Since coming back from Europe, I’ve been being a bit more frugal with my money. I’ve been eating out less and stopped going to the movies on my own. I have done those things a few times, but the majority of the eating out I’ve done has been with my family, so I haven’t had to pay for it.
After coming back, I joked to some of my younger cousins that “I can’t pay for your movie tickets, today,” which is something I like to do sometimes when I take them with me somewhere, “I just came back from Europe, so I’m poor now.” I said something along the lines of that, but the reality is that I still have thousands of dollars left in my bank account. It did take a huge dip while I was in Europe, but I was by no means broke. Today, I want to talk about the financial steps I took before I started traveling because I realize that it would have been really easy to blow all of my money on the trip and I did a few things to combat that.
Disclaimer – My financial situation is likely completely different from yours, so a lot of the things I did may not be possible for you currently. These are just things that I specifically did to prepare myself financially before traveling. Money is a very difficult topic to discuss, and I do not mean to offend anybody.
With that said, let’s get into it.
//I Didn’t Take Out Student Loans My First Two Years Of College
I lived at home for my first two years of college, which helped me not accumulate any student loan debt. This definitely made a huge difference in my financial situation. I was able to save a lot more money because I didn’t have to worry about paying for things like housing or a meal plan. I do currently have student loans and I plan on paying them off within the next year before the interest starts accumulating. Even so, it’s a lot lower than the five or six-figure debt you hear about, which is why I felt it was manageable enough for me to spend my money on travel rather than paying it off now.
//I Have A Three Month Emergency Fund
This was a huge priority for me. Before I started traveling, I wanted to make sure I would be able to afford my life afterward. I can rely on my parents if anything were to happen, but I still wanted a financial buffer. Even though I’ve spent a good chunk of my travel savings, I never dipped into the other account, which is why I don’t consider myself “broke.” I still have money in my bank account even though I spent about $3500 on my trip to Europe. Start by saving $1000 and leave it in a separate account just in case of an emergency (parking ticket, appliance breaking, etc.)
//I Paid Off Portions Of My Trip In Chunks
I booked the tour to Europe a few months in advance and I was able to pay it off in chunks. I do not recommend this, but I bought the plane ticket literally two months before I had to leave (because buying plane tickets makes me anxious). I booked the hostel for before the tour started a month in advance and paid for another hostel stay for after the tour ended while I was in Berlin. Because I paid off portions of the trip over the course of a few months, I didn’t have to spend thousands of dollars in one go. That made booking the trip more manageable and didn’t cause my account balance to get too low.
//I Keep A Separate Savings Account For Travel
I have two savings accounts. One is for my emergency fund and the other is for regular savings. I thought about opening a third savings account specifically for post-grad and keeping the current one for travel, but I don’t make enough money to warrant having that many savings accounts. I use the second account mainly for travel. It’s honestly the biggest thing I’m saving for right now because travel is a huge priority for me. Because I have separate savings accounts, all my money isn’t compiled into one place. This makes it harder to blow it all on one single trip. It also makes it look like I have less money than I actually do, which makes it easier to travel frugally.
Those are the financial step I took before I started traveling. They were pretty small but made a huge difference in my financial situation. I hope this post wasn’t too patronizing. I understand that we live in a system that forces a lot of people to live paycheck to paycheck, so a lot of people don’t have the ability to save money. Even so, I hope it helped.
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What are you doing to save money for future travel? What are some of your financial goals?