I realize that what I do for a living and my lifestyle is difficult for many people to understand. I don’t quite believe it myself most of the time, and rarely feel like I know what I’m doing so certainly don’t expect other people to get it. But I have noticed that there tends to be two very big misconceptions about what I do.

The first is that I’ve been on a perpetual vacation these past four years and the second is that I must be making a lot of money magically appear to be continuing to travel and live where I choose.

Neither are true, unfortunately.

I have, however, been able to live on less while enjoying richer experiences and still have as much money in my savings as I did when I started four years ago.

How?

The short answer is: I have always worked, saved money and been super tight on my spending.

Here’s the long answer.

Before I Left Home

After college, I lived with my parents and worked full time for almost three years hoarding all the money I earned. I had a solid job working at a PR agency in Seattle that included benefits and some perks, but was only making entry level wages during most of that time, regularly working 50+ hour weeks and commuting two hours a day. I could have lived right in the city, which would have obviously lowered my commute time and simply been more fun, but I knew that I didn’t want to settle there and that every time I paid for rent I would have been thinking about the plane tickets that money could have gone toward instead. Was I a pleasant, nice to be around person those few years? Not really, but it gave me the foundation and financial means to spend these last four years not tied to a strict 9-to-5.

During this time, I was conscious of not spending money on things I didn’t need. I’ve always naturally been aware of my spending habits and sometimes frugal to a fault so I don’t usually find it difficult to cut back or stick to a budget. I also don’t like buying stuff, preferring to spend my money on experiences. I have no problem buying a $500 plane ticket…but it’s difficult for me to spend $50 on new clothes. There’s nothing wrong with buying things, if you really want and can afford them, but for me, I wanted to spend my money on travel. And food.

Before I left home, this was my situation:

• No student loans (I have my parents to thank for that one)
• No credit card debt (I only purchase things I have the money to pay for)
• I had some sort of job consistently from the time I was 16 to the time I graduated college then quickly started working a full time “real” job. It was so full time, that if you figured out how much I was getting paid per hour, I had actually made more during a summer in high school working at an amusement park.
• Perks of working all the time = you have no time or energy to go out and spend your money on things!
• I lived with my family in the room I grew up in instead of on my own or with a friend in the city.
• I lived with the basics…which is still a lot more than what most people have. I don’t own much brand name clothing, I hate buying electronics (I figured it was finally time to join this century and purchased my first smartphone last year) and would brown bag it instead of buying lunch at work.
• I thought about what the equivalent of $1 would get me in other countries. In the U.S., it meant not much, in Thailand it meant a plate of freshly cooked food. Thinking this way made it a lot easier to say no to impulse purchases or things like a morning latte. (Though of course, I’m from Seattle, so still did from time to time.)
• I didn’t have a lot of fun. Between working, commuting and living away from most of my friends, I really didn’t have much of a life…or at least not a fulfilling one.

Year One – Backpacking and Teaching in Thailand

Two days after I landed in Chiang Mai I started my TEFL (teaching English as a foreign language) course. Even though I was suddenly in a country where the cost of living was much, much lower than my home, I was even more frugal. I had just quit my job, bought an expensive ticket to Thailand, and paid for my month-long course and accommodation without knowing when or where my next paycheck would come from. I was so tightly wound and focused on money, that I couldn’t enjoy the fact that I had worked and saved for years to give myself a comfortable cushion while being unemployed. During that month, aside from my course fees and lodging which I had already paid for in full, I usually didn’t spend more than $5 a day. I ate two street food meals a day, walked everywhere, didn’t buy anything and maybe splurged every once in a while on a coffee or beer (each costing about $2).

After my course, I decided it was a good idea to go to India for a month with a guy I had just met (that’s another story) and then planned to continue backpacking through Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos before returning to Thailand and looking for work. Throughout the two and half months backpacking I did things as cheaply as possible. In India we always took the train riding in the open air cars (except the time I had a high fever, was pretty out of it and my friend made the executive decision to stick me in first class), stayed in complete shitholes (there’s no other word for them, the places we stayed had stains on the bed, doors and windows that wouldn’t close and, once, a bat flying around the bathroom) and maybe purchased a couple beers twice the entire month. Traveling on my own throughout Southeast Asia I still always took the cheapest transportation, stayed in the largest co-ed, i.e. cheapest, hostel dorm rooms, rarely took any organized tours and walked everywhere.

I ended up rushing through the countries more quickly than I anticipated, partially because it was my first time traveling solo and I was tired, and partly because I felt like I needed to start working again and make up for the previous three months when I had been just spending money. (Looking back, I had absolutely nothing to worry about and I wish I had taken my time traveling longer. I had the savings to do it, I would have been able to find a job later on and that was the last time I’ve been able to fully travel without any other responsibilities.) I got back to Chiang Mai and found a teaching job, place to live and motorbike within a month which took care of my basic necessities and cut down on accommodation and transportation costs.

I worked full-time (45 hours per week) teaching English at a private high school for about $750 per month, with no benefits, perks or even a class curriculum to follow, while teaching evening and weekend classes at a language school bringing my monthly income to just under $1,000. You don’t make much money teaching in Thailand, but you make enough to live on (if you’re smart about it) and still tend to be paid more than the Thai staff so can’t complain. Even making that little (compared to what I would have been making in Seattle) I managed to live comfortably enough and always had a little money in the bank.

During my first year, this was my situation:

• I worked more than full-time making less than $1,000 a month.
• My rent (including water, electricity, WiFi and cable) was 4,200 baht a month, just over $130.
• I bought my motorbike in cash (about $600) so my main transportation costs were filling up with gas 1-2 times per week at about 70 baht each time (about $2)
• I received meal tickets at the high school and would save my tickets whenever I wasn’t hungry to buy a meal to take home – a meal was the equivalent 25 baht or about $0.75.
• I would buy a bunch of vegetables, rice and eggs from the local fresh market for a few dollars then cook up big batches of stirfry and fried rice to eat throughout the week. I bought wine and cheese maybe twice the entire year because I just couldn’t justify paying more than Western prices for mediocre wine and cheese when I could pay $1 for a hot meal.
• When I did go out to eat it was street food ($1 – 2 per plate) 90% of the time. I’m not a big soda drinker, but I would feel guilty if I bought a can of Coke because it was half the price of an entire meal. Buying a $2 cappuccino blew my daily budget and I can still remember the first time I went to one of the nicer vegetarian restaurants geared toward Westerners and treated myself to a sandwich and a smoothie because it was more than I had ever paid for a meal there before…probably about $5.
• I cleaned my house myself (many expats in Thailand have a house cleaner) and filled large jugs of water from a refill station down the street instead of buying bottled water.
• If I went on a trip I stayed in the cheapest accommodation possible, never more than $15 a night, and always took a bus or songthaew (shared taxi) instead of shuttles or airplanes.
• The only clothes I bought were for work. I did have my laundry done for me though – washed, ironed and folded for 30 baht ($1) a kilogram.
• I loved every minute of it.

Places I went:

• Thailand
• United States
• India
• Cambodia
• Vietnam
• Laos

Still reading? Check out Part II and Part III of this post about how I’ve managed to travel the world and live abroad for the past four years without dipping into my savings or pin this for future reading: