That part of the population can take the other route proposed -- like thousands of "hippie travellers" each year: go at it with just the ticket and the kindness of strangers. Having some skill you can use to make some small money here and there (like playing music on a street corner) helps.

For the rest, those making $50.000 a year or more, $5000 to $10000 is very doable to save in 1-4 years -- if you actually want to visit the world that is, and not just want it to fall on you lap while you enjoy everything else at the same time. Rent a smaller house, don't buy a new car, spend less on bars, restaurants and other BS, dont buy that iPhone, etc.

So let me get this right...

Don't spend my money on anything nice, having fun, or treating myself to something special in the hopes that I can travel the world as a beggar or poor person (5k-10k as is a substantially small travel budget)?

it's whatever your priorities dictate. If you want to spend all of your money where you are, don't cry that you haven't been able to save any to go travel the world. $5K-$10K is not a small travel budget for a single person if you spend wisely. If you're expecting to stay at 5 star resorts and party like you have a trust fund, then yeah, good luck with that.

If I were still single (and younger), I would have taken that $10K and lived an awesome 6 months abroad. But 15 years ago my priorities were a fast-ish car, a nice apartment, eating out every night, and trying to impress a girl (now my wife). It's worked out well for me regardless.

[edit]Your attitude comes off as very entitled BTW. You complain about "...don't spend my money on anything nice, having fun, or treating myself to something special". Oh woe is me, I can't travel the world and buy that latest iphone and fancy new clothes...sheesh!

You're not seeing any complaints from me about traveling. I'm fine where I'm at. I'm just pointing out the flaws in the parent's reasoning, and explaining why it might not be appealing to people that do have a genuine interest in traveling.

The parent's reasoning is meant for people who do have a "genuine interest in traveling" so I fail to see the flow.

I did say: "if you actually want to visit the world that is, and not just want it to fall on you lap while you enjoy everything else at the same time".

The observation that (advice about travelling) "might not interest those who are not interested in travelling" seems redundant to me.

Some people live to travel and to constantly have exciting new experiences and care more about that than having enough money to buy the latest iphone, enjoy artesian bread for breakfast, or have a nice apartment with a view and plush furniture.

There's nothing wrong or right with either way of life, it's just different personalities.

Travelers may call your lifestyle fake or meaningless, you may call their lifestyle fake or meaningless, but the lifestyles are as real and valid as the person wants them to be.

It's ok to not want what other people want :)

I don't think I ever used the terms fake or meaningless. My point is that the lifestyle being referenced might not be appealing to a majority of people, hence the reason most don't do it.

I'm trying to do it, and I make less than 18k a year(lovely third world country :)).. and manage to save about 5k in a couple of years.

And no, you don't abstain of having fun or having "nice things" And no, you don't travel the world as a beggar.

Most north american people just expend too much in things they dont need.

Your last statement is exactly the kind of reasoning that I'm arguing against. Besides being an absurd generalization, it's also not necessarily true, at least if you're conflating needs and wants, which I suspect is what you're doing here.

If you don't like it, or can't stand to not buy a new car every few years and go out on bars, don't do it. Some appreciate the traveling more than "having fun" by spending money for "nice things" (which for a lot of people are BS throwaways, but they still moan that they can't afford to travel).

It's not like somebody put a gun on your head.

5-10K is by no means a "substantially small travel budget". In fact many middle class families in other parts of the world make it with that or less for the whole year.

Now, if you want to travel the world first class and stay on 5-star hotels, get the budget for it.

Not everybody needs or cares for that -- but we can still travel for months on end on far much less AND have fun.

Not everything is a dichotomy.

Adjust the sliding scale of your combined travel budget/ rest-of-your-life budget as you need/want.

That I can most certainly agree with.

I have a friend who saved $15,000 in 1 year selling cars and low quality marijuana (he made $1000/month from it).

He traveled to 50+ countries and slept outside everywhere except poor countries where it was cheap to get a bed.

When he returned to the US, he sold cars and was homeless. Literally he slept outside but still worked out and ate well. When he got a car, he still slept outside.

He recently just made $60,000 driving for Lyft/Uber in 6 months and saved $30,000 (assuming a lot went to taxes).

