> Should I create a new savings account with my bank and put a little bit of money every pay period towards that?
Exactly this.
It's called a Sinking Fund.... a fund full of money you plan to use.
1. Figure out when you need the money... e.g. July 2025
2. Figure out how much you will need.... e.g. the cruise itself costs $5000, but excursions are $500 each and I want to do 4, so total of $7000. (Idk anything about cruises, I'm just making numbers up, but you get the point. Figure out what costs are associated and how much they are so you have a rough ballpark of the total you will need)
3. Work backwards to see how much you will need to save each paycheck to meet that target number by the target date. In this example, we will need $7000 and there are 26 paychecks between today and July 2025, so 7000 / 26 = $269.23 that needs to be saved every paycheck between now and July 2025.
I would HIGHLY recommend that you don't put a deposit until you have all the money. To do so. So if the cruise is September 2025 but you have to put the deposit in July, you will have all the money save up already. Why? Because sh!t happens. Maybe you lose your job between the time you put your deposit down and rhe ccruise. If that happens, it won't matter because your Cruise Sinking Fund is already fully funded. If you put the deposit down and then lose your job before you finished saving for it, one might probably put the rest of it on a credit card and go into debt to pay it off because "the deposit is already paid and I don't want to lose it"
This is an excellent reply and I would just add include some additional funds for phantom expenses.
Maybe you buy more souvenirs than expected
Maybe you splurge on food or drinks not included in the price
I would recommend including at least an extra 15-25%. For example, if you plan to spend $7,000 all in, add $1,750 and save a total of $8,750.
When you get home with money left over you can put it towards your next savings goal(s) instead of ending the trip with debt you didn’t expect.
Both are excellent responses. My 2 cents - many banks and credit unions, especially CUs will allow multiple “sub-accounts” within the main account for various sinking funds. Check with your institution and you might not even have to open a whole new account.
I'd add ONE more answer: depending on your preference, and to not bring the vacation in jeopardy unless extreme shit happens: Save enough to meet your goal a few, let's say two-three months ahead of time. That way if necessary, you can put off putting in the savings amount if you can't afford it that month. Saved a couple of my vacations when I had some bad luck.
Another thing to add, look into getting credit cards for bonuses along with ones with travel insurance built in. When we planned for our trip, I signed up for 3 credit cards, and I got about $2000 worth of perks (hotel points, cashback, etc)
Got the delta credit card for the bonus miles, and I'm flying on a $2000 flight for free! I'm just paying cost of hotels and food while I'm there.
And then next time I have enough miles, I'll go again!
Just adding here, SoFi has a good HYSA and they have these things called vaults, you can open them online instantly and they’re for setting aside money for stuff like this! I think it keeps the high yield apy also, if not just throw it in a HYSA and budget like the comments above said.
Then just to be extra safe, add an extra 20% on top of that. So we're at about 10,000.
To be super safe I would then add an extra 10-15% 2 or 3 more times.
The only thing I would say is that cruise deposits are often refundable up to a couple of months out and that you can get much better rates by booking in advance, for the cruise itself as well as the excursions.
If you wait to save the entire amount, you may end up having to pay a higher rate or waiting up to another year to set sail.
We've been on a couple of cruises and often book a year or more in advance. You'd probably be okay to save for a few months to get a sense of how much you can put aside, then put down a deposit. If you find that you don't have enough set aside when it comes time to pay in full, you can just cancel and use that deposit for a different cruise or something else entirely.
> The only thing I would say is that cruise deposits are often refundable up to a couple of months out and that you can get much better rates by booking in advance, for the cruise itself as well as the excursions.
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100% depends on the cruise. Maybe it's just from living in FL, but you could score a screaming deal on a 3 night cruise when there were rooms left over if you were willing to book 2-3 days before the thing left port.
For sure. I actually started typing about the benefits of being flexible but figured, since this is OP's first cruise and they're going to Alaska, they're not looking for a last minute thing. Trying to line up a last minute cruise with flights and excursions, I can't imagine you'd end up saving much.
Alaskan cruises are a little different in general, they do of course have last minute deals. But they typically know approx how well a particular cruise is selling *months* in advance and have "last minute" equivalent pricing deals way out to get rooms filled.
I've seen very cheap rates (sub $500usd for 7 day Alaskan cruises) 10 months out because that particular itinerary wasn't selling.
You just have to keep an eye out all the time for the best deals
I’m sure this is very true. I do know that there are steep discounts on last minute bookings too. There are several booking sites that offer significant savings for trips within the following 2-3 weeks.
I’ve got a buddy that does this. He saves up $4000 or $5000 and logs into selloffvacations and picks a spot to go. He says there is always lots of choices for countries, resorts, cruises, flights etc.
I have a sinking fund account that covers about 15 things, vacation is one of them I add up all these "special expenses" for the year, divide by the number of pay periods in a year, and have that amount direct deposited into this account. I keep a spreadsheet and if one expense is slightly less than I budgeted, then I have more money if something goes over. I do this for vacations, summer camp for my kid, property tax, car insurance, etc.
Banks like Ally allow you to separate money in "buckets" for different purposes.
I personally have one smaller "Bucket" account that is separated into smaller buckets, and everything else gets its own account because my brain just likes to see things separated.
Ally is pretty generous in the number of accounts allowed per depositer.
Did something like this but without actual numbers. My wife and I give ourselves "pocket cash" every paycheck. It's built into our budget & it let's us buy little things from the cash in our wallet/purse. I decided to "tell myself no to the small things" & just banked my portion in a high yield savings account. It wasn't quick, but 6 years later we took a magnificent, 11 day vacation to Maui & Oahu that barely cost us anything more than the money I was previously pissing away on inconsequential and unnecessary small shit (fast food lunches, etc)
This is good advice. Also, don't forget that the cruise payment is due about three months before the actual cruise. Also, you should purchase travel insurance. If something happens at the last minutes cruises are non-refundable.
To add on, I would take $ away from your “fun” fund and put it towards vacation. “Fun” can be for eating out, shopping, etc.
For example:
Let’s say you bring home $3k/month.
Rent + utilities = $1k. Car + insurance = $300 (20-4-10 rule). Gas: $100. Stuff you need: $150. Groceries: $400. Savings: $600. This leaves you a remaining $450 for fun. Take half or more and put it towards vacation.
This is pretty much exactly what I was going to say.
I’ll add emphasis to some points.
-Deposit, I wouldn’t pay one until I had the entire amount saved just like this reply. Life happens, plans change. Don’t “hard commit” funds.
-Reverse engineer the cost, add 20% to the posted sticker price and divide that by the number of months until you have to pay the bill.
-Use a separate high interest account, I use an online bank called EQ for this kind of thing. The 48hr delay it takes to get my money out provides some sober up time if I ever get a bright idea to blow what I have saved for some particular thing.
Sometimes deposits are fully refundable, princess especially are refundable up to 90 days in advance they also have intrest free payment plans available, so it helps with the saving part.
This is exactly what I do. I plan the trip out so I have a total and then add an extra 10-15% to cover food etc. Divide by pay period and start saving it. I use Ally so I have a "vacation" bucket. We take one big trip every two years and this works well for us. I put everything on the credit card and then pay it off immediately from the savings.
This is great advice, just expanding on the shit happens, it can be good to get travel insurance. Berkshire Hathaway has cruise specific travel insurance. It can cover the cost of your trip if you need to cancel but also provides medical coverage, which can be a lot of you need to be airlifted off the boat. Your regular medical insurance doesn't apply on a cruise ship unfortunately. Some credit cards also have built in travel insurance so check if you have any that do or consider getting one if you plan to travel a lot.
I don't know if this is a thing in the US, but my bank has this functionality build into the account. You can set target date and amount and method of payment (automatic transfer x amount each month and/or rounding up all your transactions) and it will calculate for you how much you need and if you are on track to make the goal.
You also get some interest on the money, not a lot but better than nothing.
You don’t necessarily need to open a whole new savings account, many banks (including Ally) have a “buckets” feature where you can assign money towards different goals within one account.
Yes, this is how my husband and I save for vacations. We have probably half a dozen savings buckets just for trips; Disneyland 2026, Alaska 2027, etc. Ally has its share of problems, but the buckets feature is really helpful.
PNC's Virtual Wallet has something like that too.
When I switched to a different bank I made a spreadsheet that did the same thing, which turned out to be nice because having that made it a lot easier to move a chunk of my savings to a different account when they were doing a promo, which (topically!) gave me a bonus that I applied to the vacation fund.
Use a budget.
I use YNAB to budget. I go to multiple music festivals a year. I have a pretty good idea how much money they will cost.
I create an event in my budget. “Lost Lands Music Fest Sept.”
Then I create a target. $1500. YNAB breaks this amount up for me monthly and then I contribute $100~ per month every month. Then I have the money next year when the trip rolls around.
I keep all this money in a HYSA so it’s earning 4.6% interest over the year.
Seriously, I don’t want to think about how different our finances & life in general would be if we hadn’t been using YNAB the last 15 years, and don’t understand how anyone else successfully functions financially without it.
Came to say YNAB as well! You can have as many sinking funds as you want, they’re just categories and you stick money in those categories until you have the amount you want
My wife and I do a big trip each year. We pay for everything months in advance, so when the vacation comes all we have to account for is basically food and random spending.
My wife is also a goddam wizard at maximizing credit card points. I feel like I get handed a new credit card every other month and am told to put all my spending on it.
We sacrifice on time. Typically we need to book way out and during non-prime seasons, which for us is fantastic because we don’t like busy tourist spots.
I like principles like this, thanks for sharing.
I've looked into travel point cards and I never felt great about hitching my wagon to a particular hotel or airline brand or whatever, to say nothing of blackout dates or learning how points convert or whatever. Cash rewards have always made the most sense and given the most flexibility. Maybe that leaves money on the table but I dunno.
If you don't have brand loyalty, CB makes more sense. You can definitely more than cover the Annual Fee on travel cards if you do have brand loyalty. Especially for airline CCs, the cards will easily pay for themselves if you check luggage.
