6 ways that students can save money for travel

Higher education usually comes with other exciting things in life: socialising at uni, working towards your dream career, and the desire to see what life is like abroad. But all students know the difficulties of trying to save for travel when they’re mid-degree.

But there are ways you can acquire the cash to take you on that dream student holiday, including searching for discounts, setting budgets and taking out a personal loan to cover your other expenses.

So, whether you’re looking for a business, medicine or accounting student loan, and looking to head overseas in between study periods, here are some tips on how to get there.

1. Make that dream a goal

Your first step is to decide what kind of holiday you’re undertaking: is a whirlwind trip around the hotspots or Europe? Or are you taking more time off to slowly cruise around Asia? Once you have decided what kind of trip it will be, you have to estimate the costs of travel: airfares, accommodation, food, entertainment etc. Completing this step gives you a rough idea of how much the trip will cost, as well as help you stay motivated to reach your travel savings goal.

2. Look for discounts

If you have any chance to lower the price of your trip – do it! You should always look for ways you can make the trip cheaper and take your money that extra bit further. Things like the ISIC student travel discount card and the International Youth Travel Card can offer great discounts across the world, which is pretty awesome if you’re looking to travel on a shoestring. There are also student discounts by category that you can choose from. That will make it a more exciting and fun privilege in leveraging your student discounts.

3. Set a monthly budget

You should divide the total cost of your trip by the amount of months you plan to be overseas. This will give you a rough estimate of how much money you will need to earn or save to be able to comfortably travel. You can alter these figures if you have to and depending on when you plan to go away.

4. Be careful with your spending

Note down everything you spend on within a week: those couple of sushi rolls on the way home from uni; that ridiculous electricity bill that came out of nowhere; cost of petrol for the whole week, and then you need to decide where you can cut back on extra spending. Sure, we have to spend money on some things, but we often overdo it and spend on unnecessary things – this is where your spending can be cut back to save for your trip.

5. Utilise auto-saving

Auto-saving is a pretty cool initiative from certain banks that rounds up to the nearest dollar the amount you spent on a transaction then puts it into your savings. You don’t have to do anything but watch as the money adds up with every transaction you make – it’s an easy and nifty way of putting a little extra aside without any effort or thought.

6. Try downsizing on costly items

Sure, we all want to live absolutely luxe lives, but when you’re at uni and saving for a trip this simply can’t always be the case. You might need to cut back on buying premium products for a while if you are looking to save for an awesome, unforgettable experience. Also, switching to cheaper utilities suppliers and potentially moving into a cheaper student rental are good ways to cut back on monthly expenses.