How to Start and Contribute to a Travel Fund

By Lorena Roberts on September 25, 2017

Are you planning to go somewhere fabulous, but you don’t feel like you have any extra money to put away for a vacation? Are you struggling to get your student travel fund started, much less actually keep it going?

Here are some tips on how you can both start and continue to contribute to a travel fund. It’s not as hard as you may think!

Begin by scrutinizing how you spend your money. Sometimes we catch ourselves spending $8 at Starbucks on a large drink and a bakery item. And once is probably okay. But if you’re doing this every week for a year, you’re spending about $400 just on Starbucks. Doesn’t that seem a bit outrageous? Not to mention going to Starbucks more than once per week …

So you need to find out how you’re spending your money and where it’s going. How are you barely making it to the end of the month? Take a look at your bank account. You’ll probably find out some surprising things about your spending habits.

Designate a spot for your collection of moo-lah. Whether that’s opening a second account at the bank, or buying a cute mason jar from a craft store, you need a spot to collect your savings. I recommend keeping the wad of cash somewhere you can see (but obviously not like out in the open where robbers can snatch it).

If you have a cute jar in your room, you’ll feel a lot more proud of yourself when you can add to it and tangibly see how much you’ve saved. You’re much less likely to spend it if you can physically see how big your fund is becoming.

Set a goal for yourself. It’s much easier to work towards something when you have a goal set. If you’re wanting to travel one state over to see a concert and you only need about $500, that’s a lot different from saving for a backpacking trip around Europe. If you’re going to start a travel fund, set a goal for yourself and work towards it. Estimate about how long it’ll take you and try to stay on track.

Which brings me to my next point …  

Stick to a budget. It’ll be a lot easier to continue to contribute to a travel fund if you know how much you’re going to be able to save every week or every month. There are TONS of designs out there for saving money. Literally look on Pinterest for “save for traveling” and I’m sure about 2,000 pins will pop up.

Here’s an outline for one year of saving that totals almost $1,400:

The most you’ll ever have to save per week with this plan is $52. You’ll definitely be able to handle that by the end of one year. And if you really want to save quickly, double this plan and save up to $104 per week. There are plenty other plans you can follow as well.

Check out some of these:

Examine your mindset. Put posters up of the places you’re wanting to visit with your money. Put it in a place where you’ll see it every day. Whether it’s your computer wallpaper or a sign on the wall, put it somewhere that you’ll be able to see it on the regular. Get yourself in the habit of saying to yourself, “well, I could buy this, or I could save this money for my trip” and you’ll quickly see your travel fund start to add up.

Look for more ways to earn income. Whether it’s renting your place on Airbnb, or working freelance, keeping a blog, whatever it is that you have to do to make a few extra hundred dollars per month. If you’re really wanting to speed up the process, cut out your expenses, start bringing your own lunch, and stuff that jar full of money.

Start selling your stuff. I know you’ve got a bunch of stuff just laying around the house that you aren’t actually using. Facebook Marketplace is the easiest way to list your stuff online. You can post quickly and easily and people can message you about what they’re interested in.

Cancel your gym membership. We all know you pay $40 for a monthly gym membership that you don’t use. Cancel it, pronto. Start doing your workouts from YouTube videos. Or go running. That’s free.

Find someone to hold you accountable. If you start saving money with a friend, you’ll be much more likely to follow through with your savings plan. Find someone who’s going to truly hold you accountable and check up on you every week. Write it down in your planner and really get serious about saving money for a trip. And then when you both have a good amount of money saved, you can travel together.

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