Courtney GIf you’re an overthinker like me, you are probably always trying to think ahead on anything and everything. Travel is something I’m always thinking ahead about and to travel, you need money. Money and time. That trip to Greece, Japan, South Africa, Brazil or even, Antarctica is possible with enough time and proper budgeting.
If there’s a dream trip I want to go on, I’m going to make it happen one way or another but I’m going to be smart about it.
I try to travel about four times a year, but I wasn’t always able to do that before; I had a budget and I saved.
So, I have to ask: Do you have a budget? Are you tracking your spending? If the answer is “yes”, great! You could probably stop reading here and move on to Budgeting for Trips (coming soon), but if you need a little help (or a reminder), I wanted to share some tips of what I do.
*Please note I am not a financial advisor, just an overthinker who wants to live comfortably and travel often.*
Monthly Income Vs. Spending
Let’s start from the top.
Tracking your spending is a key first step before saving for any trip. I’m all for “the money will come back, take the trip” but your bills and necessities should still be covered. Knowing what you make in a month and how much you spend will help you understand what you have left to play with for a trip (or if you need to make some changes).
I started tracking my spending in college, but I really started budgeting after I got my first full-time job. Using the budget spreadsheet my mom gave me, I was able to manage my funds.
Tracking your spending is a great way to see not only the amount you’re spending but also what you’re spending it on. Your bank or credit union may have tracking tools for you to use. You could also use something like Rocket Money or a manual budget tracker.
If you’re spending more than what you make (or more than you realized), consider making adjustments. Choose to make coffee at home or do an activity that’s free like go for a walk or have a game night.
People say this all the time, but you’d be surprised how saving $5 every morning can make a big difference when savings for the things you want – like travel.
Start Saving
Now that you have an idea of what you’re spending, do you have enough left over for savings? Specifically, emergency savings?
Before saving for your trip, you need to make sure you’re saving for emergencies back home where you’ll (probably) be majority of the time.
When I got my first full-time job, I made sure to save for anything that might come up – car trouble, plumbing issues, a broken arm, etc. I wanted to make sure I was prepared. Again, that’s the overthinker in me.
If I had money left over, I’d take a short trip somewhere (usually to visit friends from college). In taking those short trips, I realized just how much I missed traveling regularly and started being more intentional about saving for it.
Separate the Vacation Savings
I didn’t have a specific big trip in mind at first, so I’d just save $20 a paycheck or more in a separate savings account. This helped me go on random trips (still short, but doable) without issue.
Having separate “buckets” to allocate funds made visualizing how much I was saving easier, and I made sure not to touch my emergency savings for travel.
Nowadays, I have bigger trips I’m planning and saving for and those require their own budgets. I’d work out the different costs, get the total and break it down into monthly payments I could manage. I do this for my clients as well.
We’ll get into details of all the different costs that goes into a trip in another post (for cruises check this post out), but for now here are the key takeaways:
- Create a budget and track your spending
- Save for emergencies first then save for trips
- Have two separate savings accounts
These are the items I suggest starting with when getting your money right to travel. If you want a manual budget tracker, let know me via email and I’ll be happy to provide one. Remember it will be general, everyday life budget tracker.
In the next post, I’ll go through all the different costs for travel from beginning to end so stay tuned!
