As anyone who actually reads this blog often (no one) will know, I will be taking an expensive laptop, camera, D-SLR camera and video camera with my on my trip around the world. This, it seems, is a problem for most insurance companies who want to insure a maximum of $5000 personal belongings, with a $750 item limit.
Luckily, I found “1cover.com.au” which will cover everything! They have the standard $5000 thing, but they let you specify extra items to cover - and their limit will allow me to specify everything I want to cover. Whoo! Granted, the cover is about $980 for one year but…I’ll take what I can get.
So if someone mugs me or something, I’ll be covered for all my (very valuable) equipment 
awesome.
At work today I used my spare time in between serving customers to make a tally of how long I’d be spending in each country and how much it would cost. I got to a year and then stopped and guess how much my estimate was, including flights? only $20,000.
That’s Australian, mind you. Which makes it about $18,500 USD$. Now that is without giving myself any lee-way for splurges or emergencies, but add on $5000 and $25,000 is still not all that much for a year’s living - especially living where ever i want, whenever i want, just traveling and exploring. Sounds like the life for me.
To put this into context, that’s only about $2100 each month which is a fair bit less than most people’s income. So, my question to anyone who reads this is; Do you think you could survive on $25,000 a year?
I found this site two days ago, it’s called My Search Funds, and they will pay you to search! I know that probably sounds like a scam, but it isn’t. Basically, they earn money for every search you make, and then they give you 50% of what they make. That means, on average, if you make an estimated 200 searches a day, you would earn £150 a month. That’s $292 (US$) approx. That’s a lot of money for doing what you already do - search the internet! So what are you waiting for? Sign up now!
I should mention that they only pay you via paypal (so you’ll need a paypal account) and they only pay you 45 days after the end of the month. So, for example, I’ll get paid for this month (february) in mid-april. Also, the search results usually are a little worse than google, but what i wanted always appears somewhere on the first page..
The first project as part of my “Fund A RTW Trip” project is now entering the Beta stage. This is a closed beta (meaning i wont give a link here - yet) but I have high hopes for it. I’ve started recruiting my first 50 beta testers, and after that I’ll go to Beta 2 - which will have up to 500-2000 beta testers. After this final Beta stage, I’ll open the website to the public!
The interesting thing about this website, though, is that it allows each and every member to make money. Not enough to live off or anything, but more than nothing. And the more active and popular the website gets, the more people can make - and therefor the more incentive to advertise the site. Now i know you’re probably skeptical, and you probably think it’s a scam. Well, it’s not. I can’t prove that until it goes public, but just you wait and see.
That’s my new goal. To make enough profit from my blog, websites, and future blogs/websites, to fund my RTW (Round The World) Trip. As a rough estimate, that means i need to raise approximately $25,000-$30,000 over the next two years. I’ll document all my money-making ventures here on this blog, aswell as listing monthly incomes, etc (expect these to be pretty small to start off with…haha).
So if anyone has any idea[s] for a website, or blog, etc. then please reply in the comments and I’ll see what i cant do!
I thought I’d take this opportunity, late at night on the eve before I go back to school to start year 11, to outline a few goals, first for this blog, then for my travel, and then for myself.
Goals For This Blog:
- Officially “launch” this blog by the end of April 2008. I realise the blog is currently online, and public, but so far I have not been actively advertising it or anything.
- Make enough money through advertisements and other avenues on this blog, to pay for the web hosting and domain name by the year’s end.
Goals For Travel:
- Have a 50% rough plan by the year’s end.
- Have saved atleast $5000 by the year’s end.
- Have saved atleast $20,000 by the end of 2009.
- (Maybe) Purchase a HD Video camera by the end of 2009.
- Chronicle my journey in a documentary style film.
More:
- Finish Year 12 (HSC).
- Get accepted to University of my choice (As yet undecided).
- Have fun!