– Original date: 2015-09-25
– Labels: Travel

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Last week I started this series. I went over the main thing you need to do in an effort to make your dreams of traveling become real. I touched on having done some research to gain knowledge and answer basic questions. This was so you could formulate a plan. I even had you fill out a worksheet to help you plan. Next we will delve into the “When” aspect because goals.

Here is the reality of the situation: sort of you winning the lotto so you can afford to quit your job and travel via private jet that you buy with your millions you are going to need funds and if you’re adulting super hard at this time in your life you’ve got responsibilities. Hey man, I get it; Peter Pan Syndrome forever. But at the same time, don’t be stupid or worse, scared. Fear is a dream killer! Let’s face those fears, come up with a plan and make traveling less scary. Plans + knowledge kill fear every time. So let’s do this!

When is a broad term. It can mean several different things so I’ve got another worksheet for you. It just feels more permanent and solid to have it written somewhere. Binding, if you will.

When should I go?
When can I get time off?
When is the best time to go?
When will I have saved enough to be able to afford this?
When do I leave?

Let’s tackle that first one because it is maybe the hardest one to pinpoint. Let’s go back to the previous post and the “Why” question. Why are you even going to your destination? Are you going for a wedding? A festival? To see a celestial event? For example the Northern Lights are mainly only visible between September and April. So if you want to include that in your trip to Alaska then you can’t go in May when flights may be cheaper. So there is that to consider, especially when you get to “when is the best time to go?” and that’s getting ahead. You should figure why you are going and that might help pinpoint when you should go. If you’re just going to go then your when should be flexible and you can worry about the next important question.

When can you take time off from work/school/life? Everyone would love to tell their boss to shove it. No one wants to get up and go to school Monday morning. Everyone at one time has dreamed of running away. Unfortunately, that’s not reasonable. So we leave those in our daydreams and move onto something more realistic. Do you get a long weekend? Do you acquire any vacation or sick days? Do they roll over if they are unused each year? Can you reasonably schedule time off? I’m kind of my own boss. So for my trip to Dallas I had why I was going and when I was going knocked out easily. I could leave Saturday and arrive in time for the concert, then return that Tuesday before I absolutely had to be back on Wednesday to work. It gave me time to do all sorts of things in between. Not everyone is lucky like that. They would need a little more planning and have to ask for days off. Get that figured out and you are almost there.

“Best time to go” was mainly when tourist season is or isn’t and flights. Flights are huge. Travel in the middle of the week rather than the weekend if you can. If your dates aren’t flexible like mine, then you will want to set up flight alerts and see if an airline has a cheap rate they publish. For example, I looked on Virgin Atlantic’s website to see what a flight would cost me for one of the bullet points. Traveling from Los Angeles (LAX) Airport to London Heathrow starts at $1188 if I fly through May 2015 until August 22, 2015 (so right before my birthday, hmm). If your destination has a tourist season, or peak times just know that prices will be jacked up. If your dates are flexible then try going during off-peak times. You’ll compete less for pretty much everything; hotels, rentals, events and restaurants. This question has one other factor to consider – weather. No one wants to visit Cambodia during Monsoon season or the Caribbean during hurricane season, ect. This means you research weather for the time of year you are considering going. That will help you figure out what to pack and that will help with next week’s post! 😉

MONEY! Ah! This is the worst, and where the meat of this post is going to be focused because let’s face it; this is why you are here. The other stuff is simple to figure out. This is the part that really just sucks. There isn’t another way to put it so let’s just get it over with. I’m about to drop words you’re going to hate reading but love by the end of this and you’ll never complain again.

If your “when” date is flexible this will be easier to stomach. If your “when” date isn’t flexible I hope it is in the future a few months. If it isn’t this is where your procrastination will kill you. Sorry. When I started this series I wrote it in June and my trip was in October. This gave me plenty of time, like 4 months of time.

I hope you have a budget already. If you don’t I need you to make one. [LINK] has an excellent tutorial on how to make a budget. Follow it and come back to this. I’ll wait.

If you’ve already got a budget, get it out. Print it, open it up in a new window or tab or whatever. Where do you spend most of your money? Can you cut it down by 1-5%? Can you do that with each category? Do you eat out a lot? Can you instead, make your lunch 3 times a week and eat out only two? If so, take the money you’d spend on your lunch and put it somewhere safe. Not in your bank and not in your wallet. If you see it you will spend it; so keep it out of sight and therefore out of mind.

Can you take 5-15% of your paycheck and put it towards your funds? I get paid every week and get tips every day. I save all but $5 of my tips and put it towards traveling. If I can’t because I didn’t make many tips that day then I will make a note to take out $10 of my paycheck and put it towards my travel fund for that day. Let’s do an example of taking money out of your check ok because I know that sounds super scary and impossible. It’s not, I swear.

Say you work part time and you make $250 a week. If you take out 1% and put that to your travel fund; guess how much that is. It’s $2.50. You can spare that right? In one year that is $120. Can you spare 5% of your $250 a week? It’s only $12.50 and after a year you’ll have saved up at least $400.

