The two most common questions we get asked are “what do you do for a living” and “how do you afford to travel so much?” While we have responded to these inquiries individually, we thought it would be easier to write it all out and go into a little more detail! So how did we do it? 

First and foremost, ever since we met, experiences and memories have been at the core of our relationship and we cherished these far more than any material possession money could buy. Since neither of us come from money, nor did we win the lottery, we’ve had to make conscious decisions as to how we spend our money.

For us, this meant choosing travel over purchasing designer items, expensive gifts, and going out with friends. It meant shopping sales, purchasing needs over wants, and putting every penny into our travel savings account. The more we travelled together, the more we fell in love with each other, and the world. The travel bug was real and all we ever wanted to do was keep exploring. Eventually it got to the point where we were determined to leave it all behind and travel indefinitely, but we just weren’t sure how we could do it without earning a steady income. After giving it much thought, we put together a game-plan, and here’s how we did it!

In 2017, we took a break from our full-time jobs and went on a 5 month, round-the-world-trip. It was a trip of a lifetime to say the least, but we exhausted all of our savings (and even put some of it on the credit card) to make it all happen. It wasn’t long after we returned home that we began scheming out our next big adventure. We wanted it to be bigger, better and longer with no set date to return back home.

So we sat down and put together a realistic budget to figure out how much money we would need to earn in an 8 month period to keep us afloat for an entire year on the road. How much you ask? $30,000. We would need to earn $30,000 per person ($60,000 total) in an 8 month period to keep us afloat for 12 months - which, living a massive metropolitan city like Toronto, we knew was totally doable!

Now, this isn’t one of those get-rich-quick schemes; neither one of us are trust fund babies so be prepared to work hard and make a lot of tough decisions. But we want to show you that if you change your mindset, hustle hard, and save even harder, it is possible to save a lot of money in order to fulfill your dreams. 

1. Changed Our Spending Habits

Toronto, one of the more expensive cities to live in, definitely comes with its own set of challenges and affordability, especially for millennials. With the endless temptations of social outings, $25 smash avocado and mimosa filled brunches on weekends, it can get super difficult to get your priorities in order to save. 

One of our biggest challenges was to change our mindset 180 degrees- we had to reign in our social activities and learn to turn down invites for things like after work drinks. The daily temptations of buying coffee and a bagel on the way to work, or buying lunch, were super hard to resist at first, but once we changed our attitudes and saw how much money we were saving, it got a lot easier.

For example: The average cost of a coffee and a bagel downtown would be around $5. A salad or panini at lunch set us back at anywhere between $10-$15. A drink or two after work would be an easy $20, and if we ordered in dinner well... you get the point. Spending an average of $35 a day on food adds up quickly- and if you throw in the social activities on the weekend, before you know it you are spending hundreds. It cost us $800 for 2 weeks in Europe, which is so worth the sacrifice of skipping take-out meals.  

2. Save, Save, Save

First things first when it comes to saving money: spend as little of it as possible and learn to cut corners. We decided to cook all of our meals at home. We also focused on more vegetarian alternatives, both for the environment and also to save money. We would prepare breakfast at home, pack lunches, and cook dinner in the evenings. We saved hundreds of dollars, and while it did sometimes suck to miss out on going out, we knew that by cooking at home we would be able to afford a nice date night in Rome in the future. 

Other things that are super simple to save money on are non-essential items, such as new clothes (the only new piece of clothing either one of us bought in those 8 months were new winter gloves). We also cut back on brand name household products and went with generic brands. No matter what the ads tell you, believe me you do not need that brand name washing machine detergent that smells good. The cheaper one will do the job well. Simple things like painting your own nails and cutting back on trips to Sephora saved us hundreds of dollars in the long run- turns out drugstore makeup works just as good!

We decided against creating a special ‘travel savings account’. We didn’t want to have any excuse to consider the money in our chequing account as not part of our travel fund, and treated every dollar in there as a essential to our world trip.

3. Rented Out Our Condo on Weekends

We decided to live downtown Toronto (a 5 minute walk from the infamous CN Tower) for many reasons as opposed to living in the suburbs. We calculated that by the time you factor in the cost of a monthly transport pass and the time spent to and from commuting, we would be spending a little bit less living in a one bedroom condo downtown.  We were both a 15 minute walk from work and didn’t have to rely on transit schedules. By saving time commuting, we had more time to work on our other side hustles in the mornings and evenings.

We wanted a condo with a clear view of the CN Tower, as we knew we wanted to Airbnb our space in order to make extra money. And believe me, being able to boast stunning views of the city skyline allows you to charge more per night for your place. 

