Our “Chapter ONE” finances
Expense & Income Report - Year 1
HOW MUCH MONEY DO WE NEED?
Welcome to our very first expense and income report! It’s a full comprehensive insight into our travel finances of year one and we hope they provide value for yourself, your business or your own travel.
First we’ll give you insights about how much we spent during our first year of travel, plus what we spent on our YouTube Channel. In the second part we’ll be giving you the truth about our income, because this is what most of you asked us about in the last months. In the beginning we didn’t know we’ll be writing these reports for you, but we always kept detailed track of what we spent or earned. We just like numbers a lot, hehe. Since a lot of you asked, we thought we try our best to give you all the numbers in this report(s).
We took the time to do everything in two currencies for you. So we will always first give you the amount we payed in EURO, then the amount payed in USD. So all our followers can get an idea in their own currency, what to expect from our travel expenses.
The expense report is for all of you out there wondering if you could make it too. Back in 2021, when we started telling people that we would leave for a full year of travel, most people told us “I couldn’t do that. I wish I could!”. At the beginning I tried to tell people, that they can, even if the circumstances they are in are different then ours. Some people would even be in a way better position financially to travel than we ever could be. But over time we started just biting our tongues and didn’t say a word anymore. We realized, that most people (excluding people who really don’t have the possibility) just don’t want it THAT much. Of course the circumstances are different for everyone. But if you really want to go traveling, with or without kids, a big pile of money, for some it would involve more work for some people less, but in the end most people could make it happen, if they really would just make it their priority and want it that badly!
So long story short: We want to document every dime we make as long as we keep this channel alive and hope it will be a growing income report, that’ll show you what you could earn, if you go for this dream as well. Because at the end of the day we feel like many people don’t go for what they dream of and love, because of financial fears. Which is understandable, but life is about taking risks once in a while. We don’t want people to look up one day and wonder what could have been. That’s why our biggest goal is to inspire other people and give as many insights and tips as we can making it easier for you.
About our budget: While we already set a quite high budget of 100€/day (108.70$/day), there are multiple examples out there of people who make it on 75€/$, 50€/$ or travel with no money at all! Traveling doesn’t have to be expensive! One of the reasons we share the numbers in this report is to make everyone see, that it’s possible for two normal people to travel together on a budget (in our case 40.000€/43,482$) for a full year (435 days in this case, because we started in November and ended the travel year mid-January 2023). In the end we hope to proof to people, that it will be even possible to start an own business while traveling. That we could “build” ourselves a new job, as business, that we created ourselves and we love to wake up for every single day for a loooong time. Let’s see if we can make it work.
We’ll definitely let you know how our finances continue to run out or grow and if we can make this crazy dream of ours a reality. With that said, this first report should be very relatable for most people, since we’re are just two regular newlyweds in their 30s, that try to see as much of the world as possible hoping (maybe a bit naively) the money won’t run out.
The income report fulfils a different purpose than the expense report. We publish in full transparency what we make with our channel to share how the “wanting to become a travel YouTuber” works out for us. It’s here to share insights about the chances we get, but also the struggles we go through on our journey of building a business around our travels. We hope it inpires people to pursue what they are passionate about and gives a deeper insight on what a beginner travel YouTuber makes during a year. (Of course there are others, who make way more during the first year. It’s all very individual.)
We will also give you a corrected amount of the budget, that you could work with, if you don’t pay of a credit, have a pet at home, don’t want to run a business during traveling, etc. So stay until the end to get an idea of what our travels would have cost, if without these very individual expenses.
Little disclaimer right in the beginning guys: We don’t make a significant amount of money, yet. We don’t like to brag or complain. And to be honest there isn’t even anything to brag about at this point. And we are so grateful about our lives at this point, there is nothing to complain about. 😉 This report fulfils the point of transparency. Most people we’ve been sharing our finances with right from the beginning told us they thought we’re making a way bigger figure by now. But we don’t. Since the purpose of this income report is not to complain about low income or red numbers regarding our expenses, the numbers are just how they are. And we want to share the reality of trying to make it as a full time Travel- YouTuber. It’s not all sunshine and rainbows, it’s not easy, but we’ll keep going and pursuing it anyway. So if you’ve ever wondered how much you make as a small YouTuber, this is one showcase that you can follow along for the next years or so. There are many YouTubers that seem to make a way better job then we do and we admire that a lot. We always admired it, if people were giving honest insights into their YouTube business, growing from small to big and sharing what they made over time. It’s inspiring. So we try our best to do the same. We really want to be one of the YouTubers that stay honest and authentic and give insights not everyone is giving.