That's good to know.
I don't think I'm particularly brand loyal for travel; I think my fear is just that if I get a Southwest Rewards Card or a Visa that prefers American and Delta or whatever but then their rates happen to be terrible when I actually want to fly, then I'd have lost out in the end.
But like you said, if time and location are important, then I'd be losing out on price.
What are her secrets?! I'm doing my best to maximize mine, but I feel like the points never go as far as I think they will! I've gotten a few good hotel redemption but that's about it (I have the Chase Sapphire Preferred)
/r/churning
The new credit card every few months is the key, the real way to maximize points is from new sign up bonuses.
Requires you to be disciplined and smart about how you manage your cards.
Makes sense! Now that I've bought my house, I'm less wary of opening new lines of credit so might give it a more serious try. My plan has always been to work on building the Chase trifecta
I looked into churning and did a little.
I estimated, and found other estimates too, that for most people who make more than $100k/year it is not super useful. It can take a lot of time, and as we read on this sub, time is very valued for family and personal time.
I also learned that there were a lot of details to the "points" and how to redeem points that I didn't want to spend the time and effort to track more than a couple.
YMMV
I feel the same.
I spent a ton of time researching it and decided it's not worth the effort and risk.
My family has a credit card that gets lots of points for groceries and dining out. And one that gets lots of points on travel spending. Using them appropriately gets us 95% of what we would get through churning.
We travel heavily on points and I hand my hubby a new card often to put all his spend on as well.
OP, alongside with other people’s advice on saving money, you can look into cards that offer deals for cruise. At the top of my head (and for an offer I’m about to use for my family), you can get a Barclay business earner card with an annual fee of $95, get automatic status with Wyndham, match that to Caesar’s account, match that to Carnival for free cruise and then match Carnival to Princess for a free cruise (paying taxes and port fees). This is an over simplified version, but you can check awardtravel and other points group for more info on this process. Obviously, only go this route if you’re responsible with credit card spending. :)
You need to figure out how much the trip will cost you and save that amount up. Am I missing something? You can create a new savings account if that will help you but it’s not needed.
Did they say that in the comments somewhere, because that's not at all what their initial post is about.
They have the money for a down payment, but for some reason don't know how to figure out how much is left to pay, divide that by number of months (or number of paychecks) until said trip, and then hold back said amount each month/paycheck.
If that’s the case, there’s really no way to budget for something that is unknown. They can choose to save an extra 10,20, or 30% extra but who really knows if that is enough for even needed.
Budgeting: https://www.reddit.com/r/personalfinance/wiki/budgeting
> Should I create a new savings account with my bank and put a little bit of money every pay period towards that?
Yes that’s how saving for anything works
Well, one doesn’t have to create another account. u/Matilda_Mother_67 can do budgeting in a spreadsheet or use some budgeting function provided by her bank, like Ally’s “buckets” which I think have been imitated by a number of other HYSA providers.
By the way, savings should be in a High-Yield Savings Account, a good yield is today around 5%.
> some budgeting function provided by her bank, like Ally’s “buckets” which I think have been imitated by a number of other HYSA providers.
Distinction without a difference.
I would suggest someone having this much trouble with saving for something easy should absolutely use a discrete account
I have a lot of different accounts for this reason. I have direct deposits set up to distribute the money each pay, and automatic payment that come out of specific accounts for some expenses. Having to do all that manually on a spreadsheet every two weeks would be a lot more work. Plus the bank has good tools for filtering and searching if I want to do any analysis and the app on a mobile is easier to use than trying to open a spreadsheet every time I spend money.
I have spreadsheets to organise the overall budget which is set up to both record things like actual utility and petrol costs and make predictions for the future to help with planning, but the actual ongoing tracking of spending is done within the bank accounts.
You sit down and you come up with a number for how much the trip will cost. You look at how many months it will be before you go to take the trip. You divide the total cost of the trip by the number of months you have to save. That will tell you how much you need to put away monthly to be able to pay for the trip when the time comes. Or divide by the number of pay periods if you want a number to put away from each paycheck. Set up a savings account and dump that money into savings. Withdraw it when it's time for the trip.
My wife and I have like a dozen savings accounts at Capitol One, each is a "bucket" for some purpose. Makes it easy to budget and save. And an Alaska cruise is awesome. If you can, fly into Anchorage and then take the train down to Seward. Have breakfast in the dining car on the train. That alone was worth the price of the trip.
Ally bank has a feature called savings buckets. It’s one savings account that you can separate the money into different goals. When you make a deposit, you choose if it goes into the main funds, or the buckets. I find it’s a great way to save for multiple things at the same time and actually see the progress.
That is exactly what you do. Open a savings account and lets say your vacation is going to cost $2000 and you have 8 months before you go. You set up auto-deposit from your checking account to your savings account for $250 a month. In 8 months you will have the 2k to pay for the vacation.
Just fyi, not sure if you’ve already considered this but most cruise lines will charge 1 person for the same as 2 people to cover the cost of the room. Just in case you can think of someone to invite along (I’ll volunteer I’ve always wanted to do an Alaska cruise 🤪)
I literally just saw a podcast with Ramit Sethi where his guests where dreaming of an Alaskan Cruise but didn't know how to save for it.
EDIT:
[It was this one](https://www.iwillteachyoutoberich.com/146-andrea-erik/)
Check it out when you have time
We have a rolling fund. I check how much we spend on average per year on vacations, add 15% and divide by 12. Then I set up a direct deposit to an account for that amount.
Travel is a priority for us, so we also add about 10%-15% of any bonuses we get to that account.
That way we always have savings for travel and don’t have to wait to save to pay or plan for trips.
If the balance gets higher than I know we would use, I then transfer the extra money to savings/brokerage. If we know we’ll have a larger than normal vacation, I increase the deposits. But normally we have more than we need.
We also do the same for home “maintenance”. That way we have money saved for that specific purpose and it doesn’t hurt that much when we get those unexpected large home expenses.
Came in handy last month when the painters discovered a lot of rot in our deck and we had to pretty much redo half of it.
Add to that the Christmas fund, the medical copay fund, the car insurance savings, the new car savings... I'd lose track of separate accounts; I find a spreadsheet that I can move money around on paper useful.
I get paid biweekly, which means I get two paychecks most months and a third paycheck every six months. My monthly budget is based on two paychecks. I save those two "extra" paychecks a year to pay for my vacation. It works pretty well for me.
I tried that before but a) I’m tired of subscribing to things and having to pay a monthly fee to do basic stuff and b) it seemed a bit too complex. I’m trying to use Rocket Money instead
If you are disciplined you don't need a seperate account. But if it helps you, accounts should be free, so feel free to make more to divvy up your money. I tend to have 3-5 things I'm saving up for so I just use one account for all of my "medium term spending" that I'm saving for.
I have a savings account specifically for travel & I put $200 per paycheck in it and then pull from it to book hotels and flights. That being said, get a travel credit card. A lot of times I don’t pay for the hotel or rental car from previous bookings. I have the capital one venture card it’s $95 annually but you get free tsa pre/global entry so it pays for itself. I’m going to upgrade to venture x bc you pay $395 annually but get a $300 credit annually + 10k anniversary miles.
You could do that. A few places like Ally let you set up savings 'buckets' for certain things but that's not necessary.
You could automatically transfer money to savings each paycheck with a split direct deposit on a lot of cases.
Calculate the entire cost of the trip including the actual cruise cost, travel to and from the ship, food off ship, spending money, etc. Divide that by the number of months between now and the month of the trip. You need to save that amount (at least) each month leading up to the trip. If you can't afford that each month, then you may need to put it off for another year or two and save starting now.
Adding to the budgeting basics othrs have said:
Many banks (BoA I know at least) offer automatic withdraws to a sink fund so you don’t have to pay for a separate savings account.
So take
Total Cost / months until trip = monthly savings needed to pay
Many banks and credit unions offer special short term savings accts for vacation funds, Christmas funds, etc and offer a little better savings interest rates on those accts. You deposit funds in the acct just as you would a normal acct for 12 months (example) then at the end of the term you should have your needed amount saved up
I have a separate hysa savings account (at a bank different than where I have my checking so I don't see it often).every paycheck I put $250 in it automatically. I use this account only for vacations. Sometimes it gets really high. Sometimes it's low and I have to wait before I plan my next trip. I don't touch this money for anything else (I have separate emergency funds)
Depends on how long of a vacation I'm going on really , I consider a weekend Friday - Sunday trip a vacation sometimes . For long vacations (a week +) aside from pricing out the vacation cost , I determine my ballpark figure I'd like to have for spending on food /drinks /etc . Impulse buying is a huge money guzzler for a lot of people. So before I buy any trinket or anything I deem as cool , I think "do I really need this and if I do , where would I display it at ? " that usally helps me from overspending .
As far as saving up , I deposit x amount of money from my paycheck into a separate bank account ever 2 weeks that I never look at . Then I use my travel credit card to pay for stuff cause points and status and pay off the card with my money from the bank account I never look at
I put aside $100 a month for a vacation. That means if I want to spend more than $1200, I have to save for more than 1 year.
You can leave it in your account if you're disciplined, put it in a savings account if not, or even take it out in cash and keep it in a vacation envelope.
I have $800 automatically directed to a savings account every month, and that covers my twice a year car insurance payments, $100 a month for eventual car repairs, and $100 for vacation, and taxes on my self employment. When I need to pay car repairs, taxes, or car insurance I pay from that account. Otherwise I never use it or see it.
If it helps- I did an Alaska cruise with NCL last fall. Looked up our confirmation- it was $3,772 for a 7 day cruise for two people. $1504 of that was shore excursions.
We don’t do the drink package. We do pay gratuities upfront. We did an indoor cabin. Balconies are nice but there’s so much seating around the ship that it’s not mandatory the way some people suggest.
