In Q4 of this year, we brought in over $100,000 from our YouTube channel and other related income streams! Yes, that feels as crazy for me to type as it does for you to read. However, it hasn’t always been this way. If this is your first time ever reading one of our income and expense reports, I suggest starting with the first one we ever published in July of 2016 (our total income was $603.26)
Now that we’re making what feels like a crazy amount of money from this business, I feel like it’s important to tell you why we started writing these reports in the first place and why I am continuing to write them (at least until we hit our goal of 100 countries).
When we first made these reports in our 6th month of full-time travel, the goal was to make enough money to cover our travel expenses so we could continue traveling. The purpose was to document that journey. We thought that if we were successful, maybe we could inspire some other people along the way to go after a crazy dream of their own.
When Kara and I used to tell people we traveled full-time, we’d almost always get the same response: “I wish I could do that.” At that point in the conversation, I would usually just bite my tongue. I realize that for some, full-time travel truly isn’t possible. But for most of the people who say “I wish I could do that,” they could if they really wanted to. Yes, some people would have to work harder than others, but most people could make it happen if they were willing to make travel a priority.
One of the selfish reasons we started these reports was to show people that we weren’t trust fund kids and to prove to them that travel doesn’t have to be expensive. We were sharing the exact numbers behind how 2 people could travel the world for a year for $35,000. The hope was that, down the road, we could also show how it was possible to start a business while traveling that would continue to fund our travels, but it was just a dream at that point.
Fast forward 3 years, and we can’t believe where that dream has taken us!
And because of this path we’ve found ourselves on, I feel like the purpose of these income and expense reports have shifted. When we started, I felt like the numbers we were sharing were very relatable to the average person who wanted to go and travel. We were writing as 2 broke newlyweds, and the reports proved that you didn’t need a lot of money to go travel.
Now, I feel like these reports have become much less relatable from a travel expense standpoint, and they aren’t serving their original purpose. I’ve been going back and forth on whether or not to continue publishing, and I’ve almost quit a couple of times. However, I’ve recently realized that these reports are now serving a different purpose that I never intended them to serve.
Based on the feedback I’ve received from the last few reports, these reports are inspiring others outside of the realm of travel to pursue whatever they’re passionate about. This is really special to me. I’ve known from the beginning that it’s not everyone’s dream to travel (I have family and friends who would hate living a week in our shoes). That’s why I’ve never wanted to preach “everyone should travel full-time or you aren’t living life to the fullest.”
I don’t believe that, but I do believe far too many people get swept up in the current of life and just end up wherever it takes them. Then, they look up one day and wonder how they got there. If I can inspire people to at least think about what they really want in life and encourage them to start pursuing it some way, I consider that a success.
So I am going to continue writing these reports (at least until we hit 100 countries) to show people a real-life case study about two people who went against the grain to pursue something they were really passionate about, and it worked out better than they ever could have imagined.
I think most people think you have to make a choice between pursuing your passion or making money. We’re proof that it doesn’t have to be one or the other. We didn’t go into this thinking we were going to start a successful business. We just wanted to have enough money to continue traveling. But because we started doing what we really enjoyed, and worked really hard at it, we’ve found ourselves somewhere we never dreamed of being.
This introduction has become much longer than I intended. So, in summary, I now hope these reports inspire people to work hard at pursuing their passion because you never know where it will lead.
So without further ado, let’s jump into the Q4 Income and Expense Report.
Thoughts on Quarter 4 of 2018
Wow! Last quarter we made really good money from our Vespa Tour, and I didn’t think we’d get anywhere close to our Q3 profit numbers any time soon. But somehow our Q4 profits got dangerously close to the profits we posted in Q3. Chalk this one up as another report that I write in disbelief.
This quarter we made more money from YouTube ad revenue than I ever dreamed possible. To put it into perspective for you, we had never made more than $5,000 in one month from ad revenue. In the month of December, we made over $20,000. It was a crazy feeling watching our ad revenue skyrocket when it felt like we were doing the exact same thing we always do… uploading videos.
It really was the perfect storm in the best sense of the phrase. Ad rates drastically increased around the holidays because all of the advertisers are competing for your attention. At the same time, our channel was growing faster than ever due to a semi-viral video of us riding a train. These two things collided at the perfect time to quadruple our ad revenue.
Spoiler Alert: I’m writing this in February 2019, and I can tell you that the phrase “easy come, easy go” is very accurate when describing our future ad revenue after this quarter 🙁
The other biggest contributor to this quarter’s financial success was Black Friday. We almost let it go by without a thought, but I had some free time on Friday morning so I decided to send out an email offering a discount on both of our online courses. A couple of hours later, I opened my inbox in disbelief. We had sold more courses than we had in months in a couple of hours. It seemed like every time I refreshed my inbox, there would be another sell. By the end of the weekend when the sale ended, we had sold over $16,000 in courses in 4 days making Black Friday my new favorite holiday.