So keep in mind this is our personal journey, trying our best to make it work. No bragging, no complaining, not the only example out there. We hope you appreciate the honesty.
So grab your cup of coffee and dive into figures and numbers with us.
Expense Report - year 1
So how much money do you need to travel?
The questions everyone is asking at one point. It is really hard if not impossible to have the universal answer. Everyone tells you a different figure they needed for their trip, depending on their style of travel and standards, maybe age matters too? Kids, no kids? All that needs to be put into consideration.
When we thought about this questions in 2020 almost all information in the internet was outdated due to the pandemic and inflation at that time, the prices majorly differed in 2021 from the prices people had listed on their blogs before the world changed dramatically in the beginning of 2020. So all we could do was specualate on the prices we found in the internet and add an estimated delta for the price changes. A good idea to estimate your travel budget is to go over every region in the world you want to travel and see how much the average cost of living is in that particular regions. Then estimate how much time you’ll spend where and try to set your budget per person. Also it depends on your travel style (Hotel, Hostel, Airbnb?). The type of food you eat (Street food or high standard restaurant?), how you like to get from A to B (Taxi orPublic transport?), etc.
Since we share our travel life on YouTube you probably have a very good idea of how we travel. So if your travel style is close to ours this expense report will hopefully help you estimate your own budget. In this article we’ll share our annualized cost of everything we spent during the first year of travel.
We set out on this trip with the goal of spending no more than 100€/day (108.70$/day) for the both of us combined. The number would be higher in places like Western Europe and the USA and lower in areas like Eastern Europe or Southeast Asia. We figured the average daily spend over the entire trip, though, would be 100€. That’s 43.500€ (47,286.67$) for 435 days of travel. That’s quite a figure, but we dreamed of this for so long and worked hard to save up for this trip. So we consider it worth it.
We will give insights in our expenses with and without the business expenses that we spent to run our channel. So the ones interested in just the cost of travel get an idea how much it could cost. And the ones interested in how much it is to run a YouTube channel, get an idea about that too. And how much the channel got us over budget.
'ROUND THE WORLD IN 435 days
06. November 2023 – 15. January 2023 – (14,5 Month)
We started our trip on the 6th of November 2021 and officially started our second year of travel on the 15th of January 2023 after spending Christmas and the beginning of January at home. This brings up the number of 435 days of travel, which we will be referring to as the first year of travel in this report. It is of course a bit more than a year, but it is kind of our first travel chapter and it just makes sense from our perspective to make the cut to year two here. In this report we’ll go over the following categories of expenses:
- Accommodation
- Food & Drinks
- Transportation
- Entertainment
- Felix (Our cat we have waiting for us at home *missing him big time*)
- Miscellaneous
- Business Expenses
Let’s dive right in and give you the amount we’ve spent in the last 14,5 month.
Total spent:
49.055,64€ (44.654,90€ + 4.400,74€ Business)
53,325.93$ (48,542.11$ + 4,783.82$ Business)
We're over Budget! - 4.654,90€/ 5,060.11$
Our total spent equals out to about 102,65€/day (111.59$/day) without the Business Expenses. So we came in round about 2,5% over-budget. Might not sound a lot, but actually it feels a lot and makes a total of 4.465,90€ (5,060.11$).
A seemingly tiny percentage per day ended up representing 4.654,90€ (5,060.11$), after the smoke cleared. Still, we think that’s pretty good considering how unpredictable traveling can be. For example: We found Central America more expensive, than people told us (mostly because of the food. If you don’t want to eat rice and beans for months straight, you have to pay the touristy (expats) prices in nice restaurants. There are basically few local food options other than … rice & beans with chicken.)
