Let’s face it, unless you have oodles of money (in which case you wouldn’t be reading this blog post) you will probably have to cut spending in some areas to make that epic trip you want to take, happen.

The question is… where do I get the most bang for my buck? Do I really need to never, EVER, eat out again? Thankfully, the answer is no, you can still eat out, just more measured.

Image of savings jar used for Bloglovin RSS Feed

In saving for our world trip, we found that somethings didn’t really feel as impactful towards our savings - in our opinion, money is about what you can get with it and not about the amount itself. So, for example, a coffee date with a long lost friend was worth the money we weren’t putting towards our savings. Same with small luxuries like occasional Shiatsu massages (hey, don’t judge, we were super active and often sore) or cheapo dinners w/ friends.

So, what are those money sucking categories you can focus on NOW, so you can enjoy later?

1. Student Loans

Student loan yellow sticky with coins and money around

Yeeep, these payments were a big portion of our budget during our 20s. And just to be clear, we are not hating on student loans - we are incredibly grateful that 1) we had the opportunity to access great universities (for a price, of course, but we still regard this as a privilege) and 2) we picked careers that allowed us to pay off those loans. We digress, let’s get back to paying your loans back. Basically, we doubled down and aggressively paid what we owed. Yep, that meant our travel budget was rather slim. We still traveled a little bit, here and there, but once we put the same payment we were making for our loans, to our travel fund, our little savings account exploded! Ok, it didn’t explode, we were just overjoyed at how quickly we felt we were going somewhere, literally going somewhere. Depending on how big your student loan payment is, you’ll see some serious savings rack up in this category. Plus, do you really want to be paying this while you are traveling?

2. Car Loans

We honestly, didn’t need 2 cars but living in LA it felt like we did. Once we were done paying them off, we strongly resisted the temptation to buy new cars. Again, like w/ our student loans, once we were done, we diverted that money to savings and let it grow. You’ll literally see you were sitting on a pile of money that is now going to your new adventure. Yay! for new adventures!

Bonus

Pay off your cards (and do not pay interest) - Interest is a gnarly little thing that won’t go away until you pay off your balance. We won’t go into how it works, but basically, pay off your credit card’s balance and always pay your card on time! You are literally throwing away money if you don’t. Think about how you are depriving yourself of all these other things and yet when you pay interest you are giving the bank money, for free. We are not saying don’t use your card (‘cause that’s bad for your credit score), what we are saying is - don’t carry a balance.

What about saving in other areas?

Of course every penny you divert from your regular life to your savings fund, will make a difference. The question is, is that penny worth it? These are the areas where we reduced our spending but didn’t completely obliterate it.

Starbucks - no, we are not mega-fans of Starbucks but we do love the convenience, the point system for the coffees, that they accept (or used to accept) reusable cups and in some cases the general ambiance when you don’t want to work at home or want to meet up with a friend for not-so-much-money (‘cause yea, coffee is cheaper than dinner - Every. Single. Time!). We limited our visits to no more than once a workday as a maximum and no more than USD 4 per visit - that’s basically a black coffee or iced coffee but not nitro. Unless we had points, then we’d splurge on some pastry using our points. We rarely ever hit our maximum but it was nice that we had this little luxury available to us.

Fancy dinners - let’s preface this by saying that a fancy dinner to us is anything over USD 60/person. So, a USD 150 dinner for 2 is FANCY! This one, we cut out. Occasionally we would do a fancy dinner w/ friends, but it had to be a very special occasion for a very special friend. In general, we opted for lunches instead of dinner and/or coffee instead of breakfast. Our friends probably didn’t even notice, or so we want to believe.
Cable - we kept our internet connection but gave up cable because we really weren’t home enough to watch TV - although this category is touted to amount to a lot, in 1 year we only saved USD 360. Is that a lot? yes, that can definitely get you by in Bali for at least a week, but if you LOVE cable and thoroughly enjoy it, then maybe it’s not worth the savings. Do the math and then decide.
Buying clothes - don’t succumb to the trends but do buy what you will need for your trip. We knew we wanted to buy Patagonia Nano Puff jackets and these were a little pricey. We waited for a good sale and bought them then. Don’t go overboard w/ things you think you’ll need, but invest wisely in those long term pieces. Oh, and stop buying trendy clothes, you won’t be needing that on your trip.

Cancel unused subscriptions - When you go through your budget, be honest about the services you are actually using. You can probably make your own food and don’t need a food delivery service. Do you really need all those app subscriptions on your phone? What about magazine subscriptions or quarterly box subscriptions? Cancel those that really don’t bring you joy and keep those that make a difference in your life. We canceled our cable but kept our cleaning service because that was worth it to us.

DO NOT touch these items

Renters insurance - don’t stop your renters insurance to save money, not worth it in our opinion. You are buying peace of mind should something go wrong. Also, if something does go wrong, so will your hard earned savings, so protect it.
Reduce your car insurance to an unsafe coverage - like with renters insurance, this is also an area where the savings are not worth the risk. If you can, take public transport and eliminate your car insurance, but otherwise, make sure you are fully covered.

Other categories we know make a difference but weren’t an option for us

Living at home - if your job is close by, you get along with your parents and living at home is an option until you have all kind of loans paid off, stay home! (sorry mom & dad) Is it cool? probably not, but once you hit your 30s you won’t remember exactly why it was so important to move out. That said, both of us didn’t live with our parents, but we were secretly jealous of our friends who were able to pay off their debt in no time b/c they could live at home. In all seriousness, we couldn’t because our jobs were too far away but if you can, we absolutely recommend it.
Take public transport - Not only is it better for the environment, but you can also zap that car payment off! AND the car insurance! Booyah!

Now that you know what we know about saving for a world trip, checkout our blog post were we breakdown how we afforded a trip around the world -> HERE!

Let us know in the comments below if you have any questions, or suggestions, you feel would be useful.