An inquiry into the success or otherwise of Anne And Stephen’s Big Adventure. April 2003 - first interim report

So we’re almost ten weeks into our year-long Big Adventure. The mathematicians and accountants out there will realise almost instantly (once calculators have been consulted) that that’s nearly 20 percent of the Adventure done and over and gone with.

This seems like a good time to assess how Anne and I are currently feeling about the task we’ve set ourselves. First though, I’ll just say a little about our reasons for jacking in our jobs, renting out our flat in London, leaving our friends and families and travelling half way around the world.

We’d never done this sort of thing before, whereas a few of our friends had done it straight after uni. We both wanted to but, once we were both on the career ladder and the property ladder, we thought we never would. Too many ladders to worry about, you see. Bloody ladders. After more than six years out of uni though, we felt we could do with taking a breather and re-evaluating what we’re up to. Are we doing the right careers, or should we make a change? Do we want to live in stressful London, or should we move elsewhere?

We didn’t want to wait for a nervous breakdown or mid-life crisis to make us ask these questions.

And we wanted to see a bit of the world, of course.

There’s some disagreement between Anne and me about whether this is a Year of learning or a Year off learning (I say the latter and she the former). That single consonant is the source of much gainsaying and mirth between the two of us, as you can probably imagine. How we laughed.

Happy talk

We were talking the other night and have decided we’re both really happy and relaxed living and working in Sydney. (This is especially good for me, since I regularly seem to be a bundle of stress in London.) We don’t have many responsibilities here, and I guess that’s part of the reason for our comparatively happy demeanours. For example:
-We have no car (one fewer thing to think about);
-We don’t own our tiny Sydney flat (many fewer things to think about);
-Our jobs are short term contracts so there’s little time to get to dislike them (and the things we do dislike about our jobs we know will be out of our lives soon enough).

Of course, this life is a little unreal and unsustainable, partly for those reasons above. We want to own our home, we often need a car at home, and we don’t want to be on short-term contracts. So these aren’t long-term solutions for us. They do make us think though, and I guess we need to change things at home based on what we learn.

The usually-pleasant weather (even in autumn) might have something to do with it too. Also the feeling that the whole of Australia is out there waiting for us to explore it.

Could I be the IT geek people have always said I was?

I’m already starting to think about where I want my career to go. I’ve always been reasonably good at, and quite enjoyed, IT and at the moment I’m thinking of trying to move into that area when I return. Since I’m accountant a good way to do that may be through learning more about accounting systems. This could all change in the next ten months of course, but that’s where part of my brain is right now.

I’ve also realised that the office I worked in before I left the UK had a nice, friendly atmosphere. (A month at unfriendly-GE made me realise that. I’m not yet able to judge The ABC yet, having been there only a week.)

Looking after the cents

A big thing we’re learning here is budgeting. Having been reasonably well off in the UK we didn’t have to think about this too much, and so didn’t save as much as perhaps we should have done. We’re now trying to keep to a budget. Not as small a budget at people travelling straight from uni would be on, perhaps, but a reasonably tight budget nonetheless. We’re trying to record everything we spend, which now seems to me to be a key way to control spending, and it’s good to know that we can manage quite happily. We’re finding it quite easy really (though our budget will have to shrink once we’re not earning!)

I suppose part of this is because we can’t really buy much, as anything we buy (and don’t consume) we’d have to carry around with us when we leave Sydney and travel round Australia, New Zealand, Fiji and the US. Having a reduced social life helps too I guess, and we wouldn’t want to carry that over to the UK (unless I offend too many people with this diary).

It will be interesting to see how this budgeting goes when we’re travelling – after all when you’re working nine-to-five Monday to Friday there are fewer opportunities to spend money. I’ve really no idea what that’s going to be like, and how we’re going to fill our days when we move on from Sydney. Anyway, this budgeting is good as it’s showing us how to do it and making us see that we could reduce our expenditure in the UK if needed (say, for example, I decided to stay at home and be a house-husband, sending Anne out to work).

A way to go

There’s still work to be done. I got a little stressed when I had three days off work last week and thought I may not get work for a few weeks (not a lot stressed, but a little). I’ll have to work on that over the next forty-two weeks.

We’re aware that we might hate travelling – no routine, nowhere to settle etc. If we do I guess we’ll look to settle and work somewhere else for a few months. At the moment though, I don’t think we will hate it. We’re both quite excited about it all and our feet are getting itchy.

We have some trips and things planned for our time in Sydney though, so we’ll enjoy that first.