And then there are the Business Expenses (A second camera, a second laptop and costs for running our YouTube channel, website, etc.) Including the Business Expenses we’re at 112,77€/day (122.79$/ day). Roughly 12,77% more than we planned on spending. That’s a lot and makes 9.055,64€ (9,843.93$) more than estimated! Sascha killed a savings plan to be able to afford our Business Expenses this year. We consider it an investment in the future. Many people might say we could have saved that money and put the money into traveling, but we try to make a business here and we enjoy the process a lot.
IMPORTANT THING ABOUT THE OVER-BUDGET: We also payed off the credit for our Van! We bought it before the pandemic for traveling through Europe with a credit we’ll have to pay off until the beginning of 2025. It serves as our home base while we’re home, plus we traveled in it for the second half of the first year through East Europe. From a financial perspective it wasn’t the best decisions to take a credit and then decide to go for airplane travel around the world, but why do all decisions have to be logically smart, if they feel right? 😉
Now you’re up to speed with the fundamentals of this report. Let’s go through the categories and figure out exactly where all the money went.
Accommodation - 9386,61€/ 10,203.71$
21,58€/day (23.46$)
This part of traveling is keeping a roof over our heads every night. On average, we spent 21,58€/day (23.46$) on accommodations. That is roughly 1/4 of our original budget. 1/5 of the actual budget, including the business expenses. We think it’s a comparably small figure. Some people pay way more. We always try to book nice cozy private accommodations, but also stay in hostels and other cheaper accommodations, if the country’s prices doesn’t allow nice private stays. All in all we prefer private accommodations, because we have more peace and quiet to work, while not being out and about. But in some countries it’s just not in the budget and then we’ll try to find at least a private room in hostels. Sometimes two hostel beds or a private room in a hostel is just a few bucks cheaper than a whole Airbnb apartment for us. This is when we always have to decide if we spent 3-7 bucks more per night (which can add up) to be alone or not.
In the second half of the year we also lived in our van, which lowered the total amount of stays we had to pay. But even with the van we booked campsites or payed private folks to be able to stay on their property. In some areas it’s just better and safer to have a dedicated camp spot.
All in all we found all accommodations a bit pricier than numbers from bloggers before the pandemic, but it was not outrageously much.
Food & Drinks - 12.042,68€ / 13,091$
27,68€/day (30.09$/ day)
I find this category to be one of the most interesting, because it is way higher than we thought. We really thought with a lot of self cooking and eating street food whereever we can, we’d end up with a smaller figure.
However, expectations were so different from reality here, not just in terms of cost. Food is a great way to experience cultures, so wonderfully different everywhere you go, and we really enjoy experiencing that aspect of travel as you know from all our food vlogs. 😉 We’re both generally quite open-minded when it comes to food and will happily try new dishes at every opportunity. Even though we would eat vegetarian at home, we always savour all the local meat dishes and aren’t too picky about what we eat in general.
So at the start of this trip we thought we’d eat street food a lot as you see a lot of people do so in south east asian vlogs. Well, it turned out to not be a foodie heaven in Central America. The street food is not really diverse in all of these countries (except Mexico) and we got sick from it in Mexico and Guatemala. So we had to buy the more expensive food at one point. First, to not get sick again and second because we were showing signs of missing nutrition. We didn’t carry a bunch of supplements with us back then…and ended up needing to leave for Europe mid-year, to give us a better chance to recover.
That’s when we started Van life. We had supplements and more control over what we ate, could cook for ourselves every day and knew where we’d get cheap, clean, good groceries.We don’t want to say it is not great to travel Central America! It was awesome, so cool to see all the cultures! But be prepared to find all the nice food in more Touristy/ Expat-priced restaurants. At one point you’re going to miss you home food and you’ll seek out places that serve something else than chicken, rice and beans, haha. And take supplements with you. This is now a rule for us no matter where we travel.
Eating in different countries, not having supplements to work against it and changing diets for a year straight took its toll on us, both mentally and physically! It sounds silly, but after being sick and being chained to an apartment in Guatemala city for almost 2 months…we can’t tell you enough how important this part of the budget can be for your health. Body and soul.
