Earlier on in the year, I started to befriend a woman named Anu Krishna.  Anu works at my school, and every other week, we have to stand in the atrium and open the doors for students that arrive early.  Anu is from India and it wasn’t long before we started chatting about the experiences I had in the country in 2005.  When I told Anu about the possiblity of Blake and I going there again, she was extremely excited for us.  Right off the bat, Anu told me that she would email all of her friends in India about a month before our departure, to ask them if they would be able to help us along the way with homestays, emergency contact information, etc.  She continues to give me advice and useful information on a daily basis. 

I met another Indian woman as I was eating lunch one day.  I was in the teacher lunch room and I sat in my usual seat.  There were two women at my table, so I started to talk to them.  They were both substitutes for the day, and I could tell that they were foreign.  It wasn’t long before they told me they were from India and when I told them about my upcoming trip, they gave me all kinds of suggestions.  One of the women was from Kerala which is where Blake and I want to go the next time around.  When I told her this, she said she had a condo right across the street from the ocean in Kerala.  She said that although it’s not furnished yet, it should be by next year, and she offered for us to stay there as long as we like.  She said her sister lives around the corner and keeps a key.  Without knowing me whatsoever, she wrote down her name, phone number, and email, and she told me to call her about a month before I leave.

A few weeks ago, Blake and I decided to go to Starbucks.  We thought some celebration was due since Blake had received his first tutoring gig.  We went right up the street to our local Starbucks, and one our usual baristas was there to take our order.  He was getting ready to throw out the pastries and since he knew that we were regulars, (or used to be before our savings plan) he gave us some free pastries.  While I was wondering if I should eat it due to my calorie intake, Blake jumped at the chance and was extremely ecstatic about the kind gesture.  “What?  You’re giving us these for free?” he said in a kind of whispery yell.  Blake told him that we were trying to save money for a year-long around the world trip, and how coming to Starbucks was now a luxury.  This snowballed into a discussion about what we’re going to do and where we’re going to go.  We told him we were dedicating a lot of time to South America, and he started telling us all about it.  He has family and friends that live in most of the South American countries and just like the other two strangers I had met earlier that week, he told us to notify him about a month ahead of time and he will call his friends and family to organize homestays and tours.

Who knew that networking and forming connections would be so easy?  Especially with people you don’t even know.  Blake and I are sure to meet other strangers throughout our journey.  If the strangers that we meet are as nice as the ones we have been meeting in our own local community, we might not need as much money as we thought which makes me think of another old saying.  Does “money make the world go around” or does human kindness?

When you’re trying to save money, you realize that such parties are a little excessive.  This year we are still celebrating Blake’s birthday all weekend, but we’re doing it on a smaller scale. 

Friday night, when we got off work, Blake really wanted to order chinese food for dinner.  This is something we used to do every other week or so.  He loves chinese food, so this was a treat in itself. 

On Saturday morning, we decided to go to our favorite breakfast place called “Cafe au Lait.”  We used to go there every Sunday.  We would spend around $11.00 on two bagels with sausage, egg, and cheese and two coffees.  The coffee is SO good.  This is one splurge I really miss. 

After breakfast, Blake decided to go to a Magic prerelease tournament.  That’s right.  I said “Magic” otherwise known as Magic the Gathering, perhaps one of the dorkiest card games known to man.  Blake loves Magic, and I have to admit…I even play from time to time.  Anyway, he went to the prerelease which started at 10:30am and he treated himself a little more to eating half a pizza that he split with one of his friends.

I had to pull him away from the tournament at around 5pm because his best friend Chris and I had planned to take him to a Decemberists concert as a suprise birthday present.  The concert was in Athens, and he had no idea about it.  We were trying to keep the whole thing a huge secret.  I made up this elaborate plan to make Blake think we were going to the Atlanta Film Festival with a bunch of my work buddies.  Although he likes my work friends, he wasn’t thrilled about the idea because he would have rather stayed at the tournament.  Little did I know, he was planning to blow the whole film festival off when I called him at 5 to ask where he was.  He told me that he was doing well in the tournament, which meant he had to stay longer – definitely until 7pm, maybe until 10pm.  (This was true by the way.)

The concert was at 8:30, and we really needed to leave by about 6, so I just decided to bust the secret, right then and there.  I suppose it was a good thing because he said there was nothing short of a Decemberists concert that would have gotten him to leave the tournament.