We found the perfect rental for $1750 a month including internet and utilities. We did however, have to pay $150 extra monthly for parking, and since I was not willing to give up my car (completely worthless downtown but it wasn’t something I was ready to sell yet), car insurance and gas also set us back an additional $400 a month. 

However, one of the ways we saved money on rent was to Airbnb our condo during weekends.  We would clean up the apartment early Saturday mornings (which was brutal for me as I finished work at 4am) and checked in guests at 11am. We would then drive an hour and a half to my parent’s house, where we were fortunate to be able to spend the weekend while working on our other ventures. 

While I totally know that not everyone is able to stay at their family’s house over the weekend, there were plenty of places to rent within a 45 minute drive that had cheap accommodation.  In the neighboring suburb of Mississauga and Richmond Hill, there were private rooms available for $35 a night, which would have been a great alternative for us to stay at while still renting out our condo for $150 a night. 

4. Spent All Our Free Time Working Overtime

There are many benefits to working overtime- besides being able to make more money, we were also too tired to spend money after a long day at work. Let's start off by clarifying that while Kaan and myself made the same amount of money at our full time jobs, our work was on complete opposites of the spectrum. Kaan’s was a corporate office job that required a degree, while I worked in a bar where my degree had no impact on my income. Whether you do or don’t have a degree shouldn’t make much of a difference if you are looking to make and save money on a short term basis.  While I had to put my office career on hold, I knew I could make at least double the money working in a bar, and be able to fund my passion for travel. 

We worked completely opposite schedules- Kaan did 9am-9pm, while I worked 4pm- 4am. Mondays to Fridays, we never saw one another. Our goal was to work enough hours that by Thursday evening we would be hitting overtime (in Canada, that's more than 44 hours a week). At Kaan’s salaried job, overtime was calculated as paid vacation days, while at my hourly wage I was able to earn 1.5x my rate on my Friday night shifts. 

Working a minimum of 54 hours at our full time jobs meant that we were able to a) save a lot more and b) resist the temptation to go out and spend money as we were always too tired.

5. We Found Multiple Side Hustles

In this day and age, it is imperative to have multiple sources of income- and we had many side hustles that supplemented our full time jobs. Afterall, you never want to put all of your eggs in one basket. These secondary jobs can range from driving for Uber, reselling wholesale products, or freelancing online. The opportunities for side gigs are incredible, and if you do it wisely, you can almost make the same amount of money as your full time job. 

Click here for more ideas on easy ways you could make money.

Take Advantage of Your Local Buy and Sell Websites

Besides renting out our condo on Airbnb, we would search the ‘want’ ads on websites like Craigslist, Kijiji, and Facebook Marketplace to see what products were most in demand. When we saw a product that many people were looking for, we would go on Alibaba to see if we can buy them for a cheaper price in bulk. We would then resell them on local pages for usually double the profit.

We also started to sell all of the random junk we accumulated over the years. To test the waters, we put up our couch, which we put used 5 years before, and were shocked when it sold for $300. That was the tip of the iceberg, and we started putting up everything and anything on these buy and sell websites. We would occasionally find people giving away free furniture that was in decent shape, and resell that as well.

Teach English Online and Earn Serious Money

Teaching English online is also a fantastic way to earn a regular income. While most companies are based in China, meaning your working late nights or early mornings, we loved the flexibility this allowed us. We work for both GOGOKID and VIPKID, two ESL companies that require absolutely zero commitment. Some months we were too busy to teach, and other months we would work 20 hours a week. We would earn $21 USD per hour (that's almost $28 CAD)  doing this, and found that it was pretty easy- teaching children how to speak English really isn’t rocket science, and it only required a university degree and a TESOL certificate (you can get this online in under two hours). For more information about teaching English online, click here. 

Play it Safe on Sports Betting

Kaan is also reeaaalllly into sports betting. This isn’t just any kind of gambling- he has a calculated system of where he bets solely on NBA games. While he is a cautious bidder and only bets when the system analytics predict a win, this was a steady income for us that earned us about $10,000 per season. 

Watch Free Tutorials to Develop Skills

On the weekends when we were at my parents house, we would sit and watch Youtube tutorials on how to edit photos and videos. This allowed us to fine tune our content creation expertise and learn so many new things about photography and social media in general, which helped us a lot in starting our Instagram account and content creation services. 

How we made and saved Thousands of Dollars 

Our side hustles, combined with our full time jobs, meant that we were working an average of 80 hours a week. However, we were also able to save $60, 000 which we were able to use to travel full time. It definitely wasn’t easy- working so much will always burn you out but it is so rewarding. On the nights we would crash into bed exhausted, we knew that our hard work would be rewarded by being able to roadtrip across Europe, experience Safaris in Africa, and enjoy dinners on the beach in the Maldives. We hope that with taking bits and pieces from this article will help you save money for whatever you’re passionate about!