What’s the best and the easiest way to save money for travel? Here are some great tips for you to get some extra cash!
Save money for travel: how much do you need?
How much does your vacation cost? If you have a goal, it is so much easier to save money for travel. So, the first thing you need to do is figure out how much money you need to go on your dream trip. You really need to know how much your travel budget needs to be.
So, calculate how much it will cost to get to the destination, how much it costs to travel around, how much accommodation costs, and how much you think you’ll spend on food and drinks. In addition, always budget some money for unforeseen circumstances. And if you like to shop and buy souvenirs during your vacation, put that in your budget too.
Do you have the total amount you need for travel? Good! Write it down and keep track of how much you save every month. You will see the amount grow!
Tip: create a special savings account for your travel plans
Easy saving tips
How can you save for travel the easy way? Here are a few practical (and easy to implement) saving tips:
1. Sell stuff
You undoubtedly have things in your house that you never use (or use very little). Do you really need it? If not, sell them! This can be done via various platforms, such as eBay or Facebook Marketplace. Before you know it, you’ve earned some extra money that you can add to your travel savings account.
2. Saving money at home
You can easily save money by taking a good look at your standing charges. For example, look at your electricity bill. Would it be possible to switch suppliers, which might be a cheaper alternative?
And also take a look at your water consumption, showering a minute less than you’re used to can also make a difference. In addition, it is also useful to look at your energy consumption. Can you turn off any devices that you are not using anyway? Do it! Every little bit helps.
3. Save on your insurance
People usually have a lot of different insurances. But do you really need all of them? Take a good look at all your insurance policies and see if you can find cheaper alternatives.
There are probably multiple insurances you can check, for example, your health insurance or your car insurance. Switching might save you hundreds of Euros (or Dollars) a year!
4. Stop spending money on the small stuff
A cappuccino here, a donut there, a magazine you’ll only read once. Do you know how much money you spend on the small stuff? Track it for a week or two and you will be shocked! Stop spending money on things like these. This is one of the easiest ways to save a little extra for travel.
5. Do I really need this?
With everything you want to buy, think: do I really need this? Do you find that difficult? Then take a week to think about everything you want to buy. Do you still want to buy it after a week? Then do it! But chances are, that is not the case. So you have some extra savings for your next trip!
6. Cancel your subscriptions
How many subscriptions do you have? Do you have Netflix, Disney +, and Spotify? Do you really need them all? Or is there one you use the most? Nowadays you can have subscriptions for everything, even underwear. But how much underwear can you fit in your closet? Take a good look at your subscriptions, you can undoubtedly cancel a number of them.
Are you really unable to figure it out? You can cancel most subscriptions immediately. Turn them all off at once and after a week (or two) see which one you really can’t afford to miss.
7. Cook your own meals
Do you get take-out meals almost every day or do you like to out for dinner every week? You can save a lot of money by cooking yourself! And it is actually more fun to eat at home with friends than in a busy restaurant.
8. Walk whenever you can
Are you always traveling around by car or public transport? Even short distances? Find out which distances you can do on foot or by bike. That is healthier for yourself and also better for your wallet.
9. Keep track of your expenses
Sometimes you don’t even have to make major changes to your spending habits to save. This one is very simple: keep track of your expenses for a week (or month). You may be shocked, but you are much more aware of what you spend. As a result, you will spend less money and be able to save more.
10. Be smart when you need to exchange money
Do you need a different currency when you travel abroad? It is really smart to do some research and find the best place to exchange currency for an international trip. Sometimes it’s cheaper to change money before you enter a country, sometimes it’s best to exchange cash at the airport, but getting money from an ATM might be cheaper as well. Doing some research beforehand can save you a lot of money!
Make it fun!
Do you want to make sure that you are going to save enough for travel? Make a challenge of it! Here are some recommendations:
52 week challenge
Have you ever done the 52-week challenge? Then you save an amount every week of the year, for example, € 1 in week 1, € 2 in week 2, € 3 in week 3, and so on. If you manage to keep this up, you will have saved over € 1300 by the end of the year!
Don’t buy anything for a month
You can also take a challenge on purchasing behavior. Try not to buy clothes for a month (or a year!). You will see that it is a lot easier than you think. Instead of not buying clothes, you can also do a challenge with other things that you buy regularly, for example, books or magazines.
Automatic rounding
This is not really a challenge, but it is a nice way to quickly save for travel without even noticing it. At some banks, you can set your debit card expenditure to be rounded off to whole amounts, with the remaining amount going to a savings account. For example, if you buy a cup of coffee for € 2.25, € 0.75 will go to your savings account. You don’t notice it at all and you’re saving accounts grows fast!
These are my tips on how to save for travel the easy way. Do you have any good tips you’d like to add? Let me know by leaving a message below!
More savings tips?
There are a few handy and practical books where you can learn even more about saving. A few examples:
The No-Spend Challenge Guide you’ll discover: - Why budgeting alone isn’t working - The psychology behind your impulsive spending - How to pay off debt fast while still having fun - Ways to do for free what you’ve probably been wasting money on - and many other useful tips.
Following the unique F.R.E.E.D.O.M. framework this book offers, discover practical, easy-to-implement strategies beyond basic financial advice you've probably heard a thousand times. This is about real change, lasting impact, and finally getting that financial monkey off your back.
More practical travel tips?
Do you need more of these helpful tips? Check out these articles:
- Traveling in bad weather: 13 tips on how to deal with it
- This is why you should use a VPN for travel!
- Travel mistakes I don’t want to make anymore
And if you sign up for my newsletter, you will receive a free ebook with 30 awesome travel tips.
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