Money Musings 💭 Starting a new travel ✈️ tradition
Next year I plan to start a new travel tradition with the fam... 🥁
We are going to live (and work) in a new place for 4-6 weeks each year.
Why so long? I’m a big fan of living like a local and getting the chance to immerse myself in a new culture and another language.
The kids are learning Spanish from our au pair so we’d like to go somewhere we can practice our Spanish!
Because it’s tough to go away for long periods while the kids are in school, especially as they get older, this is going to be a summer tradition!
How will we budget for this?
If you have followed along with the travel budget series (linked here, here and here), you know how I budget for travel.
BUT the beautiful part of living somewhere else is that our day-to-day expenses will probably not be much higher than our current everyday life (especially because we live in a very expensive area of the US).
And because we haven’t flown much since the onset of the pandemic, we have lots of points saved up for the flights.
That leaves the main expense - the apartment rental.
We have been setting aside money for the rental in our travel fund and we might even decide to rent out our place while we’re gone. We shall see!
Do you have any new traditions you'd like to start in 2023? If they cost money, how will you budget for them?
MONEY MOVE OF THE WEEK
PLAY THE MONEY GAME.
Make saving money into a fun game? Yes, please.
Here’s how.
STEP 1: Choose the amount you want to spend each week on variable things like food, transit, shopping, etc. Important: Make this amount realistic.
Let’s say you choose $250.
STEP 2: Then, track your spending and total it up at the end of the week. Were you under your goal? If so, by how much?
If your weekly spending totaled $200 and your spending goal was $250, you won $50 in the Money Game! 🥳
STEP 3: Now you get to decide where that goes! Put that $50 towards a goal, like paying down debt or building your rainy day fund. You may decide to put $25 towards a goal and spend $25 on something fun now. Do whatever is most motivating for you. Pro tip: Have a plan for where your winnings will go before you start playing.
For those who hate tracking… If you don't want to (or don’t remember to) track your spending, you can set up a Money Game “salary” to transfer to a separate bank account. You can use that account’s debit card and will know where you stand in the Money Game by checking your balance.
YOU GOTTA SEE THIS
OUR BIPOC AND WOMEN-OWNED GIFT GUIDE.
Each year we showcase incredible BIPOC and women-owned businesses to support while doing your holiday shopping (and all year round).
Why? Because what we buy matters! How we spend money is a way to vote for more of what we want to see in the world.
Plus, the pandemic, inflation and supply-chain issues have made the last few years really challenging for small businesses. Our support can make a big difference.
We’ve compiled a list of your (and our) favorite brands. Thank you for sending in all of your new favorites this year. This list just gets better and better. And we plan to continue to add to it!
Without further ado, here’s our BIPOC- and Women-Owned Gift-Guide.
You can also head to our consumer activism channel in Slack to search through the treasure trove of recommendations by keyword or ask the group for recommendations!