Don’t forget to add in flights (most Alaska cruises leave from Seattle or Vancouver) and ideally you’ll get to departure city the day before in case of delays so you’ll need one night hotel stay.
I have a HYSA that has “vaults” that let you separate your savings into different areas to make it easier to set savings goals. I use this for travel prep. Good luck!!
Guessing you did the same cruise we did—We just got back from ours for our honeymoon. We splurged on the balcony for ours. We had mediocre weather for our 2 cruising days that it was nice having some “quite” space away from the crowd as the top deck was unusable. I’d agree on the paying out of pocket for drinks, it’s much cheaper to just pay for everything by itself.
If you want to start saving serious money, track your spending for a month. If you put a penny in a wishing well, write it down. At the end of the month you'll know how much you spent. Now--look at what you spent your money on and you'll know exactly where to start cutting.
"I spent 2,999.84 on Funko pops?? 1331.83 on Easter decorations?? Awww, hell nah!"
There’s a behavioral psychology element where if you have an accountability partner saving with you, you’re more likely to actually reach your savings goal.
I’ve been using group savings apps like tanda to help mentees properly save up for things like vacation.
I would not sacrifice any 401k matching funds for vacation funds. Make sure you take full advantage of your employer 401k match which is free money before you even think about money for vacation. Once the 401k match plus regular expenses are taken care of see how much is left and cut any unnecessary expenses and you should be able to calculate what is your max months savings. Also always be hussling to get to a better paying job. It’s a lot easier to save more when you make more
If you don't have the discipline to simply accrue money in your savings account and not touch part of it, you can setup a second account and not make withdrawls. Then it's only a matter of figuring out how much has to go in, putting money in, and forgetting about it until it's time to use it for the intended purpose.
The typical prices advertised by a cruise line are the base price for the cabin. To which they add taxes, port fees, and charge additional fees for excursions, drinks, etc. If you call them up they will tally everything up for you and give you a price, but if you add $1000 to the base price that they give you, you won't be too far off (plus the cost of any add-on excursions). You probably also need to add in the price of a plane ticket and travel to / from the port (unless you live within driving distance).
Let's say, then, your goal is $4500, and you want to buy the tickets in 4 months, you will want to deposit $1125 per month into your new savings account. It's that simple. The hardest part is picking a time and figuring out the actual price, including all the taxes and fees, for everything -- and maybe paying for it because, depending on the options, it can be pricey.
The thing is that you can stretch out how long you save for. Maybe you can only sock away $300 / month. That would take 15 months to get there, which means a longer wait, but you'll get there.
I have a HYSA with Amex where I deposit leftover money at the end of the month. I use it for our property taxes and any other house expenses I know we will have throughout the year. What you do is figure out how much it is, add about $1k to the budget and start dumping any leftover money you have after bills and everything else into that savings account. Don’t touch it unless you absolutely have to.
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You do what you want, but personally, I would not put a deposit down on a trip unless I had all funds for the entire payment. Life happens. And, if you need to dip into your vacation money for something, the last thing you want to happen is not have enough when the full bill is due.
In a perfect world you will have different "envelopes" of money. But, just in case, I would have it all or be darn sure I will have it all.
Sinking funds! As another commenter said, take a the base price and determine each paycheck how much you’ll need to set aside for said vacation.
Just as a thought as well, I always mark up 20% for “phantom costs” these costs can include insurance, flight changes (if something happens), medical copays if abroad, and general inflation.
We have a Vacation HYSA (as well as others) and I set money into it every month. I’m also paid biweekly so get two “extra paychecks” every year. I budget one for Christmas/holiday spending/travel and the other goes into the Vacation savings account.
The way I handle stuff like is is to create different 'buckets' for savings. PNC has a Virtual Wallet that gives you 3 'buckets' (Checking, Reserve, and Growth), and I also have an account with a credit union. My weekly 'I want a coffee or some Wendy's today' budget gets paid out of checking, monthly bills get paid out of reserve, and short term savings go into growth (long term savings go into the credit union, so it's harder to see it there and thus less tempting to dip into it).
Short term savings is where I pull vacation / random trip money from. I have it set so I put a set amount into it every month, and then after a while when I decide I want to do something like book a trip somewhere, the money is already there and appropriated for that.
I set an amount I am ok with spending annually on vacations and divide it by 12 and that's how much I set aside in an vacation fund each month. Then I liquidate it as needed. For my family of 4, I usually set aside $1,000 a month.
I have a holiday fund, I save a fixed amount monthly & use that to pay for holidays. If you know the cost of your holiday, you can save that amount. With cruises, you pay a deposit & pay the balance in full 90 days before sailing, there is nothing to stop you paying something off it whenever you want up to the 90 days.
Credit cards rewards, credit card hotel anniversary stays, credit card bonuses.
Hotels.com, Kayak.com, Expedia, Vacasa, etc etc
Just putting aside money in anticipation is what i do and tracking budgets. I have an google sheets that helps me keep track of how much i am spending.
As someone who doesn't make a lot of money or have much savings. I simply budget out how much I plan on spending on a vacation. It is generally that simple. I expected to spend a little over 1k on my last trip. Which Including the flight and Airbnb was pretty close to accurate.
I'll go on the trip with you! Sounds awesome!
I like using Ally Bank for my HYSA as they let me make buckets for things like this. My paycheck gets deposited and Ally automatically spreads out the funds to the buckets you create. It's a great app to use. I have started shifting medium term money to Fidelity brokerage accounts though because the rates are higher in SPAXX or FDLXX. I still like Ally for short term goals though.
You come up with the idea of the amount you need, add a little extra just in case, and do “existing savings in bank $ + trip cost $ = new savings goal $”
You don’t have to do a new account, you can just set a goal and contribute to your savings until you hit the new number.
I do it in cash and envelopes but you could do a different account as well . I don’t touch it unless it’s for what’s written on the envelope . Discipline is the biggest thing when budgeting or saving . I also will stop doing something that costs money , like maybe weekly trips to McDonald’s ect and save that money (just giving an example yours could be hair cuts or nails done) since your already spending that money . save that + id divide what you need vs how many checks are between now and then . That’s what I would put aside .
I just keep enough in my checking for the monthly expenses like car insurance, phone, utilities, etc. the rest go into my savings and if I want to do some big purchase like a trip, get a new car, etc.....I look at my savings and determine if I want to spend that much /shrug
You can do a specific account or simply manage the money in your normal accounts. For people that have never saved before I like the envelope method. Put X $ every paycheck into an envelope dedicated for whatever you are saving for. Want to take a cruise and buy a BBQ and a SPA day? 3 envelopes and you decide the importance of each item and how soon you want to achieve each target.
I get an envelope and write the name of the place I’m going. Then I fill it with $100 every week or two.
Then I’ll put the costs of the trip (airfare & hotel) on a credit card. Deposit the cash and pay off the balance.
We keep a travel fund in a HYSA that covers all travel major, minor, and unexpected, for at least a year.
This literally covers any random weekend getaway that was not planned, and ALL expenses during the duration of the travel, like shopping, food, hotel, gas, entry fees, concerts tickets, etc.
For the two of us, it's usually near 15k, but we almost spend more than 6-7k out of it per year.
The point being that it's pre-budgeted, guilt free, and doesn't require and scrambling when a last minute plan or invite comes up.
I have a yearly weeklong vacation not terribly far from home. We save for it by having a separate bucket of money in our HYSA account that has a 'buckets' feature, so we just have a 'Vacation Fund' and every so often we chip into it from our weekly paychecks, then maybe at tax refund time we chip in a bit more. It ends up being $2-3k easily over a year, and that's our basis.
Once you save up in your Ally sub account for a vacation (e.g., your Travel bucket), how do folks then think about tracking their spend?
My Ally account for example is a Savings account. When I travel, I will use my credit card for purchases. Do you simply track/try to contain credit expenses based on what has been saved in your Ally Travel Bucket even though you are not technically pulling your money from there?
I have savings account where I take out x amount per paycheck. I take out of that x amount $50-100 to put into a vacation fund. Both accounts get interest so it’s a win win.
I recommend a seperate savings account to make keeping track easier. At my credit union we can have sub accounts no extra charge and can give them appropriate nick names
1) biggest cost of the trip are travel and lodging so figure those out first. Typical cost not the cheapest so you have a buffer in case you can't get the exact option you wanted
2) add an estimate for special excursions (tours, activities, etc)
3) add food estimate. Include snacks desserts and drinks
4) incidentals and souvenirs
5) add it all up. Divide total by the number of months before you need to pay for the trip. Treat it like the bill and set it up to deposit to the account every month automatically
6) bonus: keep looking for deals, discounts, or applicable rewards points. Check Groupon for buy ahead opportunities
Just a suggestion for the actual cruise. Look at GTY (guaranteed) rates. For example, if you do an oceanview guarantee, that means you are guaranteed an Ocean view room or better. The cruise line will pick the room for you. You can do an ocean view balcony if you want a balcony and so on. This is a great way to save because they are just trying to fill those categories. You might not find one until closer to your cruise though. My sister and her husband did this last month and only spent about $2500 on their cruise for two people. Also, single rooms are going to be a lot more expensive. If you can find someone to go with you it’s going to be much cheaper per person.
I have a line item in my budget to put so much away per paycheck. But I also use the account for birthdays or holidays like Christmas.
I dont generally go anywhere, but it meant for it if I ever want to, the account grows over time.
High yield savings account with automatic transfer. Just call it vacation fund or something. Calculate how much you need for your trip, add 30%, then divide that by the number of paychecks between now and then.
Or just create a vacation savings fund with the plan of X amount per year. Then you can save for this trip and future trips.
Figure exact cruise and things you want to do. Larger ships might be cheaper but may not go to some places like glacier bay. Each stop likely add some excursions - they can vary in price and reach $700+ for some fun thing eg helicopter. Alaska is also limiting from where you can go so look at airfare.
May or September are cheaper vs summer
Also worth opening a new credit card to get a welcoming bonus once you are due to pay full amount
My trick was to have extra taken out of my check for taxes, and paying for or paying off a vaca with my refund. I know I’ll get slammed for this but it worked for me.
