next 2 weeks. Another advantage: you can plan ahead and know exactly when you will have a certain amount of money saved to get a starting date for your next tour.

2.) Planning: if you know early which things you need to acquire you can buy them when they are on special instead of having to buy when you need them. E.g. try to buy most things during the Christmas or Easter Sales. Have a look through these flyers in your mailbox or TV and radio ads so you know about which shops have sales on which items.

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no risk - no fun

Or better yet: don't get them at all. Frankly, most things we think we need are completely useless. Take your time prior to any bigger purchase and really think about it. Do you really need a flat-screen TV or do you just want one? Do you really need a new laptop every three years or do you simply want one?

That kinda thinking can save you a lot of money in the long run.

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"Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in one pretty and well preserved piece, but to skid across the line broadside, thoroughly used up, worn out, leaking oil, shouting GERONIMO!"

Yep, it's a conspiracy, cleverly run by the world's insidious advertising industry to get you in its grip (trouble is, it keeps the HUBB going).

Here's some help -
There are a hundred or so Buy-Nothing-Days to this:
Buy Nothing Day - UK - Saturday November 26th 2011


So use them to get out there and do things that don't involve buying something.........(unless it's absolutely NEEDED for your trip)

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TTR250 - London to Cape Town

Avoid debt.
A mortgage for your house is allowed but no loans for anything, never, ever.
Save up and pay cash for your bike, car, yacht, the lot.

A penny saved is a penny earnt.

Keep saving, it's not just important for travelling but for the economy! Well so I was told by our Ex-PM good 'ol Johnny

I'll also add that buying tickets well in advance like for us, buying ferry tickets with the Bike included over 6mths in advance saved us 40%. It's not always possible to do and I wouldn't change my travel plans just to get a discount but worth shopping around just incase.

Also when shopping at the supermarket, I always go for sale items. I rarely buy meat a full price, I always like to wait until it's been discounted. Then I buy in bulk and freeze what I don't eat.

When travelling, I usually become vegetarian at least when cooking my own meals because it's difficult to keep meat and dairy products cold on a bike, so safer just to eat food that won't spoil, this had the added advantage of keeping costs down.

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TurboCharger + Francois (our BMW R1200gs) '07
www.riding2up.net, blog.riding2up.net

That, my friend, is the absolute truth!!!
What I am doing right now, only 15 more years to pay my flat with garage and then housing = 0€.

All the other stuff that I own, is paid for.
And I have two jobs... in the week for the government, in the weekends I have my own company... so most of my expenses are paid for by my own company - no profit means no taxes - so half of what I earn in the week I can save up!

Problem is with this system that it is hard to take holiday's... so we are saving up and when my company stops making money, we'll take a year of, have enough saved up for this.

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www.wanderingsouls.be

picked up a honda cbr125 few weeks back.it saved me 40 quid in fuel last weekend...new forest and back in van 50 quid....cbr was about a tenner..ran it till completly stopped with a spare can of fuel strapped on and ended up 250 miles on 9.5 litres?...why didnt i get one of these years ago?been using it as run around rather than using van when i can and its been quite an eyeopener.....dont tell the government that its possible to get nearly 120 to the gallon they will want to ban the things..defrauding the revenue by not spending fortunes on fuel.

I wonder if Ewan and Charlie did all this ??