I can’t even deny it. My biggest concern, my biggest worry in life has been and probably always will be…money. I was raised knowing the value of a dollar. I worked from the ripe old age of 14 and never stopped. I knew what money meant. I want stability and I NEED to feel comfortable with my finances otherwise I will fixate on it and spiral.
I have always been fairly strict with my money. I actually enjoy saving pennies and reaching my goals gives me the biggest kick in life. And I appreciate this about me because it has allowed us to do some pretty remarkable things in our lives. We had a nice home, two beautiful dogs, travelled to many countries, had life-changing experiences and created memories in these places we will never forget. So I knew if we really wanted to take this gap year, we had to really work and make sacrifices for it.
Piki and I had worked retail jobs for most of our working life. And while the money was fair, it wasn’t always the best and we had our struggles. Don’t get me wrong, we’ve been comfortable. But by struggles I mean we consistently had to budget and sacrifice many of our wants.
With the current housing crisis in Australia, rent was spiking uncontrollably. We were hit with two rent increases in the span of two years and rent was just hemorrhaging our money. To help, we offered Piki’s mum and stepdad move in to save us all on rent.
We enjoy the experience of going out, socialising and trying new things. So to do this, we had to cut costs in other areas. We rarely buy new clothes. We don’t buy new furniture or get the brand new iPhone every release. We don’t buy top tier, I choose home brand every time and will take second hand when we can. I will cheapskate in every possible way! And I’m okay with that.
So, going by our incomes, we could save in the double digits. Would it be enough? We really didn’t know. But we were adamant we could work with what ever we made.
It was October 2023, and we wanted to be off by March 2025. This would give us a sufficient amount of time to save but also tied in well with renewing our rental lease until then.
At this time, Piki was really unhappy in her job. She hated it. I saw how badly it was affecting her mental health and she wanted out. She was so just a year off her long service and this would be a big loss. Not to mention, starting a new job was a risk financially. However, her health was more important and nothing is worth deteriorating that.
So she got to work in finding something new. She applied for a Traffic Management role, that offered training on the job, no experience required but the down fall was, it was a casual position with no guarantee of hours.
She decided to take a chance and hit submit on her application. In the matter of a week, she had interviewed, been offered the job and had handed in her 4 weeks notice to work. The company advised that despite being a casual role, based on the seasons, full-time hours are generally available. So what was there to do except give it a shot? She needed a fresh start.
Much like anyone starting a new job, Pik was nervous as hell. She had worked at the same company for 9 years and lacked confidence in starting somewhere new. But that’s the thing about Pik. She excels at new things, works hard, is down to earth and everyone loves her. So I knew she would settle in quickly.
And she did. Within a month of her new role, she’d become the “superstar” team member. She was praised by her leaders and worked her way to a permanent post and was working crazy hours. Not to mention all staff received a whopping pay rise in this time. She was absolutely raking in the money and we were stoked. With her and my income, we had quickly exceeded our savings expectations.
We had more money than we ever planned, so we felt much more comfortable in our decision to give everything up. This would even allow us to come back with a sufficient amount of money to restart our lives if we played things right.
Now we had to get to work and actually book things. Who knew this was the hardest part…