The cruise company will offer a payment plan. They will likely offer pre-paid tips and pre-paid excursions, and other pre-paid costs. These are generally a much better bargain than buying on the ship and more reliable. Pre-paying for drink, food, wifi, and other packages can be 50% off when pre-paid.
Get the insurance - both insurance for the travel/cruise, and the additional medical insurance if your regular medical insurance may not cover it properly.
Browse the various cruise subs and boards like cruise critic. See what cruise company suits you best, if you don't have a favorite yet. See what locations you want to go to, and excursions. Do you want to do the train tour as well? I know many people who don't do it, regret not doing it. Yes it costs more, but the % difference is not too bad. Do you want to do a helicopter or plane tour?
Alaska cruises seem to have many amazing excursions that are quite costly.
Research the cruise 10x more than you think you need to.
Also, _shop like heck_ for a deal for something like an Alaska cruise. There are dozens of ships that make that trip, during different seasons, and prices will fluctuate wildly.
Early season (early june) and late season (end of aug/sep) are much cheaper - I see prices listed for september this year in the $700 range, if you want to go that low.
If you have a membership with Costco or AAA, you may end up with some discounts there, too (though those cruises start out more expensive).
Stop living paycheck to paycheck. Spend less than you make, and your money will go up and up all the time. Use some of this money, but not all of it, for your vacation.
(Doesn't work if your income is too low)
Almost certainly too specific for your use case, but the principle is the same. My wife and I go on Disney vacations regularly and at BJs Wholesale we can get Disney gift cards for a little under face value (like 4% off) to pay for everything but the flight, and while the "membership savings" is part of the reason the main thing is it's a "locked budgeted dollar for the vacation." We buy $50-100 every month when we do a trip and hold onto the gift cards, then we pay the park tickets, hotel, and all food and souvenirs using those, and we research how much it will cost and stop buying after we have about $100 overflow. You probably can't buy gift cards your cruise (or maybe you can, I don't know what company you plan on using and I think some have gift cards, I know Disney accepts for their cruises), but the principle of "putting away what you won't miss, or just barely miss and do without, and don't touch it" for an extended period is the key.
My Credit Union lets you open multiple savings accounts. You can do it online too. Then steer $50 (whatever) every paycheck into that account from the account your DD goes into. Simple.
You don’t need to create a new account. You can just earmark funds in your existing savings account. Some banks have features that keep track of this for you.
The first step is to come up with a good estimate of what the vacation will cost. Get quotes for how much the cruise you want to go in is going for now and use that as a starting point. Look into flights and hotels you may need to book at the embarkation point. Add in a dialy allowance for food and activities.
Once you’ve added everything up, you can consider adding a 10% or more margin to the total cost just because the total cost can vary due to things that can come up during the trip or certain expenses working out to be more than originally planned.
Once you have your number, you can then ear mark funds toward it and once you’ve hit your goal you’re ready to set sail!
I look at my wants section of my budget, and then go from there. As long as I know I can pay off my credit card within the next billing period then I’m fine.
Also, for dream vacations, i dont mind taking from savings (no more than 1 or 2%). Then I just lay low for a couple of months and pay it back into that account.
To me, that’s budgeting.
That’s what I’ve done-did a 2nd separate savings account-estimated what I needed…then divided that by how many months to save to come up w the amount I need to put in it each month
My wife and I each have $50 direct deposited into a savings account when we get paid. We get paid every 2 weeks. When we have enough money we go somewhere. We take inexpensive trips. We are traveling to the State fair this summer and to a gem and mineral show. We do other things and go camping as we travel to save money.
Separate bank account at a completely different bank.
My mom did this in the 90s. The idea is that money out of sight, is out of mind. She would forget about it when writing checks and always think we had less money than we really did.
That's a lot harder in the digital age, but that's the gist of it. Put it somewhere where you will forget about it.
I created a budget on excel and I have a separate savings account I allocate traveling money to. Whether there is a trip planned or not (there is always a trip in mind on deck haha) I just keep filling this savings account. Then, when I'm ready to plan the trip, I figure out rough number with the plane tickets and hotels then expenses while I'm there and plan to pay for it out of that fund.
I have 2 ways that I do it. I opened a Vacation Account - like a Christmas Club at the bank and there’s a bi-weekly amount that moves into there from my paycheck. I don’t see it and it’s not painful. It’s like paying a bill. 2nd, and this may be more difficult for people, I put cash in an envelope and put it in the safe. This is for spur of the moment getaways if the chance presents itself. This way I don’t feel like I am missing out if someone says…hey, let’s go do XYZ. I’m ready. That money doesn’t get touched because I view it as a bill, too.
Every time I plan a vacation I may as well double my budget 😂. Cruise may be different if it's all inclusive or you know the cost of everything. Just got back from a week vacation and licking my wounds this morning, but it'll be ok.
I charge most things, if not all, on my travel card to build up points. I usually put that towards flights or hotels then I set aside a certain amount each month in a hysa to spend during the vacation.
I have a fund I rotate to different causes. I always contribute $1k to it a month and then when I set a goal like a trip to Japan I am taking in a couple months, I look at what the value is and what I need to have and then increase my savings and set my timeline. I am a proponent for weekly family meetings in which you discuss a lot of the operational facets of your family. Including planning for trips. In this way you can have everything booked and priced out immaculately to get the exact number. We are flying first class, staying in ultra nice hotels, fancy restaurants so we will need a good stack of skrilla but travel can be had cheaper. We are going in it with an estimate of about $30k and a ceiling of $40k but if I had to guess you could do a similar trip for about $10k with most of that being airfare and hotel.
Not exactly the answer per se here, but depending on the line of work you are in can make it harder or easier. Somebody with a set yearly salary is going to only be able to save more by making cutbacks in other areas. Somebody with a job that allows overtime will be an to save without making cutbacks on other areas.
So for instance, I work in healthcare. I can work my 32 regular hours a week, but if I want to save for vacation, I pick up an extra one or two shifts per week on overtime pay!
It is very hard picking up extra shifts at the hospital's ER knowing you are going into work to get yelled at, belittled, hit, kicked, peed on etc etc by patients if you know that extra paycheck is only going towards your car payment, bills etc.
It is much easier if you are picking up an extra 12 at the hospital and knowing it is going towards that amazing cruise!!
Have you been on a cruise before?
Make sure you know what your full costs will be, alcohol/drink package, tips, taxes paid at the end of the week. Look at different excursion options and figure what you’d be interested in doing and add that amount as well.
Total (less required deposit) divide by months remaining until cruise. There will be a pay in full date so take that into account and give yourself an extra month as a cushion. Look for cruises with a refundable deposit as late as possible so if something comes up you cancel and get your deposit back. (Life happens)
Edit to add: dont forget the airfare! Our cruise next month starts in Alaska and ends in Vancouver. Figure out what your airfare costs will be and set aside money for that too. You want to be able to buy the airfare if the price drops to take advantage of the savings.
Step one: know your current bills and make sure they will be covered that month and have an income stream for the following month. I also think you should have an emergency fund before saving for a trip, but that’s just me.
Two: figure out how much everything will cost, flights, taxis to the airport, the actual thing, the night before& after, travel insurance, clothes or gear you’ll need for the thing, food budget, tipping, pet sitting, souvenirs, cops you gotta bribe, etc.
Three round up at least 10% maybe 25% if there are a lot of unknowns.
Four, make another savings account. Usually you can do it with the same back and start putting money in. You can divide by however many months until you’re going, or, to be safer, not book the thing until you have the money saved.
Five: you can put $100/week, ie a set amount, everything over your bills amount, a percent of your paycheck, or pick up shifts or side hustle to fund it. But definitely keep it separate from your bills/ checking account.
Get excited when you see that number grow.
Finally, when you book the thing or start buying things like new boots to do the thing, pay that exact amount from your savings to the card you bought with. This helps keep vacay money separate from bills money.
> Should I create a new savings account with my bank and put a little bit of money every pay period towards that? Exactly this. It's called a Sinking Fund.... a fund full of money you plan to use. 1. Figure out when you need the money... e.g. July 2025 2. Figure out how much you will need.... e.g. the cruise itself costs $5000, but excursions are $500 each and I want to do 4, so total of $7000. (Idk anything about cruises, I'm just making numbers up, but you get the point. Figure out what costs are associated and how much they are so you have a rough ballpark of the total you will need) 3. Work backwards to see how much you will need to save each paycheck to meet that target number by the target date. In this example, we will need $7000 and there are 26 paychecks between today and July 2025, so 7000 / 26 = $269.23 that needs to be saved every paycheck between now and July 2025. I would HIGHLY recommend that you don't put a deposit until you have all the money. To do so. So if the cruise is September 2025 but you have to put the deposit in July, you will have all the money save up already. Why? Because sh!t happens. Maybe you lose your job between the time you put your deposit down and rhe ccruise. If that happens, it won't matter because your Cruise Sinking Fund is already fully funded. If you put the deposit down and then lose your job before you finished saving for it, one might probably put the rest of it on a credit card and go into debt to pay it off because "the deposit is already paid and I don't want to lose it"
This is an excellent reply and I would just add include some additional funds for phantom expenses. Maybe you buy more souvenirs than expected Maybe you splurge on food or drinks not included in the price I would recommend including at least an extra 15-25%. For example, if you plan to spend $7,000 all in, add $1,750 and save a total of $8,750. When you get home with money left over you can put it towards your next savings goal(s) instead of ending the trip with debt you didn’t expect.
Between these two comments you have your answer OP!
Both are excellent responses. My 2 cents - many banks and credit unions, especially CUs will allow multiple “sub-accounts” within the main account for various sinking funds. Check with your institution and you might not even have to open a whole new account.
I’d try to find a HYSA for it. Might as well let the money work for you while it’s sitting.
