Saving For Travel

Once you have decided on where you’re going and what it will cost unless you’re flush with cash you will probably have to spend some time saving for your trip.This might just be a few months worth of saving for a short or cheaper overseas break. Or it may be right through to a year or more saving for that big round the world.Saving for travelTo help get your budget in order the Australian government has a great budget planner which will really help you see where your money is going each week and what will be a realistic amount you can save.Find it at the Aussie governments ‘Understanding Money’ website. It’s a down-loadable budget planner for Excel and is well worth taking a look at.Once you have your budget worked out and an idea of what you can comfortable save then opening an online savings account, which can credited automatically from your pay each week is probably the easiest way to get saving.The first few thousand is hard but after that you will feel like you’re getting somewhere.Online Savings accounts like the one from Ubank, BankWest or ING have decent interest rates that will help you save by paying monthly interest. Ubank currently has the highest rate, and a few great features to help you track your savings.Stick with itWhen saving over the long term your dream can start to feel very distant, perhaps even unattainable.Like with any budgeting or saving giving yourself some reward each week or month is the key to keeping your savings ticking along and avoiding the save/splurge/save cycle you seem to fall into when you’re watching every penny.If saving hard for a trip is making you start to resent your travel plans on account of being broke all the time spending a bit more each week might just get you over the line and actually help you save more by avoiding splurging here and there.If you stick with it your sacrifice will fade from memory when you’re finally kicking back on the beach somewhere, knowing that you worked for it. Your frustration at those smug “from where you’d rather be” Corona adds will fade when your actually living it and the Coronas don’t cost $8.00 each (closer to $1.00 in parts of Mexico).In terms of jobs we are still bloody lucky to have the prospects we do. Gen X bent their backs working shitty jobs to save for travel and so Gen Y has the same chance; there’s no real reason you can’t plan and save for whatever travel plans you can dream up.Turn that ‘what if’ or ‘I wish I could’ into reality.

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