Summer. Visions of trips to the pool, backyard barbeques, and warm days come to my mind when I think of summer. For many folks out there, myself included, summer is often a time to travel. For those with kids, summer is the ideal time to take a vacation while the kids are out of school.
How to Afford a Summer Vacation
Hopefully if you are planning a summer vacation or trip you have already considered this important factor. I know there are many out there that will argue that you should not even consider a trip unless you’ve crushed all of your debt, have a solid emergency fund, and are fully funding your retirement accounts. My personal belief is that we all need a little getaway once in a while, especially for those who may be on the long journey to student loan or mortgage debt freedom or financial independence (I do hesitate to recommend vacations to those in credit card debt, however- that’s just a good way to go deeper in the hole).
I won’t argue here whether or not certain folks SHOULD take vacations or not. Let’s say you’re in a decent place financially, you’re just late in planning. After all, I’m told that summer is just around the corner. 🙂 However, even if you are doing some late planning there are ways to be able to afford a vacation without breaking the bank.
- Look for deals. Sometimes the best deals can be had at the last minute. Websites such as http://www.lastminutetravel.com and http://www.golastminute.com are great resources if you are late in planning your summer travels, but there are plenty of other websites out there and other ways out there to score a deal on your summer travel plans. And make sure you shop around, especially if you’re NOT shopping last minute and you have a few weeks or months until your anticipated trip.
- Up your side hustle game. If you really want to take a summer trip but the vacation fund is low, it may be worth picking up a few more extra gigs than you would ordinarily take on, in order to bring in extra cash. There’s also the option of making some extra cash online by taking surveys (my current fav online survey company is Harris Poll Online), and/or using Ebates or Swagbucks shopping portals when you shop online.
- Up your eBay/Craigslist game. Am I the only one who could probably come up with several items to sell if I wandered around the house long enough? Somehow I doubt it. Most of us could probably identify several items around the house that we no longer use that could be sold for cash.
- Pick up extra hours at work if possible. If you are employed this may be an easy way to earn some extra cash, particularly if you know that your employer is looking for people to pick up extra projects, etc.
- Maximize your credit card rewards. Again, hopefully if you have a summer trip planned you have already done some financial planning for it, but it still may not be too late to begin working harder on maximizing your benefit from credit card rewards here. Travel rewards cards such as the Barclaycard Arrival Plus World MasterCard® (this is my personal fav travel rewards credit card- see my full review here) are ideal for this purpose, as money that you spend on your routine expenses today can earn you rewards that may be used to fund travels later on. Be careful though- obviously if you plan to just put an entire vacation on credit card and not pay it off that is not a good idea! This one can be a biggie- there are many folks out there who have earned some killer travel rewards and sometimes funded entire trips this way.
- Consider alternative lodging. Rather than staying in hotels on vacation, consider renting a family’s home, condo, etc. using a service such as http://www.airbnb.com. This may be cheaper than a hotel AND if you rent a home there is the added benefit of being able to cook some of your own meals- which is a guaranteed way to save money on pricey restaurant meals! When the hubs and I travel abroad, we often seek out hostels to stay in. They aren’t always the fanciest places ever, but they usually offer a communal cooking area which allows you to save money AND meet new people while cooking!
- Save up for it. This is probably the most important strategy! Depending on when you are considering traveling, there may be a few months before your anticipated trip. Saving a portion of every paycheck (or every bit of money that comes into your hot little hand) in a special location such as a separate savings account will help curb the urge to blow your vacation money on shoes or gadgets. It will also help ensure that you already have your vacation money in hand- so when the credit card bills show up afterward you are not left wondering how you are going to pay them. 🙂
Do you have any summer travel plans? If so, which strategies are you using to afford it?
Photo: shalamov/Depositphotos.com
We recently won a trip to Hawaii so we afforded it by going that route, which still feels a bit surreal. My wife and I both signed up for the Barclaycard as well and we have about $780 left of rewards after our hotel this weekend to visit my aunt, uncle, and cousins.