Writing this in Thailand in a crazy nice apartment with absolutely AMAZING food on every corner, cheap prices, best health in years, full of supplements makes the whole story almost sound ridiculous. We don’t think we’ll have these kind of problems this year and especially not in this region of the world. We think it was an expectations thing. We thought Central America would be like Asia in terms of food and prices and hygiene standards. (Yeah, we know we were naive to not inform ourselves properly.) But everywhere it’s different and you just have to know in advance and be prepared and you’ll have a great time everywhere in the world. For us it definitely was a learning process and we feel better prepared than ever for all kind of situations. And we definitely want to go back to Central America and experience everything we missed due to our sicknesses.
Everybody is different with food and health and we think we figured a big part of this out for us now. If we crave a certain food, we probably get it, take supplements and be ok spending more on this part of the expenses. Food is super important to us. If it’s not for you, then you’ll be fine spending with way less of your budget on food.
What did we spent our food money on?
257,87 € (280.32 $) on coffee
Yeah, we made an extra category for this. Every time we just bought coffees, this is the amount. Of course in the restaurant category are more coffees included…yeah we know, but it’s our luxury product we love and depend on. If you want to support our caffein addiction you can head over HERE.
5.174,18 € (5,624.59 $) for Groceries (self cooked meals)
We really tried to cook ourselves where ever we could, this saved a lot of money in Europe, the USA and gave us the chance to have some flavours from home in countries like Guatemala, where nice restaurants were too expensive (almost European prices) for our budget.
6610,63 € (7,186.09 $) for restaurant and eating out
We’ll try to make it a smaller number the second year. We feel like even though the figure for eating out is not gigantic, it could be less. So we’ll try our best to save money. Especially in South East Asia this will probably be possible.
Transportation - 17.151,90€ / 18,644.97$
39,43€/day (42.86$/ day)
This might be the most interesting category of all, because it is the most expensive category. On first sight seems a lot, but if we explain the separate costs to you it will not seem that gigantic anymore. So read on.
This is the last of the three “big” categories, and we think we did pretty well here, if we calculate, that we did a honeymoon cruise, that is not really something you would do in a normal travel budget. AND we also payed off a car credit, we’re still paying off. If you cross out these expenses out you actually end up with a fairly good figure, that’s representative for budget travellers.
Transportation cost without Credit and Cruise: 7845,90€ (8,528.89$)
If you watch our vlogs you may’ve seen in the videos, that we tend to pick the less expensive, slower form of transportation, when given the option. In many cases, this meant walking, taking an overnight bus, public busses or sharing a taxi with strangers and other travellers. It makes for a fun, not always enjoyable, but at least memorable time. Being flexible has also saved us thousands. Since we can take the cheapest flight, instead of booking a flight on a certain date. As well as being flexible about the next country or city you’re going to. Even flying home from Colombia to Europe has just cost us 400$, with luggage! Flexibility is a luxury that is every budget travellers best friend.
We hope to improve in this area as we continue to get a better hold on things, don’t pay for a honeymoon cruise this year. But we also still have to pay off the Van credit without living the van-life currently. We know lots of travelers are amazing at saving on transport costs. Our hope is, that especially flight prices will normalise with the world opening up more and more.
Flights: 1.638,95€ (1,781.62$)
We’ve actually been surprised how few we spent on flights getting from one country on the american continent to the next, plus the flight back to Europe.
Honeymoon cruise: 2.898,00€ (3,150.27$)
Then threre is the big getting to the american continent with our honey moon cruise with which we took to kick off the world travel.
Van: 6.408,00€ (6,965.82$) Van Credit
This is a crazy amount, but we committed to this before we started traveling the world and we don’t regret it. It is just another fix cost we have to calculate our budget around. And we know whenever our money runs out we still have a little tiny home at home we can live in and even do some micro adventures with.
Car/Van Transport: 5.295,08€ (5,756.02$)
This includes gas, tolls, rental cars we’ve taken in the USA and Costa Rica, Car related insurances for rentals and our Van and Vespa.
Other Transportation: 911,87€ (991.25$)
This is the amount we payed for both of us using busses, trains, taxis all through the first year. We think it is a very decent amount and shows how you can truly bring this figure down, if you stick to slower cheaper transports around the world.