In all seriousness, thank you so much to everyone who trusted us enough to purchase one of our courses. We worked really hard putting them together, and we hope you’re getting a ton of value out of them.
Those were the two biggest factors that led to the big growth in our income. Everything pretty much increased proportionally with our channel growth. That tends to be how it goes. When our channel is growing, so do our other income streams. When our channel growth is slow, all of our other income streams go down.
It’s a bit of a scary position to be in with YouTube. They have so much control, but we’re very thankful that they’ve liked us a lot over the last 3 months.
Ok, let’s dive into the details of the Q4 report!
Income Report
1. YouTube Ad Revenue – $45,649 (Change from Q3 +31,701.41)
As I said in the intro, there was a perfect storm that took our ad revenue to levels we never expected. As you can see from the spike in the chart, we had a video go semi-viral in early November. That video led to a lot of overall channel growth which allowed us to maintain ad revenue above $500 per day for most of November. Part of this was due to our channel growth, and part was due to advertisers increasing their ad rates around the holidays. It was a fun ride, but as you can see these rates weren’t sustainable. You can already see them dropping off as soon as the Christmas season ended.
2. Patreon & PayPal – $11,570.66 (Change from Q3 +$5,997.14)
Our Patreon revenue is directly tied to the number of videos we upload. When you set up a page on Patreon, you can choose to charge your patrons monthly or per video. We choose “per video” for this very reason. We didn’t want our patrons to pay us anything if we weren’t creating new content. For example, we didn’t upload a video in July, so we didn’t make any money from Patreon that month.
It’s scary to build a business on top of a platform that you don’t own. So much of our success/failure is tied to the growth of our YouTube channel, and we have very little control over that growth. This is why we’re so grateful for our patrons! Thanks to their support, we know that no matter what YouTube decides, this is one consistent source of income that we can count on every month!
For those of you who aren’t familiar with Patreon, it’s an online platform that allows you to support the work of your favorite creators giving them a chance to continue working on their creations without having to worry about where their next meal is going to come from!
CLICK HERE to learn more about becoming a patron!
3. Course Sales – $22,911 (Change from Q3 +$11,453)
Without looking at the dates at the bottom, can you guess when we launched our Black Friday sale? (Haha).
I didn’t expect it to go so well, but looking back I think I know why we were able to sell so many. Our channel was going through a big growth period, and I think we had a lot of new subscribers who had never heard of our courses before. We don’t talk about these very often, so I think people learning that they exist + a generous Black Friday discount ended up being the perfect combination.
If you don’t know what I’m talking about… We’ve each created an online course to teach others the subjects where we have the most expertise. For me, that’s travel hacking, and for Kara, it’s video editing.
- 30 Days to Becoming a Travel hacker is a course I created to teach others the strategies I use to save thousands of dollars on flights and hotels.
- Kara’s Behind the Scenes Guide to Creating a Vlog is the course Kara created to let you watch over her shoulder and learn the exact methods she uses to create one of our travel vlogs.
4. Affiliate Income – $14,751.59 (Change from Q3 +$78.41)
- Amazon – $1,159.61
- Epidemic Sound – $3,000
- Creditcards.com – $10,110.85
- Audible – $210
- ConvertKit – $44.10
- Adobe – $227.03
The majority of our affiliate income comes from the ongoing promotion of companies we love such as Amazon, banks with awesome travel credit cards, and Epidemic Sound. It’s an awesome feeling to get rewarded for doing something we are already doing for free, recommending products we use and love.
The really exciting part about our affiliate income this quarter is that it should all be reoccurring. We didn’t do any special promotion this quarter. We just went about business as usual using the systems we already have in place, and we earned over $14,000. This income isn’t completely passive, but it’s really close.
I’m personally really excited about how well the credit card affiliate program is going. I have been teaching people how to use credit cards to travel for less for years now, and it’s awesome to be making good money from something I was already doing for free!
If you’d like help figuring out which travel credit card(s) to sign up for to maximize your rewards and savings, you can request a FREE consultation by clicking the button below!
Or you can check out our Top 10 Travel Credit Cards post that we update every month!
Our second largest source of affiliate income is Epidemic Sound. We get all the music for our YouTube videos through this service. It’s hard to find good music for YouTube videos. Kara used to waste hours of her life searching for music, and now she has a huge library of royalty-free songs to choose from! She loves this service, promotes it at the end of all of our videos, and we get paid anytime someone signs up for a free trial.
If you need music for YouTube videos, click here to check out Epidemic Sound!
Last but not least, Amazon also brought in a decent amount of affiliate income. The majority of our Amazon affiliate income is generated by people who visit the following pages where we recommend gear we use and love.
Our Vlogging Gear
Our Packing List
Keep Us on the Road
5. Sponsored Content – $9,000 (Change from Q3 +$500)
As our channel grows, we’re getting more and more opportunities to include sponsors in our videos. It seems like every day someone sends me an email asking us to review their product on our channel. We turn down the majority of these offers, but if the product/company meets our 3 criteria, then we entertain the idea of adding them as a sponsor.