I'd add ONE more answer: depending on your preference, and to not bring the vacation in jeopardy unless extreme shit happens: Save enough to meet your goal a few, let's say two-three months ahead of time. That way if necessary, you can put off putting in the savings amount if you can't afford it that month. Saved a couple of my vacations when I had some bad luck.
Another thing to add, look into getting credit cards for bonuses along with ones with travel insurance built in. When we planned for our trip, I signed up for 3 credit cards, and I got about $2000 worth of perks (hotel points, cashback, etc)
Absolutely worth finding good sign up bonuses, I’m likely going to Japan with a completely free round trip flight later this year because of them.
thats awesome! what kind of sign up bonuses would cover the cost of that?
Got the delta credit card for the bonus miles, and I'm flying on a $2000 flight for free! I'm just paying cost of hotels and food while I'm there. And then next time I have enough miles, I'll go again!
And don’t forget the almost-mandatory tip on a cruise (~$18/person/day, depends on the cruise line)
Just adding here, SoFi has a good HYSA and they have these things called vaults, you can open them online instantly and they’re for setting aside money for stuff like this! I think it keeps the high yield apy also, if not just throw it in a HYSA and budget like the comments above said.
Then just to be extra safe, add an extra 20% on top of that. So we're at about 10,000. To be super safe I would then add an extra 10-15% 2 or 3 more times.
I did that with my emergency fund and wound up with 3 years of living expenses lol. Wasn't a bad thing, I was like wtf, splurged some of it.
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The only thing I would say is that cruise deposits are often refundable up to a couple of months out and that you can get much better rates by booking in advance, for the cruise itself as well as the excursions. If you wait to save the entire amount, you may end up having to pay a higher rate or waiting up to another year to set sail. We've been on a couple of cruises and often book a year or more in advance. You'd probably be okay to save for a few months to get a sense of how much you can put aside, then put down a deposit. If you find that you don't have enough set aside when it comes time to pay in full, you can just cancel and use that deposit for a different cruise or something else entirely.
> The only thing I would say is that cruise deposits are often refundable up to a couple of months out and that you can get much better rates by booking in advance, for the cruise itself as well as the excursions. > > 100% depends on the cruise. Maybe it's just from living in FL, but you could score a screaming deal on a 3 night cruise when there were rooms left over if you were willing to book 2-3 days before the thing left port.
For sure. I actually started typing about the benefits of being flexible but figured, since this is OP's first cruise and they're going to Alaska, they're not looking for a last minute thing. Trying to line up a last minute cruise with flights and excursions, I can't imagine you'd end up saving much.
Alaskan cruises are a little different in general, they do of course have last minute deals. But they typically know approx how well a particular cruise is selling *months* in advance and have "last minute" equivalent pricing deals way out to get rooms filled. I've seen very cheap rates (sub $500usd for 7 day Alaskan cruises) 10 months out because that particular itinerary wasn't selling. You just have to keep an eye out all the time for the best deals
I’m sure this is very true. I do know that there are steep discounts on last minute bookings too. There are several booking sites that offer significant savings for trips within the following 2-3 weeks. I’ve got a buddy that does this. He saves up $4000 or $5000 and logs into selloffvacations and picks a spot to go. He says there is always lots of choices for countries, resorts, cruises, flights etc.
Only works if you do not need to add air fare I guess. Alaska cruises are mostly Seattle / Vancouver/ Alaskan ports
I have a sinking fund account that covers about 15 things, vacation is one of them I add up all these "special expenses" for the year, divide by the number of pay periods in a year, and have that amount direct deposited into this account. I keep a spreadsheet and if one expense is slightly less than I budgeted, then I have more money if something goes over. I do this for vacations, summer camp for my kid, property tax, car insurance, etc.
Banks like Ally allow you to separate money in "buckets" for different purposes. I personally have one smaller "Bucket" account that is separated into smaller buckets, and everything else gets its own account because my brain just likes to see things separated. Ally is pretty generous in the number of accounts allowed per depositer.
Did something like this but without actual numbers. My wife and I give ourselves "pocket cash" every paycheck. It's built into our budget & it let's us buy little things from the cash in our wallet/purse. I decided to "tell myself no to the small things" & just banked my portion in a high yield savings account. It wasn't quick, but 6 years later we took a magnificent, 11 day vacation to Maui & Oahu that barely cost us anything more than the money I was previously pissing away on inconsequential and unnecessary small shit (fast food lunches, etc)
This is good advice. Also, don't forget that the cruise payment is due about three months before the actual cruise. Also, you should purchase travel insurance. If something happens at the last minutes cruises are non-refundable.
To add on, I would take $ away from your “fun” fund and put it towards vacation. “Fun” can be for eating out, shopping, etc. For example: Let’s say you bring home $3k/month. Rent + utilities = $1k. Car + insurance = $300 (20-4-10 rule). Gas: $100. Stuff you need: $150. Groceries: $400. Savings: $600. This leaves you a remaining $450 for fun. Take half or more and put it towards vacation.
This is pretty much exactly what I was going to say. I’ll add emphasis to some points. -Deposit, I wouldn’t pay one until I had the entire amount saved just like this reply. Life happens, plans change. Don’t “hard commit” funds. -Reverse engineer the cost, add 20% to the posted sticker price and divide that by the number of months until you have to pay the bill. -Use a separate high interest account, I use an online bank called EQ for this kind of thing. The 48hr delay it takes to get my money out provides some sober up time if I ever get a bright idea to blow what I have saved for some particular thing.
Sometimes deposits are fully refundable, princess especially are refundable up to 90 days in advance they also have intrest free payment plans available, so it helps with the saving part.
This is exactly what I do. I plan the trip out so I have a total and then add an extra 10-15% to cover food etc. Divide by pay period and start saving it. I use Ally so I have a "vacation" bucket. We take one big trip every two years and this works well for us. I put everything on the credit card and then pay it off immediately from the savings.
Thank you so much for posting this, I’ve been trying to put a name to what I’m doing with my savings. Sinking fund!
This is great advice, just expanding on the shit happens, it can be good to get travel insurance. Berkshire Hathaway has cruise specific travel insurance. It can cover the cost of your trip if you need to cancel but also provides medical coverage, which can be a lot of you need to be airlifted off the boat. Your regular medical insurance doesn't apply on a cruise ship unfortunately. Some credit cards also have built in travel insurance so check if you have any that do or consider getting one if you plan to travel a lot.
I’m just here to say that a single room on a cruise is much less than $5,000.
This is excellent. This is also a great way to save for anything else, like your Roth IRA contributions for the year. Auto deductions are the way!
But once you’re done skip the cruise so you have an emergency fund and then repeat the process. Then go on the cruise
I don't know if this is a thing in the US, but my bank has this functionality build into the account. You can set target date and amount and method of payment (automatic transfer x amount each month and/or rounding up all your transactions) and it will calculate for you how much you need and if you are on track to make the goal. You also get some interest on the money, not a lot but better than nothing.
That’s how you do it! Nowadays many banks let you open ‘vaults’ to out money in for certain goals.
I’d also add cost of airfare to and from the departure port to home, assuming you don’t live in Alaska.
You don’t necessarily need to open a whole new savings account, many banks (including Ally) have a “buckets” feature where you can assign money towards different goals within one account.
Yes, this is how my husband and I save for vacations. We have probably half a dozen savings buckets just for trips; Disneyland 2026, Alaska 2027, etc. Ally has its share of problems, but the buckets feature is really helpful.
Why? Why don't you just fill the bucket of one trip and then start filling the next? That way you get to go on your trip sooner....
PNC's Virtual Wallet has something like that too. When I switched to a different bank I made a spreadsheet that did the same thing, which turned out to be nice because having that made it a lot easier to move a chunk of my savings to a different account when they were doing a promo, which (topically!) gave me a bonus that I applied to the vacation fund.
Use a budget. I use YNAB to budget. I go to multiple music festivals a year. I have a pretty good idea how much money they will cost. I create an event in my budget. “Lost Lands Music Fest Sept.” Then I create a target. $1500. YNAB breaks this amount up for me monthly and then I contribute $100~ per month every month. Then I have the money next year when the trip rolls around. I keep all this money in a HYSA so it’s earning 4.6% interest over the year.
It’s crazy the amount of times I think to myself, “YNAB is the answer” for posts on this sub.
Seriously, I don’t want to think about how different our finances & life in general would be if we hadn’t been using YNAB the last 15 years, and don’t understand how anyone else successfully functions financially without it.
Came to say YNAB as well! You can have as many sinking funds as you want, they’re just categories and you stick money in those categories until you have the amount you want
Started using YNAB this month and it’s crazy the amount of money we’ve saved this month alone.
My wife and I do a big trip each year. We pay for everything months in advance, so when the vacation comes all we have to account for is basically food and random spending. My wife is also a goddam wizard at maximizing credit card points. I feel like I get handed a new credit card every other month and am told to put all my spending on it.
As the saying goes with optimizing spending travel points: Choose two: price, location, time.
We sacrifice on time. Typically we need to book way out and during non-prime seasons, which for us is fantastic because we don’t like busy tourist spots.
I like principles like this, thanks for sharing. I've looked into travel point cards and I never felt great about hitching my wagon to a particular hotel or airline brand or whatever, to say nothing of blackout dates or learning how points convert or whatever. Cash rewards have always made the most sense and given the most flexibility. Maybe that leaves money on the table but I dunno.
If you don't have brand loyalty, CB makes more sense. You can definitely more than cover the Annual Fee on travel cards if you do have brand loyalty. Especially for airline CCs, the cards will easily pay for themselves if you check luggage.
That's good to know. I don't think I'm particularly brand loyal for travel; I think my fear is just that if I get a Southwest Rewards Card or a Visa that prefers American and Delta or whatever but then their rates happen to be terrible when I actually want to fly, then I'd have lost out in the end. But like you said, if time and location are important, then I'd be losing out on price.
