It's the million dollar question isn't it. How much, or rather, how little does it cost living on the road?  
​Being on the road for 14 months, it’s only natural that people want to know how we can afford it.
It’s really hard for people to comprehend just how cheap it is to live on the road. So here it is. Here is our budget.
 
Weekly:
Petrol etc: $100 a week.
            This might not seem like much but lucky for us, Ned gives great mileage! $100 will actually get us about 750km! Which is waaaay more driving than we normally do. Generally we stay at every second place for 2 to 3 nights. Which means we usually only spend about $50 a week. The remainder of the money sits in it’s own keycard account and accrues. It has accrued so much over the last 14 months that we’ve capped it at $1000! It has not only paid for petrol, but also gas refills, repairs, new tyres, light bulbs etc. And there is still always $1000 in the account!
 
Food: $100 a week.
            Again, this doesn’t sound like much, and actually it’s not. But it is more than enough if you eat wisely. Once a week Roh gets hot chips for lunch, but the biggest way we save on our food budget is that we make/bake every thing else ourselves. We bake our own bread. 2 loaves costs $1. I bake breakfast muffins. A dozen costs $2 and lasts 12 days.  (keep leftover in the freezer and take one out each morning for the next day). We make blissballs (30 for about $2) or biscuits (20 for about $2), or eat nuts and dried fruit for snacks. We drink UHT milk and buy free-range eggs from farms we come across. We don’t eat meat, drink soft drinks or juices or alcohol. We travel with a sourdough culture and use it to make our own wraps and pizza bases. We get about 100 wraps per 1Kg of flour ($0.80). When we find cheap vegetables we cook it in bulk and store it. In our freezer we always have home made tomato sauce (which we use for pasta, pizza, pizza puffs etc), pumpkin soup, curry (which we can defrost for curry, or put in puff pastry to make samosa), veg nuggets (mash a heap of veg together, coat in egg, flour and panko, fry then freeze and you have veg nuggets! Gypsy LOVES them) and more. We also eat a lot of staples such as rice, lentils, chickpeas, beans and the occasional pasta. These are all cheap and really help to bulk out a meal. The bulk of our weekly shop is in fresh fruit (5 bananas, 3 apples, grapes, plums, peaches etc) and vegetables. We probably spent $10-15 on fruit, and $15 on vegetables a week? On top of that we probably spend maybe $10-15 a week restocking staples. Some weeks are more expensive than others, but we are flexible with what we buy. This week for example we needed to buy a new bottle of olive oil as well as soy sauce so it was quite an expensive shop at $60.  We decided this week we couldn't justify buying tomatoes at $9 a kilogram. Sundried will have to do.
 
Accomodation: $50 a week
            We have only stayed at 5 caravan parks in the last 14 months. 99% of the time we freecamp. Investing in our solar setup and getting a portable toilet and water tank have been such great investments. So even though it is called the accomodation budget, for the most part it is spent on laundry and showers.  In SA we had a National Parks pass ($88) which entitled us to enter and camp in almost every national/state park in the state for free! We loved that pass so much. It let us explore so many beautiful places that we would not have gone otherwise. Here in WA, we also have the parks pass, but for $85, you only get entry into the parks. Accommodation is extra. And so far at least, there seems to be a distinct lack of freecamps in this corner of the state. I think I’m actually going to have to upgrade our allowance to $100 a week. It’s dire. (lol)
 
Misc: $50 a fortnight
            There are always little extras that we need to buy. Pegs, or a new jumper for gypsy, soap, toothpaste etc. These come out of this budget. Mostly it accrues until we change seasons again or find an awesome op shop in a gorgeous little town.
 
So there you have it, for $275 a week we not only survive, we thrive. We see so much, we experience so much, we eat healthily and we certainly don’t deprive ourselves. And all for much less than most people pay for rent alone. 

Just because you are travelling doesn't mean you can't keep your yoga/meditation habits healthy. Here are a few tips from our experiences so far. 

​​Firstly, you just have to make time. Time simply won’t find you. You have to find it.
- Take a look at your daily schedule. Do you pack up camp first up, drive til lunchtime then set up camp again? If so, set an alarm in your phone to have some self-practice time around 3?
Or do you wake up, slowly pack up and leave around 10? If so, get up early and do some before you hit the road.
Roh and I at the beginning were pretty blaise about it. We would do some yoga here or there when we “had” time. And before long we realised it had been weeks since our last mat time. So we decided to find time. Now it’s almost a daily event. We prefer to travel in the morning, so for us, an afternoon practice works best. We used to have to tag-team turns so the other one could keep Gypsy occupied but now she joins in. She absolutely LOVES “cosmic kids yoga” and we have a few episodes downloaded to the ipad. While she is off doing yoga with Pedro the Penguin and Popcorn the Dolphin, Roh and I can actually do some practice together. It’s perfect.
 
