Poll

How large is your annual travel fund?

I just travel when I want, fund be damned
26 (23.9%)
$0-$2499
29 (26.6%)
$2500-$4999
28 (25.7%)
$5000-$7499
18 (16.5%)
$7500+
8 (7.3%)

Total Members Voted: 109

Author Topic: For those of you who love to travel...  (Read 5352 times)

fallstoclimb

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For those of you who love to travel...
« on: February 24, 2016, 09:37:54 AM »
I'm doing my annual re-evaluation of our money buckets.  In addition to increasing charity, I'm eyeballing my travel fund.  We have recently fallen in love with the national parks, but DH is a teacher so we have to travel at high-times.  I'm wondering how much other people budget in this category.

Cromacster

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Re: For those of you who love to travel...
« Reply #1 on: February 24, 2016, 10:12:57 AM »
We don't have a set budget.  We set aside $300 each month to be designated for travel use.  Sometimes we use more than that, sometimes less.  It's usually saved for the entire year and spent on one big trip.  For us, the $3,600 is about what we spend without putting any real limits on ourselves.  Without CC points and rewards this would probably be closer to $5,000 a year, which is what I marked in the poll.

JoJo

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Re: For those of you who love to travel...
« Reply #2 on: February 24, 2016, 10:17:09 AM »
I've been tracking mine.  I come out right around $5000 every year for the last 8 years - about 5 weeks international + 1 week visiting family each year.  This is all except that year I took the 12 week trip and spent $10,000.  The trip itself wasn't so expensive but airfare and visas were about $3,000 of that.

pdxvandal

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Re: For those of you who love to travel...
« Reply #3 on: February 24, 2016, 10:21:43 AM »
The "value" of my flights and hotels this year will be about $5,000. But with travel and credit card rewards, it will be about half that. This includes two cross-country flights, and two medium-size flights for three people.

TravelJunkyQC

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Re: For those of you who love to travel...
« Reply #4 on: February 24, 2016, 10:56:18 AM »
I chose the "I travel when I want" no set-fund option because I honestly don't have a dedicated travel fund. I travel when I want to with the money I want, because it is important to me and I don't spend money in things that aren't important to me so that I can spend on those that are. As a whole, I still spend way less than 2500$ per year on travel, but I couldn't tell you how much, but considering I spend a maximum of 15,000$ a year on my life, including travel...

SilveradoBojangles

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Re: For those of you who love to travel...
« Reply #5 on: February 24, 2016, 11:06:37 AM »
Last year we spent 1/3 of our operating budget (just expenses, after taxes and savings) on travel (~6000 per person spent on travel). We spent about 13 weeks away from home on both domestic and international trips. This year I'm trying to reduce it, as we don't have as many trips planned. I currently have $650 per month set aside for travel, but during big trips much of our other expenses (everything other than rent and utilities) also get diverted into the travel fund.

NotJen

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Re: For those of you who love to travel...
« Reply #6 on: February 24, 2016, 11:31:37 AM »
I don't have a budget period, so no set travel budget.  I go where I want, and since I'm not naturally spendy, it works out.  Last year, of my $33k spending, $4k was for travel.  I have what I call an "Emergency Travel Fund" - if I get an opportunity I can't pass up, I have that available. So far, I just cash flow all my trips, and will probably never touch the travel fund.

I've been travel hacking lately, so all of my flights last year and this year were purchased with points and were nearly free. Well worth the effort, I think.

arebelspy

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Re: For those of you who love to travel...
« Reply #7 on: February 24, 2016, 02:43:18 PM »
I don't have a budget period, so no set travel budget.  I go where I want, and since I'm not naturally spendy, it works out.

+5, agree with every clause in there, word for word.  :)

Quote
I've been travel hacking lately, so all of my flights last year and this year were purchased with points and were nearly free. Well worth the effort, I think.

Yup, travel hacking, if you travel more than once/yr or so, is worth figuring out.  If you don't travel, well the CC hacking for cash is still worth doing.
I am a former teacher who accumulated a bunch of real estate, retired at 29, spent some time traveling the world full time and am now settled with three kids.
If you want to know more about me, this Business Insider profile tells the story pretty well.
I (rarely) blog at AdventuringAlong.com. Check out the Now page to see what I'm up to currently.

