FIFO Work or Taking Your Job Remote: Another Way to Fund Your Big Lap
Not every family wants the stop-start rhythm of picking up casual work in towns along the way. If that’s not for you, there are two other real options worth thinking about, keeping your current job, or looking at FIFO work.
– For reliable power at your site while one of you is away on a FIFO shift: BLUETTI AU
Ask About Taking Your Job Online
You might be thinking you have to leave your job behind to travel and explore. But have you thought about asking your boss if you could take your work online? There are obviously a lot of professions where this isn’t possible, but there are also plenty of jobs out there that do allow some or all of the work to move online.
It never hurts to ask. This is especially worth raising if your role is already partly remote-friendly, admin, customer service, anything computer-based. If you work for a larger company, it’s also worth checking whether they have bases in other towns or states. You might be able to travel to a different state and work temporarily from, say, Queensland or Western Australia, while your family explores that area.
What FIFO Work Actually Looks Like
If working your current job online genuinely isn’t possible, FIFO work is another option worth looking at. FIFO stands for fly-in fly-out, it’s a type of work normally associated with mines, but some other professions use this same roster system too.
Basically, you work in a different location, and the company pays to get you there and back. The roster could be a week on, week off, two weeks on, two weeks off, or all sorts of other patterns depending on the company.
How Families Actually Make FIFO Work on the Road
We’ve met plenty of families on our travels who fund their trip exactly this way. Basically, one adult works FIFO while the other stays with the kids, set up nice and settled in the caravan at a campsite. They stay there for the week or two while their partner is off doing their swing, then their partner comes back.
It’s a different way of doing things, and FIFO work isn’t for everyone, mostly because of the time you spend away from your family. It really comes down to how much you actually need to fund your travels, and whether you can pull your budget down so you don’t need to work as much in the first place.
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Our Thoughts
FIFO work and taking your job remote won’t suit every family, but they’re both a genuine way to keep a steady income coming in without needing to stop and pick up casual work as you go. It comes down to what your job and your family actually need.
If you want a hand working out exactly how much you need to earn to keep travelling, our budget planner can help with that.
👉If you want to work out your own real weekly number, our budget planner can help here.
