Okay, so they may not ALL be “easy” money saving tips, but if you want to save money for travel, then it’s inevitable. Some things will be easy, no brainer, decisions, and some will feel like you are deciding to “go all in” or not. Just how big is your passion to take the family out travelling?
Our story is a little different to most. We didn’t spend years dreaming about long-term travel. Sure, we talked about packing up, and backpacking with the kids for a year or so. But I wouldn’t say it was something ArgeyDad or myself took particularly seriously. I don’t think we even thought it was a reality. We literally decided to go, and left five weeks later. We may not have started this trip in a conventional way, but to make our money last as long as possible, we have definitely had to develop some mad money saving skills. (Not to mention, we lived for years on a pretty tight budget, being one-income family).
I’ll write about the logistics of how we managed to pack up and leave in just five weeks another time, but for now, let’s talk about some ways you can prepare yourself, particularly financially, for travel. Some tips are bigger and more dramatic than others; so just think about what you really want, and how dramatic you are prepared to be in getting financially ready for travel.
OH! and remember… We are NOT financial advisors. We are not responsible for the decisions you make. The only thing we can tell you is what we have done to save money while we are travelling. And prior to this, what we did living at home on one small income. We can’t, and won’t make these decisions for you. They are yours, and only yours to make. But if you read between the lines, and you want to save money for travel (or for anything else really) our advice boils down to this: Be smart, do your research, keep your costs down, and don’t spend on anything you don’t need… Good Luck! We hope to see you on the road sometime!
1. PRIORITY NUMBER ONE – SAVE MONEY FOR TRAVEL
PRIORITIES are important. Get these straight in your head and everything else will fall into place. People often”say” they want to travel, but they don’t make it a priority. Getting into that mindset where “saving for travel” is your NUMBER ONE PRIORITY fixes a lot. Yes, you have to feed your kids, and give them shelter, and pay a mortgage, or pay rent or whatever, but let me be rather reckless and suggest you think of those things as RESPONSIBILITIES rather than priorities.
What do I mean? Responsibilities are things you MUST do. How you fulfil that responsibility is all to do with priorities. There are numerous ways of achieving your responsibilities. Yes, you have to feed your kids. You could feed them take away or you could feed them a home cooked meal for a quarter of the cost. You need to pay your bills or debt. That’s an obvious responsibility, but you can get better deals with different companies or negotiate payments plans, or maybe you are even paying a bill on something you don’t need. You want to make memories with your kids? Some would say that is a priority (or in this case, a responsibility) – I certainly would. You could take them to the mall, to the movies, out shopping, or bowling, or you could take them to the park (free), or play a game of cards ($2 for a pack of cards), or go on a bike ride. See? Your responsibilities need to fit to your priorities – not the other way around.
2. REDUCE YOUR MORTGAGE
Now I am no money expert. I am not a financial advisor or anything like that, but I, personally, am strongly against getting a loan for things that depreciate or do not hold a value (things like cars, household goods or travel). If you have loans on things like that and travel is a priority – then pay them down, or sell the item and pay off the debt. A house on the other hand, appreciates (in most cases). So if your mortgage is holding you back from travelling, I kind of think you have three options. You can sell it, rent it out or refinance your loan.
Refinancing
Refinancing could help save a bit each week. This is a great option if you want to have a few short holidays every year. But refinancing wont really give you enough savings to travel long term. Why? Because if you refinance, you still have to pay someone else for the privilege of owning your house (in other words, you still need a stable and regular income to pay down your debt). This option will suit people who want to travel whilst on long service leave, or have banked up a few months vacation time at work, or maybe even people who have a few weeks leave and want to tack a few weeks unpaid onto the vacation.
The only way to negate this ongoing expense, if you are planning a more long-term vacation, is to rent out your house or sell it.
Renting
This option is probably more viable for families who are thinking about travelling for six months or more. There’s mountains of information to be found online, or in person, about renting out your house; go to your local real estate agent and ask about renting out your house (furnished or unfurnished), research AirBnB or Holiday Rental agencies online. A good google will teach you loads. Make sure you find out about fees though – agents will charge you a certain percentage to manage your rental. If you self manage then you will need to pay for advertising, cleaners, and to be listed on certain sites – plus you will actually have to, you know, manage the property. Researching this costs you nothing, other than time.
