I want to travel. Now how do I find money for it?

Everyone thinks they’re broke.

We've all been there. Sometimes there's too much month at the end of the money.

My family still teases me about when I served my family beans out of one of those decorative fall jars. And not the ones meant for human consumption.

There were just too many days left until grocery day and that’s all that was left.

A few years later, I remember crying on Christmas because I committed to going in on a gift for someone...and my share was EIGHT DOLLARS more than I expected. I simply didn't have $8 to spare.

While our family has never been in poverty, we have been dangerously low on cash at times.

The struggle is real. Especially now with global inflation on the rise.

So how do you go from there to traveling internationally?

For our family, it was a series of Aha! moments that changed our financial outlook and our attitude toward money.

These four hard truths made all the difference in the world and made travel possible for us:

Aha Moment #1: How we spend our money reflects what we value.

One day, it hit me---a large portion of our money was going to things that we really didn’t really care about. Or at least we didn’t care about them as much as we cared about travel.

As New York Times author Carl Richards writes, "Imagine that a cultural anthropologist finds your credit card statement in 100 years. What would your spending suggest that you value the most?"

For us...

Why were we spending so much money on clothes when we really didn’t care about brand names?

Why were we eating out so much when we really prefer to stay in?

Why were we paying so much for a travel soccer team when our son would rather play Frisbee with dad?

So, we started measuring everything in plane tickets and hotel stays:

• Eating out with a family can easily cost $100. That’s ⅙ of a plane ticket to Europe.

• Going to a movie? ⅓ of a ticket to Denver.

• Coffee or ice cream for 6? An overnight stay in Thailand.

Is it worth the travel trade-off? If not, don’t do it.

Author Mary Deshong-Kinkelaar suggests making a list of your priorities and then your top spending categories. Do they match? If not, you may need to make some adjustments.

Over the years, several friends have asked me for budget consulting. This listing is always our first step. Usually, they are in shock:

"I spend that much on haircare?"

"I feel like we eat out only occasionally, but that's still $300 a month?"

"I had no idea we spent so much each month on streaming services that we hardly use."

For us, it was a lot of slow leaks.

The solution was to find the holes in our boat, focus on our dream trips, and choose "Splurge Option B" instead:

Instead of dinner out...

...we make homemade pizzas or hold destination-themed dinners. (Greek night is a crowd favorite.)

Just Google a country’s music and look up a new recipe and you’re in business.

Decorations optional.

Cook Eat World and Taste of Home are great places to start looking for recipes.

Instead of the cinema....

....we do movie nights at home. I used to use this time to force-feed Gen X classics like Back to the Future or Mrs, Doubtfire, but apparently parents are uncool, so our movie choices are uncool by default. We now split the difference and alternate between kids' and parents' choice nights.

When anticipated movies drop on Netflix, our youngest daughter makes tickets and it's a planned event.

At Christmas, we invite the cousins and hold Polar Express watch parties with "🎵hot hot hot hot chocolate🎵," paper train tickets, and Dollar Tree jingle bells.

If we do go to the theater, we go on Tuesdays when AMC Stubs Insiders (free to join) get in for $5.

It turns out that a $4 rental plus a take-and-bake pizza is often more fun than $70 spent in a dark theater.

Instead of ice cream outings...

...we splurge on a gallon of premium ice cream and have sundaes at home.

Or we go out but everyone splits with a like-minded ice creamer.

Most American restaurant portions are huge anyway, so splitting just makes sense.

A Venti Frappuccino from Starbucks is definitely enough for two humans.

Sidenote: If you haven't discovered Blue Bell yet, try it. It will make you wonder why you ever eat ice cream out in the first place.

Huge Caveat:

All of these trade-offs mean nothing if the saved money doesn't actually make it to your trip.

Be sure to transfer the money you would have spent to a dedicated travel fund. We hate cash, so we started a separate savings account at our bank just for travel savings. If you maintain a minimum balance, it's usually free. Plus, it's super rewarding to log in and see the balance rise and imagine the trip possibilities...

Aha Moment #2: Fixed expenses aren't fixed.

When my youngest daughter Zara was nine, the reality of life suddenly hit her. She is normally the dance-around-the-house-endlessly kind of kid, so I was quite surprised by her sudden gravity. I had taken her with me to meet a woman at a gas station for a Facebook Marketplace sale. (Neutral territory, safety first, etc.) I met the woman, took the $20 bill, and then spent it to fill up my gas tank. When I got back in the car, Zara was bawling: "Mommy, I'm never going to have enough money to live on my own! $20 is a ton of money. You just got the money and then it just disappeared on not-fun stuff! How am I ever going to have enough to survive!"

Same, girl. Same.

The overhead cost of staying alive is pretty steep. Bills will be bills. But they don't have to be static.

Every year (usually when I'm running out of summer activities and just want a chance to enjoy the AC), I do a family audit. I take all of our bills and expenses and start to hack away at them one by one.

Is there a way to cut costs in any area of our spending? My goal? $100 a month. (That's 2 plane tickets to Europe per year in Me-Speak.)

Here are just a few of the ways I've found to cut costs through the years:

• Share internet with a neighbor ($35/month savings)

• Get rid of comprehensive insurance on cars that are getting older ($30/month)

• Dye my own hair ($520/year)

• Pare down to one streaming service at a time ($25/month)

• Turn down the water heater ($50/year)

• Carpool to work/school ($1,500/year)

• Ride my bike to work ($300/year)

• Buy toilet paper in bulk (priceless)

• Change dog food brands ($15/month)

• Change insurance companies

• Refinance our home ($1,000s over time)

• Change gyms ($20/month)

• Switch internet companies

• Change phone plans

• Get a 5-minute timer for the shower (tons---plus now we all get hot water)

• Get the GasBuddy app

• Match our spending with the credit card that gives the best cash back rewards

• Change grocery stores ($1,000s---More on this later, but the founder of Aldi is another of my travel heroes.)

