How one woman saved $17,000 in 10 months while living in one of the most expensive countries in the world
Nina Ragusa
In early 2016, travel blogger Nina Ragusa set a lofty goal for herself: Sock away $15,000 (or more) in savings.
And she did it — boosting her savings account by over $17,000 in just 10 months.
Ragusa, who chronicles her adventures on her blog, Where in the World is Nina?, has been traveling the world for over five years, and she recently spent a year living in Australia with her boyfriend on a working holiday visa.
Despite Australia's high cost of living, Ragusa was determined to use the time to save up for future travel — she could always visit the country again as a tourist — and spent 10 months looking for ways to cut back her spending and stretch her paycheck.
Throughout her savings challenge, Ragusa implemented two basic rules:
- Work as much as possible.
- Don't spend any more than necessary.
From working 70 hour weeks to living on less than $3 per meal, here's how she was able to save over $17,000 while living in one of the most expensive countries in the world.
Note: All dollar amounts are in USD unless otherwise stated.
Over the course of a year, Ragusa and her boyfriend lived in two different Australian cities: First, Melbourne, where she worked as a waitress, and later Darwin, where she found work at a surf shop and served drinks at a bar. Ragusa routinely put in 50 to 70 hours per week to maximize her earnings.
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Nightcliff, Northern Territory, Australia
She typically made between $19 and $35 per hour — up to $48 per hour on holidays — and ended up saving about half of her total income. Her boyfriend, Garrett, saved alongside her and put away $30,000 of his own, thanks to a higher-paying job.
You can read more about Ragusa's time in Melbourne here, and her life in Darwin here.
She cites working as much as possible as the key to being able to save such a large sum. After all, you can only cut back your expenses so much.
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Mindle Beach, Australia
"I worked so hard. Forty, 50, sometimes 70 hours a week," she writes on her blog. "I worked. And when I wasn't scheduled to work, I was working on my blog. There [were], of course, the few nights a week my boyfriend and I had a precious couple of hours to get lost in one of our shows together and enjoy a beer or glass of wine before passing [out] because we were so exhausted, but that's about it."
She kept her budget as streamlined as possible. Both Ragusa and her boyfriend aimed to cap their per-person expenses at $750 a month, which translated to around $40 per week for food and drink and $130 per week on rent.
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Berry Springs, Australia
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