Whether you’re a student or adult, a backpacker or cruiser, a budget traveler, or a luxury traveler, everyone has different travel goals and styles. I’ve met a ton of people who want to travel but don’t know how or can’t seem to wrap their heads around how much I’ve traveled. The top question I’m asked is how do I save for travel? No, it’s not skipping that cup of tea (I’m not a coffee drinker, but same principle) – there are more ‘adult’ ways to save for travel that will have more of an impact on your budget.
Traveling has so many benefits for not only individuals but businesses as well. Employees who use their vacation time are more productive and more likely to get promoted! Not to mention the things travelers learn on trips that no guidebook can teach – like adaptability and flexibility! That’s why it has always been a priority in my life to travel. Over the past decade, mine have changed, but you know what hasn’t changed? Saving for travel. So here are my money-saving tips to save for travel!
Over time, saving has become a habit – a way of life, rather than something I do occasionally. Money and time are the two biggest barriers to not traveling, so I wanted to share some of the lifestyle changes I’ve made to help me achieve my travel goals. (Including visiting all seven continents before the age of 30). Chances are, you know that making your own coffee and lunches can save you money – so we’re skipping over that- hence the “adult-ish” ways to save for travel.
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This is not a post about working while traveling, or selling my house and quitting my job. I work, have to request time off, own my house, have had student loans, and my trips are my vacations. I’m hopeful that seeing what I’ve done and what works for me can help you figure out what could work for you.
1. Paid off student loans
Okay, I hate the US student loan system. The whole industry needs to be reworked but that is a conversation for another day. We made it a priority to pay them off quickly. Consolidating, refinancing, paying more, and making extra payments helped to achieve this. We usually spent half of our tax returns on a lump payment to help pay down the principal. Tip: If you are able to make biweekly payments, this will pay off your loan faster and for us, it aligned nicely with our paychecks instead of one monthly lump sum. Here are some helpful tips for paying off student loans.
2. No credit card debt
I use my credit card regularly for the % cash back, but the important part is paying it off monthly. Credit card late fees are $25 and the interest rates are absurd – so set up automatic payments and keep an eye on your spending. If you get a late fee by accident, call your credit card company and politely ask if they will take it off. If you usually pay on time, most companies will forgive one or two late fees a year. (Bonus way to save for travel: save your points!)
3. A house within my means
When we were buying our house we calculated how much we could afford while still traveling and settled on a dollar range for the house before getting pre-approved for a mortgage. If you buy a house at the top end of the range you are approved for you’ll likely have a much harder time saving to travel. The term “house poor” exists for a reason! Our house is not fancy or new, but it fits our needs comfortably, we don’t spend weekends cleaning a huge house (meaning we can do weekend trips). Bonus – we save on heating and cooling – which means we can save for travel!
4. Dining out
We are not big on eating out – we don’t typically go to restaurants and if we do, it’s because we have a gift card. We’re pretty good cooks, so I would rather spend $10 on the ingredients to make it at home, than spend $40-50 on a night out at a restaurant. If we do eat out and it’s a large portion, we are always sure to bring a serving home, thus getting 2 meals out of 1.
We also don’t go out to bars. Even in my 20’s. A rum and coke at a bar can cost $7 each where making one at my house costs me $20 for a bottle of rum and $3 for a 12 pack of Coke. If I were to make 12 rum and cokes that’s $23 at home vs $84 at a bar. Add in bar snacks, dinner, and/or a cover charge, that night out can easily cover the cost of visiting an elephant orphanage in Kenya.
This is also one of the best tips I have for saving money while traveling. Below is a group of us enjoying a bottle of wine on a terrace in San Marino which was a lot cheaper than going out for wine.
The best part of this – is that our friends agree! A night out is someone bringing wine over and the other cooking – great company, great food, and great for the wallet!