Entertainment - 2770,49€ /3.018,59$
6,37€/day (6.92$/ day)
This category encompasses attractions like museums, ruins, all entrance fees, city passes, cinema and tours we took.
You can pay an endless amount of money on this category. If you’re somewhone who likes to stay busy you can! But there is a price tag on it. In Europe almost every big interesting church takes a little or big fee, museums, theatres, etc. We have a lot to offer in Europe, but we take comparable high prices for everything … In the USA it is even pricier, so you really have to look out for promotion days, discounts and coupons. In Southeast Asia now the fees are comparably smaller, but you still have to pay for waterfalls and temples, for example.
Every place we go, there’s always the discussion about which attraction, tour and activity is the best and worth our money. If we just take a look from outside and be ok with that or if we pay and see the inside as well. Is the tour worth it? Could we do it self guided? And so on … Everyone has a different idea about what’s a “must see” or not. So you have decide for yourself if you would spend more or less than us. You can see in our vlogs what we pay for or not and maybe estimate what it would be for you.
Felix the cat - 619,65€/ 673.59$
1,42€/day (1.54$/ day)
Our favourite person waiting for us at home: Our cat, haha. Felix is our sweet ginger furry ball living currently with the neighbours, happily running around in the garden of my grandma. He takes up 619,65€ per year for food, vet, etc. This is definitely a category that you can cross off, if you don’t have a pet waiting for you at home. Most loved category of all and non-negotiable.
A little note on the side: While traveling we try to help animals wherever we can by buying food for cats and dogs in need. If you want to support the cause you can help us buy food HERE. All the money of that membership goes 100% to the animals, not into our coffee budget.
Miscellaneous - 2.683,57€/ 2,917.17$
6,17€/day (6.71$/ day)
This category is for everything that we didn’t know how to categorize! But we actually came up with a better system for next years report. So you’ll get a more detailed insight in the next report. Promise! So this category this year includes: Hygiene products, clothing, phone data/minutes, laundry, travel insurance, souvenirs, etc. We think we can lower this category down this year as well. We hope Southeast Asia will be cheaper in all of these categories.
It would also include doctors visits and medicine, but we got every cent refunded by our health insurance, so there are no medical costs included here. Our travel insurance we listed in THIS article. It costs less than 0,5€/ day and covers ALL costs, even in the USA. We also found a great insurance for the Americans HERE. It costs $40/month per person and our fellow YouTuber friends Evan & Lemon told us it is great!
When tried to use Google Fi beginning of 2022, but they cut us off, when we spent too much time outside of the States. It was $60/month (we shared one plan): it was great, but pricey. Maybe it was for the best, that they said we can’t be more than 3 month abroad and still have data for free. Now we buy a local sim everywhere we go (or nothing at all) and we spent way less on phone plans! Around 10-30€ per month/ per person, depending on the country we’re in.
Business expenses - 4.400,74€/ 4,783.82$
The purpose of this report is to provide more detailed information on what it cost us to run a travel Channel. We will list all expenses specifically related to making the YouTube videos, because it might be helpful for anyone that may be using this report as a tool for their own YouTube business. If you are just looking for an estimate on how much budget travel costs, you can now stop reading. The things listed below are not necessary expenses for traveling!
New Gear: 2.875,34€ (3,125.64$)
We bought a new camera in Panama because our microphone jack on our camera was broken (so no audio), plus we wanted a second camera to take more pictures and we needed to buy a microphone after destroying ours in Panama.
Laptop: 768,75€ (835,67$)
Mac BookAir from Costco for Sascha. His old MacBook was so old, that it was nearly impossible to edit and it constantly slowed down because of too few storage and memory. It wasn’t suitable for making YouTube Videos.
Fix Costs Business: 756,65€ (822.52 $)
This includes subscriptions and payments for:
- Hosting Website
- Adobe Creative Cloud
- Epidemic Sound
- Canva
- TubeBuddy
- TravelSpend
- Touchnote Postcard
- Tick Tick
Takeaway from this expense report
All in all I think we are in a good position budget wise. We just want to take a minute to sum up what it would have cost us, if we wouldn’t have booked a honeymoon cruise, wouldn’t have spent money on the business we try to build and didn’t need to pay for a Van credit or our cuddly furry ball Felix at home.