You won the trip!! Congrats! I saw you were tops on the leaderboard, congrats DC! That’s wicked awesome. We love our Barclaycard too and have earned some awesome rewards with it.
We are planning to take a road trip this summer. Not much is planned at this point, but we’ve been saving for it since February. We don’t have enough CC points to save now, but I plan to charge the whole trip and pay it off in full from our savings so we can save on our next trip!
Awesome! Using credit cards for the rewards and then paying it off right away is one of my favorite strategies!
Great tips here, Dee! I’m not sure that we’ll take a vacation this summer, but we are in the process of racking up points on our travel card via necessary expenses so that when we’re ready to take a vacation, we’ll have lots of reward dollars waiting for us. We’ll likely also take advantage of many of your other tips here, too.
Awesome! We’re the same way right now- nothing big planned for summer travels but we’re still plugging away at racking up lots of credit card rewards for when the time comes…
These are great tips! I am heading over to check out the websites you mentioned. I love all the rewards I get from my credit cards. They are great for traveling and vacations.
Thanks for the post, Dee!
No prob, thanks for stopping by!
We’re still unsure if we will take a vacation or not. Mostly because I’m still on the fence about attending FinCon. We did apply for the Barclay card, so hopefully that comes through for points! Otherwise, I can’t really justify the expense, and we’ll just stay with my parents for a week since they live near the beach. Can’t beat free lodging! These are all great tips though.
Right now I’m planning to go to FinCon! Not much else planned for us for summer travels, we’ll probably just rack up points all summer and use them for the trip to New Orleans for FinCon.
Our biggest strategy is saving for it every month. Once the summer is over in August, we start saving for the next summer’s vacation. We put back a little each month into savings and designate it for vacations. When the vacation comes, we pay for it in cash…great feeling! The best vacations are the ones you come home from debt free.
“The best vacations are the ones you come home from debt free.” — Love this! so true.
We are definitely in the camp of upping our side hustle to pay for the summer fun. We started our vacation savings at the beginning of the year and it is such a relief to know that we have money to chill out in a few months.
Awesome! You’ve got to take a break every now and then, and it will feel even better knowing that it’s well-earned and paid for!!
We will not take a summer vacation, but we will have a night swimming for my coming birthday together with my family and my in-laws. Last year we had a short vacation in one of the well known beaches in our country, we spent only 2 nights and 3 days in there and hopefully we can go back there next year.
Sounds like great birthday plans, and a great vacation! Enjoy!
We just went on a Spring vacation, so I doubt we’ll do much this summer. However, we have several trips planned for fall- Mexico, New Orleans, Europe. I cannot wait!
We use a combination of the strategies you mentioned, although we lean heavily on credit card rewards!
Nice- will you be in New Orleans for FinCon? I’m going this year- can’t wait!
Unfortunately there’s no summer plans for me. Just plugging away at making my business grow. I think I may go on a Winter trip though!!! I’m always looking for ways to up my side hustle game and ways to get more rewards. I’m a big saver too!
Hey nothing wrong with that! Sounds like your business is going well so I’m sure that your summer won’t be wasted!
I plan on traveling to visit my parents in Phoenix and and a trip to Nicaragua. One of the most important items for us is traveling to places where we have housing(family and friends), it saves money on hotels, food, and possibly even vehicles. Using the Phoenix example the trip that could be $1000 is now only a plane ticket.
Nicaragua sounds awesome! And you’re so right, if you have housing covered that’s a huge expense you don’t have to worry about. That’s a great strategy too.
I’m with you on number 3. I always seem to have something I can find to generate a few hundred extra bucks on eBay each year. It feels great unloading it and helps with the costs of traveling. I will admit, my vacations are relatively cheap though. I love road trips and long hours on the road, not tropical paradises or exotic excursions.
We love pretty much any type of vacation- we’re a big fan of road trips too. I need to take a tour around my house one day soon and come up with items to sell…
I also like those City Passes or GO passes. We used one in Cali and didn’t have to wait in a ticket line and used it again in Dallas.
Excellent!