5. Limit Shopping
There are thousands of tips out there about how to save money when shopping. Waiting a day or a week to think about it. Waiting for sales. Giving yourself an allowance. For me, whenever I want to buy something I want but don’t need, I think about what that money could be used for when traveling. Part of a plane ticket? Half of a wildlife safari? An upgraded hotel? If I still want the item more, I’ll buy it, but it gives me a pause, and most of the time I save it instead. Different techniques work for different people. Do what works for you!
My best tip for this is to wait 24 hours before buying. If you still really want it the next day, then get it. Half the time I forget about it which means I didn’t really need or want it as much as I thought I did originally.
6. DIY and Getting Things for Free
Okay, so DIY can be more expensive if you don’t know what you’re doing – so there are times when I hire out. I saved our sanity by paying someone to install a new screen door (yes it should have been easy to DIY, but for some reason it wasn’t). However, for the majority of home improvement, we are a DIY family. There are plenty of youtube videos, blogs, home improvement sites that can help you. It also doesn’t hurt that both of our fathers are very handy! By redoing the walls in our living room and installing our own fence, we’ve probably saved thousands. Currently, I’m giving our bathroom a massive facelift for a couple hundred dollars instead of a full renovation.
On the smaller end, figuring out what you can get for free. Books are a great example. My local library is a great center for resources. It’s a way to get out of my house for a few hours without having to spend ANY money. My book club is where I’m introduced to new authors and books, but also new people in my community. I regularly take out books instead of buying, so I can’t tell you how much I’ve saved.
7. Cable
I grew up with having 100+ channels of TV to mindlessly flip through. It was nice, you could always find something. Then I moved out and found out how much that actually cost. Let me just say, that was the biggest sticker shock I’ve ever had in my life. We stopped paying for cable and I’m so glad we did. We have Amazon Prime Video included with our Prime Subscription and we pay $13/month for Netflix. Compared to $80/month for cable (and let’s face it – we’d probably still have Netflix) we’ve saved a lot of money. This is the EASIEST way to save for travel!
8. Not keeping up with the Jones’
This is a hard one and the one that’s hard to talk about when someone asks how we save for travel. Social media has made it so easy to compare our lives to someone else’s. Try not to do that. It’s not good for anyone. But what does not keeping up with the Jones’ mean?
It means figuring out what you value and making that a priority. People value different things so try not to compare yourself to someone else. Some people value a big house while others value traveling by van – there is no right or wrong! Only you can decide your values and your priorities.
You should also be aware of “lifestyle creep”. This tends to happen as people move up the work force (looking at you fellow Millennials!) and they start to make more money, then they spend more money on their lifestyle. If you’re able to maintain the lifestyle you have while making more money, then you’d have more money for travel.
Do you have any other tips we could be doing? Let me know in the comments!
Read More Travel Tips
How to Save Money While Traveling
9 Common Travel Budget Busters
Figure out How Much Cash You Need for Your Trip
How to Get Travel Insurance for Your Trip
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A really great take on tips for saving! Some things I never even considered before. You’ve definitely looked at the bigger picture here; thank you for this post!
Awesome! Thanks so much!
Great tips! I totally agree with all of these! People would be so surprised by how much little things can add up and that doing your research can save SO much money. Totally jealous you’ve made to all 7 continents already haha!
Great post! Everyone can save up and travel, just gotta prioritize. Thanks for sharing!
I’m always all about finding ways to save money for travel. We try to keep our day to day expenses minimal and have already put many of these tips into practice. Sometimes being an adult is so hard, but it can be so rewarding!
I’ve cut out going to coffee shops and I set aside money weekly. It all adds up quickly and allows me to travel a few weeks a year.
And in this time of Coronavirus, these things are natural. So we are saving a lot for when our travels will resume.
Completely agree with all of these! Knowing what makes you happy and prioritizing for it means anyone can travel the world. We just paid off our student loan debt and it feels GOOD!
Thanks for the remind of how we can afford to travel. I always need a reminder every so often.
Great tips really like your DIY idea. We like to save on the day we get paid, this way it’s like you’ve never really have had the money to spend in the first place (so we don’t miss it).
That’s a great idea! If you don’t have it you can’t spend it (yet) 🙂