You do not have to make thousands of dollars in monthly income to take a vacation. It is a common misconception. You can enjoy the same travel experience on a low monthly income as high-income earners. I do not mean a watered-down version of the travel experience, but the real deal. You just need to know how to save money for vacation on a low-income.
Listen, what I am going to write here has been tested by yours truly. However, it takes following the guide here to the T. Do not miss a single step, or else it will create a hole in your vacation plan. The last thing you want is to be stranded in a strange place, because you misunderstood this post. Hence, the strict adherence to this vacation saving guide.
In addition, I am going to be using a hypothetical monthly income of $1200 as an example for what I am going to show you on this post. You can tweak the amount, so as to use yours in place. If you make less than $1200 monthly, this vacation savings guide will still work for you. However, it may take you longer to save the money. With that said, here are how you can save money for vacation on a low-income.
5 Money Saving Tips For Vacation
For you to meet your vacation saving goal over a ten-month period, you have to make at least $600 biweekly after tax to able able to carve out a travel budget. Or else, it will take longer than 10 months to meet a comfortable minimum requirement. I put this minimum requirement at $1000; it is enough to pay for a plane ticket, hotel stay and food expenses in North & South America with careful planning. I will show you how it is enough. But, first:
1. Identify Your Vacation Destination
The first step to creating a vacation savings plan is to identify where you want to go. This is important, because your destination determines how you are going to budget your monthly income in order to save for your vacation. It gives you an insight of the expenses to expect. This helps you set up a good travel budget. Some vacation destinations need more savings than others. Once you have identified where you want to go, it is time to consider three factors which will determine whether you are going to have a good experience or not.
A. Transportation Cost To Vacation Destination
Identify the logistics of getting yourself to your vacation destination. The cost of transportation over the months should be researched. Here, you are looking at the past and present fare prices from January to December. These fares may be bus fares or plane tickets. Do not forget to consider the months with the least travel time. This is because transportation fares to vacation destinations always drop in the least traveled or festive period of the year. In order to save money for vacation on a low-income, you would need to know how much to spend on transportation without disrupting money reserved for other expenses.
B. Hotel Cost In Vacation Destination
A hotel in one region can charge a different rate in another region. It does not matter whether the hotels are in the same country or state. It is about demand and supply. Unfortunately, no one has control over that. Therefore, check the hotel prices over the past fifty-two weeks. This is to ascertain the weeks which usually have price drops & discounts.
Moreover, you need to know when the hotels are all booked. Check for festival days in your vacation. You do not want to book hotel rooms at this time, since the price of a room will be very outrageous. HOTELS.COM is a great place to look for such information. It will help you know exactly when to structure your trip around hotels discount time or price drop.
C. Daily Cost Per Stay During Your Vacation
Each vacation destination has different daily cost. Meaning- the cost of exploring a city varies immensely from city to city. These costs may be from taxis, diners, taxes or toll gates. If you are going to be driving over, be aware of the cost of the toll gates. I once end up paying a lot of fees for Houston toll gates, because I forgot to carry coins with me. So, the cost of toll gates in vacation destinations is real.
Besides, there are other subtle additional expenses you need to consider. A good example is the cost of bottle water. The cost varies from city to city. A bottle water which sells for $1.50 in San Antonio may go for $6 dollars in Las Vegas! If you are able to identify your vacation destination has these costs, then you will have to make arrangement to afford them. Or even better, seek for alternatives in order not to let such an expense eat deeply into your vacation money.
2. Create A Monthly Budget
The goal of this monthly budget is to organize your monthly bills and expenses in such a way that they cannot pose a threat to your savings. It identifies the expenses eating a majority of your monthly income, and what you can do to save without the expenses. Besides, you want to be able to know whether you can save at all from your monthly income, after you are done paying bills. If you do not know how to create a monthly budget, let me illustrate.
Let us assume you bring back home $1200 monthly after tax. Below are what your monthly expenses are supposed to look like, to be able to save a little monthly.
| Monthly Expenses | Amount |
|---|---|
| Rent | = $500 |
| Light | = $25 |
| Water | = $25 |
| Car Note | = $100 |
| Car Insurance | = $100 |
| Car Gas | = $120 |
| Food | = $250 |
| Miscellaneous | = $50 |
| Total Monthly Expenses | = $1170 |
| Monthly Savings | = $30 |
Now, let me remind this is close to a real life budget from a student friend with no dependence whatsoever from the government. With his permission, I have been able to tweak it to make my point. If you went through this table, you would agree with me that $30 monthly savings is not enough to save for a vacation. I mean it is only $300 in 10 months; you get this by multiplying $30 with 10 months.
Anyways, whatever budget you end up creating will help you identify the expenses eating a majority of your monthly income. It shows whether you can afford to go on a vacation at all. Most importantly, you are able to see expenses you can cut off in order to save money. Without creating a budget during a vacation savings plan, you will not know how long it will take you to raise the minimum amount needed for your vacation. Undoubtedly, the importance of a budget cannot be stressed enough if you want this vacation badly.
