Category ArchiveEverywhere Once |

How to Revolutionize Your Financial Life

by Brian on January 4, 2013 in How To, Lifestyle, Money & Finance

With New Year’s celebrations now over it’s time for the hard work of resolution honoring to begin in earnest. Many of us will start the year resolving to spend less money and save more. If you’re like me and Shannon, the objective may be to accumulate enough to travel the world; or maybe you’re trying to build a college fund or pad a retirement nest egg. All worthy goals.

Unfortunately our good intentions are typically doomed to failure right from the start. By mid-year most of us will have fallen back into the same bad habits we resolve each year to end. We do that not because we lack the necessary willpower, but because we lack the correct perspective. To change our financial behavior we need to fundamentally change the way we think about money. We need to find a way to turn human nature, which constantly tempts us away from our long term goals, to our advantage. Fortunately that is easier to do than you may think.

How Much Does Long-Term Travel Cost?

by Brian on November 16, 2012 in How To, Money & Finance, Travel

Wannabe wanderers initially have just one question on their minds: How much does long-term travel cost? The classic response to this question may be informative, but is not completely helpful.

The web abounds with the personal budgets of folks who have taken off to explore the world. Through the magic of Google it is easy to find detailed financial histories for backpackers and RVers chronicling weeks, months and even years of their spending. These individual budgets are often posted as definitive answers to the headline question. What they miss, though, is the most important cost component of all: you!

What the ObamaCare Decision Means for Perpetual Travelers Like Us

by Brian on June 29, 2012 in Money & Finance

Courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net

EverywhereOnce isn’t a political blog, and this isn’t a political post. Health insurance, for us, isn’t a political matter but a practical one.

Of all the things we had to consider when preparing to hit the road full-time, how to manage health care costs was not only the most significant but also the most unpredictable.

In 2010, when we left behind our Mega Corp provided health insurance coverage and surrendered ourselves to the tender mercies of the individual insurance market, we couldn’t guarantee we’d even be sold an individual policy. Now that we have one, we can’t be sure it will actually be honored if ever we get expensively sick—despite paying hefty premiums each and every month.

We’ve written before about the special challenges we faced in trying to obtain health insurance without a physical address. We worried, and still worry, about our insurance company’s ability to declare our application fraudulent because we don’t actually live in our state of declared residency – or any state for that matter. Being citizens of the U.S. should be sufficient to buy a U.S. health insurance policy, but alas, it is not.

6 Life Changing Things You Can do for the Price of an Average U.S. Wedding

by Brian on June 15, 2012 in How To, Lifestyle, Money & Finance, Travel

Courtesy of Freedigitalphotos.net

I’m a big fan of marriage. It has been very good to me. And despite the bad rap it usually gets in our popular culture, marriage really is a terrific arrangement – especially, but not surprisingly, for men. Married men earn 20% more than their single counterparts, report higher levels of happiness, and live longer. If men could get those results in a pill it would outsell Viagara ten to one.

What isn’t so beneficial is the ridiculously elaborate ceremony our culture demands to commemorate the occasion. Reuters recently reported that the average U.S. wedding now costs a staggering $27,021. A wedding in high-price Manhattan averages $65,824.

You’d think young couples would have far better uses for $27,000 than a single day’s celebration. In case they need help breaking with tradition, here are six life-changing suggestions for how to use that cash.

Travel Reward Card Smackdown

by Brian on May 16, 2012 in How To, Money & Finance, Travel

The best reward card for travel is not what you think

courtesy of Stuart Miles

There is a dirty little secret in the world of Mileage Reward Cards. It’s a secret no one else will tell you. In fact, most mile-hoarding travelers don’t even know.

Those miles you’re accumulating on your reward card. They’re not free!

You’d never know that listening to the countless travelers who brag about the “free” flights they get courtesy of their mileage cards. But it’s true. You pay a large price for using a mileage card. I’m not even talking about the annual fee most travel cards now charge.

This dirty secret holds true even for efficient card users who avoid interest charges and late fees by paying off their balance each month. (Anyone who pays credit card interest should strongly consider cutting up their cards regardless of any reward program, but that is a topic for an entirely different blog post).