Hello, my name is Ebony and I am from "On
The Waugh Path". We are a family of 4 who have been travelling
around Australia now for 15 months, so a long time. We're very experienced in this, we're experienced
in planning, preparing, and then living this kind of life. Now, if you're watching this video, it's more
than likely that you're preparing for some kind of trip. It might be a small trip, a long trip, you
might be planning for the lap of Australia, you might be about to retire, or, you might
be wanting to do this kind of lifestyle as your forever life. So firstly, congratulations! That is so exciting, awesome, you're gonna
love it! And secondly, oh my gosh, there is a lot to
plan, there is so much to do. This video here we're going to focus on that
burning question that I'm sure you have, and that is "How much is it going to cost me?". This can be quite a controversial question,
and the reason for that is 2 things; One, we're talking about money, and a lot of people
don't like to talk about money. Secondly, the answer that you get really depends
on who you ask. In fact, someone asked this question a few
days ago on a Facebook forum and they got, wait for it, 426 answers! And that was in the space of about 2 hours! So the person who posted that question was
probably thinking "Oh my gosh, I am so confused, so much more confused than when I actually
posted that question." Don't worry, because, you've got us, we've
lived this life. We know how much it costs. We've spoken, we've travelled with heaps of
other families, we've listened to them and how much it's cost them to do it and we've
got all of the different factors that will impact how much this kind of trip will cost
you, based on your individual circumstances. So stay with me, and I'm gonna go through
those big ticket items, that you need to consider, and all of those things that you need to consider
when you're looking at each of those items, so that you can determine for your individual
circumstances, how much you expect a trip like this is going to cost you. Ok, so I spreadsheet the X%&! out of everything. So I have every cent that we've spent during
our trip in a spreadsheet and I'm going to open that up for you now in my computer in
front of me and I'm going to take you through all of the different buckets of cost. So, we're going to start off with those big
ticket items, that no matter who you are, where you're travelling, you're going to incur
some kind of cost. Because let's face it, everyone needs to eat,
everyone needs to sleep somewhere, and everyone needs some way of getting around. So the first thing we're going to look at
is food. Now food bills are so varied, because there
are a lot of factors that impact how much you spend on this. How many mouths do you have to feed? Who's travelling? Is it a single, is it a couple, is it a family,
a big family, do you have a dog with you, etc? Secondly, how many times a week do you plan
on eating out? That's obviously going to be more expensive
if you're eating out. How many meals a day are you going to have? How big are your portion sizes? So for us, our average weekly food bill (so
this includes our grocery shopping, plus any kind of takeaway or eating out) is on average
$400 a week. We like to eat heaps of fresh fruit and vegetables,
and we also like to shop at the local butcher. But if you're more than happy to eat more
toast and 2-minute noodles and stuff like that, then obviously your bill is going to
be heaps cheaper than that. The next one is accomodation. So the first 12 months that we travelled the
average was $260 a week. The second year that we've been travelling,
our average is way less than that at $140. I think that's because in the second year
we've done way more free camping, but even in those free camps, a lot of the time, they're
not actually free! They're not actually free! A lot of the time they might charge you like
$10 or $20 a night to stay there. National Parks mainly aren't free. So a lot of national parks again you might
need to pay $10 or $20 a night to stay there. Caravan parks can vary greatly. Some caravan parks the price might be $30,
other places like on the Gold Coast in peak season might be $100 a night. It depends on the state that you're in, how
much free camping that you plan to do, how many caravan parks, national parks etc, that
you have to do. So consider those things when you're looking
at your accomodation bill. The next one is petrol. So for us, in our first year our average was
$120 a week, in our second year our average has been $150 a week. Now that's probably because in our second
year, we've done things like we've crossed The Nullarbor, and so the cost of fuel was
more expensive, we had to spend it and we were travelling longer distances in less time. So things to consider are: How fast are you
planning on travelling? If you're going to be travelling super quick
getting around, then your bill for fuel is going to be much higher. If you have the luxury of staying in places
much longer and you're not doing as many little trips, then obviously your fuel bill is going
to be far less than that. Are you just going around in a car, or are
you towing something? Again, if you're towing something, and the
bigger the thing is that you're towing, then the higher fuel bill that you're going to
have. If you're getting around in a tiny little
car with a tent on the roof, or swags or something, then your fuel bill is going to be a lot less
than that. Caravan and car extras. So I've just kind of bundled these together,
and our average is $60 a week. Now a lot of these things are those that people
don't budget for, but are costs that you are likely going to have. So things like replacing the water filters
in the caravan, for us we had a jockey wheel break so we had to replace that. It's things like our gas bottle refills which
we refill probably every 2-4 weeks. It's like toilet paper, that we have
to get special caravan toilet paper, which was like $16 just for a few rolls of toilet