Next I want you to take $20 out of your bank and keep it in cash. Each week I want you to spend that $20 on something and put the coins in a jar and keep out the bills (or notes depending on where you are from). Did you know if you take your change to coinstar you can turn your change into e-gift cards and they won’t charge you a fee? Want to know something awesome? Coinstar will turn your coins into a gift card for Southwest Airlines. That’s right, you heard me you can turn your coins into airfare.

Do you use Google to search for things? Stop it. Stop it right now. Use Swagbucks instead. Follow them on EVERY social media platform and encourage your friends to sign up under your referral link. You get money when they search. You get money when you search. You get money when they send out promo codes (pay attention to holidays and major events; there is always a code for it). Plus hundreds of other ways to earn “Swagbucks” which you trade in for gift cards. I’ve done Amazon.com giftcards for years but you can do paypal, starbucks and my favorite SOUTHWEST AIRLINES! Yeah. So coins + internet searches can pay for your plane ticket if you are diligent enough. Tell me who is your favorite blogger now. 🙂

Did you know that you can also buy frequent flyer miles or points (whatever the system is for that airline) from most airlines now? It’s like pre-paying for your flight and it is awesome. I’ve been doing it with Virgin Airlines for a while now. I use my coins + swagbucks to save for domestic travel whenever I can BUT if there is an airport that Virgin flys into I use them. I have their elevate points program and I’m signed up for alerts as well as the fact that I buy elevate points every other month. Sometimes they will have deals where you get bonus points (extra ones) for purchasing during a specific period. More for my money? Yes please. I mean who can afford a $1200 flight to Europe in one shot? Not me. So I’m doing it slowly, piece by piece. I have 780/25,000 miles needed to afford the flight. Keep in mind you can also do a combination. So you may not need to come up with the whole amount, just a partial.

**WARNING: Virgin America and its partner’s all have frequent flyer clubs that interact with each other. You DO NOT need to sign up for ALL OF THEM in order to use them with each other. For example, I use Virgin AMERICA to travel within the States, but when I want to travel overseas to Europe using Virgin ATLANTIC I have to log in and book the flight coming from the V.America website otherwise my miles racked up in the States will be no good when I go to use them on my Virgin Atlantic flight.

Additionally, do not rent a car or book a hotel or anything unless you make sure they aren’t a partner with the airline you want to use. Combining booking that earns you points gets you that much closer to your flight being virtually free (points don’t cover gov fees dude). MAKE SURE YOU AREN’T GETTING STIFFED ON POINTS!**

I need you to re-evaluate when you can go based on your budget. If you can only do the change saving method and the 5% of your check that should be at least $600 by the end of the year. The whole reason I made you figure out what you wanted to see or do in the last post is because I need you to find and calculate the cost of doing each thing on your list. Where can you skimp and where can you splurge? Remember how I asked you to do a budget? I need you to do it again but for this trip specifically. You’ve researched how you are getting there right? Planes, trains and automobiles right?  Make a sheet that says each thing I list:
Transportation (initial flight + getting around for # of days/weeks/months at your destination via subway, train, taxi, boat, ect)
Lodging (hotel, hostel, couch surfing, airBnB, staying with relative/friend)
Admission + Tickets to events
FOOD! (Figure out how much to spend each day on food + at least $50 more for cushion)
Misc (this is souvenirs, currency exchange rate, cost of getting a cellphone, maybe paying for internet at a hostel, ect)

Add it all up. Then add in $100-$200 for safety concerns. It’s better to have more money than not enough. You can ask friends and family to help donate or get you giftcards to southwest or wherever for your birthday and holidays, ect. You can promise to send postcards in exchange for donations – just make sure you set aside postcard money & postage fees! Also, don’t forget their addresses because that would be crappy.

Now I need you to go back to your budget above and tweak it again.
Fixed Time Formula: X% of $Y = $Z * Time = Amount
My formula: 5% of $250 = $12.50 * 18(# of weeks between 1st week of June & Oct 3rd) = $225.

At your projected rate of saving is that enough? The only thing you can do is increase your saving. You can’t buy more time unfortunately. So adjust as much as possible and see how that helps. If I save 10% instead of 5% it becomes $25 * 18 weeks = $450 which is much better. I’m spending 3.5 days in Texas, meaning I can budget roughly $130 per day to spend and be fine as long as I save $450 before Oct 3rd. Not bad yeah?

If you are more flexible with your date of travel your formula is a lot simpler it’s just: X% of $Y = $Z  & all you need to do is wait until Z equals a little more than what it will cost you to go on your trip! You can figure that out by multiplying Z with 52 (number of weeks in a year).

If you want to know if you can do it in a certain time just know there are  26 weeks in a 6 month period, 52 weeks in a year, ect. So you divide the amount needed by 52 for one year or 26 for 6 months to find out how much you’d need to save in that time period. If your trip will cost $2,000, you need to save $40 ($38.46) each week in order to do it in a year, which means $80 for 26 weeks in order to do it in half the time. Make sense? It’s a lot of math and number crunches but once you do it a couple times it makes it easier.

Now that you know When you can afford to go it’s basically when can I leave? Because now that the money is figured out, planning the rest is cake. Don’t worry if you get set back in saving either. Life happens. Flat tires, unexpected doctors visits and all sorts of stuff. Just keep at it! You can do this, I promise.
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