Keeping an Eye on the Costs!
Wednesday, June 11th, 2008
Had a look at expenditure, costs and reasonings so far which, we’ve updated and broken down in more detail under the ‘Preparation’ category, then ‘Summary Activities, Considerations and Preparation’ post. Please have a look if you’d like further information re: cost breakdown following this post……..
The realisation of how lucky we are to be able to buy the vehicle comes to mind and the reality of the risk is kicking in that - the vehicle alone is likely to blow our budget if we don’t get a handle and draw in our horns.
The risk otherwise is that we’ll fall short of target travel funds needed to actually do the trip.
A small fortune spent already - £19,275.53 total (£13,368.63 vehicle, £1,415 off-roading, £480 fridge, £511.90 website, £3,500 Off Road Caravan) - vehicle overlanding proving definately not to be the cheapest option! as oppossed e.g. flights, trains, bikes around the world. We knew this already but still spent £12K on just buying the vehicle itself. Thoughts from Anne are now that this is a horrendous amount of money which could have enabled us to fly around the world at least twice by now. Or, this could have paid for refurbishment and new windows for our house These costs incurred so far exclude vehicle tax, MOT and insurance requirements.
Have we made pre-trip expenses unneccessarily expensive? Is it worth spending such a large amount on the vehicle at the outset given the rest of preparation it needs to go through? This added to thoughts that really, the vehicle should not be something we should be worried about leaving should an unplanned emergency arise wherever we are in the world - has sprung to mind a few times.
We are not rich by any means and outside of our mortgage, vehicle probably represents our biggest extravagance ever. If we keep spending on it - will probably one day be worth more than the house (Anne did see an expedition prepared Land Rover at Trek Overland in North Yorkshire worth £75K!).
If we’d bought something dirt cheap, we wouldn’t be so worried about it, but - having spent the money on it makes it a different kind of beast to have to consider. Definately something others considering similar vehicle overland trips should think about. We still love it though, it runs beautifully and we are totally smitten (and hopefully value will hold!). Meantime, as posted on the Landyzone forum recently, no-one warned us how ‘addictive’ actually owning a Land Rover can be! No wonder there are so many organisations, shows, specialists, forums and clubs across the world! No wonder people give ‘names’ to their vehicles - never thought we’d see the day when we started to think about our Land Rover as being ‘part of the family’. We are going to not wanting to sacrifice much needed funds on completing our house to blowing it all on the vehicle! Had originally thought about an expensive Howling Moon roof tent option and Survivor roof rack but now having second thoughts. Much cheaper/2nd hand options available on e-Bay. We’re off to the Billing Exhibition in July so can have a better look before deciding what to do.
One things for sure, we need to knuckle down, start saving hard and make some sacrifices (we have started a few since New Year - 1) gave up smoking after 20 years. 2) Anne is not allowed to buy any new clothes 3) We are not allowed to buy newspapers more than once a week on a Saturday 4) Anne is not allowed to put the central heating on full or leave lights on around the house. So far, we have ful-filled all four though we have both made up for it in food, sweets, chocolates and eating - so not sure if we’re really saving any money here! There’s loads more but can’t think of them all at present.