- Can we get genuinely excited about the product/company?
- Is this something we think our viewers would be interested in knowing more about?
- Does the company value our platform, and are they willing to pay us enough money?
This quarter we published 37 vlogs, and only 4 of those videos were sponsored. We included one advertisement for Trade at the beginning of a video and one advertisement for Quip at the beginning of a video. The other 2 videos that were sponsored by PADI. The great thing about the PADI videos is that we would have filmed those anyway, and partnering with them allowed us to make even better content (at least that’s our opinion).
Total Q3 Income – $103,882.25 (Change from Q3 -64,450.56)
The pie chart above gives you a quick breakdown of how each revenue stream is contributing to our total income.
Expense Report
Transportation Expenses – $2,822.39
Normally, we save money on our transportation expenses using miles and points that we’ve saved up by applying for the best travel credit cards. However, this quarter we ended up paying for a lot of flights out of pocket for a couple different reasons.
First, I got a little lazy with the planning and ended up having to book a couple of last-minute flights around the holidays. At this point, award flights weren’t available, and flights were expensive, so it was a double whammy.
Second, we are normally flexible with our travel plans. We can choose to fly when award flights are available or when the flights are really cheap. However, there were a few times this month where we had to be certain places on exact days. So if award flights weren’t available, we just had to suck it up and pay for the flights that were available that day.
With that said, we did spend 5 weeks in Chiang Mai, so we didn’t move as much as usual. This helped keep our transportation costs around what we normally spend in quarter.
Accommodation Expenses – $2,977.38
For the past 2 quarters, our accommodation expenses haven’t been over $500 which is crazy! This has mainly been due to Airbnb credits that we had accumulated through people signing up for the service through our link. Unfortunately, about halfway through the year, we stopped receiving credits from Airbnb and they eventually dried, which is one of the reasons our accommodation expenses are higher than normal. We reached out to Airbnb about our links not working, but they said everything looked fine. I just have a hard time believing that we went from getting multiple referrals per week to 0 referrals ever. I digress.
If you’ve never signed up for Airbnb, and you want to help me test my theory, you can sign-up at the link below.
CLICK HERE to save $40 on your first Airbnb
Another thing that increased the expense of our accommodations was the 5 weeks we took off to work in Chaing Mai and another 3 weeks in Mexico. Normally, if we’re going to take this much time off we go home, but we couldn’t this year for tax reasons.
City | Accommodations | Nights | Cost | Misc. |
---|---|---|---|---|
Total | $2977.38 | |||
Canada | Campervan | 7 | $185.81 | Campgrounds |
Canmore | Cabin | 7 | $0 | Thank you Mark and Brian |
Singapore | Hotel | 1 | $0 | IHG Free Night Certificate |
Chiang Mai | Airbnb | 5 | $0 | Airbnb Credit |
Chiang Mai | Apartment Rental | 30 | $913.95 | |
Dominican Republic | Resort | 2 | $273.20 | Project with PADI |
Tulum | Airbnb | 17 | $841.28 | Partial Airbnb Credit |
Nashville | Home | 5 | $0 | Stayed with Family |
Cancun | Airbnb | 5 | $763.14 |
Destination Expenses – $3,572.89
This category is the money we spent while on the ground at each destination. This includes things like food, local transportation, and entertainment.
Destination | Dates | Expenses |
---|---|---|
Total | $3567.89 | |
Canada | October 1 - 18 | $777.10 |
Singapore | October 19-20 | $63.51 |
Chiang Mai | Oct. 20 - Nov. 25 | $1293.71 |
Dominican Republic | Nov. 26 - Dec. 4 | $107.99 |
Tulum | December 4 - 22 | $545.85 |
Nashville | December 22 - 27 | $570.82 |
Cancun | December 27 - 31 | $208.91 |
Business Expenses – $8,806.56
Each month we pay for several online subscriptions and other things to keep the vlog, blog, online courses, and email list running smoothly. I look at most of these expenses as “investments” instead of expenses because most of them are tools that enable us to make money. With that said, I may have gotten a little over zealous this quarter. Having 8 work weeks gave me plenty of time to brain storm new ideas and new strategies, and I bought online courses and softwares with the hope of implementing a few new things in the future.
Travel Hacking Wingman -$2,002.68
Benji used to be our partnerships manager, but his role has morphed into being my travel hacking wingman. Benji helps manage our travel hacking Facebook group for the students of my 30 Days to Becoming a Travel Hacker Course. He also helps me write travel hacking blog posts and give credit card consultations. I want to help as many people as possible travel cheaper using my travel hacking strategies, but I didn’t have enough time. So, I’m super thankful I’ve found a fellow travel hacker I trust to help me with the mission.
