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12 Steps to a $30/day, Do-It-Yourself, Eat Pray Love Experience

By Barbara Singer

Would you rather have a plane ticket

or a mortgage?

Would you rather have freedom

or a pay check?

Would you rather have a backpack

or walk-in closet?

Would you rather have a passport filled

with stamps or a bank book filled with

money?

Would you rather live your dream or

watch it on reality TV?

Once you make the decision to live freely, your view of the world changes. From then on you think, I am moving.  I am mobile and travel light. I need nothing. Everything is negotiable. I choose to spend my time differently. I choose to spend money differently. I choose to live my life differently.’ You choose to decide what is best for you, not what others think is best for you.

Here is my roadmap for making a personal transformation that allows you to slowly and steadily develop, realize and achieve your own personal vision:

1.     Get Ready Mentally.  Your attitude is far more important than the check book balance. Focus 100% on creating the lifestyle that you want.  Be acutely aware of how you are spending your time and money.  If it is not bringing you closer to your goal, it is taking you farther away. 

Stop doing anything that doesn’t bring you joy.  Quit all organizations and non-essential commitments.  Create a totally different home environment -turn off the TV, turn on your favorite music, open the windows, eat your meals outside and de-clutter. Change up your daily routine and spend time walking or biking alone in nature. Plan your strategy.

2.     Liquidate your home.  Rent it to someone else or sell it. The goal is to travel light. You will be renting a room from someone else somewhere in the world (perhaps even several times a year in different locations), so all your possessions need to fit into a bedroom.  Rent or sell your home furnished if you can.  It will save you a lot of hassle of moving and selling furniture and household goods which have very little resale value. 

Sell antiques or valuables on Ebay.  Hold a garage sale. Consign designer clothing and expensive jewelry. Avoid storing anything except personal keepsakes.  You will pay to keep stuff that no one, including you, will want in 5 years. If you have debt, rent your extra bedrooms, attic, basement, garage to others who need it for storage until your Jump Date arrives.

3.     Get Rid of Your Car. Stop your car lease or car payments. If you must have a car, then buy something under $5,000 and get the minimum insurance required by your state. You will cut 2 bills with this one move. Most of the time, your car will just sit, unused while you are out of the country.

4.     Stop all reccurring monthly charges.   Stop all services like cable TV, lawn care, pool care, cleaning service, car detailing, beauty treatments, all memberships, and classes.  You will have plenty of time to do these things yourself because you are not doing any of the old time wasters of the past. Eat all your meals at home. Use up all household products in your pantry, bathroom, wine cellar/bar and garage.  BUY NOTHING!!

5.     Forget about Security and Responsibilities.  Security doesn’t exist.  It is a big lie. All kinds of unexpected events can change our lives in seconds,  like a heart attack, car accident, getting fired, or divorced. Live today joyfully rather than spending time, energy and money on days that may never come.  You will handle what actually happens. 

6.     Get Healthy. Since you will be living and travelling abroad, you need to be in good shape. Get in your correct weight category. Look toward alternative medicine if need be. Buy catastrophic health insurance with a big deductible and shop around for the best price. The healthier you are, the cheaper your monthly rate.

7.     Get Mobile.  Get a laptop and learn to get all the information about your finances and other important things online. Stop every piece of paper mail and learn how to get what you need from anywhere in the world.  Get a Post Office mailbox and have them forward you the mail every so often.

8.     Living Without a 9-5 Job.  Focus on the gift of exchange.You may not have money, but you have something much more valuable, time and talent.   Practice thinking of ways to get what you need without using money.  Always give more than you receive in cash value. Do your best and think win/win.  I trade you this X and you give my Y. Everytime you spend, think how you could get this without paying with money. You can have everything you need to live your dream life without a huge pile of money. Start in small hops. 

For instance, take a leave of absence, unpaid for a month or two.  You will be surprised how many employers would love that.  You would take time off unpaid if you or your loved one was sick, why not when you are well. There are lots of ways to make money without a “real job.” Trade out for services you need.  Let your natural talent shine and the money will come. Offer something you enjoy doing.

