How I Finance Myself Through Stocks

Financing is one of the most common questions I’ve been asked during my bike trip around the world, which has now lasted more than five years. Unfortunately, I can’t talk about that until the statute of limitations has expired. But all joking aside, I didn’t rob a bank to finance this trip. As we all know, banks are more likely to rob us. And that brings us to the beginning of my financing story. 2008: The global financial crisis—everything is in the doldrums. Stocks, too. The perfect time for me to get started. I began investing my money with small, cautious investments. Fortunately, from that point on, the stock market mainly moved in one direction—upward. Of course, I’m not offering investment advice here. Do your own thorough research, and don’t blame me for the next financial crisis.

To illustrate this, here’s a simple example that you can easily verify using many different savings calculators online. If you invest €10 per day over 15 years at a realistic annual return of 5%, the €54,000 you contribute will eventually grow to about €80,000.

Passive Income from Dividends and Interest

I now hold many stocks and ETFs that also pay dividends, providing me with a passive income of about 100 € per month. This is in addition to the roughly 20 € in interest I’m currently earning on my checking account. Through perseverance, I’ve managed to grow the wealth I’ve earned without taking on too much risk. As you can see, none of this is impossible to achieve. I started my journey with a total of about 50,000 € in savings. I was able to do this partly because I’d never owned a car before my trip. Aside from cycling, I never had any expensive hobbies or status symbols. During that time, I tried to set aside as much money as possible and live frugally.

My budget

My budget has been about 27,400 € over the last 1,860 days. That’s just under €15 per day. That’s my total travel budget so far, including food, lodging, spare parts, visas, insurance, and miscellaneous expenses. If I subtract the approximately €9,100 in income from various sources, my trip has cost me about €18,300. That works out to about €10 per day after expenses.

Overview expenses

credit cards

I carry two separate credit cards while traveling: a Visa card and a Mastercard. For longer trips, I’d recommend having both. In Africa, for example, it’s much easier to withdraw cash or make payments with a Visa card. My Visa card is from TradeRepublic, where I also have an account and a brokerage account. For withdrawals up to €100, I pay a €1 fee. Everything above that is free. Additionally, fees from the ATM operator may apply. My Mastercard is a prepaid card from Revolut. With it, I can withdraw up to €200 per month for free. This can be useful, since in many countries people pay with cash a lot, and credit cards aren’t very widespread.

Insurances

As you’ve probably already noticed, insurance makes up part of my expenses. Even for trips lasting up to five years, you can still get affordable travel health insurance. For the first five years, I was insured with HanseMerkur, which consistently receives good ratings in Finanztest’s reviews. I think the insurance company’s accounting department was very happy with my policy. Fortunately, I rarely get sick. I’ve only filed a single claim for about €35 over the past five years. It took a while, but eventually, it went smoothly. Since I’ve reached the maximum coverage period of five years, I’ve switched to Genki. I can’t say much about it yet, though, since I’ve only been with them for a short time.

Conclusion

As for my budget, I have to say that I’m definitely one of the more frugal travelers. I do a lot of wild camping, cook for myself, or eat inexpensive street food. I spend many of my nights in basic accommodations, even though I often wish I had air conditioning. In addition, during the first two years, I spent a lot of time in the extremely hospitable countries of the Middle East, which made traveling there quite affordable.