Currently, I'm a high school senior looking to graduate in 20 days and I've thought, seriously thought, of taking a gap year. It's a recent thought that I've came up with and honestly the idea of it makes more sense and appeals to me the more that I think of it.
I live in Alabama, if that helps in terms of regional costs.
So I told my parents, and they totally shut me down. Didn't even listen to my side, or look into how it could help me.
The purpose of the gap year would be to spend a significant amount of time in a spanish speaking country (3-6 months) to just learn Spanish. Probably somewhere like Guatemala with a low COL.
Spending the rest of the time either volunteering,traveling, or going to another low COL spanish speaking country is an interesting idea as well.
The other purpose would be to more fully dedicate myself to my photography/videography, which started as a side hustle but has quickly become more profitable (and fun!) then my part time job as a cashier.
I started
merakivisualmedia.com sometime in late 2016, which started out making a $100 here and there from senior portraits and has quickly grown to the point where I'm booking weddings (1 confirmed, another 2 potential) in just the month of May. Already got inquiries for one in June, and as I continue to market and snowball off previous weddings, I think that will only continue to accelerate. With that being said, I think I have the potential to make enough money to live a year by myself, especially if the majority of it isn't in the states.
So I wouldn't have a car, which would be necessary, as meeting up with clients on location would be a necessity. I still need maybe $2,000 - $3,000 in camera gear before I believe I have all the creative tools I need to achieve any kind of shot that I'd like, but those purchases don't need to be all at once.
I'm looking at potential places to move into with a roommate, but no clue how much that would be.
Ideally I would want 6 months savings and a car, to get moved out. So I guess the question is..
How much should that be?