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Anyone can travel.  It doesn’t matter if you’re a broke college student or if you’re like me, an empty nester with kids in college.  Most everyone has financial situations that aren’t perfect.  But travel doesn’t have to be out of reach of us “regular” folks who don’t make 7 figures!  Below I’ll show my easy ways to save for the travel life.

It’s a no-brainer that your monthly bills take a big chunk of your salary every month.   Once your bills and your savings are deducted from your paycheck,  often times there’s not a lot left.   But how can you go see cool places and have awesome experiences if you don’t have the funds?   You have to be creative and disciplined.  And you need to be O.K. with forgoing some things you thought you needed, but really don’t.

Before You Go

REDUCE EXPENSES:

BUY LESS HOUSE THAN YOU CAN AFFORD TO SAVE CASH

I’ve lived in my house for 20 years.  When we were looking to buy we wanted an affordable house in a great neighborhood.  We got what we wanted and we haven’t left!  My house is a 1400 square foot,  split-entry.   I guess it’s a “starter” home to some, but we had other financial goals that were more important than getting a bigger home.  For one,  I only worked part-time while my boys were in school.  And neither myself or my husband are house snobs, so we stuck it out with our “starter” home and it’s now 20 years later.

While our home is not large by any means, it’s big enough.   It also does have some great architectural details including soaring cathedral ceilings, so it feels much bigger than it is.  The backyard is very large.  Plus we have a great deck and hot tub. It’s pretty cool.  It is my dream home?  NO!  Is it paid for? YESSSSSSSSS!!!!

Sure, I would love a bigger, newer,  home but I don’t want to pay for it!  I’d rather travel!  I want the travel life.  And I can’t afford to the travel life if I’m making a huge house payment every month.  It’s all about priorities and my trade off is living in a smaller, paid for house so that I have money to spend on travel.  If you only do one thing, make it be this one.  Buying less house than you can afford will have a huge impact on your bottom line and will allow you to save money so you can travel.

GO WITH A USED VEHICLE OR A CHEAPER NEW ONE

Cars aren’t my thing.  I want a reliable, fairly well-equipped vehicle to take me from Point A to Point B.  I really don’t care about what kind of car I drive.  When I last had to car shop, which was 9 years ago, I decided on my must-haves and went with the most economical vehicle choice that had all my must haves. My must-haves: good gas mileage, heated seats, and a sun roof.  That’s it.  I’m low maintenance.

We planned ahead and for a couple of years, we used a GM MasterCard to earn cash towards the purchase of a GM vehicle.   We saved $3000 from that GM card to use towards a new car. The way the card worked is that whatever cashback you had built up could be used towards any new GM product.

I did some research and determined that the Chevy model is the cheapest line of cars made by GM, so no surprise,  Chevy won out.  In looking at Chevy’s,  I knew I wanted a sedan and the Malibu line had models that would give me good gas mileage, heated seats and a sun-roof.

Once I decided on a Chevy Malibu, I did a TON of research and knew exactly what a fair price was. I drive a hard bargain so we got a really great deal.   We also had saved up enough money (buy driving a real beater for the 8 years prior)  so that  I had enough cash to pay for almost the entire car.  I had to finance $3K, and I paid that off fast.  This meant no car payment!!  CHA-CHING!!

THINK LONG TERM

Sure a nice new kitchen, vacation home or a boat SOUNDS good now, but THINK about using a big chunk of your hard earned savings to pay for it.  Or worse, think about making those payments EVERY. SINGLE. MONTH.  You have to think long term before you pull the trigger on large purchases.  Think about making those payments every month for the next 5, 7, 10 years.  Really think about how much cash you could save if you opt to NOT buy the vacation home or boat or top of the line kitchen.

I’m not saying you can’t spend money on things that are important, but look at making a compromise.  For instance, forget the entire kitchen remodel and opt for painting the cabinets and installing new counter tops.  My sister just did this to update her kitchen and it turned out great.  She paid a handy friend that knows how to paint cabinets.  Then, she hired a company to install new counter tops.  Her and my brother-in-law saved a ton of money and it looks fabulous.

A VACATION HOME IS NOT A VACATION FOR YOUR BANK ACCOUNT

A work associate was recently talking about buying a cabin on a lake near town.  He said this cabin will be his family’s vacation home.  They’ll spend Summer weekends at the cabin and they’ll have fantastic family memories.  I’m sure they will have great memories and a lot of quality time.

All of that sounds great, but he’s taking out a loan to buy the cabin.  He’s already got a “normal” 30 year mortgage on his house, plus two car payments.  I can ballpark his salary and unless his wife is making waayyyy more than him, (which I’m pretty sure she’s not), they can’t afford it.

What makes more sense is using travel hacks to take budget family vacations.  You don’t need to spend a lot to make great memories!  Camping is a great money saving way to vacation and it’s super fun!    If you budget right, you could go camping and take a few budget trips throughout the year.  You’d have just as much fun and be way ahead financially.  Plus, to me the idea of a vacation home doesn’t make sense anyway.  When I go on vacation, I want to explore new parts of the country and see things I’ve never seen.   The travel life to me is checking out new places and getting into new routines.   I don’t really see the point of going to the same place every single year.