Video Editor – $397.83
After only publishing 20 videos in Q3, we knew something had to change. So we hired my sister to help rough cut videos. The goal was to save Kara some time in the editing process so that she could publish more videos. Unfortunately, it wasn’t working out as planned so we gave up pretty quickly. Even though my sister was doing a good job rough cutting the videos, by the time Kara watched the clips and got familiar with video, she didn’t end up saving much time.
Convert Kit – $2,849.50
The great email platform that we use to send emails to our list of 50,000+ people. Every year around black Friday, they offer a big discount for paying for the next year in full. Since we know the email list won’t be going anywhere, I went ahead and paid for it up front to save hundreds of dollars.
Teachable – $297
The platform where we host our courses – 30 Days to Becoming a Travel Hacker and Kara’s Behind the Scenes Guide to Editing a Vlog.
Premiere Pro – $98.28
The program Kara uses to edit our videos.
Google Service – $55.14
This is the money we pay Google for our email address every month so that we can look semi-professional.
Touchnote Postcard – $749.75
This is the service we’re using to send postcards to our patrons!
Epidemic Sound – $45
This is where we get all of our royalty free music for our YouTube videos!
TubeBuddy – $57
This service allows us to bulk edit the cards and end cards across all of our videos on YouTube. Basically, we pay $19 to avoid spending hours of our lives monotonously changing cards on our channel.
Godaddy – $386.47
This is the service we use to pay for our website, hosting, and SSL certificates. Plus, all of the other domains I buy when I think of a good business idea 😉
Equipment– $440.51
We bought the new GoPro Hero 7 for our diving trip in the Dominican Republic, and it’s the first GoPro we’ve ever enjoyed using.
Gleam.io – $49
This is the service we used to host our 400k Giveaway.
Fiverr – $42
I wrote a travel hacking ebook in November, and I used Fiverr to get 6 different cover options designed.
Facebook Ads – $48.87
I think there’s a huge opportunity to increase our business with Facebook ads so I was just running a few tests.
Click Funnels – $194
I’m trying to get more sophisticated with our landing pages and sales funnels, but so far I’m just wasting money with this complicated service.
Webinar Jam – $497
I had a grand idea to start hosting more webinars this year. So far I’ve hosted 0. I’m hoping since I paid so much for a webinar software it will motivate me to follow through we the idea sooner rather than later.
Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing Course – $169
I bought this course thinking I’d learn a lot about affiliate marketing, but as I should know by now, there’s no magic formula. You have to spend a lot of time putting in the work. I’m not saying the information in this course wasn’t good, it just wasn’t life-changing.
Giveaway Prizes – $294
This is the money we spent buying the prizes for the 400k Giveaway winner.
Shipping – $94.53
We couldn’t take the drone to Cuba so we had to ship it to St. Maarten.
StoryBlocks – $39
We were really excited to start including more stock video in our vlogs that helped tell a better story, but so far we’ve been disappointed with the selection.
Fixed Costs – $880.67
T-Mobile Phone Plan – $220.07
Health Insurance – $372
Google Fi – $288.60
It would be irresponsible to travel without health insurance, so we pay what feels like too much money for an international health insurance plan every month. We used the T-Mobile Unlimited International plan for the first 2 years of our travels. However, at the beginning of this year, I decided to switch to the Google Pixel 2XL and try out Google’s phone service called Google Fi. It’s a lot faster than T-Mobile’s international service, but having separate carriers is increasing our overall phone bill. So I either need to convince Kara to come to the Android dark side or jump back on the T-Mobile train with Kara. We’re currently at a stand still.
Miscellaneous – $472.29
This category is made up of expenses that didn’t fit into any of the categories above. Some little things like Spotify and Netflix and a few bigger things like credit card annual fees and birthday presents for friends and family.
Total Q4 Expenses – $19,527.18
Summary
Total Profit | $84,355.07 | |
---|---|---|
Income | ||
YouTube Ad Revenue | $45,649 | |
Patreon | $11,570.66 | |
Courses | $22,911.00 | |
Affiliate Income | $14,751.59 | |
Video Sponsorship | $9,000 | |
Total Income | 103,882.25 | |
Expenses | ||
Transportation | -$2,822 | |
Accommodations | -$2,977.38 | |
Destination Expenses | -$3,567.89 | |
Business Expenses | -$8,806.56 | |
Fixed Cost | -$880.67 | |
Miscellaneous | -$472.29 | |
Total Expenses | -$19,527.18 |
That’s a wrap for our Quarter 4 income and expense report. These reports are getting more and more unbelievable. If you find it hard to believe that we’re making this much money while traveling the world, you’re not alone. We’re having a hard time believing it too! Thank you for all of your support. We couldn’t do it without you. I’d love to hear what you think about this report in the comments below!
You can add iPhones to Google Fi now. ?
this is amazing man! the way you’ve grown your business over the years is so inspiring! keep up the good work!
