The Surprise

I did my best to keep the destination under wraps all the way until the day of the actual trip. There were a few times when I wasn’t thinking and I almost let the destination slip off my tongue. Luckily, I was able to hold it in and upon arrival at the airport, I gave her one hint: I pulled a single bean out of my pocket and handed it to her. Since my wife had a few hunches of where we could be going, she was able to guess it pretty quickly: CHICAGO!

The Windy City

They don’t call it “The Windy City” for no reason. We left what would be 70 degree temperatures at home and traded them for a 40 degree day with 26 mph winds. Luckily, that was just on Friday and on Saturday it warmed up a little bit. But needless to say, it was windy and COLD! Despite the weather though, we had an absolute blast exploring the city.

We arrived Friday at about noon and headed to our hotel at the Hyatt Regency. Because our trip was going to be pretty short, I wanted to find a hotel that was pretty central, and I have to say, this one was perfect! And on top of that, we had the most amazing view from our hotel room, I mean check this out!

Pretty impressive right? It made leaving our hotel room a little bit tougher, but we managed.

The Food Scene

From our hotel room, we could spot a Giordano’s just across the street. I must admit, the pizza scene at Chicago was one of the things I was most excited for, and it was a pleasant surprise to see one of the most popular pizza places in the city just steps away from our hotel. Being hungry after our flight, we made our way straight there to get in on the deep dish action!

The deep dish did not disappoint at all. We ordered a fresh spinach deep dish, which was absolutely incredible. I loved their marinara sauce. It had a salty flavor to it that made it pop and taste incredible. It was very cheesy as well, which I’m usually not the biggest fan of, but in this case, it tasted amazing. If you ever go to Chicago, don’t miss out on a deep dish from Giordano’s or Lou Malnati’s (I would recommend the former, and my wife would recommend the latter. Both are incredible options though). And if you aren’t in the mood for pizza, try out the Signature Berry Bliss French Toast at Wildberry Cafe (which was also conveniently located just steps from our hotel).

What to Do for Quick Weekend Trip

Besides eating delicious food, we of course wanted to see as much of Chicago as we could as we could! Because we essentially only had a day and a half there, I tried to find activities that would maximize our time in the city. Once again, the location of the hotel was a game changer. It was about a 5 minute walk from Cloud Gate, which is also known as “The Bean” since it resembles a gigantic, reflective bean with amazing views of the city.

Besides being close to the bean, our hotel was also very close to a Architecture River Cruise (in fact, it was literally across the street/river). This is one activity I think is a must if you want to see Chicago and don’t have a lot of time. The tour itself took about 1.5 hours and it was super interesting and took you right through the heart of the city. A tour guide explains the various styles of the architecture you see throughout the city and gives some historical facts as well. It was really neat to be able to see so much of the city while relaxing on top of a boat.

Another thing we did that gave us great views of the city was visiting the 360 Chicago observation deck. Be warned, though, because the lines to get in can be quite long. If you buy the Chicago City Pass, you get to cut the line but take a look to see if the benefits of the pass outweigh the costs. We personally did not buy it, but then again, I didn’t research it much either.

The views from the observation deck are incredible! When you are in a big city, it’s a must-do to get a higher vantage point to oversee the city. Minus the long line, we really enjoyed the views. The walk to get to 360 Chicago was also pretty fun! It takes you into the heart of the city and there is a lot of shopping and cool churches in the area.

Experiences to Remember

Overall, this trip was a blast! Although it would’ve been awesome to have more time, we felt like we were still able to see and do so much in such a short time. It confirmed to us that gifting experiences can be so meaningful. We love to travel, and doing stuff like this creates memories that we will never forget. So when you are debating what to get loved ones in the future, consider gifting experiences! It doesn’t have to be a trip like this, but find something nearby that allows you to spend time with each other and do things you may not do otherwise! This will create awesome memories for the future and won’t be forgotten or lost with time as most gifts do.

Check out our video we made of our trip to Chicago! We love to make videos and plan on making many more in the future of our travels and activities around home! If you like the video, feel free to subscribe to our channel!

Traveling is the best, don’t you think? It’s a time to forget the stress of everyday life and experience something different. For us, it also gives us a chance to explore the world and have new experiences. But you know what else makes travel more enjoyable? When it isn’t putting a huge dent in your wallet. Recently, we got back from an amazing, week-long trip to Washington D.C. where we were able to do everything that I just described:  we explored, we experienced new things, we escaped regular routines, and we didn’t have to break the bank! Here is how we spent a week in Washington DC on under $300.

Saving Money While Traveling

To provide a little bit of context to our vacation, I recently graduated from college (finally!) and spent the entire summer working and studying for the CPA exams. Due to the taxing nature of studying (no pun intended), I wasn’t able to work as much so our income streams weren’t quite where we wanted and needed them to be, but I also knew that I would soon be starting to work full-time and my freedom to travel and do things would be restricted to a greater degree. So, I wanted to have one last getaway before that happened. However, because our income wasn’t in a spot to be able to spend a lot on travel, we had to find a way to travel on a budget— especially considering we had already done a big Italy trip earlier this summer. So here is how we cut costs and traveled on a budget for this trip!

Generous Family Members

First and foremost, I just have to say that we have awesome family members. Because of their hospitality, we were able to have a free place to stay, transportation, and food to eat during the duration of our stay. One draw to Washington DC for us was the fact that we had family that live about an hour outside of the city. They let us know that they were more than willing to house us and give us food whenever we were around.