Inaya

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Re: For those of you who love to travel...
« Reply #8 on: February 24, 2016, 02:50:27 PM »
Don't have a travel fund, per se. If I have any cash leftover in my monthly budget it goes into its own savings account. Said savings account can be used for anything and often ends up paying for travel. I'm not a big traveler (never even gotten a passport), so it doesn't need to accumulate much.


However it might end up being VTSAX instead.

Slow&Steady

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Re: For those of you who love to travel...
« Reply #9 on: February 24, 2016, 02:52:18 PM »
We currently have $1200/year set aside for travel.  I really want this to be higher but I want my student loans to be gone first and to still be able to put a decent amount away for retirement.

I really really need to figure out this travel hacking thing.

Zikoris

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Re: For those of you who love to travel...
« Reply #10 on: February 24, 2016, 03:08:55 PM »
I try to keep it to around 8K for the two of us. 2015 was a little insane and we spent $9400, due to going to some really exotic places. It dropped our savings rate down to 56% from our usual 60%+, so we're going to shoot to rein it in a bit this year.

nanana13

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Re: For those of you who love to travel...
« Reply #11 on: February 24, 2016, 04:26:03 PM »
I am budgeting $600/month, and I carried over a balance in my travel fund of about $1,100 from last year. However, 50% of my travel fund is classified as "short-term" (travel to take in 2016) and the other 50% is long-term (travel to take for my dream 6-8 months Asia trip that I'd love to do in about 3 years time).

As I get raises/bonuses, I will add to the fund as well.

It might sound excessive, but I have developed a love for it, and after being in an aggressive student loan reduction regimen (I hope to have them paid off by October-ish), I have determined that in addition to saving for the future (retirement, etc.) I also need to enjoy the now and spend money on the things that are important to me now.

Cassie

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Re: For those of you who love to travel...
« Reply #12 on: February 24, 2016, 04:29:44 PM »
For many years we only spend 1k on travel with an occasional splurge trip for more. The past 2 years we have spent 14K knocking things off our bucket list. At 61 and 57 you just never know so we intend to make sure we get to see what we wanted while we still can. 

pachnik

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Re: For those of you who love to travel...
« Reply #13 on: February 24, 2016, 04:59:29 PM »
We're 51 and 58 and as the previous poster said "you never know" so every other year now we take a big trip.  This fall we're going to Paris and London.  Then next year we'll stay local.   I've also only spent minimal $ on travel in the past but my perspective has definitely changed since a close friend of mine is now too ill to do any kind of travel. 

deborah

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Re: For those of you who love to travel...
« Reply #14 on: February 25, 2016, 02:34:23 AM »
I was never going to travel in retirement. Work always involved a reasonable amount of domestic travel, and I hated it. So I never planned a budget for it. However, I was always going to travel around Australia a bit. And I was always going to Turkey last year (that has had a budget for many years). Like spartana, travel is at least half my expenses. Most trips cost less than I spend when I am at home, but the international ones have a habit of being a bit more expensive.

And travel often seems to get a bit out of hand. For instance, I am going to Canada soon. Of course, the Inner Passage was one thing on the list to do there. Then I realised that part of the Inner passage is Alaska, and I found that I could hire a small RV and take it to Anchorage for cheap (because I am relocating it for the season). So I am driving up and boating down. Then I told my mother that I am somewhat dubious about driving an RV, since I have never driven one before especially as I will be driving it on the wrong side of the road. She suggested hiring one for a weekend here. So I looked around, and found that I could get one for $5 a day, if I drove it from Sydney to Alice Springs (of course I am going to Uluru and Kata Tjuta - which I have never seen before except from the air). And now I have realised that Lake Eyre is filling again (Australia's largest lake, but it is not in Wikipedia in the list of the world's largest lakes because they say it only fills once in a hundred years - even though it has filled about 5 times so far this century already), so I could see that on the way, as I will be driving reasonably close by. And while I was looking at that I discovered the Anna Creek Painted Hills (which I could see when I see Lake Eyre) which are MUCH better than the painted desert in the US if the pictures are anything to go by...

I seem to be averaging at least 8 + 8 + 8 = 24 weeks a year traveling. More last year.

MsPeacock

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Re: For those of you who love to travel...
« Reply #15 on: February 25, 2016, 06:54:32 PM »
5000 - 7500 per year, but that covers 3 people. We do a local vacation one year and international the other years. Travel is my number one entertainment/discretionary spending category.

 

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