34.729,25€ (37,753.26$)
Without the van we would have also payed way less for tolls, insurance, Vespa, repairs and gas, campgrounds, etc. But instead we would have payed for other transport and accommodation. We can’t estimate how that would have turned out. But this is just our case study and we hope it gave you an idea on how much what can cost.
We hope you got some insights, helped you a bit seeing what travel can cost and how individual the costs can be. If you want to get into the numbers of what we have as current income from our channel, you can read on in the next section.
Total corrected amount: 34.729,25€ (37,753.26$)
Income Report - Year 1
Let’s start this income report by talking about the purpose of it. It is not meant to brag about money we make or complain about money we don’t make. There is nothing to brag or complain about!
We started our journey on November 6, 2021 and are still at the very beginning of our little small channel on YouTube. We saved up money to be able to go on this crazy adventure around the world and try our best to make some extra money with our channel to help finance the trip. So far this didn’t work out as great as we thought and dreamed it would, but that’s also just part of the journey we guess. 🙂
After being on the road now for almost 17 months we decided we really want to give the deepest insights in what is going on with our finances, because many seem interested in how YouTube works out for us and how we afford to travel anyways.
We really enjoy being on the road, full-time traveling and we’re both going to be super sad, if this adventure has to end because the money runs out. So we do our best to keep going and providing you all the infos you wish for. We do have a small, but amazing community on YouTube, we even made friends with in real life and wouldn’t want to miss it.
So since we can’t let the money run out, we’re going to need to find some ways to make money along the way to continue traveling. We decided we’ll take on the challenge to make YouTube a business, that’ll support our travel. And the reason we’ll give you insights in all our finances is, that we really want to take you along with us on every aspect of the journey! Further more, we have always been inspired by other people who are transparent about their business finances. It can give a lot of guidance and input for your own business, what mistakes to avoid, which options to try. And we admire the honesty so much, that we really want to contribute with our own story. Wherever it may take us.
We’re nowhere close to being able to support our travel, but we’re up for the challenge. And for some crazy reason we do enjoy sharing our adventures with you a lot!
We really hope that you appreciate the transparency and maybe get inspired by our ups and down, experiences and story. First we’ll give you insights on the actual income, then on the money we saved for experiences.
Let’s get into the numbers!
Youtube ad revenue - 4,40€/ 4.78$
On the 30th of December 2022 we were finally able to hit the “monetize” button, which was a major step for us! After a few days of waiting we got approved and finally got some Ad Revenue from our videos starting from the 2st of January 2023! From getting monetized until the 15th of January (were we officially started our second year and chapter of traveling the world) we got 4,40€ (4.78$). That’s round about 0,34€ (0.34$) per day.
So nothing really to talk about, but we hope that being monetized from the beginning of 2023 on, we can tell you better numbers at the end of 2023/ beginning of 2024, after ending our second year of travel and hopefully starting into year three. Let’s see what this year has in store for us Ad Revenue-wise. We’ll let you know in the next income report.
Patreon - 40,40€/ 43.92$
We had one Patron during our first year of travel and made 40,40€/ 43.92$ with it over the whole year. We offer memberships where you can get postcards from us every month, recipes for on the road and food tour guides of the food tours we did in all the countries we’ve visited. If you like to become a Patron you can do so HERE and get your perks every month.
The total amount we got from our patron was 50€/ 54.35$. After paying platform process fees we ended up with 40,40€/ 43.92$. We payed 0,85€/ 0.92$ per month for the postcard we sent out, plus a yearly subscription to the service we use (“Touchnote Postcard”) of 39,96€/ 43.44$. This equals an earning of 31,90€/ 34.68$ minus the subscription: -8,06€/ -8.76$ for the whole year.
We were a bit shocked to run the numbers on this one. Because we actually made us pay for having a patron. To sum this up it is safe to say, that just one patron does not bring in any money, but since our patron number (three at the moment) is growing this year. We are sure we’ll be in the black numbers in the next report. We really wanted to share this, because first of all we didn’t think it would turn out like this and second it might give you further insights in starting a postcard club as well.
