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| Depositing my $5 savings for London April 2018 |
The main keys to financially being able to travel like I do are twofold: savings and budgeting.
SAVINGS:
Method 1: Monthly Savings
A few years ago I set up a checking account to be my vacation account. I only use it for travel. The way I have it set up 10% of my paycheck (I'm paid once a month) goes straight into my travel account (I do this with savings and other things too, but this post is about travel). It is an automatic draft so I don't even have to remember to do it. That gives me a nice little nest egg for travel each year.
Method 2: Odd Jobs Savings
When I work an extra job (stage managing for the most part) I split the pay in half and half goes to vacation and the other half to savings. That way I do not rely on it as part of my regular 'living' income. I feel responsible by putting half in savings, but still get to play with the other half. (This also goes for tax returns...basically anything that is not my normal monthly paycheck.)
Method 3: The $5 Savings Challenge
In late 2016 I saw a post floating around Facebook about a $5 Savings Challenge. Basically if you are given a $5 bill you put it up instead of spending it. This worked GREAT the first year because I had a pretty good paying job the first 8 months of 2017, aaaaaaaand then I became a teacher. Now don't get me wrong, I LOVE my job, but it doesn't pay as well. I am also aware of how many times people will give you three $5 as change from a $20 instead of one $5 and one $10 so I am much more conscientious of my use of cash because now. In 2017 I saved nearly $1500...in 2018 I saved $475, so there was definitely a difference in income between the two. I'm still happier at my current job so it is worth it!
Method 4: Random Money
If I end up with random cash, like for birthday or holidays or other random things, I put that back as well.
The Results:
When going on my weekend NYC trips I do not touch money from Methods 3 and 4. Those are for big trips. I was able to pay for my flight, hotel, and theatre tickets when I went to London last year just from Method 3. Method 4 has stayed intact and not touched currently.
BUDGETING:
Budgeting applies to more than just when I am traveling. It is imperative to know where your money goes when you are home living your life. I am not always the best with this, but everything that I pay comes out automatically and is the same every month so I know exactly how much I have left over, which helps.
I will get more into how I find the cheap flights and hotels in later posts, but budgeting is my key.
I fly cheap and I stay cheap because I do not always see theatre cheap. If I want to see a show I will spend the money on it (think Hamilton original cast ticket...). It is a trade off, but seeing the shows I want to see as frequently as I do is worth a tiny hotel room and a compromise on airfare. I do not have restrictions on flying as some people I know do so as long as I have the ability to fly ridiculously cheap I will.
When I travel I use an app called Hand Trip. I can detail all my expenses and see where the money is going. You can also attach screenshots of receipts and boarding passes and such so everything is in one spot.
AN EXAMPLE:
For the purpose of education, I am going to be 100% transparent on my January 2019 expenses for my trip. This was a solo trip and 100% of my purpose was to see as many shows as I possibly could. That is not always the case, sometimes I want to actually poke around the city and I try to take a dance class whenever I go, but it was cold and the trip was short, so I just saw shows and ate food.
This is the breakdown of my expenses:
Saturday, January 12, 2019 - Monday, January 14, 2019
Souvenir 1% - $10.83 (I have been enough that shopping is not a thing, but I found a cute "Goodnight Broadway" board book that needed to come home with me...I also spent a chunk of change on monologue books for school at the Drama Book Shop, but I counted those out of my regular budget since they were for school)
Etc 1% - $13.35 (rather than wasting room in my backpack I either use hotel shampoo, conditioner, and body wash or buy when I get there...at this hotel it was a buy when I got there kind of place...the extra I'll use when I road trip travel so it's not a waste)
Transportation 3% - $35.45 ($30 to park at DFW and $5.45 for subway/bus fare to get from and to the airport...more on that here...I paid for my gas to and from DFW out of my regular account, but that could go either way...I technically spent more than $5.45 on a MetroCard, but the excess will stay there until my next trip)
Food 16% - $205.14 (this included a sushi splurge dinner, water and snacks at three shows because my throat was killing me and water was imperative, and only eating two meals a day with a few snacks thrown in)
Hotel 18% - $227.34 (this was actually a splurge for me, but saved me in subway fare and Lyft rides in the long run)
Flight 19% - $241.38 (I'm pretty annoyed by this one...I got good airfare $157, but had to change my dates because of some conflicts with a show so I had to add $71 to change dates...I also bought the airfare protection which I never do so that accounts for the rest...I usually do much better on airfare...to add to my annoyance I kept seeing my exact flights for like $124 a few weeks before...)
Admission 42% - $524.94 (seeing shows is my priority and it is reflected in my budget..for this trip I way overpaid for one show from a ticket broker, bought one on TodayTix but splurged a bit, bought one as a cheap rush ticket at the box office, and got $50 off one at the box office because it was about 30 minutes before curtain...the average for each show was $131.24 which isn't the best I've spent, but also not the worst)
My total for this trip was $1,258.43. (It's actually slightly more than that, but the tip for brunch before I left has not gone through as of this moment so for accuracy I'll likely fix that later).
Now some may look at this and think OH MY GOSH OVER $1200 FOR A WEEKEND?!?! That's fair and I respect your opinion. I was actually excited it was this cheap! I tend to overspend and this one was pretty good. It did not come close to wiping out my vacation budget and I did not touch any money from methods 3 and 4. This was all done with 1 and 2.
Some trips I take are cheaper than this (Atlanta last year was right at $400, but I did not go by myself, so I was able to split expenses). I also didn't have a ton of souvenirs to buy for other people and I was sick for most of the trip so I didn't do a lot of extras (I really meant to make it to Tiffany's and buy myself a Christmas present). As I finish posts about each area of spending I will link them above.
My biggest splurge was theatre tickets. I could have very easily gone to see four shows and spent less than half of that, but to see the shows that I wanted to see this go round this is what I did.
Stay tuned for the next How To installment...Airfare: You Have To Get There
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