9.     Work on the Road. Work when it’s right, then make it last as long as you can. That’s my motto.  You work in season in the states and then travel wherever you want until it is time to work again. If you have skills you can freelance your self online anywhere. If you don’t, you can still find good paying jobs at restaurants and resorts during high season for a few months in destination towns (e.g., Aspen or Key West). Then you can fly to Italy or the Carribean, rent a room for a month at a time, and go on from there. When you head to the destination and high caliber tourism locations during high season everyone is hiring. The beauty of moving around is you get to choose a place where the weather, temperature, and recreational opportunities meet your desires.

10.  Make Your Plans and Study Now.  You may simply want to move to someplace new and get set up for the first time. You can do that. If you have a particular country in mind, apply for a visa before you quit your job and travel. Every country is different so get online and do your homework. Don’t be afraid! It is easier to find work once you are already there. Not the other way around. You can’t even imagine the opportunities until you are there to see what is happening.

Find work with housing included: working on a cruise ship, for Club Med type resorts, caretaker, etc. Work for an American company abroad.Use the internet!  Tons of resources at your fingertips. Work for a resort company. Work for the National Park system (Campworkers.com), find unique opportunities at Caretakergazette.com or work on boat and be paid crew, Crewfinder.com or 7knots.com, or be a live-in nanny or teacher and travel with an international family (nanny services).

11.  Making a Living on the Road. You don’t have to plan out the rest of your life.  Break it down into little chunks.  Rent a room for a month at time or plan to stay in an area for a season. If you decide to go touring you can keep costs low by staying in hostels (no longer just for youths!).  There are also organizations that offer assistance to travelers, pensiones, and home stays like serva.org. 

Americans can even travel and work in places like American Samoa, Guam, Puerto Rico, the US Virgin Islands, and other places without any additional papers. Once you are on the road, fellow travelers are an excellent source of information. You do not need to have an agenda or great expectations. Stay light and be flexible.

12.  Be Helpful And Be Useful. - Visit without mooching - If you are lucky and have friends and family in places you want to visit, go see them, and be useful.  Offer you talents. Offer your time. Work freely and wholeheartedly. While you are there, you can wait for the roofer or the air condition inspector to arrive, take the dog to the vet, clean the pool, mow the grass or take their car in for repairs, hang drapes, paint, do yard work – whatever you do to be helpful and appreciated. Make people happy you are there and make sure you leave a favorable impression.

Or you can stay on the couch of complete strangers for no money using websites like couchsurfing.org.

Hit the road. Go ahead.  Decide to meet new people living incredible lifestyles. You will blow your mind and eyes wide open.

You will learn to trust the laws of the universe. You will find courage that you never knew you had. You will watch in sheer amazement as life and all its miracles, unfold right before your eyes.

Get off the Monkey Train

In one year, after her only child went off to school, she got divorced, and then fell in love with a new man - who suddenly died - Barbara Singer decided to reinvent her life.  Looking at twenty years in corporate America, chasing money and running on the 7 AM to 10 PM treadmill, she knew she was no longer interested in building wealth at the price of her freedom. She wanted adventure, travel and romance.

So she gave up her career and travelled across the U.S. in an RV from Pennsylvania to Alaska and back.  She was paid to live on a sailboat in the Caribbean. Then she went to Italy and spent four months living in Tuscany.

 

“I lived in the heart of Florence Italy", Singer says. "I stayed with a celebrity who appeared to have it all and really just wanted someone to hang out with, and many other people who were happy to have company and open their homes, especially to foreigners.”

In her new book, Living Without Reservations Singer shares how she did it and offers an arsenal of ideas about how anyone can have an Eat, Pray, Love experience and reinvent and re-engineer their own lives to truly build the life they dream about.

Singer promises you don’t need to earn a lot of money; that without the trappings of a ultra-material lifestyle, it actually takes very little money to live. The real goal in life is to collect experiences and enjoy people, not just to go shopping and buy and collect stuff. You can live and travel when and where you choose without incurring great expense.