5 Tips to Help you Afford to Travel This Year

When I start talking about the various trips we have taken, I often get looks of wonderment coupled with questions about how we can afford to travel so much. A lot of our friends look at us and say “I wish we could travel as much as you do” (in my head, I am thinking…”man, I wish we could travel more!”).

Traveling is my utmost passion and truly makes my life feel fulfilled. We try to take as many trips as we can afford within the confines of available funds and vacation time. We have regular jobs and a limited income, just like most of you. We have figured out a way to fund our travels and still do the majority of things we want to do on a daily basis. I have compiled the following tips based on our personal experience and what has worked really well for us.

I hope the tips below will help you feel inspired to find the means to afford to start checking off the items on that bucket list!

1. Make Traveling a Priority in Your Life – You must take a look at what you spend money on and ask yourself if you would feel more fulfilled traveling or maintaining the same lifestyle you currently have. If you are not willing to make some sacrifices to travel, then likely, it is not that important to you. Where there is a will, there is a way. We have made traveling a priority in our lives, and have made some sacrifices in other areas of our life to travel as much as we can. Once you have decided that traveling is really important to you, follow the other steps below!

2. Make a Budget or Redo Your Current Budget – If travel is truly important to you, it’s time to take some small steps to make it happen. It won’t happen by wishing it will. Take a look at ALL of your monthly expenditures (yes, even that $4.50 mocha you had this morning…$4.50 x 30 adds up VERY quickly). Look at what you HAVE to spend money on, and how much you spend on non-essential expenses. Come up with a realistic amount that you can afford to live on and save the rest. Cut out a few unnecessary expenses & put that money directly into savings (eat more at home, go out with friends & order 1 drink instead of 3, buy fewer clothes, think of activities to do with friends that don’t cost money – hey, most of these involve being outside and some sort of exercise so it’s a win-win!)

3. Create a Savings Account Specifically Dedicated to Travel – We have one account for long-term savings and one account for travel savings. Once we did this, the funds we had available to travel increased exponentially. We did not allow ourselves to touch the travel account except for when it came time to take a trip. Also, it helped us budget our trips because we knew exactly what we could afford and could plan our trip based around this.

4. Automatically Transfer Money Every Time You Get a Paycheck – We automatically transfer a certain amount of money (based on our budget) to our long-term savings account and to our separate travel savings account as soon as the money hits our bank account. If it’s not in your checking account to spend, you won’t spend it! Make the savings accounts off limits and untouchable, and don’t break that rule!

5. Increase your Available Funds – Do you have the ability to make a bit of extra money or pick up an extra shift? Take a look around your house…what haven’t you used recently? Sell off a few things you don’t need anymore. If you haven’t looked at or used it in the last year or two, you really don’t need it. Put anything made above and beyond your normal paycheck into your trip savings, right away. You’ll thank yourself later when you come home with memories, stories and photos of the amazing time you had checking off that first item on your bucket list.

I hope you have found these tips helpful and inspiring! If you have any questions, please feel free to comment on this post below or send me an e-mail.

If you have any other tips that other readers might find helpful, I encourage you to share them below!