Pandemic or no pandemic, if you got your bucket list ready, you must save for it! Well, your dreams do deserve to be realized, don’t they? We know the finance part may cause you much distress. And questions on saving money for your dreams and future might give you sleepless nights. And at times, the much-needed and long-planned vacations take a backseat as the fear of not having enough savings for the future takes over. However, if you plan and exercise caution with your finances, no dream is too big to achieve.
If your problem is about saving money and sticking to your budget, read on, we will walk you through ways in which you could save for that big vacation that you’ve been planning!
Assess Your Expenditure
Prepare a list with the details of every spending. It could be just a few cents or a few hundred dollars, but make sure it is all there in paper. This will give you a better picture of how much you spend every month and on what. And now that you have all the details of your expenses in one place, prepare a sheet with two columns – wants and needs. When you segregate your expenses into these two categories, you will understand the expenses you can avoid easily and save more. Don’t believe us? Well, give it a shot, and you will be surprised to know how much difference a small list can make and how it can increase your savings.
Have A Travel Fund
Create a new bank account and feed it every month. Make this a habit. Transfer money without fail. You can even make it on the same day every month. This will make it more of a ritual, one that you are not likely to miss. You’ll get greater encouragement when the bank account starts expanding. Revel in the knowledge!
Count On Home-Cooked Meals
Lunching out every other day? Well, here’s a hack reduce it to twice a week, and then once a week or even once in fifteen days. Start cooking your meals. This will not just build health and help you stay fit, but will also save you a lot of money. Try it. You won’t be disappointed. Say you spend $12 a day, even if you trim it to $8, you will be saving up to $832 a year! Not bad, e say.
Make Your Own Coffee
We agree that there is something magical about having a hot cup of coffee in your favorite coffee shop. However, it takes up a lot of your earnings. Instead, you can save big time on your caffeine expenses if you were to make your coffee at home.You don’t need to spend so much on a drink, do you, or maybe you can choose simpler ones, a drip coffee instead of the luxe-looking mocha grande!
You’ll still get your caffeine kick and at a much lesser cost! Or maybe brew your mug and spend some time alongside a window and watch the world go by. While you are bound to miss the coziness of a coffee shop, think about it this way. The more you cut down on your visits to your local coffee house, the higher your chances of flying to a luxurious coffee shop in the streets of Italy or anywhere else you fancy!
Cut Down Utility Bills
You don’t need to put on the air conditioner like always! You can just let in the cool breeze come in from your windows for a change. Okay, we are guilty of this one, failing to turn off lights when we leave a room. The USA’s e utility bill is around $90 to $150 a month, now if you can trim that amount. Also, there are other hacks, cut down on the laundry, use less of TV or Netflix for that matter! You may be spending more than you know on these streaming platforms. Tell us, do you end up watching that much content to the amount you pay for? It’s like a buffet. You never end up eating all that food you pay for!
So, try these simple,easy-to-follow hacks and let us know how your travel fund is looking like! And yes, happy traveling! Soon at that.