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How Travel Inspired My Financial Journey

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How Travel Inspired My Financial Journey

As part of our Women’s History Month series, Cinneah (the founder of Flynanced) and I co-hosted a series of incredible roundtable discussions with some of our favorite women in the personal finance space with the goal of fostering rich intersectional conversations around money.

Jateria is a financial coach, travel strategist, and founder of Debt Free Travel Journey. We asked her how travel has inspired her financial journey. Here’s what she had to share. (You can watch the full recording of the roundtable discussion, Creating a Travel Abundant Lifestyle, here).


How I Started

I'm a first-generation passport holder and first-generation wealth builder. Back in 2014 I got the opportunity to study abroad at the University of Johannesburg in South Africa. It was an amazing experience for me - being a first-gen college student and then also being able to study abroad. I was absolutely thrilled to meet other travelers and other people studying abroad. I realized travel could be a lifestyle for me and that I could continue this into my adult life.

When I left South Africa, I knew In my heart that I would return to South Africa one day. After I graduated college, I worked for about a year before I made a return to South Africa. During that year I traveled every weekend, but I also saved as much money as I could by working multiple jobs and side hustling.

I would work my 9-5 financial services office job and work as a hostess at a country club and even drive Uber. Once I was able to save up enough money where I felt confident to take the deep dive of quitting my job and moving abroad without a job and school - I did. I quit that job and I moved back to South Africa. South Africa was my home city and I traveled around southern Africa and Europe - I went to Paris, Amsterdam, London - all of these amazing places during that time. 


Committing to Financially-Sustainable Travel

I realized the way I was traveling wasn’t financially sustainable. I would work a job, save up and take all the money I saved to pay my bills and then go travel. I didn’t have sufficient income while I was traveling.

I had plans to go to Asia next. I knew if I could pay off my debt and lower my expenses, that would be the best thing I could do to make my lifestyle sustainable. I decided to stay home to start paying off debt and try to lower my expenses. 

During that time, I started the Dave Ramsey program and it was not as beneficial for me as a Black woman going through that program. There is a lack of cultural relevancy for me in the program. I feel as though there are a lot of smaller changes that need to be made in between the baby steps in order to change your entire financial life.

My progress was making small changes over time until they became a habit and eventually my entire lifestyle changed — I call these Money Habits. So I came up with my own method of paying off debt that allowed me to travel and fulfill other financial goals too - The Take Flight 7 Step Payday Method.

In 2018, I paid off my car in less than two years. Right after that, I went on a debt-free trip to Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Ras Al Khaimah. It was an amazing trip and slowly travel begin to motivate me even more to pay off my debt. For me, travel and paying down debt went hand in hand because I was able to reward my financial success with an activity that I actually valued. Understanding my values when it comes to money was a major reason for my financial progress.


Financially-Sustainable Travel Inspired My Financial Journey

Traveling inspired my financial journey - not only to pay off my debt but to become financially organized, increase my credit and to invest and build wealth. Paying off debt isn’t the only financial goal that will lead to financial success. My love of travel forced me to learn about money because it was required for my life of travel and to reach my financial goals. As I traveled, I met other travel bloggers and they didn't know anything about building wealth. They didn't have a 401k and they didn't know about Roth IRAs.

Finding a way to build wealth while traveling led me to this wonderful business: Debt-Free Travel Journey and creating The Money Habits App. I attribute a lot of the success in my money journey to travel. A lot of times learning about finances can be overwhelming and full of fragmented information, Money Habits provides bite size information daily to help you learn about money without the overwhelm. Travel inspired my journey to financial freedom and allowed me to find true financial success and guide others on their financial journey. My best advice for someone on their financial journey is to

  1. Become Financially Organized

  2. Work on transforming your money mindset & creating habits

  3. Opening a travel fund & saving for travel every paycheck in your travel fund.

Good Luck on your Journey & Happy Traveling.

Next Steps


About Jateria:

Jateria is a financial coach, travel strategist, and founder of Debt Free Travel Journey, where she provides financial coaching to help professional millennials level up their finances to build a financial foundation and systems that run on auto-pilot no matter where they are in the world.