Secondly, be flexible. Some days you will be at the most amazing place with the most amazing energy and all you want to do is some yoga asana. But, there’s just NO level ground. Be flexible and do some simple stretches then some meditation or chanting or pranayama instead.  Other days you will be camped at a truck stop by a highway. Go for a walk and connect with nature instead. What if it’s raining and you don’t have space for your mat in your tent/motorhome/caravan? Do some yoga nidra, or pranayama or work on your sankalpa. It’s important to not have expectations that you will be able to do your normal practice everyday, and everywhere. You have to be flexible. But it’s not a bad thing! If anything it’s a great opportunity to focus on some other aspects you might not normally do enough of (chanting, pranayama etc)
 
Lastly, force yourself. Being on the road is exhausting. I wish I could say that we had the energy everyday to do a full hour of practice each, but the truth is, we don't. After a long day of driving, with an exhausted and grumpy 3 year old, it’s really easy to want to skip a day, or a week. But you just have to force yourself. Even if it’s just for 10 minutes. Even if it’s just 10 sun salutations. You know you will feel infinitely better for it. 

​I’ve recently been about how to pack for a trip when you know you are going to visit several temperature ranges.
 
Well, I guess it ultimately comes down to how much space you have. Through India and SriLanka, Roh, Gypsy and I literally had 2 laundry nets of clothing each. One for tops, and one for bottoms. Each net is about 20cm by 30cm and when full puffs out to about10cm wide. You can actually fit quite a lot into them but they are also a fixed size, so as long as you know you can fit say 3 into your backpack/suitcase, then you can stuff as much into them as you want! They also breathe which is really important in humid climates otherwise you may end up with a new pattern on your shirt, courtesy of the mould.  And it makes packing and unpacking your pack so easy. Just pull them out, then push them back in.
 
As a general rule of thumb, when backpacking we avoid jeans. Sure, they are comfy, but boy are they heavy! You can get just as much warmth in tights under some loose pants. I’ve always found layers work well for me. I try to travel with plain coloured long-sleeved shirts, so that then I can wear a t-shirt or dress over top. By doing this, your winter and summer wardrobes are basically the same!, except for that added long-sleeve shirt (or thermal) in winter which takes up no space during summer. This also applies for skirts and tights. We also always travel with a good thick jacket. For me it’s a puffer jacket I’ve had mine for many many years. The beauty of a puffer jacket is that you don’t sweat in them in warmer weather, but they keep you super toasty in cooler weather. And, they roll up really small (I fold then roll mine and stuff it inside the hood) and you can then use it as an extra pillow/cushion!
 
In Ned, we have a litttttle more space than a backpack, but you'd be surprised. We actually don’t have that much space for clothing. We each have 1 shelf (40cm x 50cm x 20cm). I have 2 dresses, 2 singlet tops and 2 t-shirts, which can all be worn over my 2 long sleeved-thermal shirts. I have 2 pairs of tights, 1 pair of jeggings, 1 pair of loose pants, 1 pair of jeans, 1 pair of shorts and 3 skirts. We usually wash once a week to 10 days, and honestly, this is way too much clothing for me. I could easily survive with half of the amount.  I also have 3 jumpers, 1 flanno and my puffer jacket. Again, this is more than I need.  If we were passing through Brisbane again soon, I’d leave at least my jeans, 2 jumpers, a skirt and a loose pair of pants behind.
 
When it comes to packing for your next adventure though, ask yourself these few questions:

1. How much space do you have and will you need to carry your bag?
2. How cold is it going to get? How hot is it going to get?
3. How long will you be in the cold vs the hot? If for example, you are going to be 3 weeks in the hot then 1 week in the cold, then just take a jumper and a pair of jeans, and pack the rest for the hotter weather.
4. How often do you intend to do laundry/shower? It can be hard to find showers when you are road-tripping in Australia and, lets be honest. If you haven’t showered for a couple of days, do you really need to change your clothes daily? (Ladies, stock up on panty liners!!)
5. How comfortable are you with “Eau De Bonfire”? We’ve met a lady who every evening changes into her “bonfire clothes” so she doesn’t stink up her day-to-day clothes. Me on the other hand, well, if I could bottle it into a perfume I would!

 
Good luck packing for your next adventure and let me know if you have any other handy multi-season packing tips!!