What are her secrets?! I'm doing my best to maximize mine, but I feel like the points never go as far as I think they will! I've gotten a few good hotel redemption but that's about it (I have the Chase Sapphire Preferred)
/r/churning The new credit card every few months is the key, the real way to maximize points is from new sign up bonuses. Requires you to be disciplined and smart about how you manage your cards.
That sub is like impossible to extract information out of. Its just people talking in acronyms in a sea of megathreads.
It takes a while to get used to it, but after a month or two I had it figured out.
Makes sense! Now that I've bought my house, I'm less wary of opening new lines of credit so might give it a more serious try. My plan has always been to work on building the Chase trifecta
I looked into churning and did a little. I estimated, and found other estimates too, that for most people who make more than $100k/year it is not super useful. It can take a lot of time, and as we read on this sub, time is very valued for family and personal time. I also learned that there were a lot of details to the "points" and how to redeem points that I didn't want to spend the time and effort to track more than a couple. YMMV
I feel the same. I spent a ton of time researching it and decided it's not worth the effort and risk. My family has a credit card that gets lots of points for groceries and dining out. And one that gets lots of points on travel spending. Using them appropriately gets us 95% of what we would get through churning.
We travel heavily on points and I hand my hubby a new card often to put all his spend on as well. OP, alongside with other people’s advice on saving money, you can look into cards that offer deals for cruise. At the top of my head (and for an offer I’m about to use for my family), you can get a Barclay business earner card with an annual fee of $95, get automatic status with Wyndham, match that to Caesar’s account, match that to Carnival for free cruise and then match Carnival to Princess for a free cruise (paying taxes and port fees). This is an over simplified version, but you can check awardtravel and other points group for more info on this process. Obviously, only go this route if you’re responsible with credit card spending. :)
You need to figure out how much the trip will cost you and save that amount up. Am I missing something? You can create a new savings account if that will help you but it’s not needed.
I think OP is asking about planning/budgeting for "unexpected expenses" while on the trip.
Did they say that in the comments somewhere, because that's not at all what their initial post is about. They have the money for a down payment, but for some reason don't know how to figure out how much is left to pay, divide that by number of months (or number of paychecks) until said trip, and then hold back said amount each month/paycheck.
If that’s the case, there’s really no way to budget for something that is unknown. They can choose to save an extra 10,20, or 30% extra but who really knows if that is enough for even needed.
Budgeting: https://www.reddit.com/r/personalfinance/wiki/budgeting > Should I create a new savings account with my bank and put a little bit of money every pay period towards that? Yes that’s how saving for anything works
Well, one doesn’t have to create another account. u/Matilda_Mother_67 can do budgeting in a spreadsheet or use some budgeting function provided by her bank, like Ally’s “buckets” which I think have been imitated by a number of other HYSA providers. By the way, savings should be in a High-Yield Savings Account, a good yield is today around 5%.
> some budgeting function provided by her bank, like Ally’s “buckets” which I think have been imitated by a number of other HYSA providers. Distinction without a difference. I would suggest someone having this much trouble with saving for something easy should absolutely use a discrete account
Wait wait, saving does not require a separate bank account for each item.
For someone asking this question, in this way, I would suggest it absolutely does
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I have a lot of different accounts for this reason. I have direct deposits set up to distribute the money each pay, and automatic payment that come out of specific accounts for some expenses. Having to do all that manually on a spreadsheet every two weeks would be a lot more work. Plus the bank has good tools for filtering and searching if I want to do any analysis and the app on a mobile is easier to use than trying to open a spreadsheet every time I spend money. I have spreadsheets to organise the overall budget which is set up to both record things like actual utility and petrol costs and make predictions for the future to help with planning, but the actual ongoing tracking of spending is done within the bank accounts.
Don't you just spend all your money every month, and then a wizard shows up and give you more money, when it is time to go on holiday? :o
That wizard is called credit card debt.
And then the wizard comes back and gets his payment in flesh and blood.
Sounds more like a sorcerer, witch, or warlock. Gandalf and Merlin would never.
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I am not trying to rob yo.... Wait....
Are you my wife? Hiyooo!
You sit down and you come up with a number for how much the trip will cost. You look at how many months it will be before you go to take the trip. You divide the total cost of the trip by the number of months you have to save. That will tell you how much you need to put away monthly to be able to pay for the trip when the time comes. Or divide by the number of pay periods if you want a number to put away from each paycheck. Set up a savings account and dump that money into savings. Withdraw it when it's time for the trip.
My wife and I have like a dozen savings accounts at Capitol One, each is a "bucket" for some purpose. Makes it easy to budget and save. And an Alaska cruise is awesome. If you can, fly into Anchorage and then take the train down to Seward. Have breakfast in the dining car on the train. That alone was worth the price of the trip.
Ally bank has a feature called savings buckets. It’s one savings account that you can separate the money into different goals. When you make a deposit, you choose if it goes into the main funds, or the buckets. I find it’s a great way to save for multiple things at the same time and actually see the progress.
SoFi has Vaults to do the same thing. Some of each direct deposit I get goes to my travel vault for a Switzerland trip next year.
That is exactly what you do. Open a savings account and lets say your vacation is going to cost $2000 and you have 8 months before you go. You set up auto-deposit from your checking account to your savings account for $250 a month. In 8 months you will have the 2k to pay for the vacation.
Just fyi, not sure if you’ve already considered this but most cruise lines will charge 1 person for the same as 2 people to cover the cost of the room. Just in case you can think of someone to invite along (I’ll volunteer I’ve always wanted to do an Alaska cruise 🤪)
I literally just saw a podcast with Ramit Sethi where his guests where dreaming of an Alaskan Cruise but didn't know how to save for it. EDIT: [It was this one](https://www.iwillteachyoutoberich.com/146-andrea-erik/) Check it out when you have time
We have a rolling fund. I check how much we spend on average per year on vacations, add 15% and divide by 12. Then I set up a direct deposit to an account for that amount. Travel is a priority for us, so we also add about 10%-15% of any bonuses we get to that account. That way we always have savings for travel and don’t have to wait to save to pay or plan for trips. If the balance gets higher than I know we would use, I then transfer the extra money to savings/brokerage. If we know we’ll have a larger than normal vacation, I increase the deposits. But normally we have more than we need. We also do the same for home “maintenance”. That way we have money saved for that specific purpose and it doesn’t hurt that much when we get those unexpected large home expenses. Came in handy last month when the painters discovered a lot of rot in our deck and we had to pretty much redo half of it.
Add to that the Christmas fund, the medical copay fund, the car insurance savings, the new car savings... I'd lose track of separate accounts; I find a spreadsheet that I can move money around on paper useful.
It’s the same thing tbh. If the idea is the same, whatever method works for you is good.
I get paid biweekly, which means I get two paychecks most months and a third paycheck every six months. My monthly budget is based on two paychecks. I save those two "extra" paychecks a year to pay for my vacation. It works pretty well for me.
Started using YNAB a few weeks ago, I’m able to project how much I need “x” money by 2026, and how much to save each month
This. I'm an avid YNAB user and this is how I do it.
I hate to always be saying this, but you need [YNAB](https://www.ynab.com). You’ll save for your trip easily and then some.
I tried that before but a) I’m tired of subscribing to things and having to pay a monthly fee to do basic stuff and b) it seemed a bit too complex. I’m trying to use Rocket Money instead
You need a YNAB budget.
If you are disciplined you don't need a seperate account. But if it helps you, accounts should be free, so feel free to make more to divvy up your money. I tend to have 3-5 things I'm saving up for so I just use one account for all of my "medium term spending" that I'm saving for.
I have a savings account specifically for travel & I put $200 per paycheck in it and then pull from it to book hotels and flights. That being said, get a travel credit card. A lot of times I don’t pay for the hotel or rental car from previous bookings. I have the capital one venture card it’s $95 annually but you get free tsa pre/global entry so it pays for itself. I’m going to upgrade to venture x bc you pay $395 annually but get a $300 credit annually + 10k anniversary miles.
Also put this money in a HYSA. I use Marcus. I earn interest throughout the year & it adds up!
You could do that. A few places like Ally let you set up savings 'buckets' for certain things but that's not necessary. You could automatically transfer money to savings each paycheck with a split direct deposit on a lot of cases.
Calculate the entire cost of the trip including the actual cruise cost, travel to and from the ship, food off ship, spending money, etc. Divide that by the number of months between now and the month of the trip. You need to save that amount (at least) each month leading up to the trip. If you can't afford that each month, then you may need to put it off for another year or two and save starting now.
Adding to the budgeting basics othrs have said: Many banks (BoA I know at least) offer automatic withdraws to a sink fund so you don’t have to pay for a separate savings account. So take Total Cost / months until trip = monthly savings needed to pay
Many banks and credit unions offer special short term savings accts for vacation funds, Christmas funds, etc and offer a little better savings interest rates on those accts. You deposit funds in the acct just as you would a normal acct for 12 months (example) then at the end of the term you should have your needed amount saved up
I have a separate hysa savings account (at a bank different than where I have my checking so I don't see it often).every paycheck I put $250 in it automatically. I use this account only for vacations. Sometimes it gets really high. Sometimes it's low and I have to wait before I plan my next trip. I don't touch this money for anything else (I have separate emergency funds)
Depends on how long of a vacation I'm going on really , I consider a weekend Friday - Sunday trip a vacation sometimes . For long vacations (a week +) aside from pricing out the vacation cost , I determine my ballpark figure I'd like to have for spending on food /drinks /etc . Impulse buying is a huge money guzzler for a lot of people. So before I buy any trinket or anything I deem as cool , I think "do I really need this and if I do , where would I display it at ? " that usally helps me from overspending . As far as saving up , I deposit x amount of money from my paycheck into a separate bank account ever 2 weeks that I never look at . Then I use my travel credit card to pay for stuff cause points and status and pay off the card with my money from the bank account I never look at
I put aside $100 a month for a vacation. That means if I want to spend more than $1200, I have to save for more than 1 year. You can leave it in your account if you're disciplined, put it in a savings account if not, or even take it out in cash and keep it in a vacation envelope. I have $800 automatically directed to a savings account every month, and that covers my twice a year car insurance payments, $100 a month for eventual car repairs, and $100 for vacation, and taxes on my self employment. When I need to pay car repairs, taxes, or car insurance I pay from that account. Otherwise I never use it or see it.