There have been other sources of savings, but you get the idea. Cutting down on your bills is like free money. If you budgeted to pay a certain amount for your fixed expenses, finding a way to pay less is like being your own Robin Hood.

Aha Moment #3: Hustles make the world go 'round.

Our first big international family trip—7 weeks in Europe—-was all hustle.

We didn’t have money but we did have a little time. The kids were finally all in school, so we didn’t need to pay for childcare AND we had more time to spare.

So, we picked up side jobs. I picked up a substitute teaching position at a local high school in addition to my usual part-time teaching gig. I started teaching piano lessons out of my home. My husband started offering his video services to local companies and made short ads for their social media.

It didn’t take long before we had saved up enough for the plane tickets.

That inspired us to keep being creative and finance the rest of the trip. Much to our surprise, we had the entire budget covered before we even took off.

Riding the Tube in London for the first time

So, what hidden skills do you have?

Are you good at math or science? Can you play an instrument? Tutor local students. Try connecting with potential students via Thumbtack.

Are you a native English speaker? There are thousands of students across the globe who would love conversation practice via Zoom. Check out websites like SuperProf for more info.

Are you a stay-at-home mom or dad? Take on another child (even part-time) whose parents are working outside of the home. Care.com is a good place to start.

Do you have a random skill? Lettering? Flower arranging? Copyediting? Look for work on Fiverr. (Yes, pay starts low, but you can make the connections there and then expand your projects and services.)

If that doesn't work, try trading services. We are currently having some remodeling done to our house. The contractor agreed to knock a chunk off the price if Nate would make a social media video for the company. I am in the process of negotiating an equal time trade---an hour of piano lessons for an hour of housekeeping. Money not spent in the first place is money you can divert to your growing travel fund.

Take what you know and turn it into plane tickets.

Aha Moment #4: Resell, return, repeat

One thing travel has taught us is this:

Raising a family takes exactly as much space as you have.

We once stayed with a family in Morocco who were raising four children in a three-bedroom apartment. And they still reserved one of the bedrooms as a guest room. Yes, four children shared a room that also doubled as the family room. And you know what? They were happy.

We know families who live in tiny New York City condos. And they're happy.

We know families who live in spacious suburban mansions. And they are also happy.

We Americans have been taught that bigger is better and that consumerism is king.

But the end result is that 1) we think we need a lot of space simply because 2) we have a lot of stuff. Then 3) we get more stuff to fill the giant space we bought. An endless cycle.

It's no wonder that the size of the average American home tripled in 50 years. What's more, 1 in 10 Americans also rents a storage space for overflow.

If you can, consider downsizing your house to lower your expenses.

If you can't, let your overflow finance your travels.

A recent Nielsen poll showed that the average American has $3100 worth of unused things lying around the house. The items fell into these categories:

• Clothing (52%)

• Electronics (53%), with televisions and cell phones being the most common

• Accessories (44%), including handbags, watches, hats and sunglasses

• Computers and hardware (41%)

• Sporting goods (35%)

• Toys (25%)

• Furniture (21%)

Think about your basement, attic, or closet. What do you have that you could sell?

Use the categories above as a guide. What do you have in each of those areas that you don't need or use?

If you have kids, are there toys you could part with? A recent study found that the average child in Britain owns 238 toys...and plays with only 12. Financially speaking, that's over $10,000 worth of toys...and only $400 worth get used.

A friend of ours recently financed four days at DisneyWorld selling her kids' excess. Nothing big. Just lots of $5 Facebook Marketplace pitches. She said she, too, was surprised at how quickly it added up.

⬅️ For perspective, I highly suggest Gabriele Galimberti's Toy Stories: Photos of Children from Around the World and Their Favorite Things.

Sadly, most of us have plenty we could let go of. I'm guilty as charged. We keep it either hoping we will use it or because selling seems too hard. Online reseller Mercari calls this "low sell-esteem:...the belief that selling is too hard, takes too much time or is a hassle." Yes, it can take a bit of effort at first, but once you know how to format a sales post, how to determine a good price point, and what to look for to weed out scammers, the process can go very fast.

A friend of mine who is a frequent seller says the keys are...

• lots of good pictures from various angles,

• something interesting (a pet, a lamp, etc.) in the photo background to catch buyers' eyes

• prices so low that things sell quickly. You don't want in-limbo sales cluttering up your table for weeks.

Heading off the clutter curve can be profitable as well. How did the unused items get in your house in the first place?

Do you buy "fast fashion" that doesn't last? Try shopping instead for quality and timelessness.

Do you stress shop? Find another outlet (no pun intended).

Not to go all Marie Kondo, but do you buy things that "spark joy" or just things that are a good deal? For more info on the fine art of refunds, check out Reader's

Digest's "How to Get a Refund on Almost Anything."

Lastly, if you get an item that you don't like....do you return it? I know that seems obvious, but I recently got a huge trash bag of hand-me-down clothes from a neighbor....and most of it still had the tags on it.

My first thought? "That's a lot of plane tickets..."

At the end of the day....

... it's really not about saving money. To us, it's a challenge.

How can we get our money to go where we want it to instead of just keeping us afloat.

What behind-the-scenes maneuvers can we do to make our spending reflect our priorities?

Get creative and be proactive with your finances. It won't happen overnight, but faster than you think, you'll be booking those bucket list trips you thought were impossible.

---------------

For info on how to stick to your travel budget, check out "Five Things that Will Bust Your Travel Budget in a Hurry" Part 1 and Part 2.

For info on trip planning, see "How to Take Big Trips on Little Budgets."