How To Save Thousands Of Dollars To travel!

The most common excuse not to travel “ I don’t have the money”, after this blog you do….
In my previous blogs I explained how to travel the world with no money, today I will help you to save money so you can start travelling!

Put yourself on a budget.
The first thing I do when I receive my pay check is putting money in my savings account, that way I know what I have left to spend the rest of the month, most of my friends try to do it the other way around by looking into what they have left at the end of the month and it’s just not working. It’s all about your mindset if you really want to travel make it your top priority!

Personally I like to pay cash as much as I can, that way I keep track on what I spend also at the end of the day I put all the coins I collected throughout the day in a jar, which ends up being a nice bonus after a few months. But again it’s all about mindset! Look into your spending’s and see where you can cut down on.

The easiest way to not only put yourself on a budget but also prioritize traveling it to stop buying! A fellow traveler wrote a really nice blog about this @world-travel-pro. Everybody always wants more, more and more, but what if you want more travelling? Exactly stop buying and start saving! You will be surprised to see how much the little things end up to.

Food
Once your mindset changes you are able to be more aware of the amount of money you spend. One of the biggest changes you can make is regarding food. You can literarily save a big amount of money just by changing your habits.

Coffee
Are you someone who buys your coffee on the road for 3 dollars a cup? You can buy a nice coffee machine for under $100 and if you buy your coffee in bulk you will save money on that as well . Did you just save $ 700 just on your coffee intake behavior a year?

Eat out less
Lately me and my friends decided to host cooking parties at home. Its super enjoyable and saves serious money. Every time one of my friends invites us to eat we just split the costs and have a really fun night, you can always still go out after dinner.

Walk around the corner
If you enjoy going out for dinner to much why don’t consider to walk around the corner of major squares and tourist attractions, you will end up paying far less with better quality a lot of times.

Contracts
Look at all the contracts you have with different companies and providers.
Last year I changed cable providers because they were offering the same anyway, the change saved me $ 400 a year, that sounds like a flight to somewhere warm!

Gym account
Are you really going to the gym as much as you hoped for? If no just cancel your membership and remember you can always exercise in the great outdoors.

Reduce your utility bills
The average utility bill in the United States ranges from $70 to $150 a month, reducing you bill by 15% will save you $ 130 a year, only by showering a little shorter, turning the lights of when you leave a room. I think that’s worth it for me.

Maybe I sound a little as a smart ass telling everybody what to do, that’s not my intension I just want to give you an insight in how you can travel more by looking into how you spent your money.

Start selling
I know for a fact everybody has stuff they don’t use! I started selling the things I didn’t need a long time ago.
I even had a stall on the biggest flea marked of Europa to earn some money.
https://steemit.com/travel/@heyitshaas/the-city-with-the-best-and-most-markets-in-the-world
every year I end up earning around $500 of things I don’t need anymore, by now I sold most of my belongings with value so I am pretty sure you can do BETTER!

Be flexible with your plans
Once you saved the amount you were aiming for you can still safe good money by organizing your plans a certain way.
In other words be flexible in the way you would like to travel and it will benefit you.

Consider indirect flight or two one way flights
By booking indirect flights or two one way flights you are sometimes able to save a nice amount on your airfare.
Once I had to fly back to Amsterdam from Sydney Australia, I only needed a one way ticket. When I looked into airfare the cheapest one way ticket was $100 dollars but by changing my ticket into a “roundtrip” from Sydney to Amsterdam and Amsterdam to London I was able to find a ticket for $800 just by skipping the other flight.

A other way of finding good flight tickets is by using a layover. I once booked a flight from Brisbane Australia to Amsterdam with a layover in Tokyo for a week, this small trick ended u saving me $150 on my airfare to Amsterdam and I rewarded myself with a trip to Tokyo!!

Travel overnight
If you have no trouble sleeping everywhere, traveling overnight is just great for you! By travelling overnight you skip the costs you would have for your accommodation and you travel at the same time.
Don’t make a habit out of it, because its tiring but on a long trip it will safe you some good money.

Bargain
Especially if you are looking for an accommodation, if it’s not high season a lot of hotels/ hostels are happy with everybody they can get to stay. I inquired to the prize of staying somewhere many times and was always ready to walk away if it was to “ expensive” only by stating that I could stay cheaper somewhere else, you will be surprised how many times they are willing to give you a better price.
What’s there to lose? You can always pay the price they are asking for.

I hope I was able to help to create awareness on how to find extra fund to travel!
Please give me some more tips and tricks so we can help each other to travel more!

What did you do to create more travel fund?