6 Tips to Budget for Your Next Getaway

Are you trying to escape the cold for something a little warmer? With temperatures getting colder, have you been thinking about planning for your next getaway to warmer temperatures? If your planning hasn’t started yet, take this as your sign to start. In this article, we will impart some wisdom on ways you can save for your upcoming getaway to hopefully leave some extra cash in your pocket!

Follow along to find out how you can budget for your next vacation with six easy tips to get you started!

1. Decide Budget Limit

It may be hard to guess how much a trip will cost but determining a limit you are willing to spend is the easiest step to get you started. Finding a number that you feel is realistic and attainable is the sweet spot. You don’t have to get caught up on every little thing that will cost money but having this number in mind will help in the spending process later.

If you are a numbers person and would like examples, this article from Pacaso can help determine a preliminary budget you can work with. It gives general breakdowns of the different expenses you incur during a vacation and gives you a ballpark number you can work with.

2. Itemized List

Before you start saving, you need to have an exact number in mind of what you are saving for. In step one, you decided on an overall budget, but now is the time to get into the nitty and gritty details of your vacation. This step will usually take the longest but will help with making sure you’ve thought of every expense. Making an itemized list of expenses will help you determine your budget and put perspective on what you are putting money towards. This is where you can start mapping out different activities you want to do and which ones you can cut.

If you’re more of a paper person, you can download a vacation budget worksheet. This will also get you thinking about the different expenses you might incur during the trip and possibly some you didn’t even think of!

3. Research

Don’t be afraid to do a little research on the items that you have listed in step two. There are many different places you can go to research nowadays. With the internet, anything is possible. From Facebook groups to Reddit, you can find information on virtually anything you can think of and experiences that other people have had.

This can help with keeping costs down. If there’s a cheaper option or if someone suggests a more affordable alternative for an activity you wanted to do, you can find it. You can take a charter minibus for cheaper transportation rather than driving yourself. You can also find recommendations on when to book your flights if you’re flying or what hotel to book with to get the best price.

4. Strategize

Now that you have your bottom line, you can start contributing funds to it. You can do this in a multitude of ways, and we will list a few for you to get started with:

• Sinking Funds

If you’ve never heard about using sinking funds to help save some money, we think you should research it. The idea is you create a separate reserve of money specifically for the vacation. This can be a separate checking or savings account, or you can take it out and save it all in cash. That way, you know exactly how much you can spend on your vacation.

• Break Down

If you break down your total amount into payments that will get you to your end goal, you know what you’re contributing each time. You could break it down into monthly or weekly payments or even by paycheck. Breaking the amount down into smaller pieces can help the overall total feel more attainable and less overwhelming.

• Automatic

Using an automatic transfer strategy can be helpful in some cases. In most bank accounts, you can have money automatically transferred from one account to another. Using what we’ve listed in the two options above, we can utilize the amount we got from the breakdown and the idea behind sinking funds to have a separate vacation account. This way, when funds are automatically transferred, you don’t even see that money. It makes it mindless and sometimes easier so that you can’t forget to transfer money that month.

5. Reduce Spending

Watching what you’re spending money on while you’re saving for a trip is necessary. You want to make sure you’re not overspending any money that could potentially go towards your vacation fund. Track your spending habits and cut down on any unnecessary spending on clothes or eating out.

You can also use couponing apps to help save money wherever possible. You can use sites like Ibotta to clip coupons and spend wisely. Even saving 5% on purchases can help save you money.

6. Expense Journal

This is a great habit to get in to, even if you’re not trying to save for a vacation. Creating an expense journal can help you track your expenses and give you insight into your spending habits. This can be a great tool to determine where you are spending too much money and where you could possibly save money from.

You can do the old pen and paper, or you can utilize the many benefits of today’s technology. Most banking sites offer tools like expense journaling and monthly budgeting on their websites. There are also apps you can download as well.

Hopefully, we gave you some ideas to use when planning your upcoming vacation and made it easier for you to save money for it. It’s always good practice to document the process so then when you go to start saving for your next getaway, you have a plan to follow.