This is the question that mystifies most, thus we are regularly asked it in one form or another. Many people don’t like to bring up the subject, especially those we know in the United States. It is socially seen as “impolite” to ask such things, but not in our eyes! Ask away. Unfortunately, there isn’t a straight forward answer. The best answer I can think of is “We worked very hard, made it a priority, simplified and saved”.

How Can You Afford a Career Break?

We have found here in Europe, people have no trouble asking us “How Can You Afford a Career Break?”. In fact when we were visiting the Roman Ruins in Merida, we met a “Snow Bird/Retiree” couple from Germany. They come to “Winter” in Spain every year in their RV. They approached us and said we looked “American”. After a good visit and learning about each others lives they asked “Are you the Rockefeller’s?” Of course we had a good laugh and said no way. It doesn’t really take much. In fact, it is significantly cheaper for us to live this life, than the life we led in North Carolina.

Lucky Ducks

The general response we get from people is that we are so Lucky to be living our dream. We agree with you in a general sense, but luck doesn’t really have much to do with it at all. It is really loads of dreaming, planning, simplifying saving and overcoming fears. You see, quite a bit of hard work went into this and plenty of sacrifice as well. I guess luck may be mixed in there somewhere, but no one handed this to us and we didn’t win the lotto. It is possible for you to be “lucky” too, if you make it your priority.

In future blog posts we will share with you exactly what we have done to make our dream a reality. We will include our budget, some actual costs and tips on how we saved. If this type of life is your dream, you will see it could be within your reach.

It is possible! You can afford a career break or some version of it.

I have found that the process of this adventure took us through several phases.

Dream Phase (Wouldn’t it be nice if…)
Research / Assessment Phase (What would it take, fear, research from A-Z)
Expenses / Saving Phase (Saving for the rainy day, live a more simple life)
Acceptance / Commitment Phase (OMG we are going to do this)
Management / Planning Phase (Red Tape, Getting All of Your Ducks in a Row)
It’s Real / Action Phase (Put your Plan into Action, Make it Real)
Now Let’s Tell / Sharing Phase (When to Tell Others)
Gone / Living it Phase (Enjoy the Fruits of Your Labor!)

All of which we plan to write about in-depth, so keep following us to know the “magic recipe” for our career break .

Thanks for reading.

Is something like this your dream too? Please comment and let us know those burning questions you were afraid to ask. We will either answer in the comments or include in a future post.

Curious about our Budget and Spend our first 4 months? click here

More info on Sabbatical and Career Break