paper at one place that we were at! All of those kind of maintenanc-y
caravan and car extras. Again, if you're just in a car with a tent or a swag,
then you won't have a lot of those costs. Car and caravan insurances. I know that we have 5 bills. We have our car rego, greenslip and then we
have comprehensive insurance. Then we have our caravan insurance and registration. So there's 5 bills. Obviously, if you don't have a caravan then
those costs are gone. And if you just have a car, then you might
not have comprehensive, so it might be far less than that $80. Next one is having the maintenance on whatever
you're driving around with. So, I've put in there 1 service for our jeep
(car) and 1 service for our caravan per year. Next one is alcohol. Now this one really depends, obviously, on
how much alcohol you drink, or even if you do drink alcohol, and how many people in the
family drink alcohol. So for us, our average in the first year was
$40 a week, and in the second year has been $55. So we've been drinking a little but more in
the second year obviously. But that $55 really equates really to just one case
of beer, between Danny (my husband) and I. So it's not actually that much. You might think that that's heaps and so your
bill might be way less. You might think that that's not much at all
and you'll get through 3 cases. I don't know. Phone bill, you're still gonna need a phone
while you're travelling. So for us, the average of that is $25 a week
and that's just for Danny to be on a $50 plan, and me to be on a $50 plan per month, so that's
$25 a week on average. There is a cost for a lot of things to actually go
see things and do tours and attractions. For us that average has been around $120 a
week. Now we do like to see as much as we possibly
can. So that does include things like museums,
train rides, going on a sea lion trip, going to swim with the whale sharks. All of those big things that we were
like "you know what, we want to do these for sure". So if you're happy to not do as many of those
things, if you prefer to do more of the free things, then that bill will be a lot less. It also depends on how fast you're travelling. Like if you're doing a trip like this over
say 10 years, you're obviously not going to want to pay to do all of those big things
in just one year. You're going to spread them out over that
whole time that you're travelling, so the actual average will come down considerably
per week. So they're all of the big ticket kind of items,
where I'm like "pretty much anyone who is traveling will have some kind of those costs". Now for us there are a few more bits and pieces
that I'm gonna add on and then you can decide whether you want to take them or leave them
when you're working out your own budget. So for us we have hobbies. Our hobby, mainly, is golf. We have a hobby of fishing, but we're not
very good at that...Our average at the moment has only been about $20 a week on golf. That's really only us playing once a month,
which isn't much at all. Health insurance. So health insurance will obviously totally
depend on your own circumstances; what level you have, how many people have it. So I'm not even going to put an amount in
here, you just whack in whatever is relevant for you. The next one is all of those kind of miscellaneous
costs. So things like, if you need to buy some clothes,
if you need to go to the chemist, kmart, big w, getting your hair done, going to office
works, going to the post office, BCF, any other things that you want to buy like a book
to read, or if you have to go to the chiro, physio, buy firewood, all of those kind of
things I'm gonna chuck in a miscellaneous bucket. Now I would say $50-$300 a week? I don't know, that really depends on your
own personal circumstances for how much you'll put in there. Things also to consider. We have a house that we've kept back home
that's being rented out. We need to consider council rates, house insurance,
storage costs to have all of our things in storage. Then we also have subscriptions. So we have apple music, amazon prime, those
types of subscriptions. How many of those are you going to keep, and
how much is that per week? You can work that out. The next one might be for gifts, donations,
all of that kind of stuff. And then that's pretty much it, I think they're
most of the costs. So the only other factor I would say to consider
is, how long have you used the set up that you plan on going travelling with, before
you start travelling? How long have you used the caravan, or the
car, or the swags or whatever, before you start doing that trip. And the reason is - if you've used it a lot,
you're going to be familiar with that set up and you're going to be pretty confident
that you've got everything you need for when you start travelling. If it's a new set up, don't be surprised if
after you've been travelling for a few weeks you go "you know what, actually, I need this,
and I don't have it yet". So if you've only just started travelling
with that set up, you might need to factor in a little but more money for those miscellaneous,
surprise things that you didn't realise you'd need before you started. You can see that how much it's going to cost
you really depends on your individual circumstances. Rule of thumb...normally when you ask this
question, the standard answer is about $1,000 a week, or $1 per km that you want to travel. Now I think you're better off not going with
that stock-standard, but getting these buckets of money, working out your own individual
circumstances and how much you think you're going to pay on each, and it's more likely
to be a true reflection of what it's going to cost you. Alright, that's it, I hope it really helped. If you want to follow our travels (not just
all the planning pieces that will help), but if you want to see us doing our trip and hang
out with us along the way, then check out "On the Waugh Path", all of our episodes of
travelling. Otherwise, we're going to put other short
videos like this that should help you plan your trip. Enjoy, super exciting, all the best, cheers!
