I always thought that people that took these gap years to travel must come from a very wealthy family that is able to pick up the bill for everything. The more we dreamed about seeing more of the world, the more we talked about what would need to happen to make that a reality. It was quite a bit more attainable than we originally imagined once we started crunching the numbers. I wanted to share ways to save money if you have a big goal you’re working towards.
We used some pretty simple methods in the years leading up to this adventure. I think they are just smart moves for everyone to make no matter what your goal is. We had a goal of traveling and being able to take a break from work, but everyone has a different dream.
6 Ways We Saved Money to Travel
Getting Debt Free
Getting rid of debt is one of the toughest ways to save money. It always seems daunting especially if you are dealing with multiple student loans and big purchases like cars. Right around Justin’s 30th birthday, we realized that we were close to being completely debt free and we worked really hard to make that a reality. I use “close” to mean within $5,000. We got rid of all debt using the snowball method. We changed it a bit because I hate giving people money that isn’t theirs. The debt with the highest interest went first. Then, every extra penny we had paid went as extras to those payments.
Once we sold our house in St. Paul, we were officially debt free and it felt amazing. Obviously, most homeowners have a mortgage and there are other options if you want to hang on to your house. We had renters for a few years, but once we made the decision not to move back to St. Paul – we didn’t want to continue being landlords from a few states away. The term debt free to me means that you have paid off all debts that aren’t earning you any capital. Houses are usually good investments. I would recommend paying your mortgage every other week to sneak in that extra payment each year. But that’s a whole different advice post.
Once we paid off all of the old stuff, we took a look at our credit and made some decisions about which credit cards were benefiting our goals. We went into detail on those cards in this post. The most important thing was paying off the balance every month so we never paid interest but reaped all the benefits and miles.
Cut Out the Extras
We sat down with some glasses of wine and took a good hard look at over a year of spending. Were there places our money was going that we didn’t even realize? Sadly, there were quite a few things that we were paying for and never using.
Cable was one of the first things to go. We also had some subscription services that we just hadn’t taken the time to cancel. There was some room to renegotiate on our cell phones that saved a few dollars as well. It’s hard to go through the first time, look at your money and where it’s going, but it will help you see the biggest black holes that need addressing. It can also be fun. We also worked hard on some of our lame utility bills. A few degrees colder in the winter and warmer in the summer made a difference. We loved competing against ourselves in the previous months to see how much we could save.
Our friend has a ton of great tips about getting debt free and her journey on her blog. Check it out here. It’s great to talk more about it with your friends and family because everyone has great tips on how to cut costs here and there. Every penny is important.
High Interest Savings Account
Our next step was having a savings account that was just for the goal of being able to travel. I would recommend finding an account that offers high interest. It’s great to let your money work for you while you are working to save it. Some banks have fluctuating interest rates depending on how much money you have in your account. There are tons of options. Just make sure to read the small print.
A Savings App
It has always been difficult to save a lot of money because you have to click on the “transfer” button to move that money out of your reach. That was our problem for a long time. We tended to wait until everything had been paid and we had our fun and then move whatever money was leftover. The problem with that is the lack of priority the savings account has.
Digit was the best solve for that problem for us. The app looks at your linked bank account and then makes automatic withdrawals into a savings account (plus it gives you a 1% bonus every 3 months). It is super easy to get the money back into your account if you need it. I give this app credit for helping us save as quickly as we did.
Use this link to get started and get $5 for FREE. **There are monthly fees you read about via this link as well but they offer 30 days for free to try it.
Since Digit charges a monthly fee now for their app, we are going to switch to Dobot when we start saving again. I read a lot of reviews and set up an account with them. It works the same way, but without the fees. If you are saving money, it seems silly to give more of it away. Digit has some pretty fun and fancy options with emojis and texting to save more, but Dobot was an easy set up and comes highly recommended.
You can get $5 when you set up an account with them using this link.
Sell Your Used Items
The biggest lesson I learned in the last year is that I had way too much stuff before we left. Even if you are going to store items, I would recommend going through your closet and every drawer and letting things go that you do not use anymore. This was one of my favorites ways to save money. I had already gotten lots of use out of these things, but now I was even getting some money to spend in the future.
We had a lot of success with Poshmark for getting rid of name brand clothes and making some money in the meantime. They made it extremely easy to list the clothes and ship them out once they sold. For non clothing related items, we used Next-door and Facebook marketplace to sell furniture and electronics and had a lot of success. It takes some time, but it is important to find your things a new home instead of throwing them away.
We find a strange amount of joy in seeing things we used to own being used and loved in our friends’ houses. We shared about our House Cooling Party in this post and I would strongly recommend doing something similar as you are purging your things.
If you are at the end and you were unsuccessful selling everything, make sure to get it to a donation center or schedule a pick up with the Vets. Nothing useable should end up in the trash.
Maximize Your Dollars Spent
We did quite a bit of online shopping in the years before we left on our trip. Even when we stopped buying things, we still traveled and purchased necessities online. The best tool we used while shopping online was Rakuten (previously called Ebates). It is a website that you go to and search for the online store that you want to shop at and once you find it, you click on it and it opens a new window. Anything you buy will earn you cash back that you can have deposited into your PayPal account or a check mailed to you every three months. It is COMPLETELY free to use and sign up.
Our lifetime cash back amount is $1325.69. That’s INSANE. We use it when renting cars, booking hotels, ordering clothes and even random Target and Amazon purchases. Once you sign up, you get $10 in your account automatically (if you use our link below) and then you can start shopping. Once the website knows some of your favorite brands, it will alert you when they have a high cash back amount. For example, we shop Patagonia, Back Country and Toms often. We got an email this week that two of those brands were at 10% cash back. That means anything you buy after starting on the Rakuten website will give you 10% back in cash in your account.
This is one of those sites that seems too good to be true, like there is some kind of catch. But we have been using it for years and it’s just smart shopping. It’s one of the easiest ways to save money on this list, because you just have to bookmark the website and use it every time you shop. Two extra clicks.
Here is the link to sign up. Start getting some of your hard earned cash back when you shop online for the things that you need.
There’s no better time to start.
Let us know what questions you have. We want to be as transparent as possible about how we made this trip a reality. We worked our butts off to save money and it has been worth every penny so far. Share your tips in the comments below too so we can see what other ways we can save in the future.
Also, thanks in advance for clicking on any of the links above. Sometimes we get a few pennies for sharing the information and it helps us be able to continue this journey.