Nate, this reports are incredible! Congrats on your hard work guys. You deserve this so much. And thanks for sharing this info. It really helps me (and I am sure others) have a benchmark to understand what it takes to build an online business. Thanks so much!
Hey Nate – When I first started taking a look at some of the travel expense reports I was skeptical of their value. As I have followed along with your travels and the travels of others, I have come to appreciate them as a way to get a bit of a deep dive into the ongoings of travel and business.
As you mentioned, you felt there was a shift in the audience for these type of reports. I am wondering if it wouldn’t also be valuable from a B2B standpoint. Meaning, its as much for the global nomads/remote agency folks as it is just for the traveler.
I may have missed it but it would be great to see a Vespa case-study!
Cheers, Peter aka @ourmaninto (twitter and insta)
Yes – very very keen to see a Vespa tour idea case study. Fantastic to see profit being made, but would be dead keen to see all the expense considerations that went into the initiative.
Fantastic content guys. A joy to watch
Mark
New Zealand
Congrats guys! So cool to see your hard work and God blessing you with the fruits of your labor. Epic videos! Can’t wait till you hit 1M subs.
It’s amazing to see that making more money has not changed the way you all travel. Because as a subscriber what caught my eye and has kept me on your channel, is the fact you guys travel simply and frugally. Makes it seem more possible for people like myself who rarely travel. I know you feel odd about being so transparent, don’t. Sharing the struggles with people, but also the blessings is important. I do hope you’re all making the best out of this money journey. Smart decisions and helping others.
Great vidios we so appreciate the content and positive attitude. You work very hard and should be payed for your well thought out vidio. This is our favorite show. Bryan & Sharon
It’s so amazing to read these every quarter, you guys are such an inspiration! I just wish we had the same business head that you do Nate!
Hi Nate – This may be a repeat as I commented on the wrong blog post. I was originally skeptical of reading some of the expense reports that were being posted by the travel/nomads. Having watched more of the videos and followed along sorta speak – I think they are an invaluable deep dive into how the process works.
You had mentioned that you felt the target audience may have shifted. I was thinking that perhaps one audience that would be a good fit is the B2B crowd. Meaning, there are a lot of the digital nomad/remote agency folks out there. I see this as a big value for them. Tailoring some of your report or a blog post here or there for them might be an interesting test.
Lastly – Love to see a Vespa case-study! (Maybe you posted something already and I missed it). Something that would be a bit more on the agency side. Just thinking outloud.
Peter aka @ourmaninto (twitter and instagram)
I made a comment that was meant for the 2019 report that you just released.
Nate?thank sooo much for finally deciding to go ahead and publish “The Q4” report!! I don’t know about others, but I’ve been waiting and waiting for it and thought I had missed it. I think this is totally mind blowing how travel vlogging is changing your lives!! This is so fun to track your progress so please keep posting ❤️❤️ Tiffy
I love to see when good ideas, work ethic and willingness to take risks pays off for someone with integrity. Can’t wait for the next report.
Hi Nate. Thanks again for the great report. We have been following you guys for 1.5 years now and inspired us to start a channel to document our travels for friends and family. We were a part of that $16,000 Black Friday sale.
What I missed though was your complimentary perks like hotels, cruises, etc., or maybe there wasn’t any.
Good luck to both of you reaching 100 countries!
Wow! So proud for you guys. I bet UT’s entrepreneurial program would love having an alumnus come back to share his success! Fun to see two people live into life so well AND make money doing it. You both have definitely made your lives into “verbs” and not “nouns.” You truly live! God bless you both as you continue your journey!
I don’t know if it’s still the case, but at one time AirBnB only gave out credits up to $5000 (per account), so if you guys have earned more than that, it could be the reason you’re not getting any more!
Thank you for the transpherancy. The details here are interesting and inspiring.
Find your travel inspiring . We love , my daughter and I watching your videos.
We can’t believe your ease at hoping from country to country so at least it seems. I do keep telling her that it does take a lot of efforts to get to that level of travelling.
Your expense and income report is impressive in details
Congrats on your achievements
Chris and Auxane
This is not necessary but understand the reason why you publish this, so transparent is key to your success! Thank you for al you both do.
Google Fi is available on the iPhone now! Kara no longer has an excuse not to switch!
These income reports are very inspiring to me. Thanks for being so open, Nate!
Well done! And for anyone who thinks long term travel is a piece of cake, all they need to do is to read your full report to see all the work and planning that goes on behind the scenes.
You two have created the life you love thru very hard work, great attention to detail and impeccable record keeping. Your content remains fresh and enthusiastic and I love the positive attitudes you always present.
Bravo!
Wow this is amazing to read broken down in such detail. I found it so interesting. Thanks for sharing it. I really think it’s honourable to take accountability in this way. Not that you should feel obliged to, of course, it’s your business but I think it is honourable. I love that you’ve said how useful you have found each thing to help other people. The charts particularly helped me realise that focusing on gaining sponsored content is not the be all and end all. Loving coming with you on this journey and I know that God is opening up all your hopes and dreams to you both.
