A lot of people want to travel but to be able to do this, you need to save up. Traveling, after all, can be costly. You need to pay for your plane tickets, hotel room, and even park tickets if you’re going to Magic Kingdom, SeaWorld or other amusement parks.
If traveling is something you want to do, let me share some tips that I’ve personally found useful:
1. Don’t borrow money for your holiday.
I mean sure, it’s easy and convenient to just use your credit card to pay for your airline tickets to Paris. But coming home to a pile of debt is not what you want to deal with. If you can avoid debt, you’ll be able to enjoy your life more.
2. Set a travel budget and stick to it.
Let’s assume that you and your partner want to travel to Europe for a month. This blog shares that it costs an average of $100 a day to backpack in Western Europe so that’s $3,000 per person. For the sake of this post, let’s assume a round-trip ticket costs $600 so that’s a total of $3,600 per person or $7,200 for the both of you. If you want to travel a year from now, you need to set aside $600 per month.
3. Set up an automatic savings account for your travel fund.
Basically, you need to set up an automatic withdrawal that ensures the amount of money you need to set aside each month goes into your travel savings fund just like how you set up your automated withdrawals or transfers for your rent, bills, etc.
4. Keep track of your spending.
It’s crucial for you to know what you are spending money on. You really have to sit down and jot down all your possible monthly expenses. Be as diligent as you can in tracking everything. Perhaps you spend $2 for coffee every day on your way to work. Or you go out 2x a week for some beer with friends. Maybe you spend $40 a week on take out food. All these unnecessary expenses will add up.
5. Pay off your credit card debt.
When you pay interest on your credit card you’re basically just throwing money away. If you can’t afford something, don’t be tempted to use your credit card.
6. Go for a credit card that offers rewards.
We’re not saying you don’t use a credit card. In fact, we purchase everything using our credit. The key is to make sure you pay off your balance every month so you don’t end up paying interest. That said, choose a rewards credit card which lets you earn rewards and travel points with every purchase. The points will accumulate easily. In our case, we get around $1,500 a year just for using our card which is more than enough to pay for two round trip tickets to Europe and even Southeast Asia.
7. Sell stuff you don’t need.
You’d be surprised at how much junk you have that people are willing to buy. My husband sold many of the tools and machines in his workshop and made over $5,000. You can do a garage sale or simply just take photos of the items and sell them on Facebook Marketplace.
8. Change your lifestyle.
You can change a few habits so you can set aside more money for your trip. For example, if the mortgage on your house is eating up your monthly salary, then perhaps it’s time to downsize. If you drive two cars but you only really need just one to get you from point A to point B, then you may want to sell your 2nd car.
Another major expense most people have is eating out. I know – eating out is a great way to spend time with your partner and not have to cook at home (it can get tiring after a long day in the office!). But you have to change your mindset on this if you want to be able to afford travel. Instead of eating out twice a week, why not prepare a nice homecooked meal with fresh ingredients and everyone can help out?
Besides there are so many fun things you can do together that won’t cost money such as going on weekend hikes, playing board games, or even just watching Netflix at home.
Check out this video on how to get travel rewards from your credit card: