1. Open a designated Saving and/or investment account
The easiest way to start saving for your vacation is to open a designated savings account just for travel. Check with your local bank to see what your options are, or you can find a bank online. After you open an account, decide on how much you would like to put into the account and how often. To make it easier to remember to save money, make sure to set up automatic payments. You can also deposit any extra money you receive, such as birthday cash and even your tax refund.
Another way to save is to open an investment account. Since investment accounts have a higher return than savings accounts, you can often make a larger profit over time. I personally invest using an app called Acorns. Acorns helps you save money by investing your spare change from your purchases, called round ups. Just by putting away five dollars a month and saving the round ups, I have saved over $800 during the past two years.
2. Collect and Save All Spare Change
Do you have a lot of spare change and not sure what to do with all of it? Start putting spare change into savings. You will be amazed how even the smallest of amounts can add up over time. First find a container to put your change in. You can buy a container such as a piggy bank or you make one yourself using household items such as a can or glass jar. Anytime you make a cash purchase and are given change back, take your change and add it to your coin jar.
About one year ago, my best friend and I drove to New Orleans to go on a cruise. A week before my trip I emptied out all my spare change and cashed them in at a coin counting machine. All my spare change that I have been saving for over a year added almost to $60 cash. Even though $60 may seem like a small amount, it did pay for a couple tanks of gas and snacks for the road.
3. Download and use cash back apps
One simple way to save money is to use apps that you can receive money back on goods that you purchased. Some of my favorite cash back apps include SavingStar, Ibotta, and Checkout 51. These apps are easy to use. Simply click on the items you plan to buy, upload your receipt, and you get cash back for those items. Once you get to $20 you can send the money to your PayPal account. I started using these apps for about eight months and I have made about $80 back.
Another app that I recommend is an app called Achievement. Achievement may not be a grocery cash back app, but you can connect it to your Fitbit or other fitness apps, and you get points each day for tracking your health. Once you get to 10,000 points you can send $10 to your PayPal account.
4. Eliminate unwanted expenses from your budget
If you want to save money for your vacation, it is important to set a budget so you can designate a certain amount to savings. If you are wanting to increase the amount you plan to put into savings try cutting out unneeded expenses. First keep track of everything you typically spend during a month. Are you spending too much money eating out? Maybe you’re spending too much money on entertainment. Cutting expenses that you can live without can help you put more money into savings.
5. Sell unwanted items
My last tip to make extra money is to sell any items in your home that you longer need. Do you have clothes that have been sitting in your closet for a long period of time that you no longer wear? Try going to a secondhand store like clothes mentor that will buy your clothes. If you have any games, CDs, or books that are just lying around collecting dust you can make extra cash by selling them to half price books. Last you can always have a garage sale to earn extra money. Try having your garage sale sometime on a weekday. I have the most success on Thursdays and Fridays. It is possible you may not make a lot of money for the item that you sell but remember small amounts can go a long way.
Kool Kat Travels 