Chris, his brother Dan, Blake, and I had had some Starbucks before driving to Athens.  Starbucks is another big treat to us these days.  After that, we made the drive to Athens in the pouring rain.

We got there on time and the concert was amazing.  We sat in the fifth row and had ourselves a time.  

When we left the concert, we were all a little hungary so we stopped at Taco Bell to get some food.  Right after eating, Blake and I felt a little sick.  He said he had actually been feeling a little nautious all day.  We both think that after eating such bad food we felt poorly because we aren’t used to eating greasy food anymore.  

I don’t know if we have much in store for Sunday.  I suppose we will just relax and get ready for the rest of the week.  I know we have some work to do on this blog, and I would also like to create a flyer and cover letters for tutoring.  Perhaps our splurges for today might entail making something really good for dinner.

Monday will probably be a normal day, and on Tuesday, Blake’s birthday, he will open some presents and we will most likly splurge one last time on a night out for dinner.

No big parties, no going out of town for a weekend away.  Just a weekend filled with a few of our old traditions and activities.  I think Blake has had a good birthday so far. 

Right now, we’re trying out a magazine type grid theme.  Blake is probably going to create a header that features our website name, and we will categorize each of our material as “Blake’s Blog” or “Lindsey’s Blog.”  This will also allow us to comment on twice as many travel sites as we normally would.  If we are both posting comments under our website name, we’ll probably be able to meet twice as many people in the backpacking community, etc.

We have such a great vision for this website.

Most of the grandparents that I have left are probably not going to live much longer, and knowing this presents me with the same feelings that I had standing in the Italian phone booth.  If they do pass away while I’m gone, I probably won’t be able to return for a funeral.  Likewise, I won’t be there for my family when I should be. 

This is one of the most devastating factors for me when deciding to go on a trip like this.  Yet, after tons of thought, I feel that my grandparents would probably want me to have this experience rather than waiting around for them to die.  I believe they wouldn’t want me to waste my youth, twiddling my thumbs, thinking about what could happen.

Since we will be leaving for an extensive amount of time, it is important for us to make the rounds to see all of our family members.  As noted, we are on an extremely tight budget, which means we have to make some consessions and carefully plan our holiday visits.  Blake and I both have extended families, so we will be traveling quite a bit before we go on the big trip.

Blake is planning a visit to see his mom in Washington D.C. on October 2, 2009.  The weekend trip takes place a week after his birthday, so his mom offered to pay for his flight, which was a nice birthday present. 

My mom and stepdad will drive up for a short weekend visit on October 23, 2009.  They live in Sarasota, Florida which is about 8 hours away.

On November 4, 2009, Blake and I are flying up to New York City.  We intend to stay in Brooklyn with a friend on November 4 and maybe November 5.  Then we will rent a car and drive to Barneveld, NY for the weekend to visit with Blake’s dad’s side of the family.  Blake’s grandparents have birthdays at around the same time of year.  A small family reunion has been planned for the weekend that we’ll be visiting, so we’re sure to see plenty of aunts, uncles, and cousins too.

Luckily, we purchased two expensive tickets to Colorado about a year ago, and we ended up cancelling the flight.  This actually worked out pretty well for us because it payed for both tickets to NYC in November.  The only thing we will need to spend money on is a rental car and a limited supply of spending money.

We will be driving from Atlanta to Sarasota, Florida for Thanksgiving.  At this time, we will see my mom, stepdad, sister, and nana.

This Christmas will be spent in Washington D.C., and since we will be on winter break, Blake and I plan to drive.  Again, a limited supply of spending money may be necessary for gas and snacks throughout the trip.  We will probably leave for D.C. on December 22.  Blake’s mom and her fiancee Ralph, usually travel the day after Christmas, so I’m sure we’ll all leave the day after.

Blake and I alternate Thanksgiving and Christmas between our moms, and since we won’t be in the U.S. over Christmas 2010, I thought it would be fun to spend New Year’s Eve with my mom, stepdad, and sister.  It appears that we will be renting a cabin in Maggie Valley, NC for about three days over the holiday.  Since we will be spending money to go on this trip, my mom suggested that we make each other Christmas gifts.  Blake and I are going to make a gift for my mom and Dick and one for my sister.  In turn, they will each make one for us, and we will exchange gifts at the cabin.  This way, all of the costs usually associated with Christmas will be applied to a vacation instead.

