Sanity Lost is Freedom Gained
My name is Catrina, and my husband, Matt, and I are insane. At least that’s what we’ve been told in what I think was a loving way.
About a month ago, Matt and I decided to back up our dogs, sell everything we own, and go traveling. Since then, we’ve been telling others of our plan and entertaining a round of the same questions over and over again. I get it. People are curious. How will we pay for our travels? After all, we were just on the brink of losing our house a mere 6 months ago. We have three huge dogs; what will we do with them? Luckily for us, this is one decision that we didn’t rush into. We’ve done our homework, and we have answers for all of these questions and more. And for every one person who feels comfortable enough to ask those questions, we’re guessing there are another five or six who are too afraid to ask, or feel it would be impolite. Which is where our journey begins.
Below is a list of the most common questions we’ve been asked so far about our desire to travel the world on what we thought was a shoestring budget. I’m going to warn you — I’m going into detail and talking about those personal things people aren’t supposed to talk about, like our living expenses and financial breakdown. (If anyone reading this has any question that isn’t answered in this list, please ask! Not only will you be giving me easy writing prompts, but it may help us ask ourselves a question we haven’t thought of yet.)
- Why are you going?
The list of reasons we want to travel is about as long as the list of questions people ask us. If I was forced to put into a short sentence why we are going, it would look something like this: We are disenchanted with the day-to-day monotony of the midwest American society, and our passions lie in helping others and expanding our world. We want to learn. We want to live — really live. We want to sleep on the beach and shake scorpions out of our shoes. We want to trek through the rain forest and see monkeys and parrots outside of the bars of the zoo. We want to help others by jumping head first into their world and learning what it’s like to live outside of the American safety bubble. We don’t want to work ten hours a day and spend another two hours in the car, day in and day out, desperately hungering for weekend time off just to end up tired and old and unable to enjoy freedom in retirement at the end of your life. Also, we want to save money and have access to better health care. Yep — I said save money and better healthcare. That wasn’t a typo. More on that later.
I could write for days about the reasons it’s healthy to get outside of your own culture and experience the world, but I will resist. Basically, we just want more.
2. How can you afford this?
Great question. This is probably the most popular thought when we tell people we’re going to travel the world indefinitely. How? We are far from wealthy. As a matter of fact, we were about two days away from losing our house this past year and a generous investor in our business stopped that from happening. So yes, I can understand that we probably sound a bit insane to those familiar with our recent lack of financial luck. In reality, though, we are going traveling to save money. Allow me to explain.
Matt and I have a business. It’s wildly successful, but even so we pay our employees more than we pay ourselves. We like it that way and would like to continue to do so. Which is why we had to get creative. Our business currently warrants us about $1,500 a month. Not a ton in Indianapolis. Thanks to my monthly military disability and another part time job, we end up bringing in roughly $3,000 a month. Our base expenses (which are not extravagant) are roughly $2,900 a month. You can see where people would think we are crazy. How on earth are we going to travel, especially if I’m losing $1,000 a month of income when I quit my part time job? That’s where it gets fun.
First, we’re going to rent out our house. The rent will, ideally, cover our mortgage, taxes, insurance, and a property management company, plus a couple hundred dollars left over of income. Next, we’ll continue working on the business remotely, and we’ll give ourselves a small raise — to $1,750 a month. That’s it. That’s all we’re going to do. Between the monthly rent for our house, the money from our business, and my military disability, we’re already in a better spot, bringing in $3500 a month — $500 more than if we were to stay put. Of course our expenses will go up too, right? Wrong!!! Where we are starting our journey — in San Pancho, Mexico — monthly rent for a 2-bedroom house averages around $300 a month. Even if we budget $600 a month for rent, our expenses go from $2,900 a month in Indianapolis with no clothing allotments, no eating out, no extras, to $2,700 a month living a lavish life in San Pancho. That includes our mortgage and car payments back home, groceries, utilities & rent in Mexico, food, entertainment, and more. We’ll be eating out as much as 7–10 meals a week, spending money on things like surf lessons and jungle adventures, and we will still be spending less than we would in the U.S. The key to this is that we’re staying longer than a week or a month. Rent prices go up significantly the shorter your stay.
So as you can see, by traveling in Mexico, we’ll be saving money. A lot of it. We’ll be able to save hundreds every month. Sounds too good to be true. But it isn’t.
3. What if you get sick?
I love this question. What if we break a leg? What if we come down with the flu? What if we get bit by a mosquito, come down with West Nile, then contract Ebola, and then get bitten by a shark? The answer is easy — the same thing we’d do back home. Go to a doctor. You silly folks. Which always leads to the follow up question, “But U.S. doctors are the best in the world. Mexican hospitals are dirty. Their lack of good training could kill you.” Ahh yes. The American bubble. I am going to say this as nicely as possible: LIES! Contrary to popular belief among Americans, the U.S. actually has a terrible and inefficient health care system. (GASP!) According to the World Health Organization, the U.S. ranks 37th in the world for quality of health care. THIRTY SEVENTH! Basically, our health care system doesn’t just suck. It sucks worse than a whopping 36 other countries.
One person I know contested this statement with the thought that the 36 countries that came before us must be European first-world countries with better access to healthcare. That seems like it should be a logical assumption. But alas, it isn’t true. Included in the 36 countries with better health care than the U.S. are Costa Rica, Dominica, Colombia, and Chile.
While Mexico may not have made the top list back in 2000 when the WHO did their initial survey, they’ve certainly made waves in more recent studies. The Global Retirement Index of 2014 ranked Mexico 5th in the entire world for quality of healthcare, using factors like cost, number of doctors per person, percentage of the population with access to clean water, infant mortality rate, and life expectancy. Even expats (foreigners) get access to the Mexican health care system for a low monthly income-based fee (usually $50-$150 USD).
4. The world is dangerous! Why wouldn’t you want to stay in the U.S. where it’s safe?
To this question, I say, “Stop reading/watching the news.” Yes, if your entire experience of Mexico entails reading about the cartel beheading Mexicans with machetes, then you’re probably going to be terrified of going to Mexico. Similarly, I’m pretty sure the media in other parts of the world portrays the U.S. as a bunch of rich idiots being killed by religious extremists through mass murder. The world isn’t as scary as the news makes it seem, but, as a brilliant Rolling Stones article recently quipped, “It’s not that there aren’t real threats. The problem is that no one in popular culture is incentivized to mitigate our fears of those threats, or place them in context. Fox News is not going to sell many ads running stories called ‘Mexicans Are Basically Nice People Just Like Us.’ CNN isn’t going to grab eyeballs showing videos of Muslim immigrants in New Jersey just hanging out watching soccer.”
Is it possible that I could get murdered during a road trip through Mexico? Totally possible. But it could also happen traveling through Michigan. We’ll be fine. Or we won’t. But we won’t let that stop us from living.
5. What about your dogs?
They’re going with us! Yay! This is actually one of the reasons we chose to start our adventuring in Mexico. It’s accessible by car, so the puppy dogs can go, too. Someday when they’re gone we’ll expand our travels overseas. Until then, Central and South America shall suffice.
So there you have it! We’re going traveling, and we have done a crap load of research to back it up. Still have questions? ASK! Leave us a comment and let us know your thoughts. We’d love to hear from you.
And finally, bookmark this site! We will be writing about our preparations and our adventures, so live vicariously through us and stay up to date on our insanity. Happy travels! :)