BUST OUT ANOTHER TWENTY

As far as being ahead financially, one way to pretty much guarantee that WON’T happen is to buy a boat.  Don’t do it!!   If you love boating, make friends with people that own a boat.  Offer to buy their gas every weekend if they will take you on THEIR boat.  Seriously.  There is no joy in owning a boat.  We had a little Bayliner for about two Summers.  That boat was ALWAYS broken.  The thing NEVER ran right.  It got to the point that I refused to go out on that thing.  There’s a reason that BOAT = Bust Out Another Twenty.  So Just NO.

BUY USED TO SAVE MONEY FOR THE TRAVEL LIFE

People have a lot of stuff.  Houses are overflowing with stuff!  I think people are coming to terms with the fact that their houses are crammed with way too much junk.  Thanks in part to the Marie Kondo craze, they are starting to de-clutter.  This is good news for those of us that enjoy saving money by buying USED!

There is such good value in buying used! Whenever I’m in the market for new items I always check used sites first.  I love Face Book Marketplace for furniture and home furnishings. I’ve scored great deals on bedroom furniture, a really cute writing desk, patio furniture, gas grills and tools just to name a few items.

I love consignment stores for clothes.  Most of my tops are from consignment stores.  After I purchase, I take them to the dry cleaners for a good cleaning and they’re good as new.   The quality in good used clothing is often better than new.  Pants are a little trickier, especially because I am a very popular size so sometimes I have no choice but to buy those new – but never for full price.  Always on sale.

LEARN HOW TO COOK TO SAVE MONEY FOR THE TRAVEL LIFE

Food costs are one the biggest expenses in any budget. Eating out is a definite budget buster.  Cooking at home will save you so much money and it’s far healthier than what you’ll get at most restaurants and absolutely better than ANY fast food yuck.  You don’t have to cook at home every night, just do it most nights and watch the savings add up.  Your waistline might even go down.

You also don’t need to cook fancy, gourmet dinners.  Most of my favorite dinners are quick and simple – ground turkey tacos, turkey chili, stuffed sweet potatoes.  I’ve just finished reading 100 Days of Real Food on a Budget, which I highly recommend.  It’s full of simple, wholesome recipes that are plainly put, REAL FOOD.  And won’t break the bank.

SHOP AROUND FOR INSURANCE TO SAVE MONEY FOR TRAVEL

I recently learned that insurance companies make the most money from their long-term customers!  This was really surprised by this.  All this time, I thought I was getting the best deal BECAUSE I was a loyal customer.  After all, I had been with my auto insurance company for 20+ years.

One day one of the boys had a little fender-bender and my rates skyrocketed.  This caused me to take a look at some other insurance companies.  I was shocked at how much money I could save by going with Geico for our auto insurance.  It was mind boggling.  We have 4 vehicles.  Three of our vehicles have full coverage insurance.  We also have two “high-risk” drivers in our household (boys).  Our bill is about $165/month which I consider a fantastic rate.   It really does pay to shop around for insurance.

DITCH CABLE

If you are still paying for cable TV, just stop.  Go with one of the streaming services.  We use both Nextflix and Amazon Prime.  Believe me, there are plenty of quality programs on streaming services.  You will not miss broadcast television.

One thing we do miss is sports coverage, especially baseball.  We found that we can subscribe short-term to the MLB network for a reasonable price of around $115 if you join for the whole year, or $25 per month if you opt for month by month service.   This was a good option for us to get our baseball fix.

You could even go totally rogue and do without television altogether!  Honestly, I rarely watch TV.  Right now, I’m binge watching Stranger Things, but that’s it!  TV is such a huge time waster and I prefer to waste my time reading travel and personal finance blogs!  Seriously, there are many other more engaging ways I’d prefer to spend my free time than sitting in front of the TV.

GET TO KNOW YOUTUBE

YouTube is a great resource to save you money.  They have videos for every.thing.  Seriously.   I’ve used youtube to learn how to do the following and save money:

• fix my dryer door with a shoelace.
• input a formula into excel.
• change a windshield wiper.
• Do a few yoga poses.
• Curl my hair with a flat iron.

A TIE TALE

One of my fondest memories involves a YOU TUBE video.  This is so cute.  I am smiling right now remembering how cute my son was.  When Big Blondie was in high school, some days were designated as “special dress”, meaning a dress shirt and tie were required.  His Freshman year, the very  first “special dress” day occurred when Mr. Blonde was out of town.

Me, being a girl,  had no idea how to tie a dang tie and neither did Big Blondie.  He was only a Freshman.  What kid knows how to tie a tie as a Freshman?!  Big Blondie’s buddy was pulling into the driveway to pick him up for school that day and he still didn’t have that dang tie tied.  He was standing in front of the bathroom mirror flipping the tie this way and that, but really making no progress.  I was trying to give him pointers, which, as a teenage boy,  he wanted no part of.  Panic was setting in.  He didn’t want to be that dorky Freshman who walked in without his tie all tied.  Really, he didn’t want to be a Freshman at all!  Because, let’s be honest, being a Freshman sucks!!

