How To Pay For Travel in 2023

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After being cooped up for a few years, most of us were left with a solid case of cabin fever and the itch to travel. Court and I have been extremely blessed to have a healthy income, nothing crazy between the two of us, you may very well make more. What we have found is with intentionality we can make some of our travel dreams a reality. Now with bigger income comes more opportunities, however, you still have permission to dream and make happen. Here’s how we pay for travel in 2023.

The 50/30/20 Budget

In my mind, this is the most friendly budget you can have besides having no budget at all. How do you do it? Divide your paycheck as follows; 50% will go to your NEEDS, 30% will go to your WANTS and 20% goes to SAVING. This is a healthy start but the good news is you can always make changes as you see necessary. We fluctuate our percentages to meet our current needs. We keep 20% as a minimum for savings but sometimes flex it up when we want to save even more.

What are wants and needs and where does saving come in? Here’s my take, but keep in mind, this is personal finance, so you have to make your own terms.

Needs

• Rent
• Food
• Utilities
• Insurance

Wants

• Travel
  • State Park Pass
  • Airline Tickets
  • AirBNB’s and Hotels
• Experiences
  • Dining Out
  • Going to Concerts
  • Renting Bikes Somewhere New
• Clothes (these are needs within reason)
  • The cool new things for our wardrobe

Savings

• Retirement Investment
• Emergency Fund
• Next Car Budget (for when our current cars die some day)
• Property

The Grocery Store

Food waste. It’s one of Courtney and I’s biggest pet peeves but we used to commit it a lot. This isn’t an ad, we have no affiliation, but HelloFresh has made our grocery shopping a lot easier. We went in and picked realistically how many meals we are going to be at home for. For my work, I’m gone multiple days per week for 24 work shifts so that limits the number of meals I’ll be home for. Most of those nights Courtney has dinner at a friend’s or out with a friend so she’s not eating at home. By selecting three meals a week for delivery we’ve taken the planning out of dinner and I’m less inclined to eat out. This also leads to less time in the grocery store where we buy excess that goes to waste.

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Defining the Trip

For us defining the trip ahead of time has been a welcome new idea. By looking at travel and asking ourselves why we are going, we can choose where we want to spend and where we want to save. If we are going somewhere and the point of the trip is to be in the city, try new foods, and in other words, SPEND, we are probably going to stay somewhere cheaper. However, if we’re going somewhere and the point of the trip is to be outside, we might plan to bring our own food or grocery shop to prepare when we get there. That means planning for a stay that has a kitchen or at least a microwave or maybe even camping. By simply cutting the eating out we can make our travel budget go further.

This doesn’t mean you can’t eat out at all. If we are going for a stay of five days it might mean choosing a coffee spot that looks unique, a lunch spot that’s out of our norm, and dinner for something we can’t get back home. We can choose to add or take out any of those as we please but this is going to make us more intentional and less likely to eat out and rack up hundreds in charges. If you conservatively spent $10-$20 each time you stop, that’s a lot of money by the end of a week-long trip, you can do the math.

Create an Account

Our credit union allows us to create accounts with different names so we’ve got a lot for serving specific purposes. We are reward card users, it’s a dangerous game playing with credit cards. One way we are significantly reducing the danger of overspending and insuring they are immediately paid off is by having a travel account where funds are kept pay off the balance in full. This has made us more conscious travelers. If you are going on vacation and just using the funds attached to your everyday life, swiping away, you might come home from vacation and have no money to make it to the next paycheck. That’s not a fun place to be. Having a travel account allows you to pull back and stop spending when that account is diminished without dipping into that need account that’s meant for rent and you know, needs.

You gotta get outta debt.

We got out of debt and it helped us pay for travel. I sold the car I bought with my first big boy job and downgraded to a 10-year-old SUV. I got to the point where I was sick of someone else owning my paycheck. It was a low payment of $240 per month and it was too much. By saving $240 for 5 months I had $1,200.00. When I got rid of my car loan by downgrading, I no longer had to send the check to anyone, and as a result, my money grew. I used to owe money on credit cards. If you’re making minimum payments on your auto loan and minimum payments on your credit card, you’re paying around $340 per month. Debt piles up and owns you fast. This is all money standing between you and what you really want. If you want a nice car then you might need a loan just know that you can’t have your cake and eat it too. Debt is a handcuff.

What would you do with an extra $240 per month?

The Wrap Up

By being intentional with our finances we are able to make a little go a long way. Just know that the more money you make, the harder it is to avoid lifestyle creep. The more money you make it’s easier to justify a nice car or new watch in addition to the big vacation. For us, we make a little go a long way and try to take a lot of mini trips in our own state, medium trips near and when the account builds, we can plan the big trips. If you don’t make much, don’t be discouraged, just stay consistent. That account will build and eventually, you can place those funds toward what you really want.

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