The only other trip we have planned so far is to go out to California to see my dad’s side of the family.  I have another set of grandparents there as well as my dad and stepmom, stepsisters, cousins, aunts, and uncles.  Because they are spread out all over CA, Blake and I thought it would be nice to fly out there for Spring Break.  This conveniently falls on my dad’s birthday.  In addition, we will be able to use one of my dad’s extra cars to drive down to Southern California to visit my grandparents and cousins. 

Blake and I currently have $86 each to spend on a different Delta/Northwest flight.  We plan to compile this with any Capital One credit card points that we earn between now and the time we travel to cut down on trip costs.  If this all works out, we will only need a small amount of spending money.

Though I will still feel incredibly bad if a grandparent passes away while we’re on the road, I will be happy to know that I was able to visit with family before our departure.  It seems like there is always something that humans wish they could control.  Perhaps that is why we tend to live in a world of caution and fear.  I don’t know when people will die, or when my own time will come.  But instead of sitting around, dwelling on what could happen, I’m going to determine my own future by controlling as much as I can while taking nothing for granted.

Teachers don’t make a lot of money; especially teachers that have less than five years of experience. 

I have been teaching for four years now.  I typically earn about $2,600 per month after taxes.  However, I recently completed a master’s program which will give me a slight pay increase.  The raise is supposed to be about $5,000 per year, but I don’t know exactly how much I’ll get after taxes.  Since my raise won’t take affect until my October paycheck, Blake and I have based our budget on my old income rate of $2,600.  This is nice because we both make the same amount of money.

We plan to each contribute $1,100 per month to a joint savings account.  Even though our savings will accumulate $2,200 each month, it won’t be enough to allow us to travel around the world for $35 per day…plus keep our lifestyle up here in the U.S.

As a result, I have picked up an after-school job.  I am now one of the Extended Learning teachers at my school, and on Mondays and Thursdays, I stay at school for an extra two hours in order to teach test prep classes.  It gives me about $150 extra per week…but then taxes have to come out of that as well. 

Blake has been picking up tutoring gigs, which I will try to do as well.  He is charging $40 per hour, and he has generated about 3 hours of extra work, which gives him a clean $120 each week.  Hopefully the tutoring will pick up even more as the year goes on.

In addition to the after-school jobs, we have posted ads on Craigslist for interior painting.  We also posted painting flyers at all of the Starbucks in the area.  This isn’t as dependable as we thought, but it still may generate a little extra cash flow.  So far, we were hired to paint one bedroom for $100.  The guy that hired us said he may call us back in a month to do a different portion of his house.

We have also picked up a few odd jobs – curtosy of Blake’s aunt and uncle who live around the corner.  They have hired us for babysitting as well as doing PR work for the uncle’s company.  So far, we have made $210 from babysitting three times and doing one PR gig at a Boys and Girls Club. 

I’ve also been paying attention to new promotions that banks seem to be running.  I have a Chase credit card, and I noticed that they were running promotions for those that open a new checking account.  I kept on receiving coupons through email and regular mail, so Blake and I decided to check it out.  It turns out that the promotions worked! Blake and I each opened a Chase Checking account, and we each got $100.  Blake actually got $125.  A few days after we opened our new accounts, I got a totally separate coupon in the mail, which I intend to try in the near future.  If it works, I will gain another $100.  I won’t know until I have a little extra cash to put into the new account.  Each new account requires a minimum initial deposit of $100, so we’ll soon see if it works.

The last of the money that we have saved so far is just normal savings.  During the month of July, I didn’t use quite as much of the money we would normally use on groceries and gas because I was living alone.  Blake was in Spain working on his master’s degree.  As a result, we used the extra funds to kickstart our savings plan.  Furthermore, we have been using funds from our monthly money allottment in order to set up the initial deposits for our new Chase Checking accounts.

This list should help to break everything down:

$500 – money left over from July and August 09′

$100 – money from our joint monthly spending account that paid for Blake’s Chase Checking account

$125 – Blake’s Chase Checking account promotion

$100 – Lindsey’s Chase Checking account promotion

$100 – Money from painting one room

$210 – Babysitting three times and one PR opportunity

$1,100 – Lindsey’s August 09′  contribution to joint savings

$1,100 – Blake’s August 09′ contribution to joint savings

TOTAL:  $3,335  (During the month of August)

(The money generated from my Extended Learning after-school job will not be figured in our savings plan until November since it takes a while for payroll to get on the ball.  Blake’s tutoring money has not been figured into this budget either because he just started last week.  The money he earns from tutoring will be posted next month.)