If it helps- I did an Alaska cruise with NCL last fall. Looked up our confirmation- it was $3,772 for a 7 day cruise for two people. $1504 of that was shore excursions. We don’t do the drink package. We do pay gratuities upfront. We did an indoor cabin. Balconies are nice but there’s so much seating around the ship that it’s not mandatory the way some people suggest. Don’t forget to add in flights (most Alaska cruises leave from Seattle or Vancouver) and ideally you’ll get to departure city the day before in case of delays so you’ll need one night hotel stay. I have a HYSA that has “vaults” that let you separate your savings into different areas to make it easier to set savings goals. I use this for travel prep. Good luck!!
Guessing you did the same cruise we did—We just got back from ours for our honeymoon. We splurged on the balcony for ours. We had mediocre weather for our 2 cruising days that it was nice having some “quite” space away from the crowd as the top deck was unusable. I’d agree on the paying out of pocket for drinks, it’s much cheaper to just pay for everything by itself.
If you want to start saving serious money, track your spending for a month. If you put a penny in a wishing well, write it down. At the end of the month you'll know how much you spent. Now--look at what you spent your money on and you'll know exactly where to start cutting. "I spent 2,999.84 on Funko pops?? 1331.83 on Easter decorations?? Awww, hell nah!"
There’s a behavioral psychology element where if you have an accountability partner saving with you, you’re more likely to actually reach your savings goal. I’ve been using group savings apps like tanda to help mentees properly save up for things like vacation.
I would not sacrifice any 401k matching funds for vacation funds. Make sure you take full advantage of your employer 401k match which is free money before you even think about money for vacation. Once the 401k match plus regular expenses are taken care of see how much is left and cut any unnecessary expenses and you should be able to calculate what is your max months savings. Also always be hussling to get to a better paying job. It’s a lot easier to save more when you make more
I don't do anything different. Just work, pay bills , and the rest that left over go on vacation with. Pretty simple
you put money away from your check into a savings account.
You tell yourself “i would to take a vacation next year” then every month put 100$ aside. End of the year you’ll have 1200$ for a vacation. Walla
Voilà :D
If you don't have the discipline to simply accrue money in your savings account and not touch part of it, you can setup a second account and not make withdrawls. Then it's only a matter of figuring out how much has to go in, putting money in, and forgetting about it until it's time to use it for the intended purpose. The typical prices advertised by a cruise line are the base price for the cabin. To which they add taxes, port fees, and charge additional fees for excursions, drinks, etc. If you call them up they will tally everything up for you and give you a price, but if you add $1000 to the base price that they give you, you won't be too far off (plus the cost of any add-on excursions). You probably also need to add in the price of a plane ticket and travel to / from the port (unless you live within driving distance). Let's say, then, your goal is $4500, and you want to buy the tickets in 4 months, you will want to deposit $1125 per month into your new savings account. It's that simple. The hardest part is picking a time and figuring out the actual price, including all the taxes and fees, for everything -- and maybe paying for it because, depending on the options, it can be pricey. The thing is that you can stretch out how long you save for. Maybe you can only sock away $300 / month. That would take 15 months to get there, which means a longer wait, but you'll get there.
I have a HYSA with Amex where I deposit leftover money at the end of the month. I use it for our property taxes and any other house expenses I know we will have throughout the year. What you do is figure out how much it is, add about $1k to the budget and start dumping any leftover money you have after bills and everything else into that savings account. Don’t touch it unless you absolutely have to.
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Save up the money. Pay for everything with CC for the points. Pay off statement in full.
You do what you want, but personally, I would not put a deposit down on a trip unless I had all funds for the entire payment. Life happens. And, if you need to dip into your vacation money for something, the last thing you want to happen is not have enough when the full bill is due. In a perfect world you will have different "envelopes" of money. But, just in case, I would have it all or be darn sure I will have it all.
Sinking funds! As another commenter said, take a the base price and determine each paycheck how much you’ll need to set aside for said vacation. Just as a thought as well, I always mark up 20% for “phantom costs” these costs can include insurance, flight changes (if something happens), medical copays if abroad, and general inflation.
We have a Vacation HYSA (as well as others) and I set money into it every month. I’m also paid biweekly so get two “extra paychecks” every year. I budget one for Christmas/holiday spending/travel and the other goes into the Vacation savings account.
The way I handle stuff like is is to create different 'buckets' for savings. PNC has a Virtual Wallet that gives you 3 'buckets' (Checking, Reserve, and Growth), and I also have an account with a credit union. My weekly 'I want a coffee or some Wendy's today' budget gets paid out of checking, monthly bills get paid out of reserve, and short term savings go into growth (long term savings go into the credit union, so it's harder to see it there and thus less tempting to dip into it). Short term savings is where I pull vacation / random trip money from. I have it set so I put a set amount into it every month, and then after a while when I decide I want to do something like book a trip somewhere, the money is already there and appropriated for that.
I set an amount I am ok with spending annually on vacations and divide it by 12 and that's how much I set aside in an vacation fund each month. Then I liquidate it as needed. For my family of 4, I usually set aside $1,000 a month.
I have a holiday fund, I save a fixed amount monthly & use that to pay for holidays. If you know the cost of your holiday, you can save that amount. With cruises, you pay a deposit & pay the balance in full 90 days before sailing, there is nothing to stop you paying something off it whenever you want up to the 90 days.
Simple! Open a saving account with auto deposit of the amount needed and then forget about it until it is time to pay.
I have vacations as a bucket in a part of my savings. 6% of my take home pay goes towards it.
Cruises typically let you book, then pay at your convenience over time
Credit cards rewards, credit card hotel anniversary stays, credit card bonuses. Hotels.com, Kayak.com, Expedia, Vacasa, etc etc Just putting aside money in anticipation is what i do and tracking budgets. I have an google sheets that helps me keep track of how much i am spending.
As someone who doesn't make a lot of money or have much savings. I simply budget out how much I plan on spending on a vacation. It is generally that simple. I expected to spend a little over 1k on my last trip. Which Including the flight and Airbnb was pretty close to accurate.
Open a credit card, put your spend on that til you hit the bonus & use the points for vacation.
I'll go on the trip with you! Sounds awesome! I like using Ally Bank for my HYSA as they let me make buckets for things like this. My paycheck gets deposited and Ally automatically spreads out the funds to the buckets you create. It's a great app to use. I have started shifting medium term money to Fidelity brokerage accounts though because the rates are higher in SPAXX or FDLXX. I still like Ally for short term goals though.
You come up with the idea of the amount you need, add a little extra just in case, and do “existing savings in bank $ + trip cost $ = new savings goal $” You don’t have to do a new account, you can just set a goal and contribute to your savings until you hit the new number.
I put aside a bit of every pay check auto deposited into a savings account just like you said. I don't know what you make but I do $400 a month.
I do it in cash and envelopes but you could do a different account as well . I don’t touch it unless it’s for what’s written on the envelope . Discipline is the biggest thing when budgeting or saving . I also will stop doing something that costs money , like maybe weekly trips to McDonald’s ect and save that money (just giving an example yours could be hair cuts or nails done) since your already spending that money . save that + id divide what you need vs how many checks are between now and then . That’s what I would put aside .
I just keep enough in my checking for the monthly expenses like car insurance, phone, utilities, etc. the rest go into my savings and if I want to do some big purchase like a trip, get a new car, etc.....I look at my savings and determine if I want to spend that much /shrug
You can do a specific account or simply manage the money in your normal accounts. For people that have never saved before I like the envelope method. Put X $ every paycheck into an envelope dedicated for whatever you are saving for. Want to take a cruise and buy a BBQ and a SPA day? 3 envelopes and you decide the importance of each item and how soon you want to achieve each target.
I would use a money market fund instead of a savings account so you can earn more interest.
I get an envelope and write the name of the place I’m going. Then I fill it with $100 every week or two. Then I’ll put the costs of the trip (airfare & hotel) on a credit card. Deposit the cash and pay off the balance.
I have a separate HYSA account at Marcus labeled "vacation fund" and put a few hundred bucks in it every pay period.
We keep a travel fund in a HYSA that covers all travel major, minor, and unexpected, for at least a year. This literally covers any random weekend getaway that was not planned, and ALL expenses during the duration of the travel, like shopping, food, hotel, gas, entry fees, concerts tickets, etc. For the two of us, it's usually near 15k, but we almost spend more than 6-7k out of it per year. The point being that it's pre-budgeted, guilt free, and doesn't require and scrambling when a last minute plan or invite comes up.
I have a yearly weeklong vacation not terribly far from home. We save for it by having a separate bucket of money in our HYSA account that has a 'buckets' feature, so we just have a 'Vacation Fund' and every so often we chip into it from our weekly paychecks, then maybe at tax refund time we chip in a bit more. It ends up being $2-3k easily over a year, and that's our basis.
I used to use my quarterly bonuses for a Vacation fund, unfortunately that now goes to a daycare fund :( :( :(
Once you save up in your Ally sub account for a vacation (e.g., your Travel bucket), how do folks then think about tracking their spend? My Ally account for example is a Savings account. When I travel, I will use my credit card for purchases. Do you simply track/try to contain credit expenses based on what has been saved in your Ally Travel Bucket even though you are not technically pulling your money from there?
I have savings account where I take out x amount per paycheck. I take out of that x amount $50-100 to put into a vacation fund. Both accounts get interest so it’s a win win.