And it is safe to say we would not change a thing about having our first patron during the first year! even though we payed extra for it. It gave us a massive motivational boost to see, that someone believed in us this much to pay a monthly membership for us, we love to send out postcards and all of the postcards we sent out are on his kitchen fridge, which is just the sweetest thing! Thank you Tayfun! <3
For those who aren’t familiar with “Patreon”: It’s a platform, that allows creators to get support from their community for their work and allows them to continue working on great content, no matter the YouTube algorithm and worrying about the next meal or coffee. You can support by getting a membership, which give you access to extras like a physical postcard from us every month or a recipe for easy on the road cooking and more.
CLICK HERE to learn more about becoming a patron.
Buy me a coffee - 66,50€/ 72.29$
We do have an account on “Buy me a coffee”, too. We basically offer the same memberships there, plus the opportunity to buy us coffee as a single payment. We like the plattform a lot, we can offer you downloads, food tour guides, recipes, physical postcards that you get every month from us and so much more!
We made 66,50€/ 72.29$ with this platform. Thanks to all the supporters! The whole donation amount was 70€/ 76.09$, which makes 66,50€/ 72.29$ after process fees.
It can be very scary to build a business and an income on just one platform, so we decided to offer not just our YouTube videos and rely on that, but try to diversify right from the beginning and tried out “Buy me a coffee” and “Patreon”. We are super grateful for everyone who supports us on either of the platforms, no matter how our videos work out on YouTube and believe in us this much. It really means a big deal to us!
At the beginning we just didn’t know which platform to take, since they both offer a little bit different options what you can get and sell there. So for some reason we run both platforms now and we intend to keep it that way. It’ll give you the option to choose for yourself, which system you like best and feel more comfortable with. Both platforms get fed with the same extras and membership perks, so you won’t miss out on anything, no matter which you choose.
We are super grateful to have a little extra money each month, that we can count on!
For those who aren’t familiar with “Buy me a coffee”: It’s a platform that allows creators to get support from their community for their work and allows them to continue working on great content, no matter the YouTube algorithm and worrying about the next meal or coffee. You can either buy a few coffees as a one time support or get a membership, which give you extras like a physical postcard from us every month or a recipe for easy on the road cooking and more.
CLICK HERE to learn more about becoming a “Buy me coffee” member.
paypal - 0€/ 0$
We didn’t know if people rather like to donate via a platforms like “Buy me a coffee” or “Patreon” or support via Paypal, so we gave the option of donations via Paypal, too. But so far it seems like the above listed platforms are more convenient for most supporters. We might just leave the option open to see, if people will become more interested in this support possibility, kind of like field study. If it won’t be used in the future we might kill it one day. We still wanted to mention it here to complete the income report. We want to give you full transparency about all possible income streams, that we tried to make work.
If you want to try it out you can do so HERE.
Affiliate income - 0€/ 0$
We recommend companies and products we really really love and use, such as great travel credit cards (even though the options in Europe are limited, there are great options), Epidemic Sound (where we get our royalty free music from) or travel gear we would never want to miss ever again! We think it is an awesome way to be able to make money by recommending products and companies that we love and would recommend anyway. We haven’t made any money via affiliate yet, but again we hope to be able to tell you better figures in the next report. 🙂
If you’re interested in travel grear we recommend, filming & editing gear we use or travel cards, that could help you finance your own trip CLICK HERE.
Sponsored content - 0€/ 0$
As you may already know, many YouTubers get a big amount of income from sponsorships in their videos. If we ever get the opportunity to review a product or company, that meets our criteria and we are convinced of it and would love to recommend it, we would love to take that opportunity in the future as well.
Total amount earned: 62,84€/ 68.31$
Savings Report
Even as a small YouTube Channel we already get the opportunity to partner with companies for free experiences/accommodations in return for featuring the company in our vlogs. We always tell you in the videos, if we’ve partnered with the company and there is always a link in the description below the video. This serves as an ad for the company, but also helps us to be transparent about the sponsored content.