Selling
If you want to sell, well there are always agents willing to give you a free property appraisal. Take them up on it and see what sort of money you are looking at. Again, even if you are desiring a way to travel long term, this might be too risky for you. Perhaps you are emotionally attached to your place. Maybe you like the security of knowing that there is a place for you when you get home. In those cases then considering selling would not be of much help to you. Just think: how much do you and your family want to travel, for how long, and how desperate are you to get on the road? And what are you prepared to do to get there?
3. CUT YOUR RENT
If you rent the house you live in, you might want to think about downsizing. The most expensive five-bedroom property in our suburb at home is listed to rent at $850 a week, and the most expensive three-bedroom was $650. $200 a week savings. Every week you spend in that house is a week in South East Asia for a family of four. Move a suburb over and that goes down to $450 a week.
If you DO decide to move though, don’t spend to do it. Clean the place you are leaving yourself, and don’t hire a removals company. Do it yourself, get some friends to help, take the kids to be baby sat at Grandma’s, but get it done without spending extra money. Again, this won’t work if you want to travel within six months. But if your plan is to leave in 1 to 2yrs time, then think about what you NEED in a house. Does every child need their own room? Do you need that second bathroom? How big does your kitchen actually need to be?
Which brings me onto my next point…
4. MINIMALISM
Again, there are mountains of blogs out there on minimalist living… and a fair few of them cover travel. So I wont rave on about it. BUT if you are planning long-term travel, or if travel is going to be a major priority for your family, or even just because it’s good to not be reliant on so much “stuff” – get rid of what you don’t need. If you can’t carry it in a backpack/suitcase, then it isn’t a priority.
Do you really need a good dinner set and an every day one? What about two cupboards in your bedroom? Does everyone need an iPad, and a phone, AND a computer? Do you need that 8-set of saucepans, as well as a wok, frying pan, slow cooker, Thermomix, food processor, Nutri-Bullet and 6 chopping boards? Even clothes! You can’t wear 6 pairs of jeans at a time, so why own that many? At home you might want two pairs (one for good and one for not so good), on the road, you wont even need that. Do you need all those things?
No. Probably not… What DO you need?
One of our best money saving tips: Keep what you absolutely could not live without. Pack up things that you don’t need but can’t bear to part with (sentimental items). Sell everything of value (chances are if you would pay $5 for it, someone else will too) and donate the rest.
5. UTILITIES
If you want to save money for travel, one of the best things you can do is to reduce your regular bill payments as much as possible. Where we are from, in South Australia, electricity comes at the highest price in the country. It was by far our most expensive outlay besides food and rent. So, if you are from a hot part of the world think about when you do and don’t need the air con on. Use rugs and jumpers in the cold. Don’t leave items plugged in all the time. Turn lights off in rooms if you aren’t using them or don’t need them (I even used to go as far as switching off the power at the mains to rooms that didn’t need it).
Hang clothes out to dry. Wash in cold water. Use the same bath water for the kids or bathe them together. Shower to a timer (four-minutes is plenty).
Also, you might want to check out iSelect.com.au and make sure you have the cheapest supplier for your electricity and gas. We used them to check out everything from energy suppliers to health insurance and found them awesome. For more details on how to use iSelect and the benefits, scroll down to our section on insurances (number 12 in this list).
6. SHOP TO YOUR NEEDS
The world seems to be “foodie” mad at the moment! I mean there are numerous TV channels, apps, websites, magazines, instagram feeds, and twitter accounts, dedicated to food and food creations … you can’t take ten steps into the blogosphere without falling into a hipster blog post about smashed avocado, coffee and bread baking.
Without a doubt food waste is a world concern, and if you want to save money for travel, it is a concern for your hip pocket. So my big solution for you (and the world) is don’t buy what you don’t need.
