Money is an interesting thing. It’s a necessity of life. It’s interesting though how we get used to having it coming in, in a certain amount and what happens when that amount stops?
While I’m definitely not ‘retired’, in a money sense I kind of am. There are advantages to being retired that I don’t experience – like getting some type of monthly paycheck from retirement funds or social security. And I really wish I did!
One of the things I didn’t realize when I started this was the mental hurdle of not having money coming in. I saved a fairly large sum for this trip, and honestly I haven’t used all that much of it yet overall. I’m on budget – technically I think I’m actually under budget. But there’s something about knowing that there’s no money currently coming in that will replace it that just bogs down your mind. While there are a variety of ways that I could be cutting costs even more than I currently am (volunteer work for instance, or making more of my own food rather than buying even from grocery store), I have wanted to spend a good amount of time just traveling before I got into those more work like things. Basically I’ve wanted this to be a bit more vacation like at the start.
But I’m not sure I’ll be able to go as long as I thought I would before I get to that point. Not for financial hardship reasons, but because I’m going to get to the point where I’m not enjoying myself as much because of the the lack of new money coming in. I’ll be honest, it’s a part of why I didn’t spend longer in Scandinavia. That region of Europe is the most expensive, and while Denmark was affordable, a quick look at Norway showed that it was going to be double the cost just for the hostel! I have a friend I met at the Redhead Days festival that lives in Sweden that offered to host me, but unfortunately the timing of my travels didn’t work the best with her schedule so I decided to save my money and head back to central Europe rather than stay in Scandinavia. It’s a bummer – but I’ll get there one day, preferably when I won’t stress as much over what I’d be spending haha.
I mentioned in my post about Denmark that I had felt off – I do think that these thoughts related to money had a place in that, but I can’t claim that they were the only reason. I know some people will pinpoint this though so closely following me mentioning it in my Denmark post, so I wanted to acknowledge it.
For now, I’m headed to Poland and then I’m not sure where. But I do know that I’ll be pondering in the back of my mind my next steps money wise. I was hoping to not worry about it until I left Europe – but I’d rather enjoy my travels than ignore a potential stressor.