While I don’t underestimate the truth in these tidbits of advice, I don’t plan on letting these kind of judgements weigh me down.  I know my job might not be waiting for me when I get back.  I know that the economy is bad, and that we won’t be able to sell our condo in the near future.  I know that to some, I might be making a terrible mistake by saving enough money for a down payment on a house, and choosing to spend it on a one-year adventure.  However, these are all decisions that I willingly make.

I am 27 years old.  I have no kids yet.  I am lucky to have the same profession as my husband.  We do have a mortgage, but we both refuse to let a piece of real estate dictate our lives.

This is my plan upon return:

1.  Before we go, I will request a leave of absence which will allow us to have an equivalent job somewhere in the county.

2.  If we can’t get a leave of absence, we will apply to various schools and/or school districts as we did the first few times we tried to seek a teaching job.

3.  If we simply can’t get jobs, we will look at other districts in other states and continue to rent out our condo.

4.  If we can’t get teaching positions in another state, we may choose to stay in Atlanta while living in our condo.  If this were an option, we’d have to get service jobs of some kind.

5.  If we applied and applied, and couldn’t get service jobs, or teaching jobs in another state/county…we would definitely have to rent out our condo.  I’m thinking the situation would have to be pretty bad here in the U.S.  If that were the case, we’d try to teach for the Department of Defense at an overseas military base.  (This is pretty lucrative, I might add.)

6.  If we didn’t get accepted to teach for the Department of Defense, we would try to sign a contract to teach in Asia at a language academy.  Now, I know this would work.  There are tons of contracts posted online, and this too, is very lucrative.

The bottom line is that the list could go on.  I know this is my life, and perhaps I should be a little more cautious, but equally…THIS IS MY LIFE, and I don’t want to waste it!

I want to do all of the things I’ve dreamed about doing.  I want to dive from a waterfall into a glistening pool surrounded by moss and giant rock formations.  I want to feel the cool, crisp air on my face while trekking up a mountain.  I want to see such a variety of places.  Ones of great beauty, poverty, history, and wonder.  I want to live the life of someone from a different culture.  I want to learn, express, and share. 

How can I do all of these things by working a normal job every day just to be able to pay bill after bill.  Yes, I know.  There is savings too.  I suppose the responsible thing would be to work to pay bills and save what I can for a house, then a family.  This will probably all come with time, but the time is not now. 

Now is my time to take life by the balls, and live it.

If you have any other questions, email us and we’ll answer it on a video blog. We promise!

Sincerely,
Blake and Linds.
happycannibal@yahoo.com

Lately Linds and my mom have been requesting my birthday list (yes, I’m a 27 year old that still makes a birthday list and yes there are magic cards and video games on the list- I like silly stuff!). Usually my list is chaulk full of silly toys and indulgences that I would like to have but just never could bring myself to actually buy. This year, my mindset is different. Its amazing how living with even a little more humility will change your outlook.

1. Quantity Over Quality: As I’ve mentioned before, I love simple pleasures in life, Starbucks, whiskey, chinese takeout, Eurobrews etc… Things I haven’t really had much of lately; hey let’s be honest- it adds up! So for my 28th, I’ve asked for one (or more) of those HUGE Sam’s Club bags of Starbucks beans. Also, I asked for a huge jug of some cheap whiskey, you know- something that will last until December, then I can just ask for another for Christmas!

2. Trip Prep Items: We’re leaving for a year (or more) long trip in 6/2010 and still have to buy a bunch of stuff like little netbook laptops and a quality camera to document our trip and continue to add rich content for all of you to read. So, I’ve asked for some cash to get me closer to buying these things so that I won’t have to spend other funds on them.

Travelers: What other items should I ask for to help me on my journey to the world trip? Any suggestions or comments? As far as books, we have many of the materials we will need. Perhaps we’ll update when we get closer to the launch date, we’ll see.

As far as a party/dinner goes, the merry making will likely be reduced to coffee in the morning with a breakfast bagel, chinese lunch special, then a nice greasy pizza at my favorite local pizza place, Diesel. No party. Who needs it anyways.