3. Start Putting Aside Money
There are two ways you can save money for vacation on low-income. Each requires sacrifices, or what is called frugal living. You will need to make sacrifices, if you want to be able to save money for vacation on low-income.
Firstly, you can save the money remaining after your monthly expenses. Obviously, you can only save $30 from the previous example budget table. When you let go of some expenses which are not necessary, you can increase this monthly savings significantly. Let me explain.
Since you are making $1200 monthly, you do not need a new or expensive car anyways. This is because a car comes with a lot of expenses. From the above table alone, you are paying at a total of $320 monthly on car note, insurance and car gas. Go back and look at the table again.
Am I right?
Dear reader, that is a whooping $3,840.00 annually you are missing out on! Since you are getting ready for a vacation on a low-income, trade in your car. Use the city buses for 10 months. Below is how much you will have at the end of 10 months on a $1200 monthly income.
| Monthly Expenses | Amount |
|---|---|
| Rent | = $500 |
| Light | = $25 |
| Food | = $300 |
| Water | = $25 |
| Miscellaneous | = $50 |
| Total Monthly Expenses | = $900 |
| Monthly Savings | = $300 |
As you can see from the above table, using a public transportation saves you $300 monthly. Obviously, this increases to $3000 in 10 months. And, $3000 is enough for a vacation. Is it not?
As for your car, you have no business driving a new car while making $1200 monthly. This is especially in the United States of America. I would advice to buy an old car which works, or take public transportation which costs almost nothing. Either way, you can save at least $1000 for your vacation.
Secondly, save 10% of your monthly income. If you are making $1200 monthly, 10% of it is $120. That leaves you with $1080. You can rearrange your life, so the $1080 will solve your monthly expenses. In 10 months, $120 monthly savings will be $1200. This is a enough for a vacation.
In as much as I would like to recommend this second approach, I am afraid it will create untold hardships for you. This is because you may not be able to make all your monthly bills to fit into a $1080 budget. This is why the first approach is preferable, since you take care of bills first before saving for your vacation. You want to be able to save for vacation on a low-income without creating unnecessary hardships in your Art of Living.
4. Set A Timeline For Your Vacation
It is important to set a timeline for your vacation savings plan. This is because you will be able to know how much you would have saved by the end of the period. Since we supposed your monthly income to be $1200, you will need at least 10 months to be able to enjoy a two-day vacation.
Unquestionable, 10 months are enough to get you a few grands which is enough for at least a two-day vacation anywhere within North and South America continents. As long as you do not live above your means, it will be alright. Do not worry about it. I am going to explain how you are going to do that in the fifth step.
Besides, the longer the timeline the bigger the amount saved. If you are patient enough to wait for 12 months, you can save more than $3000 (using the second budget table recommendation). But hey, this amount depends on your effort. The income used here is based on a friend’s. You know what you make, set your savings period to be convenient for you.
5. Get Deals Before Your Vacation
Between your 4th and 5th month, start looking for deals. These deals should be focused on hotels and plane ticket deals. Using our hypothetical monthly income of $1200 and the second budget table earlier, you would have been able to save $1200 on your 4th month. $1200 on your 4th month is enough to book you a hotel and buy you a plane ticket. I would recommend to start looking for deals on your 4th month, since it is not too close to your intended month of travel.
The last thing you want is to search for deal a month prior to travel, only to find none. It will be very frustrating, will it not?
Therefore, start on your 4th month. Personally, I start looking into hotel deals on 3rd month. It is important to position your travel or purchase dates to fall during the least festive or travel periods of the year. This is why I mentioned the first point earlier- identify your vacation destination & its factors. Once you know about these, you just keep on monitoring costs of planet tickets and hotel rooms until the prices drop. Then, you buy them.
What if they do not drop?
Well, they always drop. My girl and I were able to stay four days at The Palazzo Tower in Las Vegas for $170 a night. Usually, The Palazzo Tower charges about +$400 to $500 per room. We did this by traveling during the winter, instead of the summer when it is around those high prices. When I say the prices drop, they really do. So, start looking for deals on your 4th month since you have some money to buy them then.
Let me give some tips.
Late Winter and early Fall are the best times to buy plane tickets or book for hotels in any city of your choice in the United States of America. Right now as I am typing these words, The Palazzo Tower in Las Vegas has rates for $112 a room in February. If you doubt me, check it for yourself. This is something which one cannot get pre-Covid era during holiday, festive or most traveled times of the year.
It is quite an insight, isn’t it?
Altogether, these are my five guides to save for a vacation on a low-income. It works, since a few of my student friends have used them to enjoy traveling to destinations undreamed on a low-income budget. The goal of this post is to try to get you to enjoy the same travel pleasures as high-income earners without paying a lot for it. You are not traveling because well-to-do people are traveling. No, this is not the point of this post today. Rather, I want you to step outside the confines of your limited salary to experience the world, because you have the right to!
6 Important Research Before Getting A Credit Card