He then moved and slept in hus car for 1+ month while having 30k and perfect credit, and still driving. Now he's taken a month off to pursue creative and side projects.

If you don't have a family, then anything is possible.

It takes someone special to live like a drug dealing homeless person. Most people are trying to avoid that lifestyle at all costs. Obviously if you have zero bills, saving money is easy. But be realistic.

It was more a comment on discipline. And selling small amounts of weed is hardly equated with "drug dealing".

Again, the point was the will to do it not necessarily how he did it.

Selling drugs is drug dealing.

How is it possible to make $60,000 driving for Lyft/Uber in 6 months? Can someone do a rundown on the numbers for this?

Can you really earn $120k/yr driving?

i could believe it if he slept in his car and drove 18h/7d for 6 months.

nobody would do that for more than a few months but i'm sure it's possible if you're really dedicated to raising some money in an unsustainable way.

He worked 80 hours a week. In SF, you can make up to $3000 in one week driving for Lyft.

He might have found a lot of new weed customers.

I don't understand how you're glossing over the fact that your buddy was homeless for 1+ years or however long it was.

Even if you don't have a family, people don't want to sleep outside.

I'm not saying I would do it and I don't think he was homeless more than 2 or 3 months.

If we're going to open the possibilities to criminal behavior, we should include even more lucrative activities like counterfeiting and loan sharking.

Yes because selling $50 worth of weed is equal to a federal crime like counterfeiting.

You seem like someone who has little life experience.

Probably a lot more than you. How do you get from $1000/month to $50? Or did you just make the whole thing up? You can get 5 years in the federal pen for dealing trivial amounts of pot if you manage to piss off the government.

My point was running a criminal enterprise isn't really an acceptable option for most people.

Is this more satire?

Well that was depressing.

The comments are on an article about someone with "a dream job". Not hard to get to 5000-10000 in that situation if you're highly motivated to leave.

More generally, saying (or implying) "your advice is useless because many people couldn't do it" invalidates a sizeable chunk of useful advice.

Yes, many people don't have 5000-10000 and couldn't. But many do or could, and yet they imagine they couldn't possibly travel/leave job, etc.

Exactly what I was thinking. Especially when you have monthly obligations to pay bills that don't go away when you quit your job.

But neither is it trust fund territory - someone with a median income could aspire to this and accomplish it without too much struggle.

if you're a decent programmer, shouldn't be hard.

I feel like this line should be in the article.

Work at a valley company, live in a shoebox, bank maybe $500 a month, if you are lucky. Please explain to me your equation for making a lot of money.

If you can only bank $500/month working as a programmer in the bay area, something is very wrong (or you're just not living frugally at all). I bank way more than that as a mid level developer, granted I work at the big G, but I also support a non-working wife and kid.

Step 1: don't live in the valley.

apparently this is where all the stuff happens, It has been a year and I have realized how backwards life is here.

> Please explain to me your equation for making a lot of money

It's easy, "live beneath your means". Move away from the valley and give up that lifestyle. If you're a decent-ish programmer, you can make a bunch of money in any of the other medium sized cities in the US with a reasonable cost of living.

I work in Santa Clara, live in rental townhouse in San Jose. I have a 20 minute commute and reliably save 15% of my take home income. I have a wife who works part time and goes to school. She saves all her money.

Its about budgeting. We each keep a budget for our hobbies of about $100 per month. We spend about $200 at restaurants (eating out less than once per week). Most important is keeping a tab on your spending. UsBank has a download spreadsheet function that keeps track of your last export so it is very easy to download one month at a time.

Move out of the most expensive real estate in the country. Remote work is a thing in many organizations.

I have been begging my management to let me work remotely, but they have been pretty negative towards the idea.

"We would like to keep our team close" -- Management "Half of our team is in India" -- me ":shrug: go back to work" -- Management

Invest wisely and the equation will be "the exponential function."

Save that $500 a month, and you'll have enough within a year.

It's not a LOT of money, but enough to travel if that is what you want to do.

I travel, I just think that saving money is difficult to do for 80% of America. The gap widens as you expand to different countries worldwide.

decent programmer? you must not really know how tech works, shitty programmers make over 100k..

amen.