Part of me can’t believe I’m doing this. Not because I have any qualms about sharing my blog income – I’ve worked so. freaking. hard. for. it. (And prayed hard for it!). I want to tell the WHOLE WORLD that I have a blog income. ( I might feel differently if this were my main source of income.) No, I can’t believe I’m doing this because I can’t believe that I have a blog income to report.
How often do we spend money on frivolous things without even considering that they are frivolous? Writing 10 Things I Quit Buying (to Save Money) really made me think hard about that. It didn’t take me long to come up with ten things I STILL spend money on that are “wants” and not “needs”.
I never, ever, thought of Hawaii as a budget destination. Especially with the current weak Canadian dollar. But we chose Hawaii last year as our budget vacation spot, and for the same reason we chose it again this year! Hawaii did NOT disappoint. We spent under $3000 Canadian dollars total each time we went, for 10 days. That’s less $1500 per person!
So I’ve written about travel hacking, and about why I’m not afraid of credit cards. By now you know that I actually love my credit cards. And you know that I think you should probably learn to love credit cards for their rewards value as well.
My mom taught me something that has stuck with me my whole life. (Well, my mom taught me a million things that have stuck with me my whole life. So that’s a pretty vague opening statement.) I’ll try again.
My mom taught me to be distrustful of ads, and in doing so she gave me the greatest money saving wisdom I could ever imagine.
She used to say, when advertisements came on or were displayed in a magazine, “Look at how they’re trying to sell this to you. Notice how they use words that are implying something, but not guaranteeing anything”. And man was she right. Marketing is huge business.
In April last year, G and I spent 8 days in Hawaii for $2995.31 – all in. Oh did I mention that’s 2995.31 CANADIAN dollars – So more like $2000.00 (at the time) American? I love love love making travel happen cheap. For me, a big part of living with intention is taking the time to enjoy life, but also being aware that I can’t blow all our savings on one trip. This is where the budget holiday comes in!
Travel Hacking is becoming such a popular phrase. Especially in the budget travel world. I get it – I mean, who doesn’t want to travel for FREE? And possibly travel in style for free?
On the off chance that it’s a new to you phrase, Travel Hacking is the (refined) art of using credit card rewards and membership point programs to travel for FREE. It is legal. It works. It can be complicated.