Fantastic job, you guys! Nate, you’re not only a genius but also a guy with a heart. 🙂 Lots of blessings to you both.
so cool that you do this. I hope you will continue doing it. I think it’s great also for transparancy. I loved reading the whole thing. I actually just quit my job and am in the process of selling my apartment to go travel for 4 years. This really inspired me to also keep track of everything. Great insight. Keep it up!
Nate and Kara
An amazing job of helping others through your transparency and honest explanations of “whys” in you report!
All the best for continued success and safe travels in 2019! I think you should alter the goal to all 195 countries?
You can now use iPhone on Google fi so you can convince Kara to switch over pretty easily! Happy travels!
Thank you for posting these quarterly reports! I agree, it’s extremely motivating!! It’s so amazing to watch you and Kara travel the world and it’s even more incredible how lucrative it’s become for you both. Well deserved!! Thanks for the amazing content!
Great work. Good to see the success but everyone really needs to read the early reports an realize that even with this windfall profit – you have to go through the early days of challenges.
Someone said “An overnight success is ten years in the making.”
Keep it up and my daughter loves the editing course.
This is the first report of yours I have read and it’s amazing that you are doing so well doing something you love. Long may your success continue and I look forward to seeing your next report!
I signed up with your Airbnb code this past week so you should have $$ coming your way.
You are an inspiration to us all. My husband and I follow your journey religiously.
Keep it up !!!
Helen
Congrats Kara and Nate! We love your content! It’s so fun to watch you grow and have so much success! You deserve it!
Congratulations on this achievement. We love to see your growth. I (Maria) am the financed person for us and I truly love seeing how you divide the expenses and how you manage your finances.
We learn a lot from you and get tons of inspiration
? to more success
Yes please keep doing these! I’m a numbers nerd, and I love the transparency. My husband and I only travel four weeks a year but still find a lot of this information incredibly useful.
Having just discovered the K&N world these expense reports provide great insight on many levels. However I feel your success is because you are both genuine and enjoyable to watch. I also think your audience is broad, from folks in their 20’s who are just starting out to old guys like me in their 50’s who are years removed from their globe trotting days (kids!) but soon will change. Look forward to your next adventures, and still catching up on the old ones too.
These reports in so incredibly thorough and inspiring – thank you for all the work putting these together! You track your money flow so diligently – it’s amazing! I’m curious, why couldn’t you return to the US for Tax reasons? What about taxes would require you to stay out of the US?
I just tested out your Air B&B theory for you. My wife wasn’t signed up, so I thought, why not (I did let her know I was signing her up)? Thank you for continuing to share your Quarterly Reports. Neither of us have plans of making a career in travel or youtube, but it has still been fascinating to follow your financial journey. Thanks for committing to sharing them at least until you make it to 100 countries. And even if the quarterly reports stop after 100 countries, I hope your travels and videos do not.
Thanks Nate, this is great, keep up the good work. I would love to see these reports keep coming even past 100 countries.
Very exciting, congratulations. There is absolutely nothing wrong with earning a good profit from doing what you love. It’s everyones dream. Thanks for the transparency.
Great perspective on change with the purpose of these. I think it is very inspirational to know hard work can pay off for atypical jobs. Thanks for sharing.
Thank you so much Nate! Love these reports. It makes your channel unique. Also glad to read your comment about taxes. I had been worried you weren’t on top of that. You guys are going to be able to “write your own ticket” after your 100 th country!
Going to Poland in a month and I’m going to have to re-watch those videos you published on that country before I go. I have been watching your videos for a couple years now. Love you guys?
Thank you for putting yourselves out there like this to share the realities of the sacrifices you made before and the hard work and continuous learning and trying of different ideas to grow. Thank you for your continuous humility.
You guys have obviously worked very hard to achieve these results and I’m so happy for you.
I’m grateful that you recognise that sharing these results can be an inspiration to many different types of persons with differing dreams that can still be encouraged to go for their dreams and understand that unbelievable things can happen at the intersection of dreams and hard work.
Thank you Nate for continuing posting your quarterly income & expenses reports. I am a numbers person so I have followed these reports for the past 2+ years. I appreciate your transparency! I also like the details in the numbers you provide in these reports!
You two have worked hard to get to where you are with the numbers. You post amazing vlogs and your content are fantastic! That’s why you’ve received awards, sponsors and trips from cruise lines, hotels, etc. You two deserve all that you have worked hard for. One thing I do is to watch through the commercials at the beginning of each vlog as I understand (hopefully correctly) that YouTubers do not get paid for advertising if we “skip” the ads within the first 4-5 seconds at the start of the video.
Congratulations on a successful travel/work model! Again, you put out a quality product and I love watching your vlogs, following you on FB and Instagram! Keep it up!
