How To Fund That Dream Trip

Mar 9

You daydream about it, you’ve done the research, the Pinterest board is perfect, and yet it seems impossible to actually book and pay for the trip. The dream trip may feel like it has an exorbitant price tag, or you can’t afford to lose a pay period taking time off, or there are too many “adult expenses” keeping you from saving up (rent, loans, home repairs, etc).

Money can feel overwhelming (especially when you feel like there isn’t enough), but here are some mindset shifts that we use to help us save and travel internationally every year! It’s all about changing how you view the mundane at home so that you can afford the extraordinary magic away.

The delayed trade off. Instead of going out to dinner at a mediocre restaurant near home and dropping $100, we put that $100 into a travel fund and delay that dinner until we get to a romantic place in Italy, or Greece, or some tropical island with umbrella drinks. This can be used for lots of trade scenarios in your life!
It’s a similar trade off for quick weekend getaways. Instead of spending $500 for a hotel, gas, food, and entertainment for a small 2-day getaway near home, we put that $500 into the travel fund and know it will cover a week of expenses in Southeast Asia.
Speaking of the travel fund… for years we had a separate checking account that was ONLY for travel saving. Sometimes it’s easier to see the money earmarked for a trip (and not spend it!) when it’s not mixed in with all your other day to day expenses and bills. Watching this account grow will also make you excited about saving more and you can see the payoff from your efforts. Most banks are thrilled to open an “everyday checking” account for you and link it to your other accounts. Pro tip- keep the debit card for this account somewhere safe in your house and not in your wallet. If you don’t have the card with you = you can’t spend the money.
Break down the savings goal, and then auto draft it. $5,000 is an ominous amount to save. But what if I asked you to save $95 this week instead? Could you do that? It’s the same money at the end of the year. Break down your savings goal into something attainable like $95 per week, or $300 per month, or whatever goal you have, and then auto draft it to your travel fund so that it funnels there all by itself. Pro tip- If you don’t use the auto draft feature you will debate the decision every week/month when it’s time to manually move the money, and excuses will always creep in… trust me.
Speaking of auto draft… look through your monthly bills and cancel any services you’re not using (Prime or delivery services when you can just pay shipping, gym memberships, tv streaming that you don’t love). If you cancel YouTube tv and were paying $83/month, put that $83 into your travel fund instead. Your home budget won’t even miss the switch, and you just funded 12 fancy lunches abroad!
Skip the upgrades. For new iPhones, warranties, supersizes, memberships, all of them. More isn’t always better. But putting that money towards a life changing trip will be unforgettable.
Curb the impulse shopping. Everything is at our fingertips and whatever you want, you can buy and have delivered tomorrow. Impulse shopping and instant gratification have gotten out of hand, but it’s not your fault. (The app designers and retailers are doing this on purpose.) But if you could curb the online shopping for 6 months your travel fund would grow so quickly! And don’t worry- Target and Amazon aren’t going out of business anytime soon. They will still be around when you get back from your amazing trip.
While you’re curbing the shopping you can also lighten your load- clutter. Again there are so many apps out there like eBay, Poshmark, and Facebook Marketplace! Use them to your benefit and let someone else impulse shop from you and buy items you no longer want/need. Put all your sales income into your travel fund, and DON’T repurchase.
Save your windfalls. Hopefully your home budget doesn’t depend on tax refunds, birthday money, and work bonuses. Hopefully these windfalls are just icing on the cake or “fun money.” Really turn it into fun and think about how many days that could buy you on your dream trip!

David and I used all of these mindset shifts to fund a year-long honeymoon. No we aren’t trust fund kids, no we didn’t have killer salaries when we got married, no we didn’t rack up credit card debt. We made a plan to save for 1 year so that we could travel for 1 year, and then paid cash for the whole thing. It took a lot of work and there were some hard parts of turning down friends for a fun night out with concert/ dinner/ drinks, but we kept the goal in mind. At the end of the saving year we would be on an unforgettable life changing trip with each other. In 2013 a year abroad cost us $35,000. We saved his salary and lived off mine using the tips above (it’s amazing how once you get started saving it can really take off). And to an extent we still do this every year with our savings goals (live off 1 salary, save 1 salary for travel/ investments/ retirement). The numbers have fluctuated as we’ve added to our family, built businesses, inflation has made things more expensive, but we really learned to love some of these money habits and we choose to travel every year. Over time it has gotten easier to skip Chili’s, cook at home, and know that we just funded tickets to the coffee experience in Costa Rica. Where do you want your travel fund to take you?