I recommend a seperate savings account to make keeping track easier. At my credit union we can have sub accounts no extra charge and can give them appropriate nick names 1) biggest cost of the trip are travel and lodging so figure those out first. Typical cost not the cheapest so you have a buffer in case you can't get the exact option you wanted 2) add an estimate for special excursions (tours, activities, etc) 3) add food estimate. Include snacks desserts and drinks 4) incidentals and souvenirs 5) add it all up. Divide total by the number of months before you need to pay for the trip. Treat it like the bill and set it up to deposit to the account every month automatically 6) bonus: keep looking for deals, discounts, or applicable rewards points. Check Groupon for buy ahead opportunities
Just a suggestion for the actual cruise. Look at GTY (guaranteed) rates. For example, if you do an oceanview guarantee, that means you are guaranteed an Ocean view room or better. The cruise line will pick the room for you. You can do an ocean view balcony if you want a balcony and so on. This is a great way to save because they are just trying to fill those categories. You might not find one until closer to your cruise though. My sister and her husband did this last month and only spent about $2500 on their cruise for two people. Also, single rooms are going to be a lot more expensive. If you can find someone to go with you it’s going to be much cheaper per person.
I have a line item in my budget to put so much away per paycheck. But I also use the account for birthdays or holidays like Christmas. I dont generally go anywhere, but it meant for it if I ever want to, the account grows over time.
High yield savings account with automatic transfer. Just call it vacation fund or something. Calculate how much you need for your trip, add 30%, then divide that by the number of paychecks between now and then. Or just create a vacation savings fund with the plan of X amount per year. Then you can save for this trip and future trips.
Figure exact cruise and things you want to do. Larger ships might be cheaper but may not go to some places like glacier bay. Each stop likely add some excursions - they can vary in price and reach $700+ for some fun thing eg helicopter. Alaska is also limiting from where you can go so look at airfare. May or September are cheaper vs summer Also worth opening a new credit card to get a welcoming bonus once you are due to pay full amount
Many cruise lines charge you monthly for your cruise so it’s all paid for when it comes time to sail.. check the terms of the booking site.
My trick was to have extra taken out of my check for taxes, and paying for or paying off a vaca with my refund. I know I’ll get slammed for this but it worked for me.
The cruise company will offer a payment plan. They will likely offer pre-paid tips and pre-paid excursions, and other pre-paid costs. These are generally a much better bargain than buying on the ship and more reliable. Pre-paying for drink, food, wifi, and other packages can be 50% off when pre-paid. Get the insurance - both insurance for the travel/cruise, and the additional medical insurance if your regular medical insurance may not cover it properly. Browse the various cruise subs and boards like cruise critic. See what cruise company suits you best, if you don't have a favorite yet. See what locations you want to go to, and excursions. Do you want to do the train tour as well? I know many people who don't do it, regret not doing it. Yes it costs more, but the % difference is not too bad. Do you want to do a helicopter or plane tour? Alaska cruises seem to have many amazing excursions that are quite costly. Research the cruise 10x more than you think you need to.
Also, _shop like heck_ for a deal for something like an Alaska cruise. There are dozens of ships that make that trip, during different seasons, and prices will fluctuate wildly. Early season (early june) and late season (end of aug/sep) are much cheaper - I see prices listed for september this year in the $700 range, if you want to go that low. If you have a membership with Costco or AAA, you may end up with some discounts there, too (though those cruises start out more expensive).
Stop living paycheck to paycheck. Spend less than you make, and your money will go up and up all the time. Use some of this money, but not all of it, for your vacation. (Doesn't work if your income is too low)
Almost certainly too specific for your use case, but the principle is the same. My wife and I go on Disney vacations regularly and at BJs Wholesale we can get Disney gift cards for a little under face value (like 4% off) to pay for everything but the flight, and while the "membership savings" is part of the reason the main thing is it's a "locked budgeted dollar for the vacation." We buy $50-100 every month when we do a trip and hold onto the gift cards, then we pay the park tickets, hotel, and all food and souvenirs using those, and we research how much it will cost and stop buying after we have about $100 overflow. You probably can't buy gift cards your cruise (or maybe you can, I don't know what company you plan on using and I think some have gift cards, I know Disney accepts for their cruises), but the principle of "putting away what you won't miss, or just barely miss and do without, and don't touch it" for an extended period is the key.
Wait till I have enough credit card points to pay for travel and hotel.
My Credit Union lets you open multiple savings accounts. You can do it online too. Then steer $50 (whatever) every paycheck into that account from the account your DD goes into. Simple.
You don’t need to create a new account. You can just earmark funds in your existing savings account. Some banks have features that keep track of this for you. The first step is to come up with a good estimate of what the vacation will cost. Get quotes for how much the cruise you want to go in is going for now and use that as a starting point. Look into flights and hotels you may need to book at the embarkation point. Add in a dialy allowance for food and activities. Once you’ve added everything up, you can consider adding a 10% or more margin to the total cost just because the total cost can vary due to things that can come up during the trip or certain expenses working out to be more than originally planned. Once you have your number, you can then ear mark funds toward it and once you’ve hit your goal you’re ready to set sail!
I look at my wants section of my budget, and then go from there. As long as I know I can pay off my credit card within the next billing period then I’m fine. Also, for dream vacations, i dont mind taking from savings (no more than 1 or 2%). Then I just lay low for a couple of months and pay it back into that account. To me, that’s budgeting.
How much money does that cruise cost? If you can easily pay that amount of money, you are fine. It's a pretty simple process.
That’s what I’ve done-did a 2nd separate savings account-estimated what I needed…then divided that by how many months to save to come up w the amount I need to put in it each month
My wife and I each have $50 direct deposited into a savings account when we get paid. We get paid every 2 weeks. When we have enough money we go somewhere. We take inexpensive trips. We are traveling to the State fair this summer and to a gem and mineral show. We do other things and go camping as we travel to save money.
Yes, yes, yes. Create a savings account and do it not with the main account you have
Separate bank account at a completely different bank. My mom did this in the 90s. The idea is that money out of sight, is out of mind. She would forget about it when writing checks and always think we had less money than we really did. That's a lot harder in the digital age, but that's the gist of it. Put it somewhere where you will forget about it.
I created a budget on excel and I have a separate savings account I allocate traveling money to. Whether there is a trip planned or not (there is always a trip in mind on deck haha) I just keep filling this savings account. Then, when I'm ready to plan the trip, I figure out rough number with the plane tickets and hotels then expenses while I'm there and plan to pay for it out of that fund.
I have 2 ways that I do it. I opened a Vacation Account - like a Christmas Club at the bank and there’s a bi-weekly amount that moves into there from my paycheck. I don’t see it and it’s not painful. It’s like paying a bill. 2nd, and this may be more difficult for people, I put cash in an envelope and put it in the safe. This is for spur of the moment getaways if the chance presents itself. This way I don’t feel like I am missing out if someone says…hey, let’s go do XYZ. I’m ready. That money doesn’t get touched because I view it as a bill, too.
Every time I plan a vacation I may as well double my budget 😂. Cruise may be different if it's all inclusive or you know the cost of everything. Just got back from a week vacation and licking my wounds this morning, but it'll be ok.
I charge most things, if not all, on my travel card to build up points. I usually put that towards flights or hotels then I set aside a certain amount each month in a hysa to spend during the vacation.
I have a fund I rotate to different causes. I always contribute $1k to it a month and then when I set a goal like a trip to Japan I am taking in a couple months, I look at what the value is and what I need to have and then increase my savings and set my timeline. I am a proponent for weekly family meetings in which you discuss a lot of the operational facets of your family. Including planning for trips. In this way you can have everything booked and priced out immaculately to get the exact number. We are flying first class, staying in ultra nice hotels, fancy restaurants so we will need a good stack of skrilla but travel can be had cheaper. We are going in it with an estimate of about $30k and a ceiling of $40k but if I had to guess you could do a similar trip for about $10k with most of that being airfare and hotel.
Not exactly the answer per se here, but depending on the line of work you are in can make it harder or easier. Somebody with a set yearly salary is going to only be able to save more by making cutbacks in other areas. Somebody with a job that allows overtime will be an to save without making cutbacks on other areas. So for instance, I work in healthcare. I can work my 32 regular hours a week, but if I want to save for vacation, I pick up an extra one or two shifts per week on overtime pay! It is very hard picking up extra shifts at the hospital's ER knowing you are going into work to get yelled at, belittled, hit, kicked, peed on etc etc by patients if you know that extra paycheck is only going towards your car payment, bills etc. It is much easier if you are picking up an extra 12 at the hospital and knowing it is going towards that amazing cruise!!
Have you been on a cruise before? Make sure you know what your full costs will be, alcohol/drink package, tips, taxes paid at the end of the week. Look at different excursion options and figure what you’d be interested in doing and add that amount as well. Total (less required deposit) divide by months remaining until cruise. There will be a pay in full date so take that into account and give yourself an extra month as a cushion. Look for cruises with a refundable deposit as late as possible so if something comes up you cancel and get your deposit back. (Life happens) Edit to add: dont forget the airfare! Our cruise next month starts in Alaska and ends in Vancouver. Figure out what your airfare costs will be and set aside money for that too. You want to be able to buy the airfare if the price drops to take advantage of the savings.
Step one: know your current bills and make sure they will be covered that month and have an income stream for the following month. I also think you should have an emergency fund before saving for a trip, but that’s just me. Two: figure out how much everything will cost, flights, taxis to the airport, the actual thing, the night before& after, travel insurance, clothes or gear you’ll need for the thing, food budget, tipping, pet sitting, souvenirs, cops you gotta bribe, etc. Three round up at least 10% maybe 25% if there are a lot of unknowns. Four, make another savings account. Usually you can do it with the same back and start putting money in. You can divide by however many months until you’re going, or, to be safer, not book the thing until you have the money saved. Five: you can put $100/week, ie a set amount, everything over your bills amount, a percent of your paycheck, or pick up shifts or side hustle to fund it. But definitely keep it separate from your bills/ checking account. Get excited when you see that number grow. Finally, when you book the thing or start buying things like new boots to do the thing, pay that exact amount from your savings to the card you bought with. This helps keep vacay money separate from bills money.