Traveling in a Foreign Country on a Budget – For Real?
Once the commitment is made to create a workable budget seniors can travel on a budget! Yes, we have received the raised eyebrow a few times – really quite a bit now that I think about it, but that is not going to derail us from our plans. Those who have never traveled told us “it costs too much” “why would you go to that place” “its not safe”, etc. Even though we may be seniors, we still have a lot of years to make memories together. Bottom Line – its our time!
If you are happy doing what you do, then good for you. We have never had plans of sitting in our house growing old or being sedate. That is just not us. We are both on a natural high knowing very soon we will be living out our dream of international travel & possible permanent move to a foreign country. Right now, between the two of us, we have around 25+ countries under our belts. That leaves way over 200 countries we have not seen. Will we see all? Probably not but I’m betting we’ll add a few to our passports. Any additional countries we visit will be a Win Win! “Oh, The Places You’ll Go!” [Dr. Seuss].
How Can You Afford a Trip Like This & Travel on a Budget?
Ok, we have made the decision to make this big adventure happen – two youngish pretty healthy seniors traveling internationally & possibly moving out of country. Yikes it getting real folks!
How did we get to this point? How did we think we were going to afford this grand scheme of a plan? All good questions and ones we are often asked. The big answer is Goal Setting with the end result being budget travels! Some may call us cheap, but I like to say we enjoy international travel & we do not mind traveling on a budget to get there. As far as we are concerned, life is not about how many things you own or can buy, but rather how many memories you can make.
The Beginning of our Plan for Travel on a Budget
Traveling on a budget is nothing new. Once we made the commitment that this WOULD happen all those years ago, we started looking at how we lived daily & what we could do to make our goals happen. Although I don’t think we have ever considered ourselves materialistic, there were definitely things we could do to cut back on expenses & save a few dollars.
Cheap is not always a negative when it comes to budgets.
The Big Guy is really tight [borderline between cheap & tight] with money [we balance each other on that point]. By his diligent researching, we have found multiple avenues to save a few dollars where possible. He compares prices on internet and cable bundles, streaming services, cell phone companies & plans, insurance [auto & home] tirelessly. The end result is we always end up paying less for the same or better services – which means the difference adds up!
Cable/Internet
You know how cable companies work. Let me rephrase that, you should but I am amazed at the number of folks who do not know how to work cable companies. You sign up, they give you a great intro price & then just when you quit paying attention to the monthly bill you realize the price has jumped – sometimes astronomically. Sometimes the cable company will offer more special pricing, etc to keep you as customer. This is fine if you deem cable a necessary part of your life. We did not. At some point, we asked ourselves “Do I really need or watch 800 cable channels”? To be honest, I had a couple channels I liked but it was a no-brainer to eventually work it down to just stick with basic cable/internet for under $70 per month!
The only extra we have is Netflix & Amazon Prime. No need for extravagant sports channels or movie channels in this house. I would have a problem paying hundreds of dollars a month to sit and watch TV when those dollars could be adding up in the bank for a flight. If this is your life than you go for it, but really if this is your life you would not be reading this blog! Yay you for turning off the boob tube.
Utilities
There is not much choice when it comes to utilities. It just depends on what is offered in your area. Water companies are pretty much set in stone from city to city.
Electric companies are another story. They are becoming as numerous as phone service companies, there is always someone to compete in your area. In our area we have probably 4 or 5 electric companies to choose from. We switch at special offers as needed which keeps our mostly cost very affordable for fixed incomes.
Insurances
Auto & House insurance is another place to reduce. You have to keep minimums of course but why let them sell you a package that isn’t specific to you. Of course, different states may have different guidelines so you gotta buy what you have to buy.
We do believe there is such a thing as being “over insured” but that can be easily addressed just by comparing companies, dropping deductible on your house or vehicles. Some companies offer cuts if you take a Defensive Driving class…How easy is that? Some offer discounts on insuring home & auto together. We do a comparison at least every couple years to find the lower price. You can do it – just need to be focused & patient.
Cellphones
Lastly, cell phones & service. You got to admit cell phones are crazy expensive! The latest iPhone & Samsung phones are over the top but people buy them.
We do like iPhones in this house but we buy the phones refurbished at below half price. I think we may have bought two brand new phones back in the beginning. Even then we would pay upfront for the phone to negate the interest added on if you choose to pay for phone monthly!
The phone plans are a money drain for sure. We just changed phone services, we are back at T-Mobile. Everything we could possibly want in our service plan for less than than $70 per month [that is for both of us folks!]. We had been on Cricket which was awesome service – never a dropped call BUT we had been with them for a bit & T offered a ‘limited’ running plan for seniors that we actually just found by scrolling online & we snatched it up! We watch videos, YouTube, email, text, etc and always have data left at end of month. No, we don’t sit & watch movies on our phones or play games so if you do….
Recap
There are numerous other ways to reduce unnecessary expenses that we will go into in a future post. It really all depends on you – what you deem as necessary for your life style!
Again, there is just the two of us & we are pretty low key so the above ‘cuts’ are purely based on our lifestyle as we choose to live. No judgement here. We decided we wanted to spend our money on what we want to spend it on which is traveling. Using the above suggestions, we have cut expenses thousands of dollars per year!
The question you should be asking yourself is “How serious am I about wanting to travel internationally & am I willing to do what it takes to make it happen?”
Where will our next flight take us? At this point, we haven’t made the final decision but boy are we going to have fun!