Absolutely the best thing you can do regarding household food, is to make a menu. Breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks and drinks. Plan it out and buy to the recipes you are making and what you need to have. If you are a tech person – and love that there is an app for everything – then get into Pepperplate (they even have an iPhone and iPad app).
With this app you can put your recipes in, add them to the Pepperplate calendar, and produce your weekly shopping list. A little users tip is to create recipes for the more incidental items that you shop for, like snacks, obviously, or personal items (deodorant, shampoo, toilet paper) and cleaning products (disinfectant, surface spray etc). Then you can add them to your shopping list when you need them. Take your phone or iPad shopping with you, and the shopping list is right there.
7. GROCERY SHOP ONLINE
One of the best money saving tips I have is to do your shopping online when you are shopping strictly to a menu. Even the most frugal of us go into the grocery store and see things that we had thought about buying, but didn’t make it onto the list. Somehow, those sneaky little blighters make it into the trolley. If you shop online, it is easier to be stricter with yourself.
The other benefit is that online shopping generally has free delivery these days too.
MONEY SAVING TIPS WHEN YOU ARE ON TRAVELLING ON A BUDGET
When you are travelling slowly, you will more than likely be staying in a place with a kitchen. If you are like us and only eat out once a day while travelling then you need to organise your shop pretty well. I mean who has room for a half empty bottle of soya sauce in your back pocket? Remember that you can order online and get delivery to most apartment/hotel blocks. This is especially handy in locations where you perhaps don’t have patience to go shopping in a new supermarket (let’s face it, some of us barely have the patience to shop with our kids at home, where things are familiar and people speak our language). We did this in several places around Europe, like Hungary and Poland.
SAVE MONEY FOR TRAVEL WITH CASH BACK OFFERS FOR ONLINE SHOPPING
And while we are talking about online shopping, sign up for Ebates. It is a cash back website, where you install an extension and anytime you are shopping on a website that is in their network (everything from Etsy and Ebay to Wal-Mart and Nike, over 200 shops – even travel websites like hotels.com) a little notice will come up notifying you how much cash back you can get just by clicking on the extension. You still shop on the shops website, you just get money back for it. I have no idea how it works, but it works.
8. FORGET ABOUT TAKEAWAY
Just don’t even bother with take away or dining out when you are trying to save money for travel. It is pricey when you compare the cost of making it at home. Check out our Pinterest. We have a whole board dedicated to home-made versions of your favourite take-away food. If you really miss the “eating-out” then pack up the meal and have a picnic, or take it down the beach, or to your local gardens… There are a mountain of things you can do to make a meal just that bit more special without spending extra money.
9. COFFEE/WINE/SOFT DRINK
Give them all up. It’s a luxury that doesn’t need to be. But I understand how hard it can be… a nice coffee, or glass of wine with dinner, can really put a smile on your face.
There are some great money saving tips for this though. Find good coffee that you can make at home. A bag of beans costs what a fine espresso would cost at a trendy coffee-house. Buy a cheap label wine or clean skin – Here in the UK, at Tesco we get a good bottle of red wine that is as cheap as dirt, £2 a bottle I think, and we quite like it. And cider (our other preferred drink) bought in bulk costs us about 70p for 600ml. As for soft drink, if you HAVE to drink it, get a soda stream. It saves stacks of money, and what’s more you can use your left over fruit to make cordial syrups.
I know it seems penny-pinching… But isn’t that what we are talking about? Every dollar you save at home is a dollar you can spend on a nice bottle of wine in Italy… Think about that!
10. SMOKING AND OTHER HABITS
Smoking, well, obviously if you are a smoker it can be tough to quit… but travel is pretty hard to quit too…
11. ENTERTAINMENT AND ACTIVITIES
Search your local paper for free activities for families. Libraries, community clubs, sports clubs; they all often advertise free activities that are happening in your community. Pack a lunch and a drink, and off you go to the local school fete. Meet friends at the local park. OR EVEN BETTER, have friends over for a “basket supper” – everyone makes enough for their own family, and then it all goes on a table and people have bits and pieces from everything. It is no extra outlay, but you get to have friends over.
