August is here. This summer has been going by quickly. It has been a busy summer for us here at This Crazy Home. We have spent many more weekends on the road this summer than we have at home. I wish I could say things are slowing down for August, but I cannot. We have another hectic couple of months ahead before things slow down again. Our family is accustomed to lots of travel and busy schedules, but our lifestyle can still be very demanding. Traveling all the time costs money, time, and energy. All these things are at a premium. It makes it more difficult to stick to a budget and get things done when you are always on the road, but it is not impossible.
Money, money, money. Everything costs something. When we build our budget at the beginning of every month, we always have some sort of travel we have to work in. Whether it is for a road trip to visit family three states away, travel costs for training or seminars, or a flight for an event halfway across the country. We always seem to have some sort of travel every month. How do we account for these costs every month, yet still afford to pay down debt and build our savings? It is all about how you travel.
People always say, “I want to travel more, but it costs so much,” or, “Maybe when I’m making more money, we can afford to travel a little bit.” Travel is a very nebulous term, though. Traveling can mean very different things depending on how you define it. Is it just you traveling alone, or is it a family? Do you really need to fly to your destination or is a cheaper, albeit slower, method of travel sufficient? What do you intend to do when you reach your destination, and are your plans flexible?
Travel, as with anything else, is just another thing to budget for. There are some fixed costs, but it is largely up to you how much you spend to travel. For instance, do you really need to visit your dream destination during a peak travel season? If not, then you can cut costs by going in the off-season. Or, if you do need to visit during that peak season, then you can easily cut costs by being more flexible with your plans and accommodations. There are resources online that have great travel tips for individuals and families. I can only tell you about our experiences.
As a family of four, a simple road trip to go visit family can become expensive fast. For us, cutting down on travel expenses has become a key component of our budget strategy. One of the ways we have cut costs have included selling our older, gas-guzzling vehicles and buying used late-model cars that are much more fuel-efficient and have lower maintenance costs. We also set a limit on our expenses when doing our budget at the beginning of the month. This makes it easier to spend less on trips, because we are actually tracking our expenses. Eating on the road can be costly, especially for a family of four. By sticking to our spending limits and bringing food from home, we have greatly cut our costs.
Another way that travel costs us is the time and energy it takes to make these frequent trips. Planning trips, packing, and traveling with a preschooler, an infant, and two dogs can be exhausting. The time and energy costs don’t end with the actual trip, either. Time and energy are just like money. If you spend time or energy in one place, you can’t spend that same time and energy somewhere else. If you aren’t careful, this could also end up costing you more money. This is because if you constantly are unable to complete projects at home because of your busy schedule, you will be more inclined to pay someone else to complete those tasks for you.
It is important to prioritize what is important to you and your family. If you decide that paying someone else to do home maintenance and repairs is more important so you can spend more time traveling, then that is okay. Just remember, there needs to be a tradeoff somewhere else in your budget. For our family, crushing our debt and building our savings is more important. We have set goals for the future and we are willing to sacrifice some sanity now to make those dreams become realities.
For those families with young children spending their last few weeks traveling before school starts, we empathize with you. It is great to make those memories with your children, to visit family and old friends, and to see new places. Just don’t let it get you off track financially. It would be easy to charge that trip to credit and mark it up as a once-in-a-lifetime experience, but in the end, you’re only hurting your own future. Find ways to make your trip work for your family AND for your budget.