Some of you who’ve been following us for a while know we’ve saved a bundle on rent-free accommodation worldwide over the last 8 years.

Many of you may have even purchased our new Housesitters Roadmap, which shows you exactly how to become a sought-after sitter like us. (It includes a ton of bonuses, discounts, templates, worksheets, plus stellar advice from our 8+ years of experience.) 

If the cart isn’t open, it means we’ve taken it down to make improvements. But we’ll release it again soon, so add yourself to the waitlist to get priority notice and lifetime access to the new version and any future upgrades.

Questions from Curious Followers

Anyway.

Someone asked us the other day how much we’ve saved in accommodation through house and pet sitting since our initial investment of 119 USD in 2017. I (Shazz, who does all the budgeting) felt it was well over 75,000 USD.  

But I didn’t know. So, I started recording it on a spreadsheet and wow!!! The totals so far blew my mind!

The title of this blog is a bit of a spoiler alert on the results, but I hope you’ll stick with me as I unravel how it happened.

The Back Story

Let me elaborate.

Back in 2017, we first heard of house and pet sitting as a way to exchange rent-free accommodation worldwide for home and pet care.

Quite frankly, it sounded too good to be true. 

And one of Tim’s favorite sayings is:

If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is!

Why would perfectly rational people let “strangers” stay in their homes for free in amazing destinations like London, Paris, and Singapore???

However, we’re always up for trying new things. Especially if it means we can travel better and longer for less.

So, we looked at all the house-sitting platforms and decided that Trusted Housesitters (THS) were the best option for our international exploits.

There are quite a few other housesitting platforms that might better suit your needs, but if you want to travel internationally, it’s hard to go past THS as the largest. (In The Housesitter’s Roadmap, we go over ALL of your options and how you can decide on the best platform.)

The choice of sits in hundreds of attractive destinations was stupendous. Paris, London, Reykjavik, Singapore, New York, and many other places we’d been avoiding because of the astronomical accommodation costs. It suddenly appeared there were enough “crazy” people to make house and pet sitting a real option for us. 

Back then, 119 USD got you a “Classic Membership.” Even then, it was less than the cost of a night’s accommodation in a modest hotel in places like London.

Things have changed a bit since then, with different membership tiers, but you can still join today for way less than 150 USD with our Exclusive Link.

With very little know-how, we set up a basic profile, even though we had no intention of looking for house sits until we’d finished our teaching contract in Ho Chi Minh City in November 2017.

With no reviews on the platform, we got two external references from friends whose homes we’d cared for in the past, plus my (Shazz) old boss, who provided a character reference. I also added a few of our excellent Airbnb reviews to the profile.

Note: We’re much wiser and more experienced nowadays, and as we’ve learned, our profile has undergone multiple upgrades. (You can benefit from that experience in our FREE DOWNLOAD – 8 Strategies for a Winning Housesitting Profile.)

Lo and behold, it wasn’t too long before we got an urgent request to care for a luxury apartment and dog in District 2, one of Ho Chi Minh City’s nicest, most sought-after, and modern areas.

I (Shazz) trundled across town, walked the dog a few times a day, fed it morning and night, gave it affection when it wasn’t sleeping, enjoyed a staycation in luxurious surroundings, and left the apartment neat and tidy.

Three days later, we received our first 5-star review. And the rest, as they say, is history.

How Housesitting Changed Our Lives

At the time of writing (July 2024), we’ve completed over 70 house sits, 67 of which were done through Trusted Housesitters. The rest were referrals from THS members we’d sat for, based on our excellent profile and reviews, which we proudly publicize.

We already have eight stays booked for the upcoming European summer, and once we firm up our travel plans, we’ll book many more for the year.

How Much Have We Saved?

So, getting back to the savings.

Crunching the numbers was mind-blowing!!!!!

So far, we’ve gained 823 nights of rent-free accommodation in 14 countries on five continents and some incredible places worldwide.

And, because THS has a referral program and many people joined through our referral code, we haven’t had to pay for membership since our first year. (This option is available to ALL THS members, so it’s easy to reduce your annual costs to zero if you have enough people join using your personal referral code.)

Bloody fantastic, don’t you think?