Ray
Thanks for posting these Nate. It’s really interesting to see the breakdown of the income and expenses. You guys do a good job of creating multiple income streams. I know it must be scary to be so reliant on YouTube where a change in the algorithms or a change in policy could completely wipe out your income. One note: you have a little typo on your income pie chart. It says Q3 instead of Q4. PS: Sorry about the Vols loss in the tourney. 🙂
I really enjoy how honest you are and have been with all of this! By the way, Kara can use Google Fi on iOS. I recently used it in my iPhone for an international trip, and it worked really well!
I think it’s amazing! Congratulations Nate & Kara!!
It is still hard to believe that this is something I could do. I love that you guys have been able to do it… And be so successful. Keep up the good work. ❤️
Kara and Nate,
What travel medical insurance company you use? Additionally, would you consider inviting guest travelers like you did in Italy?
I have watched every one of your videos, and I am thrilled for your success! While I couldn’t travel full time, I am loving the new places I’ve discovered watching you guys. I’m so happy to have another year with you, and will be so sad if you ever stop.
Thank you Nate, for giving us an insight into your finances. This is the one thing that makes your channel different from the other travel channels. So happy to see your hardwork and dedication being rewarded. Wishing you all the luck in the world.
I understand why you hesitated to keep posting these. But in addition to what you said about them inspiring others, these reports really help you all stand outsl from the crowd. This kind of transparency gives you guys such a unique authenticity that you just cannot find anywhere! It it’s such a cool glance into your lives and how you make it happen. Thank you for your honesty and putting together these stunning reports!
Always grateful for these reports, Nate. I am a big supporter of the great detail you go into and I must admit, it is nice to see some transparency on YouTube.
Whilst it is a huge number, I am grateful for your continued humility and I look forward to see where the world takes you in 2019 – literally and figuratively!
Looking forward to Q1 2019 report… which omgosh … I’ve just realised it’s April tomorrow! How!!,
Ps – say hi to Kara for me!
Erin
I watch your vlogs and love your style. Your quarterly reports are an interesting read too.
With all the flights you take and the income that you are making, have you thought about any “CSR”? Making a contribution to your current lifestyle more carbon neutral or contibutions (time or money) to local organizations? I see that 10% of any profit from your Myanmar river trip is going to some local organisations.
Nate, Kara can use Google Fi with an iPhone (like my mom does). It doesn’t have automatic carrier switching in the US and doesn’t automatically connect to open wifi networks like my Pixel does, but it otherwise works pretty well and my mom loves it.
Please never stop publishing these reports. It’s such an inspiration and it’s so good to keep following your success! I’ve been reading them since the $600 report and they prove it’s possible! Congratulations! You guys deserve the best!
I agree! These reports are so good and inspirational I am rooting for you to make more money. You two deserve it. You’ve been working very hard. What you do is not easy. Thanks Nate!
Thank you so much for being so open and sharing these reports! I understand if you stop writing them (and I’m sure they are an immense amount of work!), but I am fascinated by the ups and downs of these kinds of income streams and would love to continue to see how that goes throughout the years, as the internet changes!
As someone who works at a corporate 9-5 job and spends all extra hours on side gigs, I find these incredibly inspirational and motivational. Just wanted to let you know that you guys have impacted my life in such a positive way through your videos, your transparency in your businesses, and your overall optimism in everything you do!
Thank you for sharing this information. Seeing how much work goes in to creating your lifestyle and sustaining it through online sources really make the whole online world make more sense. Kids are now growing up saying they want to be ‘YouTubers’ which, as a parent, sounds idiotic! BUT like all things, hard work pays off. I just reviewed your report with my 11 year old son. His eyes were wide with what you have to do to get where you are (my kids are also your fans). So yes, you are reaching many more people than just those who want to travel hack. You are providing some pretty big life’s lessons that speak to young and old alike! Keep it up. 🙂
Your “Kara and Nate” channel is the greatest thing since pockets. What happens after you reach 100 countries? You could buy a house in the suburbs, build a studio in the basement, and host a daily one-hour live travel podcast featuring guest appearances by experts from every aspect of the world of travel. You could also give travel talks and fill arenas with paying customers.
I ENJOY YOUR TRANSPARENCY
PLEASE READ MY RECOMENDATION
RECOMENDATION:
WE LOVE YOUR VIDEOS, YOUR AUDIENCE WOULD LOVE TO SEE YOU MORE OFTEN. IF YOU MAKE A VIDEO A DAY, YOU ARE NOT ONLY GIVEN MORE TO YOUR VIEWER YOU ARE ALSO EARNING MORE! DOUBLE INCOME EASILY.
Sub contrate or outsource a video editor who can keep your style. That Will give you freedom of time. And your youtube audience Will Love to watch your adventures every Day.
With The freedom of time you can delivery More videos make by your self to The patreon audience, create new courses, write a new book, make a documentary about your travel history, so much things.
I SEE HERE A MILLIONAIRE COMPANY.
