Budgeting Strategies for Traveling More
You’ve probably heard the advice “Travel as much as you can while you’re young.” If you’re like us, you’re all on board with that! The only problem is, how can you afford to travel when you’re young? Most of us (if you’re between 20-30 years old) are still early in our careers, and let’s be honest. Life isn’t getting any cheaper.
So, is it even possible to travel as much as you wish you could? We asked ourselves the same question. And in the last year, we made a plan to keep ourselves honest when it comes to trip budgeting.
Shifting Priorities
The first thing we learned was that if we wanted to prioritize travel in our lives, we needed to pull back in other places. It’s the hard-not-so-fun truth, but most great things come at a cost, and the return is very worth it! We started eating out less, cutting back on our Amazon spending (which was harder than we though it would be!), and packing our lunches for work. We started setting that money aside weekly and were shocked to see how quickly it added up.
Save in Cash
One thing that really helped us was saving our trip money as a physical stack of cash. We got a manila envelope and marked it with the destination name, and began filling it weekly. This was important because it made us feel like we were truly contributing to something real, rather than just seeing a number on the screen go up when we checked at our bank balance.
Another reason the envelope method helps is we’re able to limit ourselves more easily on travel spending. We tell ourselves “What’s in the envelope is all we have to spend.” That helps immensely with not over spending and eases our minds when paying for that $80 beachside meal, because we know we already have it covered in the envelope. It makes spending much more enjoyable, because in some ways, it doesn’t feel like we’re spending our own money.
Find a side hustle you can do as a couple
Around the same time we started saving for travel, we started bartending at Rob’s family’s restaurant. Every Friday, we spend our evenings working for tips behind the bar. Usually, we’ll walk out with between $80-150, which goes directly into our travel envelope. This is income we don’t count on. It sort of feels like free money, because we enjoy bartending together (we’re both passionate about cocktails, and flipping glasses together for a few hours doesn’t feel like work!). Our best advice would be to find something you and your person both love, find a way to make what feels like easy, consistent money from it, and put that toward your travels. It goes a long way!
(If you’re local, come see us at Stringtown BBQ on a Friday for our cocktail special of the night!)
Best Practices for Budgeting
So, how do you know when that envelope is full enough? This is the best practice we live by: Whatever our Airbnb or rental stay costs, we plan to spend about that much on food and activities while we’re there. So, just double that rental stay cost for your budget. Maybe bring a little extra if you plan to do any extravagant activities.
We find that normal sized meals in bigger cities cost between $40-100 for two people, depending on if you order drinks/cocktails. To save money on meals, we usually eat all three meals, but order small, that way we’re not overeating, but we get to experience multiple restaurants a day. Smaller meals are cheaper too. We might grab a pastry for breakfast, an appetizer or light sandwich/soup for lunch, then plan to make our big, lavish meal our dinner.
Now, get out there!
We don’t like to sugar coat things. Travel IS expensive. But there are habits you can form, priorities you can make, and tricks you can do to make frequent travel achievable!
On another note: day trips count as travel too! If you’re finding that overnighters cost more than you want to spend at first, fill up your schedule with a day trip one weekend (or more) per month to satisfy that travel urge, and work your way up! It’s amazing what you can see and learn in a day with a little planning and a curious spirit.
Check out our day trip to Bloomington, IL as an example!