It's All About the Benjamins, Baby: Take Two

Part Two: In which you are horrified by how much your latte habit is costing you

Welcome to the second installment of How to Save Money and Travel the World, with your host and financial expert, Alanna Hardinge-Rooney. In our last episode, I showed you how to create a realistic and precise budget for your future travels. Today, I will show you how, with a little practice, patience and potting soil, you can grow money on trees!

If only. In reality, when it comes to saving your cash, there ain’t no such thing as a get rich quick scheme or easy money – just hard work and determination. Look at what you’re spending your money on now, perhaps even track your finances for a couple weeks, and see what you can do without. Chances are, you’ll be surprised by how excessive your lifestyle has become, and how easy it is to cut back on things you’re better off without.

Tip number one: get cookin’. As a downtown cube dweller, I developed an unfortunate taste for bought lunches. This is fine if those lunches are going on the company credit card, but if you’re footing the bill, this habit has got to stop. Even seven bucks once or twice a week adds up to $50 a month – two days of traveling in Africa. Find recipes that appeal to you, make a shopping list, and go buy a week’s worth of food. Make large portions so that you can bring left-overs as lunches, eliminating the need to pop out for an overpriced sandwich or salad. At the supermarket, try to save anywhere you can – go for the generic brand, buy in bulk, pay attention to what’s on sale – but don’t buy food that doesn’t excite you. No matter how focused on the prize you are, no one can sustain themselves on oatmeal, Kimchi and K.D. for eight months without losing it.

No coffee. This doesn’t really apply to Scott or I, but from observing others, I’ve learned that the Starbucks addiction is an affliction of many. At our office, endless tea and coffee is provided for free, and most people still make frequent coffee runs downstairs (returning with disposable paper cups – oh, the horror!) This is total madness. You might as well be throwing your money in a landfill. If you really can’t live without your grande extra-hot no-whip soy caramel macchiato, treat yourself to one every now and then, but certainly not everyday and for goodness’ sake, bring your own mug!

Shopping. Working downtown, I have developed a new appreciation/abhorrence for consumer culture. People congratulate one another when they purchase things. Things they don’t need. Things that waste money, support exploitation, harm the environment. You do not need those shoes. You do not need that handbag. You do not need those Rock & Republic jeans, that Benefit lip gloss, that gaudy Juicy Couture charm bracelet. When you’re hiking Mount Meru, you’ll laugh to yourself how ridiculous you were, how little any of that matters. If you really can’t keep your debit card in your wallet for more than a few days, hit up your local thrift store, or head for an outdoor store, where you’ll find some stuff you can actually use on the road.

Entertainment. Prepare for your social life to take a bit of a hit. Seven dollar pints at the bar is just not economical. Restaurant are out of the question. Even an $8 movie on a rainy Sunday afternoon is one night’s accommodation up in smoke. What to do? Invite people over, host a potluck, play board games, have a dance party in your living room. Take this time to do some of those projects you’ve been putting off, pick up a new hobby, learn a new language. Go to the library. Seriously – if you’re anything like me, the library will keep you entertained indefinitely. Read some historical fiction, memoirs, journalism from the areas you’ll be visiting. Check out some guidebooks, look at their map collection, plan your route. Rent movies – for free! I cannot endorse the library enough, and though the prospect might not excite you now, replacing your bar nights with staying in to read, will save you hundreds, nay thousands of dollars.

Your place and your stuff. What are you going to do with it? Keep it or let it go? Unless you’ve got an amazing apartment with impossibly low rent, I say let it go. Pocket your damage deposit, sell your lumpy couch and unsightly shelving unit, and purge your closet of things you never wear. Inevitably some things will remain: a box of winter clothes you won’t be needing for a while (hooray!), a mattress, a stereo, a few kitchen appliances. Unless you really have no other option, do not rent a storage space. Ask your parents to store it, see if your friends will baby sit your house plants or CD collection. This will save you money – like, $500 or so – so it’s worth seeking out all your options, even if it means that you’re stuff ends up strewn all over the city (or in our case, two different land masses!)

There are a million ways to save your money. The main thing is figuring out where you can cut costs and sticking to your budget. I guarantee that once you’ve started saving, and seeing what opting out of things like salon dye-jobs and Starbucks lattes does for your account balance, living on the cheap almost becomes a fun competition with yourself to see how much you can save. Not to mention the added benefit of knowing you’re doing something good for the planet and society. Minimalism for the win!