Especially, when most of 2020 and ALL of 2021 were written off because of COVID.

So….

Estimating the correct figures is difficult. Most of the accommodation we stayed in was far nicer than anything we would have booked if we had paid for it. In places like London, we’d never stay in a two-bedroom apartment in a luxury complex or a fully-equipped house or flat. It’s the same with Paris, Singapore, Zurich, Laussane, Sydney, and Mumbai. We’d either have a cheap hotel or guesthouse or, if we’re touring on our bicycles, we’d camp.

So, I’ve added two columns to the spreadsheet. 

The first is for the cheapest acceptable option we would have booked. Sometimes, that’s a cheaper room. Other times, it’s a hostel bed.

The second is a “guestimate” for equivalent accommodation. It’s not easy when the property is unique, or that type of property isn’t available for rent in the area. Anyway, I did my best!

There’s obviously a vast grey area between the two options, where many of you might fall.

I haven’t backfilled it all, but for 2023 and 2024 so far (248 nights) the average for equivalent accommodation is about 265/night. Cheap accommodation is around 74/night.

So extrapolated to approx 823 nights we’re looking at between 61 and 218k savings.

BUT – that doesn’t include the incredible places we stayed in the US and Canada yet. And, I can assure you, that will bring those averages up a LOT.

But wait! There’s more!

Remember, on top of the rent free accommodation, there are many other benefits we gain from house and pet sitting. 

To summarize, it saves us even more money on:

• Food as we can self-cater
• Transport as we stay closer to the city center and attractions than we usually would
• Entry fees as we stay longer so we get to go in off-peak or free times
• Data, as we have reliable WiFi for much of our stay
• Entertainment, as we typically have access to Netflix and other streaming platforms while we relax after a hard day’s adventuring.

And, unlike hostels, we have private bathroom(s), a comfortable place to work on the computer, and security for the bikes when they are with us. And we get to experience destinations like locals, not tourists.

But it’s not just us that receive many benefits and savings. Homeowners (also called Pet Parents) and the pets themselves also win from this arrangement by ditching boarding costs and receiving the best care in their own environment. And that’s an added bonus for us. We feel grateful that we also help owners travel better and longer for less with peace of mind that their prized possessions are getting the best care while away.

In fact, many people have a combined membership as both sitters and homeowners, allowing them to travel the world with rent-free accommodation AND no-cost house and pet care.

Could You Do This Too?

If you’re now curious if you can travel better for less then why not have a peek at what’s on offer.

You can join and start browsing Trusted Housesitters for FREE using this link. 

Then, if you decide to join, use the discount code TRAVELBUG25 at the checkout to receive a 25% discount on the price of your membership. 

That could save you up to 80 USD on a combined membership.

But, if I’ve already sold you the fantastic benefits of house and pet sitting and you can’t wait to join, use THIS EXCLUSIVE LINK, and the discount will apply automatically to reduce your membership fee.

Just want to explore your own country for less?

If you only want to housesit in Australia, NZ, Canada, or UK, there are a few country-specific platforms that might be better for you and we’ve sourced some discount codes for those companies too. You can grab them over on the Great Deals page.

Next Steps

If you want to jumpstart your progress with:

• an indepth guide on how to choose the best platform 
• comprehensive guidance on how to become a sought after sitter, and 
• done-for-you templates, checklists, worksheets and bonuses

Then head over and check out The Housesitter’s Roadmap.

And, if you have any questions, then feel free to:

• Drop them in the comments
• Email us: timshazz@catchourtravelbug.com
• Or fill out the form on our contact page.

Disclosure: Note that some of the links and advertisements on this page lead to products from our partners. If you buy something after using those links, we may earn a small commission from the sale. However, you have our assurance that you won’t pay any more than you would by buying directly from their site. And we promise to only link to products or companies we’ve used personally, been recommended by trusted family, friends, or travel buddies, or researched thoroughly before adding them to the list. You may also see other links served to you by Google. These will display products that Google thinks you want to see. If you click on those advertisements, we also get paid a small (minuscule) amount. If you want to know more about how you help to fund our travels without costing you a cent – then CLICK THIS LINK for a more comprehensive explanation.