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Money
Sadly, but inevitably this was the most important aspect to get sorted. In a nutshell, we sold our 4-bed detached house and downsized to a 1½-bed flat, so no more mortgage, some cash in the bank and we now had an easily rentable property for income while away. We then sold most of our worldly possessions, which freed up more cash and prepared us for living a more basic lifestyle. No more Gloucester Rugby season tickets, cancelling Sky TV, living without a freezer, buying more basic groceries all reduced our outgoings while prepared us for "life on the road".
We carried out some rough calculations as to the ongoing expenses of the trip, for example if we drive a total of 60,000 miles at 20 mpg with a hopefully inflated average cost of £4.50 a gallon, our fuel would be £13,500. Over the same period we hope to receive more than this by way of net rental income. We have no plans on spending all the equity from our house sale, and by keeping to our already basic living budget, we are happy we have sufficient money to enjoy ourselves, with a contingency fund for any unexpected expenses. The real unknown at this stage will be the shipping costs. Despite contacting several shipping brokers in the relevant countries, we have been unable to obtain any meaningful quotes. It appears this aspect will have to wait until we effectively turn up on their doorstep with Mario, so they actually know we mean business! This unknown may make or break the planned trip to the Americas.
Clearly a major cost was going to be the purchase of the vehicle itself. Having seen 'suitable' vehicles for anything between £5,000 and £100,000, we decided to limit our vehicle budget to what we thought we would be able to sell our current vehicles for. As we still needed our current vehicles this meant funding Mario's purchase and conversion from our house equity and then recouping the cash once we had sold our Land Rover, Mercedes and Vespa, in the month before we leave. We just about broke even.
Full travel insurance (medical cover, personal accident, repatriation, even kidnap ransom payment) is up to £1200 per person for 2 years, but more basic cover about half this cost.