Netflix is also a cost we didn’t let go and I will tell you why: By far the most valuable reason for us is that wherever you are in the world, if you can log onto wi-fi, then you can access that country’s Netflix on your iPad, Tablet or Laptop. Some shows are not available in every country, but there is a huge range of American, British and Australian movies, and TV shows, available no matter where you are. When a child is sick and you are stuck in a french hotel room where there is no cable TV, then trust me, you will be thankful that Netflix is there.
The basic plan lets you stream TV shows and movies from Netflix on one device at a time in standard definition (SD). This plan also lets you download titles to one phone or tablet.
11. CAR AND TRANSPORT
So the car thing is hard. Many of us travel an exorbitant distance every week, to get to work, our kids to school and sports practices. The list goes on. Well let’s work out what we can do to fix that.
Here’s some money saving tips: Public transport is great if you live in a city (although sometimes can be pricey – do your sums to find out if you are actually going to be saving money – don’t forget parking prices). Car pooling is an option, not only for work, but also for your kid’s school/sports. This is where people drive on a roster, and whoever is driving picks everyone up. Can you walk to where you need? Or ride a bike?… You don’t need anything flash. Sell a car and spend $50 buying a second-hand bike on gumtree or eBay. If you have issues like the grocery shop, then look at delivery options.
If you have two cars, think about how you would go with just one (or none). Save on petrol, insurance and maintenance by having just one car.
12. INSURANCE
While we are talking about insurance, think about what you do and don’t need. In Australia, one of the first things I did to cut household costs was to work out a good health insurance provider. All I did was to go to iSelect.com.au. It’s just a matter of going online and selecting what you want to research, and what cover you want, and it will bring up the best provider (or providers) that you can have. For us, the best option was to split our dental and hospital cover over two providers. We use dental a LOT because I have crappy teeth. But hospital cover, we only needed really basic cover and ambulance cover. This saved us about $120 a month! NO JOKE!
Oh, also, iSelect often have bonus offers (like extra frequent flyers points) for using them and signing up through their program too! Can’t argue with extra frequent flyer points can you?
MONEY SAVING TRIPS ON TRAVEL INSURANCE
Traveling without travel insurance is a little bit of a catch-22 – People do it, but it is a risky venture. God forbid you are travelling in Nepal and come down with some sort of weird flu (like my nephew did) or you are in Thailand and you break your leg.
For us, we don’t worry about travel insurance when we are in Australia or the UK because we are covered by both health care systems. Both the UK and Australia have reciprocal health care right agreements with various countries. If you are from Australia here is a list of countries that have reciprocal health care rights and how to access health care in those countries. If you are from the UK here is the equivalent list for EEA countries and Non-EEA countries.
You will notice that the USA does not appear on either list. We all have heard reports about how hard the US is on medical treatment – expensive is an understatement! (ArgeySon got quite sick when we were there once… and it cost us a small fortune – I will tell that story another time though).So what do you do when you can’t access health care in certain countries easily. Make sure you have travel insurance!! Previously we had always purchased our travel insurance with Allianz. This insurance is a fixed term, country based travel. In other words, it is perfect for set and planned itinerary travel. Now, we use World Nomads, because it is more flexible and easily changed. If we are in France and decide we want to travel down to Croatia, it is just a phone call to add it to the list. You can also make a claim online from anywhere in the world.
THE FINAL WORD ON HOW TO SAVE MONEY FOR TRAVEL
This is a really basic list. Some small things – some not so small. Look at the list, and think about what kind of travel you want to do. Do you want to stay local or travel overseas? Do you want to pack up for a year and travel the world or just take a few weeks every year? Work out whether travel is a long-term or a short-term goal. Do you have 3 months to save? or 2 years?
We will do another post soon about budgeting for a trip, and working out how much you are actually going to spend. But for now, if you want to save money for travel, then just start saving. Fit your responsibilities to your priorities. And start dreaming of your next destination, whether that is down the road, or on the other side of the world…
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