How can you afford all these trips?

Just find this thread to be really useful because I'm planning to do both China and Europe+Scandi trip in 2016. No more expensive clothes shopping and electronics updates in two years!

Since this gets asked a lot, I decided I'll sticky the response I gave a little while ago.....

 

Where do you get all that money for all these trips? :shock:

Well, for we both have full time jobs. Two, we really don't spend any money on ANYTHING else but doing our trips. Seriously, almost all of our 'disposable' income gets put into the savings account and put towards our trips.

 

People think we bathe in money, but really we are your typical average family living off 'middle management' salaries. It's how we spend, or rather don't spend our money that allows us to do these trips. Think about it, we live in a small one bedroom apartment and we don't:

 

- drink

- smoke

- buy many DVDs

- buy many video games

- have a home theater system

- go to the movies

- go to concerts

- go to sporting events

- have monthly subscriptions to anything

- have credit card debt

- eat out (in restaurants) much

- go over our cell phone minutes

- have premium cable/satellite TV channels

- don't celebrate holiday's in the traditional fashion (instead of buying b-day, anniversary and xmas gifts for each other, we agree to put that money towards trips)

- buy new computers (all our computers were bought used or refurb)

- don't have a car payment (If we can't pay cash for a car, we don't buy it)

 

Elissa doesn't:

- get her nails done

- get hair done

- buy jewelry

- buy purses

 

- what else am I leaving out that "normal" people do?

 

As much as we would like to do some of those things, we pick and choose things we want to do and trips almost always win out. Our spending budget is very tight and very limited which allows us to do these crazy trips more often.

 

For example, we haven't seen a movie in the movie theater since Shrek 2 and before that is was the original Spider-Man. We assume the average couple sees one movie per month, which for us would be conservatively around $30 for two tickets, drinks, snacks, gas, parking. Cutting out going to the movies saves us about $400 per year which is about equal to a week's worth of hotel stay on a Florida trip. So we have to figure "would we rather sit in a dark room and watch a movie for a couple hours once a month, or spend a week in Florida?" If you see TWO movies a month, then that's airfare to Japan!

 

The only thing we spend any kind of money on, which ties into our trips, is video equipment and the website which the DVD sales help cover the costs, but they don't ever cover all of it.

 

So really, the answer to "where do you get all that money" is simple - we don't spend it on other things. The trips we do are not THAT expensive, especially when you consider that we usually share hotel & car rental costs with other people, look for the cheapest airfare as possible, and we hardly ever buy any souvenirs. (I think I bought ONE T-shirt on the entire Europe trip!)

 

Our goal with the group trips is to make trips that would normally seem "far fetched" to some people as affordable as possible.

 

It may take some savings to do one our group trips, yes, but not as much as I think some people would expect and we hope people get as much value out of them as we do!

 

--Robb "Wishes he had as much money as people seem to think we do!" Alvey

I admire Robb.

I wish i could be this good with my money

^ Anyone can be like that. Its all about priorities.

For instance to save money for travel:

-I only shop for clothes on clearance racks, thrift stores, Goodwill.

-I do not buy movies and if I go to the movies I only go during the day when its only $5.00, even at night its only $7.00. Awesome benefit of living in a small town. I do not buy snacks and drinks there.

-I do not drink - such a waste of money

-I get my music free legally from Freegal

And I do lots or other things to save as much as I can.

I wish i could be this good with my money

The weird thing is that saving money can actually be kind of fun and rewarding. I'm not advocating being a complete cheapskate (for example... don't try to cut costs by doing things like putting a burden on your friends when you're "splitting the cost of something" or leaving poor tips for good service), but saving money isn't always as hard as it seems.

For example... if you have a week where you really don't have many plans or bills, do something like this. Take out a set small amount of money from your bank account (let's say $100), that can be your money for the week. Don't use debit or credit cards (unless you absolutely have to... keep them with you in case of an emergency) for that week and you'll be amazed at how quickly you start doing small things that end up saving you a lot of money and how many fun things there are to do that cost you little or nothing.

We do this from time to time and it actually encouraged us to do things we never do like go on hikes and walks around our house (which cost nothing, are great exercise, are a lot of fun and help you appreciate your community in ways you never have before). You'll also start trying new things for meals because you'll need to make creative dishes out of the food you already have in the house rather than going out and buying groceries when you really don't need to. If you can complete a week and stick to your goal it's a great feeling... and once you get into the habit of being smarter with your money it's a hard habit to break.

^ I could not agree more!

When I know I want something big - like a TPR trip, a computer, MP3 player, new phone - I will start putting $25-50 away every week into a Smarty Pig account. Once I have the money I transfer the amount to my bank and buy whatever it is I wanted.

Plus with TPR trips Elissa and Robb could NOT make it any easier to pay for them. It is not like they ask for all of the money at once. They ask for a deposit, which we all know trips are usually announced in the late summer/fall. So all summer you could be saving for that. Then they usually ask for 2-3 other amounts. They give you the dates they amounts are due. So Every time you get paid put $50-100 away and you are golden. Once a trip is paid off I then start putting $50 away every two weeks for my spending money.

^ I could not agree more!

 

When I know I want something big - like a TPR trip, a computer, MP3 player, new phone - I will start putting $25-50 away every week into a Smarty Pig account. Once I have the money I transfer the amount to my bank and buy whatever it is I wanted.

 

Plus with TPR trips Elissa and Robb could NOT make it any easier to pay for them. It is not like they ask for all of the money at once. They ask for a deposit, which we all know trips are usually announced in the late summer/fall. So all summer you could be saving for that. Then they usually ask for 2-3 other amounts. They give you the dates they amounts are due. So Every time you get paid put $50-100 away and you are golden. Once a trip is paid off I then start putting $50 away every two weeks for my spending money.

