Are you planning a trip and want tips that will help you vacation on a budget?

Taking a vacation can get very expensive very quickly. There’s the time you need to take off work, travel expenses, the cost of staying somewhere, food, and much more. When you add it all up, it might feel like a vacation just isn’t in your budget.

In fact, one of the top reasons I hear for why people don’t travel more is that they feel they don’t have enough money to do so. However, it’s very possible to vacation on a budget.

Many people think that they need to spend thousands upon thousands of dollars in order to have a good vacation.

But, that’s simply not true.

There are many ways you can take family vacations on a budget, spend less on solo travel, or take a vacation with your friends and not go into debt. 

You may have to rethink the way you travel, do a little more planning and research, or stay a little closer to home. But, there are low budget vacation ideas for almost everyone. 

Remember, vacationing should be a time to relax and help you escape the stresses of everyday life.  [Read more…]

Hello! Are you interested in making a big move? Here is how Jill and her family moved to Norway (one of the most expensive places to live), without jobs or dipping into their retirement savings. Enjoy!

A lot of people point out (and rightly so) that moving to a low-cost location is one of the best financial moves you can make.

With much cheaper living expenses, the money you have saved can just go a lot farther.

But what about when the place that you want to move is NOT cheaper? What about if it is consistently ranked as one of the most expensive countries in the world?

AND what if you are planning to move there on a student visa, leaving two solid salaries behind with no guarantee of income? AND what if you have three kids who like to eat daily?

Well, that is exactly what we did in 2019 when we left a midwestern city with a relatively low cost of living to move our family of 5 to Stavanger, Norway.

It took several years of planning and included lots of unknowns and delayed plans.

But almost 3 years after our initial move, we know that we made the right choice for our family.

So how did we do it, and how did it work out? Here’s the low down. [Read more…]

Today, I have a great article to share from a reader, Anna Barker. She will be talking about how she has visited over 55 countries and has actually used this as a way to improve her finances, including paying off $60,000 in debt. Enjoy!

Hi, I’m Anna! I’ve had the chance to live in and travel throughout a bunch of places in the U.S., Europe and the Middle East, while paying off all my debt and starting to invest (not to mention working on my personal finance site, LogicalDollar, on the side). Based on this, I’m convinced that you can actually see the world AND have it help your finances, with this article explaining exactly how I think you can do this too!

Do your financial goals include actually being able to go on that vacation you’ve always wanted to take – but just haven’t quite been able to afford yet?

Or have you told yourself that you’ll finally start ticking things off your bucket list when you eventually retire?

You absolutely wouldn’t be alone in either case. In fact, I can definitely relate to having the realization that all those places you’ve been dreaming of seeing take so much money to get to – not to mention the time needed to get there!

Let’s not even talk about finances for a moment.

For anyone working somewhere where you have a limited number of vacation days – assuming you have any at all – you could easily eat up your entire year’s worth just with one quick trip.

Money and time are two major reasons why a lot of people dream of seeing the world, but often don’t intend to do so until they retire. And while a financially secure retirement is certainly something to plan for, we all know that life can get in the way between now and then.

But what if I told you that there was a way that you could actually travel the world now…and that you could help your finances out by doing so?

Here’s how I’ve done exactly that. [Read more…]