While there was no way to get him out of his Freshman year,  he finally had an epiphany with the tie.  YOU TUBE to the rescue!!  He grabbed his phone, pulled up YOU TUBE and off he went.  Later, he told me there were tons of videos out there that showed exactly how to tie a tie.  Problem solved.

USE YOUR LOCAL LIBRARY

I love the library and use my local library all the time.   Just this week I just picked up a few books.  I’m reading Daisy Jones and The Six right now – super good book.   Nothing better than a good book.   The library has thousands of awesome books.  I don’t get why people don’t use the library more often.  It’s a great resource for so many things.

For instance, my library’s schedule shows that next week they have a class on how to grow seeds.  They also have a Retirement Transition Series for those interested in learning about retirement.  There’s a weekly series on genealogy so you can research your family tree.  The library also has a ton of Free kids programs including StoryTime for little ones and How to Code for Teens.  This plus all the free books, movies, audio books and ebooks you could ever want.

To save time, I like to research the book I am interested in online first.  A lot of times I’ll go to Amazon or the NY Times to see what’s on the bestseller list, then I then sign onto my library account and request to have the book delivered to the library closest to me.  All I have to do is walk in, go to the hold shelf and grab my book.  It’s awesome.  I highly recommend taking advantage of the many programs that your library offers.

SET UP A SEPARATE VACATION FUND FOR THE TRAVEL LIFE

I have been known to have a vacation club account and also to funnel travel funds into a completely separate bank  account for my travel life.  Some banks and most credit unions still offer vacation club accounts these days.  You can set up weekly or monthly automatic transfers from your regular checking or savings account and watch the cash add up.  After several months, you’ve got vacation money for your trip!  The great thing is you can’t just withdraw the money in this account any time you feel like it.  You get it when it’s your vacation time-which is good-because this money is for your travel life!

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So now that you’ve saved some money with my tips above, it’s time to talk about how to save even more money when you are actually travelling.

To get there:

Travel Hack with Credit Cards

One of my best tips.  I always travel hack.  It’s really pretty easy.  Some people go all in and have 50 credit cards (OK maybe 15 or so) and try to use the right credit card for every dime they spend in order to maximize earnings.  I don’t do this.  It’s too complicated and too time consuming.  Instead, I pick a couple cards for everyday spend – right now my favs are Chase Sapphire and Chase Hyatt.  If I have a large purchase coming up, I will definitely open a new card to get the sign-up bonus.  Sign-up bonuses are really lucrative and can easily save you $1000 if you get the right card.

Have a Plan But Be Flexible

You’ll want to have a general idea of your itinerary, but you’ll also need to be flexible to get the best deals.  Use Google Flights for a great source of flight prices.  You don’t want to wait until the last minute to make your airline reservations.  Also, you’ll want to check nearby airports because you can frequently score great deals just by flying into a different airport.  And it’s important to play around with your travel dates.  Sometimes you can save big by flying on weekdays or late at night.  So you’ll want to put different dates into the calendar to see how the flight prices change.

Just like you’ll want to research your flights, you’ll want to research your hotel or airb&b options.  If you have points to use, check to see if the property has good options in your destination city.  Like I’ve talked about in other posts, I love Marriott!  Don’t forget to use your free night certificate if you have one (I’ve almost forgotten in the past)!  And remember, you can stack your free night with point nights to get more free nights.  If you don’t have any points, don’t give up on a hotel just yet.  I always try Booking.com and usually find a good deal in my destination city.

If you don’t have points or want to save them (I’m saving my Hyatt stash for Key West), then look into Airb&B, VRBO, or Homeaway to see if you can score a good deal on a vacation rental.  Again, you’ll want to play around with dates.  Also, if you go with a vacation rental,  there’s a LOT of rules and regulations.  Make sure you read the fine print!  Especially be sure to check out the cancellation policy and the cost of cleaning fees. The cancellation policy and all the fees  vary widely so make sure you know what you’re signing up for before you hit Enter.

WRAP UP

So there you have some really easy ways to save money for travel.  My final tip is to write down your travel goals and stick it in your wallet.  I always keep a list of travel destinations in by my credit cards so that I have something in black and white that reminds me WHY it’s important to make the right financial choice.  My list helps me focus on my travel goals.  I’ll pull the list out when I’m feeling very tempted to make a purchase that will screw up my travel goals.

By thinking long term and being mindful, you CAN save a significant amount of money that you can put towards your travel goals.  Even if you don’t make the best financial choice every time, as long as you do MOST of the time, you will save money.  Keep your eye on the “prize” – your travel goals -and watch your savings add up for your next trip.

In another upcoming post I’ll be covering all the ways to save money once you’re actually at your destination.  Keep an eye open for it!

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