Travel can provide some of the best eye-opening experiences of our lives. It provides an up-close look at new cultures and unique destinations. But it’s no surprise that travel costs money. In fact, it can get downright expensive. This prevents many people from being able to travel more. Many of us may struggle to save money for trips, even if they’re not overly expensive destinations. So if you’re interested in learning some easy ways to save money for travel and start crossing off items on your bucket list, check out our 5 tips below:
1. CREATE AND USE A PERSONAL BUDGET
A popular and common tool that is advised by many financial planners is to create and use a personal budget. This is by far the most helpful practice we do in regards to our finances. Budgeting allows us to save not just for travel, but other goals as well (e.g. cars, home improvement projects, etc.) Essentially, a budget is a way to track money coming in and money going out. This helps us see where our money is going each month and show us where we can cut any costs.
For our monthly budget, we use a simple spreadsheet. In one column, we have income. In the other columns, we list different categories of spending. These include:
- Home expenses (e.g. mortgage/rent, utilities, lawn care, etc.)
- Regular monthly expenses (e.g. internet, cell phone, car insurance, gym, Netflix, etc.)
- Groceries and household items (e.g. food, toilet paper, etc.)
- Gas
- Charitable donations
- Dining out
- Misc. (i.e. all other expenses)
Some people prefer to use very detailed budgets with specific limits. For example, you may set a goal to spend less than $200 eating out each month. While we do track how much we eat out, we don’t have specific limits for that or any other categories. Instead, we set an overall savings goal each month, which is calculated after subtracting total expenses from total income. For example, you may want to save a total of $1,500 each month to put in a travel “fund”, keep in your savings account or invest.
The reason we prefer a more flexible approach vs. having limits for each spending category is depending on the month, you may be spending more or less in particular categories. During the holidays, we may have more miscellaneous expenses because we’re buying more gifts. Over the summer, we may eat out more because we’re traveling more. Either way, use a budgeting style that works for you, set some goals, track your spending, and as a result, increase your savings! We know that the idea of “spending less than you make” can be a challenge for some. But having a budget has helped us to stay on track with our frugal lifestyle to support our goal of traveling more.
If you want to get started with a sample budget template, click here.
2. USE CREDIT CARDS THAT EARN POINTS
Another great method to help save money to travel is to use credit cards that earn points. However, we do want to share that this suggestion assumes you are responsible with credit card usage and will pay off your card balances in full every month. Do not use this tip as a reason to get into credit card debt.
With that said, we use these credit cards for almost all of our expenses. These aren’t additional purchases, but rather the things we’re already spending money on and tracked in our budget. Some expenses may not be able to be paid with a credit card. But things like groceries and subscriptions are easy ways to earn points.
Of course, you’ll need a credit card that has the ability to earn points. If you’re partial to a certain airline and/or hotel chain, it probably makes sense to get a co-branded credit card to maximize your earnings and redemptions. Because we typically stay at Hilton hotels, a Hilton credit card would help us earn more hotel points and take advantage of other perks such as loyalty program tier upgrades.
For general spending, we recommend the Chase Freedom and Sapphire family of credit cards. While you can earn points on every purchase, you can earn additional points for certain categories like dining and groceries, depending on which card(s) you have. The Chase Freedom cards allow you to earn Ultimate Rewards which can be redeemed for a variety of things including travel. In fact, your dollar goes further if you redeem travel through the Ultimate Rewards portal. If you have a Sapphire card, you will also be able to convert your Ultimate Rewards to points for various airline and hotel loyalty programs at a 1:1 ratio. This really maximizes your reward travel possibilities, especially when you take advantage of airline partnerships and alliances.
Again, this only works as a method to save money for travel if you are just using credit cards for purchases you would make anyway. One way we don’t let our credit card usage get out of control is to put them on the budget for the month the charge was made, not when it is due. In other words, we treat credit card charges like cash payments when it comes to budgeting. Charge your everyday spending, earn points, pay off your balances in full every month and enjoy some free travel!
3. BE STRATEGIC WITH WHEN YOU TRAVEL
It’s no secret that it’s more expensive to travel at certain times of year. Because of high demand, prices for airfare, hotels and other travel-related costs skyrocket around the holidays and during the summer. If you can avoid traveling during peak times, you will obviously save some serious cash. Unfortunately, that can’t always be avoided, especially if you have kids in school. With Karen being a teacher, we’re used to working around the school calendar.
So how do we save money if we can’t just pick up a sweet flight deal in the middle of September and take off for a week? During the summer, we’ll aim to travel in early June right when school gets out or early to mid-August right before school begins. Airfare and hotels become more expensive in late June and the month of July when everyone is trying to travel and demand increases. We also try to maximize long weekends when we can. (Check out our blog post entirely dedicated to this concept!)
If we need to travel during the holidays, we’ll start monitoring flights and hotels (if applicable) as soon as we can to snag a good deal. Even better, if we can book a refundable rate, we will just cancel an existing reservation and rebook if a cheaper rate appears. But sometimes, it’s tough to keep track of prices and trends, which leads us to our next tip…
4. SIGN UP FOR PRICE ALERTS
These days, many travel websites like Skyscanner and Kayak offer the option to sign up for price alerts. Just plug in your dates and airports and when a good deal becomes available, you’ll get a push notification or email. Our favorite travel email list is Scott’s Cheap Flights. They offer both a free and premium tier, but both provide the same essential service. After you sign up, you’ll get emails alerting you of cheap fares to various destinations around the world. You’ll be able to see the prices based on originating airport and the timeframes that the fares should be good for. With this information, it’s just a quick trip over to a site like Google Flights to finish your search and booking process. These prices usually won’t last long though, especially if they’re mistake fares, so act quickly!
Hopper is another app that we enjoy for looking up flight deals. It also provides details on what price ranges are typical, cheap and expensive for the particular flight you searched for. All in all, signing up for alerts can help you either catch a great deal, saving you additional money for travel.
5. ONLY SEE AND DO WHAT YOU LIKE
This tip may not make much sense at first. After all, why would you see or do something you don’t like when you’re traveling? What we see a lot of people do is feel pressured into visiting a particular attraction because it’s “the thing to do” when at a specific destination. For example, maybe you’re in Paris with the world-famous Louvre Museum. But you’re just not that into art. Or you’re in New England and there’s a ton of great lobster spots but you’re not a fan of seafood. Don’t feel like you have to spend time and money at something you won’t enjoy because it’s just what most tourists do. In fact, you may find something even better off the beaten path.
Saving money for a trip can be challenging as it is. Just save for the things you truly want to do. As you plan for a particular destination, check menus and prices for restaurants and attractions you’re interested in to get a rough idea on how much to save.
LET'S SAVE TO TRAVEL!
And there you have it: our 5 easy ways to save money for travel. As a family, we prefer to collect memories and experiences over things. So one other way we are able to set aside money for travel is to generally forego presents for birthdays and holidays. This can look different for every family, but the concept of giving up something not as important to you remains the same. After looking at your budget, perhaps you’ll decide to eat out less or realize you don’t need subscriptions to 5 different streaming services.
We hope our post gave you some helpful ideas on how to save more for travel. Being financially responsible while traveling a lot can be part of a very exciting and fulfilling life. Do you have any money-saving tips of your own? Share them in the comments below! Thanks for reading and be sure to check out some of our other travel tips.