Save money for your next vacation

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Ready to save money for your next vacation?

Are you ready to save money for your next vacation? Even though you might not have gone on Spring Break (and therefore already saved a bunch of money), with all the drops in the economy, saving money for your next vacation is more important than ever.

After all, you probably have plenty of time right now to start planning and saving. So why not take advantage of that time?

So, how can you save and/or make money for that next trip? In this post, I’m sharing some ways I fund our frequent travel. And as often as I like to travel, these tips are necessary! After all, the more you save, the more you can travel, right?

Start a travel fund

The very first thing to do is to start a travel fund. This can be as formal or as informal as you’d like. Some people need to create a separate bank account specifically for travel, while others prefer other methods.

Save your change

This is an easy way to save and it adds up surprisingly quickly. I love this fun bank from Amazon, but you could also just use a Mason Jar. Every night, empty your pockets and slide the change in. At the end of the week even empty out your car and purse and add that change.

Automate your savings

As I mentioned above you can open a separate bank account and then automatically have $20 or more transferred to it each week. It would also be a great place to put unexpected money like tax refunds, birthday gifts, etc.

Try an app

There are a lot of fun apps out there to help you with your savings goals. I really enjoy Acorns. Not only can you “round up” your spending with your linked accounts (and since I pay all my utilities from my account, I automatically invest money each month), but you can also set savings goals where a certain $ amount is transferred each month.

👉 It’s fun and easy to track your savings, and clicking on this link will give you a $5 start after your first $5 investment.

Look for deals

There are so many travel deals out there, so it just makes sense to start looking now – you never know when the perfect trip or component to your trip will show up. My favorite places to look for deals are:

TravelZoo

I love the TravelZoo weekly emails full of deep discounts. We recently took advantage of a $99 rate for a hotel in downtown Cincinnati – it included a delicious breakfast buffet for 2. Sign up to get their weekly emails or just go over to the site.

Groupon or Living Social

Sites such as Groupon or Living Social are hit or miss, but they CAN be a terrific way to find discounts on activities once you’ve decided where to go. Just change the location and see what comes up.

Google Flights

One of my favorite places to look for airline deals is Google flights. Simply open the site up, click on Explore Destinations, and see what you can find on the map – it’s an easy way to lose a lot of time, so you might want to have a few ideas of where you’d like to go before you log on!

Make money for your next trip

The final step to saving money for your next vacation is to find ways to make money that you put specifically toward travel. It can be fun to set a goal each month for how much extra income you want to make and then move all that money into your travel savings fund. A few ideas:

Sell stuff

Clean out your closets and look around your house to see what you can sell. I’ve had a ton of luck on Facebook Marketplace as well as ThredUP. This is a double bonus in my book – I make money AND clear out the clutter.

Try Rakuten

I can’t recommend this website enough. I use this site for EVERYTHING I buy online and end up with decent size checks each quarter. Plus, if it was something I was going to buy regardless, then to me, it’s FREE money – perfect for your travel fund. And, it’s FREE to join!

👉 Sign up for Rakuten HERE and start making money on your next online purchase.

Mystery Shopping

Mystery shopping isn’t a way to get rich quickly, but it IS a fun way to make a little extra cash. I’ve done all kinds of shops through the years from simple phone call shops to in-depth hotels or casino shops.

When I have more free time, I’ll often try to schedule a shop or two a week and end up making an extra $50 – $100 PLUS a lot of free food. If the shop replaces a dinner we would have eaten at a restaurant on my dime, I’ll add that money to the travel fund.

f this sounds like fun to you, check out my course on Mystery Shopping. After taking the class you’ll be ready to perform your first shop

Start saving for your next vacation now!

Wow – that’s a lot of different ways to make or save money! I’ll share more ideas in the future, but today I challenge you to pick just ONE of the above ideas and get started funding your next vacation!