I used to do that. Now I just put away 250-350 bucks a month for vacations. I should be able to have enough for Europe in June/July Next year.

Some things that I've done in the last month or so.

- looking for a smaller apartment (I can probably save 250 to 300 a month on this alone. Currently in a 2 bed 2 bath place thats ~900 a month, in the year and half that I've been here I rarely use the "second bedroom" it is just being filled with clutter.)

- bringing food from home. I probably get 5 lunches a week for around 20 bucks by bringing it with me. I was spending more than 4 dollars a day at fast food.

- eating at home. This one is a little bit tougher for me, but just eating weekend breakfast has saved me 50 to 80 bucks a month. I'm gonig to try to get the amount of times I go out to 2 to 3 a week. now it is about 6 times a week, it's a process but it is working.

- selling other assets. getting out of Magic The Gathering and into theme parks has been a little different, but it is nice getting rid of all this clutter out of my house.

- buying less clothing. I used to spend 50 dollars a month of clothes to 0.

While I've been doing most of this to pay off my Credit Card debts (which will honestly open up travel money for me.) it is very liberating to do a few small things that I've seen real results quickly.

While I've been doing most of this to pay off my Credit Card debts (which will honestly open up travel money for me.) it is very liberating to do a few small things that I've seen real results quickly.

Isn't it? I love seeing my money grow. I love that I can actually afford things I want now. Plus putting emergency money away is good too.

^^ A lot of good stuff there. I choose to live in a crappier flat and cook most of my meals rather than eat out/buy stuff for work. You don't really notice it and then suddenly you have money to travel. It's all about priorities, people who complain that they can't do the stuff they want to and then you see them checked in at a bar or something on FB just need to get themselves sorted out!

I think it's kinda funny that when I wrote the original post this was a concern:

- go over our cell phone minutes

^ how true...........however, I have a "dumb phone" that could be a "smart phone"....I could spend and extra $500 a year to watch tiny movies....get on the internet....listen to music.....make sure that I post a reply the instant one of my friends decides to post a life changing moment on FaceBook for the 20th time of any particular day.....

I am not "That Bored Of Life".......nor do I think the tiniest thing I do in my day to day business needs to be validated by posting it.

I grew up without all of that and I am particularly fine with "not connecting" to the world the second an idea/thought/ etc....happens to pop into my head. That's called communication (without wireless). I was well into my 20's when the first reliable cell phone service was around and really, except for emergencies...we could all do very well without it.

Except of course on TPR.................

I have a smart phone with unlimited data/texts for $35 bucks. That is probably "the cheapest" you could get. It is mostly just getting out of the "I need the new model" of things. I bought a cell phone that was comparable to the iPhone 4 for 20 bucks. It is all about your priorities.

But used equipment is the way to go.

When you go on trips do you ever buy fast lane tickets? Because those are really expensive.

^We almost always purchase Fastlane style tickets. If you account for how much a trip costs in lodging, transportation, tickets, food, etc. the percentage paid to upgrade to a 'fast pass' style ticket is minimal.

That being said, we don't usually buy them at our home parks, or parks we visit a lot, but if it's a once a year/lifetime type place of course we would get them.

^We almost always purchase Fastlane style tickets. If you account for how much a trip costs in lodging, transportation, tickets, food, etc. the percentage paid to upgrade to a 'fast pass' style ticket is minimal.

 

That being said, we don't usually buy them at our home parks, or parks we visit a lot, but if it's a once a year/lifetime type place of course we would get them.

That makes sense. I wouldn't buy Fastlane style tickets at my home parks (basically all the parks in CA) unless it was a special ticketed event with limited time attractions like Halloween Haunt. But I would definitely consider buying Fastlane type tickets if it's a far away park and especially popular with visitors, like Cedar Point.

EDIT: Just realized this is my 1000th post!

I'm new to this forum, but I'm basically in the same boat... I don't smoke, rarely drink, don't buy DVD's, and if I can't afford the car, I don't buy it. Basically the way I have been able to afford my travels, although limited number of parks in comparison to Mr. & Mrs. Alvey, but all these years later, it is good advice on how one can afford the theme parks!

Any advice for a college student making a little extra cash to head to a further park? Most likely it'll be CP, which is about 5 hours away from me. Any ways to make it a cheaper trip?

I'm a member of multiple websites to get gift cards and I get a Dining Pass so at least 1 of my meals a week is free.

Any advice for a college student making a little extra cash to head to a further park? Most likely it'll be CP, which is about 5 hours away from me. Any ways to make it a cheaper trip?

A few things you can do would be....

-Leave early in the morning on the day of your actual visit to the park, rather than arriving the night before and paying for a hotel

-If you ARE going to be purchasing meals or the souvenir bottle, usually it's substantially cheaper if you purchase ahead online.

-Minimize the amount of meals you eat in the park OR purchase some kind of all-day dining option. If you pay as you go for 3 meals and snacks, you'll rack up a much larger bill than eating offsite or using the deals offered by the park. Basically, planning ahead will usually help you.

-Bring people to split gas money and parking with

-If you stay on property, Breakers Express is fine and much less expensive than the other hotels.

^Thanks a lot, I'll keep that in mind.

Split gas money and parking costs really is helpfull, especially on multi-day trips. Also extra drivers also means it is easier to drive early in the morning in your first day instead of taking the hotel. You can rotate a bit so you can all arrive filled with energy. Also it could cut back the costs of a hotel. Having troubles finding some buddies to travel with? I think anyone can open a thread for a pre-meeting.

Oh, about the hotels... the official rating going one from to five doesn't always reflects reality. I've had great two stars/diamonds hotels and totally rubbish for or five diamonds/stars hotels. Ask around, check reviews etc. In many cases expensive is better, but not always