In previous posts I have talked about living this great life and all of the experiences that come with this lifestyle. I have to admit that I have another dream and it’s the Great Australian Dream. Yep, even though I love our life right now, I am looking forward to the time when we own a piece of this earth.

Travel Light, Live Light

Rachel and I are travelling light and living light right now but later on we want to be able to make decisions about the house we live in, like the colour of the walls and the furniture we own. However, into the future this doesn’t mean we will drop the live light philosophies.  Belongings are important to us, as long as they’re the right ones. The things we buy and keep (although they aren’t many) reflect who we are and at some point we want to express ourselves in that way, with our home. Traveling light and living light has taught us that in the past we weren’t light, bogged down by stuff and possessions. Into the future, we know the lifestyle we currently live will influence us to keep light, live light and enjoy the joys that brings.

Achieving our other dream

There is no denying that our current lifestyle can help us to achieve our other dream. It has its challenges but these are remarkably few. And we save so much in rent! I think of all of our friends who are travelling a more traditional path,  renting while they save a deposit for their own place. They struggle to save anything while they pay $600 a week, or more, to rent a tiny two bedroom flat in the city. That is $30,000 each year! Dropping the rent and living our house sitting lifestyle allows us to save for our future dreams whilst living within our current dream!

Struggle leads to ingenuity

House prices in Australia are ridiculous. I know this is probably not news to anyone. The facts speak for themselves: According to a study conducted by Demographia, Sydney has the second most unaffordable housing in the world. They described housing in Sydney as “extremely unaffordable” and it is second only to Hong Kong. You only have to look at the inflated prices that people are forced to pay for houses that need a complete makeover, possibly with a bulldozer, to know that the Demographia mob are accurate in their analysis.

This challenge requires us to become more creative if we are to achieve our dream. We should take care when we apply 20^th century thinking to solve the problems that we face in the 21^st century. We really need to live smarter. This is just one of the reasons why we are house sitting. Define the problem, assess the variables, plan a solution, test the solution, fail or succeed, reflect and evaluate, then go again.

The plan coming together!!

1. Making the change – Break the norm, follow your dreams, if you see a way to do it differently, go for it.
2. Travel light, live light – Learning to live small, be small but have so much more than just small
3. Achieving the dream – Being clear on what the dream is. Make a plan and follow it but be flexible enough to take the road less traveled.
4. Struggles and ingenuity – When problems arise, be creative in the way you try to solve the problems, sometimes the answers are new and different. Test, fail, test, fail and eventually you will find the answers.
5. Just live your dreams – Be grateful for the process and challenges of living your dreams. They will come together with a little hard work and persistence.

Just Living the Dream to achieve the Great Australian Dream

Are we on the way to achieving our goals? You bet! Are we learning as we go? Yeppo! We make sure that we keep our eye on our savings targets while we immerse ourselves in the adventure of our current lifestyle. I’m looking forward to getting our own place but in the meantime, we are loving Living the Dream.