LETS MAKE IT HAPPEND !!
It always blows me away reading these reports and seeing the possibility behind hard work and hope. There’s a lot to be said about the work you and Kara put in, and it certainly shows here. Well done!
Hey Nate! Love reading these so much! Google employee here – you can now use Fi on iPhone as far as I’m aware! If Kara’s an iPhone holdout, she should be able to switch. I’m on Fi (have been since before I worked at Google) and I love it. My boyfriend is an iPhone user and he hadn’t switched for the same reason. Now I’ve nearly convinced him. Might be worth a second look if that was the only reason she’s holding out.
Anyway, LOVE your content so much. Thank you for always being so transparent with us!
It’s so wonderful to see that you are more and more successful with each passing quarter. I’ve been here for a very long time, and I remember how much you guys struggled in the beginning. You keep providing phenomenally high quality content and you’re bringing people to places they may never otherwise get to see. You are both incredibly amazing people with the kindest hearts and sweetest spirits. I am so happy for you, and proud of your accomplishments.
Thanks again for sharing Nate, it’s good of you both to share and be so transparent. Wishing you much success as your adventures continue!
Thank you for sharing! It’s incredible to see your finances broken down like this. What platform do you use to analyze this data? You’re motivating me to create similar reports for my personal use.
Thank you so much for your generosity of spirit in sharing your journey. As many have said it is so inspiring to see you living your dreams with joy and determination. May you continue to grow and thrive.
Amazing! Thank you for honestly sharing your journey and showing what is possible when following your wild dreams! I have my own big (to me) goals and when folks like yourselves share the ups and downs it helps me to believe in my own abilities knowing that it will take time and that consistent persistence is key!
Thanks for publishing these reports. I look forward to reading them as I get lots of ideas from them. Plus I see why some of the things I tried did not work, and on the flip side, what I could do to make some of the others work. Hope you continue to publish these. Can I be a Patreon supporter and pay when you publish a financial report? (just a thought)
Thank you for sharing, it’s good to see you are doing well.
You are an inspiration to others.
But I think many people don’t realize the things you had to give up for your travels around the world.
There are a lot of (tiny) things you can not do, or don’t have, that we take for granted, looking at your video’s.
Like me right now, typing this message, end of the week, looking forward to a relaxing weekend, sleeping in my own bed, nothing I must do, visiting family, etc.
Anyway, thank you two for sharing your adventures with us, and keep up the great work.
Greetings from The netherlands.
Very inspiring guys! Thank you!
Can I ask a question? I see you didn’t include taxes in the report. I’ve been planning to start working + travelling, and taxes seem a huge point to consider in my researches.
Do you have ways to avoid paying them? Success for you guys!
I love to see this published and wish other U tubers were required to post the same. I just found you guys but I’m here to stay and am excited to see you grow.
Thank you! It is clear why you guys are getting so successful. The videos are great and the related content (like these reports) are icing in the cake. Keep it up and congrats!
I really love reading your income/expense reports, they give me inspiration and ideas to push myself forward. I am currently in a long distance relationship and hopefully by the end of the year me and him will get to move to another country together. Both of us love traveling way too much and we hope to build a better future where we can enjoy it more often. You guys are a really big inspiration and I hope you guys continue what you do!
Thank you!!
You guys are simply amazing. I recently discovered your channel and fell hopelessly in love. May things keep going well for you and all your hard work pays off. Much love to you both!
You guys are simply amazing. I recently discovered your channel and fell hopelessly in love. May things continue to work out well and your hard work pays off. Stay safe, much love and prayers your way dear Kara & Nate ?
I love how smart your audience is. Everyone appreciates and acknowledges your business head, integrity and incredible work ethic. No one tells you that you’re “lucky” to be doing what you love to do, because we all know that luck has nothing to do with it. Please keep up the amazing work!
You both are wonderful and talented. You work harder than most are willing to do and it should be no surprise why you are successful.
I found the level of detail on these reports you do to be amazing. No wonder for a couple who travels the world you are up at 7am or earlier…no time to rest, to much to do.
It is important to point out that regardless of what people do in life most of us can’t sit back and do nothing…traveling takes time and lots of effort.. to save on “money” you need to put in the “time” and “effort” to learn about air miles, credit card discount programs etc. So the lesson is there is no FREE ride but with lots of effort, passion and determination most, if not all is possible.
Great Job Kara and Nate … you deserve this outcome…you worked for it and I’m glad it has paid off beyond your wildest expectations. All the best, Tom B from Massachusetts.
I’ve been an avid follower, so thank you for sharing this! I agree that as your business grows, the purpose of this report shifts. That said, I hope you recognize that many of the world’s most successful companies share quarterly or annual reports that are not dissimilar to this, because transparency gives their investors and customers (patron and viewers in your case) visibility, assurance, and confidence in continuing to support your endeavor! Best of luck this year, and I hope to continue to see these reports.