Comments on: Vacationing vs. living like locals: Can we afford an extended stay in Europe?

By: Can we afford an extended trip to Europe?: Part 2 | Frugal Living Tips & Money Saving Ideas | Living Well on Less

Thu, 09 Jul 2009 12:03:33 +0000

[…] few weeks ago, Tony and I started doing the math to see if it would be possible to stay in Europe for two months. We decided to think about it, see if we could save the money, and go from there. After looking at […]

By: We’re making some serious progress | Frugal Living Tips & Money Saving Ideas | Living Well on Less

Tue, 09 Jun 2009 12:00:48 +0000

[…] Our emergency fund is now over 75% complete! Woo hoo! We’re getting so close! Our Europe fund doesn’t appear to have changed, but it did. I increased our savings goal for Europe to $10,000 since we’re not hoping to take an extended trip. […]

By: Rachel

Rachel — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 04:49:57 +0000

Great idea, and May is the perfect time of year to go to Europe. Great weather, too early for crowds of tourists, yet late enough that most of the points of interest are open (some places limit hours in winter). My husband and I planned a six-week trip to Italy a few years ago. I'm trying to remember why we ended up not going. I think that's when we got pregnant, so we took a shorter trip instead. We found that housing rentals have reduced rates for longer terms. Transportation is less if you settle in somewhere. The tricky part was paying for extra expenses at the same time as not having income, so it definitely requires strong savings ahead of time. We still plan to go live for a couple of months, but it will be in a few years, and we'll be taking our kids. Rachel’s last blog post..How to Move in 6 Weeks or 6 Days, and Keep Your Sanity

By: Kacie

Kacie — Fri, 29 May 2009 02:41:49 +0000

It's worth a try! If you change your minds later, you'll still have lots of cash for a good trip. What do you plan to do with your own job during that time? I guess you'd be quitting since Tony is probably going to try to find a job elsewhere. I like the idea of finding a volunteer program to do for part of your stay. They'd probably help with your living expenses. I really doubt you'd regret taking an extended trip abroad. Aim high! And good luck! Kacie’s last blog post..Should we rent this apartment? Or stay put?

By: Sharon

Sharon — Thu, 28 May 2009 00:26:14 +0000

It's sounds like a sinfully wonderful idea! Just know that it may be difficult for your husband to find a job when he gets back. My daughter finished her student teaching in December and has since been a longterm sub. Because of budget cuts, she is low on the list for a hire, but much higher on the list than those who are not working at all. If you can save a ton of money before you go, and realize it may take longer for your husband to find a job, then I say go for it...It's much easier without kids.. Sharon’s last blog post..A lake trip after all?

By: razz2u

razz2u — Wed, 27 May 2009 23:10:34 +0000

Tony will probably need to start looking for a teaching job in January. My daughter’s school starts looking at their budget and determination for teachers in Jan-March. If they are not going to renew contracts they let the teachers know by March-April and they just hired new teachers for the September 09 timeframe (April/May). Keep this in mind and it may also lend you to a little more ease if you know that Tony has a job already.
Also, check into “house sitting” potentials during the time you wish to be there.
Also, check out http://www.makingthishome.com/about/
as Katie is an American living in Berlin with her German husband who is spending the summer in US to keep his visa status. She might be able to offer some very good insights.

By: Bob

Bob — Wed, 27 May 2009 17:43:28 +0000

You might want to check out http://www.jobsabroad.com/ there are a lot of opportunities on that site and it’s partner teachabroad.com. They have programs where you don’t pay a whole lot. $1-4k and you can get benefits such as free housing, an allowance and job placement. There’s hotel and tourism jobs and then there’s teaching english jobs. Like 100% immersion courses so you don’t have to know the local language. You should check it out.

By: Bob

Bob — Wed, 27 May 2009 16:27:29 +0000

That sounds like an awesome plan. My wife and I would love to do that. Maybe Australia or Japan. The only thing is we had a baby young that we will have to worry about. I don’t know if we could leave him with family for 2 months it would be too hard and it would also be hard to take him with. I say do it while you can but just make sure like you said that you will not tap into your savings and you will not go into debt to do this. Good luck and keep us posted with your plans!

By: Margot

Margot — Wed, 27 May 2009 16:14:31 +0000

Also, there may be tolerable ways to make this trip less expensive. As someone else said, you could investigate swapping your apartment with someone in the place(s) you hope to visit. There are several websites that facilitate this, and you might have a shot given that you appear to live in a university town. There are also lots of ways to eliminate housing costs by doing some form of work exchange while you travel. For example, I was just researching stays on organic farms in Hawaii. Probably not what you want to be doing in France, but there might be other options for working/volunteering locally or doing a few hours of work around someone’s house or business in exchange for free room or free room & board. This is also a good way to meet locals and get into local culture, and you can just do it for parts of your stay if you want to be totally free for other parts. You could also check out couch surfing (google it if you’re not familiar) for extended stays.

By: Karen

Karen — Wed, 27 May 2009 16:12:59 +0000

Wow! Thanks so much for the feedback everyone! We still have so much time to plan, these are exactly the kinds of things I want to be thinking about before we decide if this is possible.

@Shelly Thanks for the tip! We were really only looking to travel to London and maybe Amsterdam, so I looked into train tickets for those locations and estimated based on that. We may end up changing it up if we decide we can do more traveling while we’re over there.

@Liz Great suggestions! We’ll look into teaching English as a second language, and I’m currently doing research on small towns outside of the big cities where we might stay.

@Clare Great questions to consider! We weren’t planning on working during our time there. Realistically, we’d be looking at probably about 2 months, which in my opinion isn’t enough time put down roots. So we’d have to save enough to live on without bringing in additional income. Part of the appeal is that it would be extended time off before we start working again. I would also be open to looking for freelance writing jobs for both of us so we could bring in a little extra money that way.

As far as regretting it, that’s a big part of the reason we’re putting so much thought into it. If there’s any chance that we’ll view it as a mistake later, we’ll probably decide not to do it. As of right now, the only scenario I can see us regretting would be if we blew ALL of our savings or put ourselves into debt. Those are two scenarios that we have already agreed will not happen due to this trip.

You’re right that knowing Tony won’t have a job lined up when we return may be a concern. One of the biggest reasons we’re considering this is that Tony will be looking for full-time high school teaching jobs, which means he’ll have a number of months before he can start his job search. We don’t know where we want to live, but we know we want to be close to family, so part of our plan is to stay with family when we return while we look for jobs anywhere and everywhere. We want to send resumes to multiple places and move where ever we find the best offer, but we don’t want to burden family by staying with them for an extended period of time. This trip would give us a place to go in the interim.

@EastTXMom Since we’ll be moving from our current town, Howie would be staying with family while we were away. My parents have agreed to take him if we decide to go through with this, so he’d be in good hands. :)