BySally-Ann Brown Posted on Updated on
You have a travel dream. But how are you going to afford to travel? How are you going to begin saving for a trip? You’ll need a travel savings plan AND you will have to stick to it.
I follow five steps to map out my travel savings plan by looking at my current costs, how much I earn, and what my travel goal is to determine how much I need to save each week so that I can travel.
I’ll explain all these stages thoroughly along with access to my travel budget planner (with free worksheets) so that you can complete actionable tasks and learn how to save up money for travel.
In this Article on How to Save for Travel You Will Learn:
- How to assess your current living costs
- How to determine how much money you will need to travel
- How to create a travel savings plan
- Where to look for other ways to save money
- The savings account
- Plus receive a free PDF travel budget planner to download
5 Steps to Saving and Creating a Travel Budget Plan
You can follow these steps to saving and creating a travel budget the old-fashioned way with pen and paper or use this trip budget planner PDF and worksheets that I have included a link to at the bottom of the post.
1. Create a household budget.
The first step in saving for your travel dream is, to begin with assessing your current income and costs.
Start by writing down everything you spend money on a weekly or payday basis.
- Rent/mortgage
- Groceries
- Utilities(divide each one up into weekly or payday amounts)
- Mobile/cell phone(divide up into weekly or payday amounts)
- Pay TV/Streaming services(divide up into weekly or payday amounts)
- Socialising costs
- Gym membership
- Coffees
- The bottle/liquor shop
- Clothing(divide up into weekly or payday amounts)
Top Trip Tip: The best way to get a true indication of how much you spend is to write down every single thing you buy for a month, then you’ll really know where your money goes
2. How much money will your trip cost?
Step two in determining how to save for your travel fund is to look at how much your trip is going to cost. This will involve researching your pre-travel expenses and costs during your trip.
Let’s get started with creating a rough calculation of all the costs of yourtravel plans. If you are not sure where to start with finding these costs? Check out how to research a trip which will guide you through planning for travel.
- Airfares
- Car hire
- Petrol/fuel
- Transport (taxi, bus, train, ferry)
- Accommodation
- Meals – breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks and drinks
- Activities and tours
- Incidentals (suitcase, travel gadgets, clothing, special equipment)
- Travel insurance
- Plus a contingency fund.
Top Trip Tip: Some of these costs will be fairly obvious other travel costs are not. Check out these hidden costs of travel to ensure youhave added everything to your travel budget and you are not caught out.
3. When do you want to travel?
Step three is about determining how much time you have to save for your trip versus how much you have to save for your travel plans.
Start by calculating how many weeks or paydays you have to save money before you travel.
Now divide the total cost of your trip by the total number of paydays till the date of departure.
The answer is how much money you need to save per payday to achieve your travel dream by departure day.
If you can see that yourweekly/fortnightlysaving amount is more than you can currently afford then you will need to alter something in your plan. Look at the following options for ways you can reach your target savings amount.
Top Trip Tip: I really implore that you don’t rely on your credit card to make up the difference. In the long run, you will regret the trip as you spend months repaying with interest your travel expenses
4. Ways to find more money for travel:
- Change your travel date – giving you more time to save
- Choose a discount airline over a full-service
- Opt to use public transport instead of taxis or car hire
- Change to a more cost-effective accommodation
- Look at your household costs:
- Can you get a cheaper phone/internet plan
- Do you need pay TV
- Could you go for a walk, ride your bike or buy some weights instead of going to the gym
- Do you really need those cafe coffees every day? Did you realise that if you saved that $5 cup of coffee per day you would have $2000 by the end of the year?
- Sell unwanted goods cluttering up your home
- Perhaps get a second job.
Top Trip Tip: Whatever you do, don’t cut out the travel insurance – this is a must-have when you travel. Here are 6 reasons why you need travel insurance
5. Saving money for a trip.
Now that you have determined a set amount of money to save for your trip. The best thing to do is to put that weekly/fortnightly amount into a separate bank account, this prevents you from spending your travel savings on other items.
When you create this account arrange for a direct debit to transfer your required travel saving budget amount each payday. Put barriers in place so that you cannot easily access this money for example:
- Don’t have a savings account linked to your other bank cards
- Put a lock on your savings account
- Ask your bank to “hide” your savings account from view in your phone banking
- Leave the new savings bank card at home
Top Trip Tip: Ask your bank what options they provide for you to build your savings
Before you know it you will be saving money for travel and heading off on that dream trip.
Click to Grab the FREE Welcome Gift Travel Saving Planner Worksheets
DISCLOSURE:
- Images courtesy of Pixabay
