Have Fun Without Getting Broke: How to Save Money for Travel
Do you dream of traveling the world or a particular destination? Wherever you want to visit, you know you need some bucks to support your trip. Travel might seem like an unreachable luxury only for the rich, but it’s totally not true. Just save enough money, and you’re good to go.
Here’s how to do it.
Here’s How To Save Money for Travel
1. Set Your Goal
Having a dream to travel will take you some effort to actualize. That’s why setting a goal with a detailed plan is crucial. Try to list down everything you need for the vacation, then calculate how much it will cost you. By doing this, you can get an idea of how much you need to save up.
Making a thorough plan will also help you visualize that dream trip of yours. You can even pin-up images of the destination on your desk or room wall. They will remind you of your financial goal whenever you don’t feel like working towards it.
2. Plan a Budget
In the previous step, you’ve made a detailed plan for your trip along with the budget. Now, what you need to do is to plan a running budget for your monthly expenses. Having an elaborate budget will help you spend money on the right necessities. It will eventually help you reach your travel savings goal.
While doing this, you can also set up a separate bank account solely for travel savings. It has the same principle as a piggy bank, where you set some money aside and collect it later.
On your payday, transfer some money to that separate account and forget about it. After a few months, there should be some amount to add to your travel budget.
3. Track Your Expenses
Living paycheck to paycheck is extremely common among people. In some cases, they actually don’t earn enough to live comfortably. But in a lot of other cases, it comes from the inability to be financially responsible. If you can relate to this, tracking your expenses is a good start, especially with a dream vacation in mind.
To do this, start by downloading a money manager app on your phone. Then, track every income and spending you have for at least a month. From there, you will get a rough number of your monthly expense and a list of things you spend money on.
4. Adopt a Frugal Lifestyle
It’s good to get your personal finance well-managed. But to save more than you usually do, you need to tweak some aspects of your lifestyle. Adopting a more frugal way of life is worth trying—at least until you collect enough money for your dream vacation. Here are ways to do it.
5. Reduce Unnecessary Spending
This is the core point of frugal living. After assessing your daily and monthly expenses, you will know what things you can cut off from your spending. Be aware of your latte factor: small, frequent expenses can save you big money when eliminated. Try to decrease your spending on things like coffee shop visits, impulsive shopping, and anything else under the “want” category.
6. Eat Out Less Often
Restaurants and cafes are fun places to enjoy your time. Good food, good drinks, good ambiance, what more to ask for? But we know for a fact that eating out drains your money down the sink pretty quickly. To fix this, try to cook for yourself more often. Also, to replace café visits, you can get an affordable coffee machine and make your own coffee at home.
7. Cut Off Insignificant Subscriptions
Take a look at your subscriptions—gym membership, streaming platforms, or anything else. Cut off any of them that you can find a cheaper (or even free) alternative for. If you want to exercise, you can jog around the block instead of going to the gym. To watch movies or listen to music, there are free options you can use instead of using paid streaming platforms. When there’s a will, there’s away.
8. Go Thrifting
There’s no shame in buying secondhand clothes nowadays. Shopping for clothes (or anything else reasonable) in thrift stores can be a fun way to decrease your expenses. Sometimes you can find some hidden gems in heaps of used wardrobes—it’s an adventure of its own! It’s for a great cause, too: save the environment by cutting down textile waste.
9. Add Your Income Stream
You’ve done your math, managed your personal finance, and downgraded your lifestyle. Great! These are great ways to save up for travel. Here’s another helpful tip: save extra money by earning more money. Pretty obvious yet takes real effort to do, especially when your main job is stressful enough already.
10. Do Freelance Works
You probably have some hobbies or skills that you don’t really use in your main job. It could be anything: public speaking, handcrafting, language skills, or mechanic skill. Find out what’s yours and how to make money with it during your free time. You can get side jobs like these from people you know, or from job portals on the internet.
11. Sell Your Stuff
Look around the house. Do you keep things you don’t really use? It might be a trendy kitchen appliance, cute-yet-useless decorations, or clothes from your impulsive shopping sessions. Are they still in good condition? If yes, consider putting them up for sale to earn extra money for your dream vacation.
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