How much money we saved this year thanks to partnerships, frequent flyer miles, and negotiation will be listed in this part of the income report. This is just a fun vanity metric to calculate as well.
Most of the time we wouldn’t have paid to go on all of the activities, because our budget wouldn’t allow us to. the partnership made it possible for us to experience them! Which means a big deal to us and our budget and travel.
However, this part of the income report gives you insights in expenses we would have had, if we would have paid for them. It’s and extra layer of transparency to take into consideration, if you want to travel around the world. It’s technically not an income, but freebees we are super grateful for!
Free things - ?€/ ?$
Sometimes we get the chance to stay for free at friends and family, which saved us a full month of accommodation in the USA, Florida or a rental car here and there (for example we can get a car from our favourite car mechanic in Jacksonville as long as he has an unused car standing around). We don’t have a price tag for this section, but it’s sure quite a bit of money. Thank you guys for having us and trusting us with your cars and homes! Big hugs! <3
Miles & Points - 350€/ 380.47$
The options for the miles and points game in Europe are quite limited, but we found some options to make some points anyway and redeem them whenever possible. There are options to get into the “Miles-Game” in the USA as a European as well, but you’ll need persistence, a credit in good standing in your country and time. If you want to learn more about it CLICK HERE.
Let’s run the numbers of this section. This year we saved:
Flights: 200€ (217.41$ )
We saved using a credit with the American Express Platinum.
Payback Points: 150€ (163.06$)
Payback Points on Groceries for Vanlife
Plus we made quite some Miles and Points by putting all our expeses on certain credit cards. We’ll tell you more in further blog posts! So stay tuned. If you want to be the first to know sign up for our newsletter HERE.
Savings - 722€/ 784.85$
We started January 2022 by reaching out to companies that offer cultural experiences around the world, like Food Tours, adventure experiences, like zip lining or other tours. Our very first cooperation was a food tour in Mexico. So wherever we travel we try to get things for free in exchange of making a video about the experience and sharing it on our YouTube Channel, which to be honest we would do anyway, even with experiences we payed for. So to save a little money here and there it’s really great and gives us the possibility to keep on traveling and experience more luxurious things on the road we wouldn’t be able to pay for otherwise. Every Food Tour we get for free saves us the costs of food for that whole day, every unique stay we get for free saves us paying for an accommodation for that night. Plus we still tell you our honest opinion about the experience, because we would never agree to do videos in which we’re not allowed to tell you our real and honest opinion about it.
Let’s look at the numbers.
Food Tours we got for free or with a discount (The amount of money SAVED on the tours):
Mexico, Mérida: 100 €/ 108.70$
Bratislava: 85€/ 92.40$
Prague: 89€/ 96.75$
Istanbul: 250€/ 271.76$
Amsterdam: 198€/ 215.24$
Total Savings: 722€/ 784.85$
Total Amount Saved: 1.072€/ 1,165.32$
Income summary
As a summary we made 62,84€ (68.31$) and had savings through partnerships worth 722€ (784.85$).
This sums up to a total amount of 784,84€ (853.16$), that we “made” with our Channel in the first year. Plus 350€ (380.47$) saved through Miles & Points.
We hope you enjoyed reading this report and got some insights in expenses of traveling the world and insights in how YouTube can work out or not work out.
That’s been our expense and income report for our first year/chapter of travel. If you enjoyed it, leave us a comment below or get in touch with us on Instagram. If you want to be the first to know about future reports coming up you can subscribe to our newsletter HERE and we tell you as soon as it’s ready.
Sending love from somewhere in the world! See you and stay adventurous!
Have fun exploring the wild wide world!
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If you found helpful advice or just enjoyed reading our articles and watching our videos, it means the world to us, if you support us and our work! We have all options to support us listed on this side:
The items linked here might consist affiliate links. You will not pay more for the products, we will just receive a little commission on what you buy. We hope you got some information out of this article and we are grateful for every purchase you make using the listed links. Opinions expressed on this website are ours alone, and not those of the companies listed above. Additionally, the content on this website has not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by the companies listed above. We are very thankful for everyone supporting our channel! Seriously it means a lot! Thank you!
