Saving Money for Something Big

For some people, saving money is the first step in making plans. They want to have X amount of money before they will start planning a trip, gathering ideas or commit to anything. I am the opposite. Having plans is my biggest motivator to actually save up.                                                                                                           
When I started planning my trip to Europe a few years back, I had enough money to book my flight and that was about it. I knew I wouldn’t be taking off for 10 months so I didn’t feel intimidated by my sad bank account. I was so excited to be going that I was willing to cut back on or cut out things that would get in the way of saving. I didn’t go out on the weekends half as much as I was before, I was working on my health and fitness at the time too so I wasn’t eating out or buying clothes that soon wouldn’t fit me anyway. Planning before saving was highly motivational for me.    

The method I used to plan my savings.

             
Don’t get me wrong, if you plan to fly to Europe next month and you only have enough to buy your airline ticket, you will be screwed. This method works best if you are planning farther ahead.

I have some plans – not set in stone – but very hopeful tentative plans that I’d like to make happen in about 10 months from now and I already feel that internal surge to make everything work out.

As you can see in the pictures above, for Europe I created a daily budget so I knew how much I would need to save in total. I took into account my daily expenditure for accommodation, food, transportation, shopping/events/entry and incidentals/emergency funds. All that plus my train ticket and flight prices told me just how much I guessed I would need. Having an "incidentals" amount added into my every day spending was the best thing I did. Also, guessing how much I would spend on sleeping and eating without actually knowing allowed me to spread the money around. If I spent less to eat for a while, I could sleep at a nicer hotel or do something I might have otherwise decided was to expensive.

Back to today, I would like to save $8000-10,000 in the next 10 months to make my secret plans happen and also make them as easy and enjoyable as possible. This may sound like a huge amount, or a very small amount to save in that amount of time, but I guess it would depend what your income and bills are like.

How I’ll make it happen:

Keeping bills, payments and spending to a minimum.

-I own my vehicle and make no payments on it. Insurance is reasonable and gas is minimal because I take the train to work every day.

-On that note, by taking the train to work instead of driving I save about $170 per month.

-I consider my cell phone to be my only “luxury” that I pay for consistently. I’m ok with it.

-Ryan and I have been working on lowering our grocery bill lately and have been doing very well. We have probably reduced by about $200 per month.

-TV, Internet, parking, laundry, heat and water are all included in our rent. All we pay for is electricity and it is very minimal.

-Since being vegetarian we eat out very rarely and since starting my capsule wardrobe I don’t really shop. Both are great ways to save money.
-For entertainment we like to bowl, play mini golf and go to movies. As these can be expensive we don’t go every week. We have found plenty to do around the area we live and really enjoy being outside, plus, its free!

With that being said, I am still hoping to be able to take a vacation this summer sometime and if it cuts back on the total amount I am able to save, so be it. That is something I'm willing to do.

Do you have any more money saving tips I could add? Let me know!