We went into the trip thinking we needed to rent a car and buy groceries, but because of their hospitality, we didn’t have to do any of that! That helped us save A TON of money on this trip. They were nice enough to drop us off at the nearest metro station and even let us borrow their car one day when we wanted to drive down to Mount Vernon! They also had enough food for us to make sandwiches and pack snacks for the day so we didn’t have to eat out for every meal. Those two things alone saved us a few hundred dollars. Beyond that, most of the things we did were pretty reasonable in terms of price!

Southwest Companion Pass

For those who haven’t heard of the Southwest Companion Pass or don’t have one, it’s time to learn about it and get yourself one! It is probably one of the best travel hacks out there. We will post an article soon about how we got it, but to sum it up, our family of three was able to fly round-trip to Washington DC only having to pay the taxes and fees (which was about $22)! I’m a big believer that you make or break a trip’s budget on the flight, so being able to only spend $22 for a round-trip vacation across the country was pretty incredible and made our trip much more doable. Our flights were direct as well, so that was a double bonus!

The one downside to flying with Southwest is that there are no assigned seats and you are boarded based on different priority rankings. Luckily, because we were traveling with a baby, we were able to board after the A-list members so finding a row to ourselves wasn’t an issue at all.

Favorite Sites and Experiences

Now that you know how were were able to save money, let’s talk about what we did and what we loved about our trip! I have to say that we lucked out with the weather. We arrived in DC at the tail end of Hurricane Florence and although DC wasn’t hit directly by the storm, we expected to have at least a few rainy days. Luckily, there was only one day with rain and it was still very manageable. For the rest of the week, we enjoyed very mild weather that was probably about as perfect as you can get. That made things much more enjoyable, particularly since we were traveling with our daughter.

Museums

We aren’t necessarily big museum-goers but we there were a few museums we were excited to go see. Here are some of the museums we visited and our thoughts on each one!

Holocaust Museum

Based on some conversations I had with people, this wasn’t their first choice of museum due to the somber nature of it, but having previously lived in Germany and visiting actual concentration camps, we were pretty set on visiting it. It was a very sobering experience, particularly when they have you walk through a room where you are surrounded by the shoes of thousands of victims. This was probably the most powerful exhibit in the museum. The Holocaust Museum as a whole served as a good reminder that humans are capable of incomprehensible cruelty and that if we aren’t careful, history can repeat itself. It is definitely a museum people should experience at least once in their lifetime.

American History Museum

If you want a museum with lots of variety and odds and ends of American History, this is definitely the place to go! We rushed through it because there were only a few things that really drew our attention. The biggest draw for us was seeing the original Star Spangled Banner that was hung at Fort McHenry. Having visited the fort just a few days earlier, it was really neat to see the actual flag that inspired our national anthem. I was surprised how massive it was! Some other cool things that my wife and I enjoyed were the exhibits showing all of the First Ladies’ Inaugural Dresses and the hat that Abraham Lincoln wore on the night of his assassination.

National Archives

Seeing some of the founding documents of the USA was pretty incredible. Most of the Declaration of Independence was faded to the point of being unable to read any of it, but it was still amazing to think about the significance of what was in front of us. The Bill of Rights and the Constitution are also housed here so stopping by the National Archives is a must when going to DC!

Museum of Natural History

The Hope Diamond was super overrated. Sure, it’s a very valuable and gorgeous diamond, but I thought there were a lot of other gems and exhibits that were far more interesting. Maybe my unrealistic expectation of seeing a ginormous diamond ruined it for me, but when I saw the actual diamond I was pretty disappointed. Seeing actual mummies, fossils, and other rare gems, on the other hand, was absolutely fascinating!

Air and Space Museum at Dulles Airport

Based on recommendations from family members, we took a trip outside of the National Mall to the other Air and Space Museum at Dulles Airport. It was fantastic! You basically walk into this huge hangar where a wide variety of aircrafts from the beginning of aviation through modern space travel are housed. I loved seeing some of the first airplanes ever created. It truly is remarkable how far technology has advanced and this museum definitely highlights that.

Other amazing exhibits included an SR-71 Blackbird, which was a stealthy reconnaissance aircraft used during the Cold War. This thing was crazy fast. For reference, the average speed of a bullet is 1,700 miles per hour… This plane had a top speed of 2,200 MPH! Unreal. The most impressive exhibit, however, was the Discovery Shuttle. I have never seen a space shuttle in real life and it did not disappoint! If you are able to get outside of DC, go to the Air and Space Museum for sure!

Monuments and Other Sites

When it comes to vacationing and sightseeing, we are definitely more of a monument and historical sites type of family. Washington DC has tons of awesome monuments too! And better yet, a lot of them are fairly close together! Granted, walking to all of the monuments will definitely wear you out but it’s worth it! One of my favorite parts about the National Mall was seeing the impressive Washington Memorial just about anywhere you went. It stands alone and soars above any other building in DC. Apparently, no building in the city is allowed to be taller than the monument either!

Having recently gone to Italy, it was pretty cool to see the influence of Roman Architecture on a lot of the symbols of DC. The Capitol building’s dome is modeled after St. Peter’s Basilica and is very impressive! We were able to tour the Capitol and going inside of the dome was one of the coolest parts. The Jefferson Memorial is also modeled after the Pantheon, so there is lots of cool architecture in the city! Another cool example of architecture is the Lincoln Memorial. Although not modeled after Roman Architecture, it is modeled after the Parthenon in Athens, Greece. Pretty awesome! It took us a few days of being in DC before we got around to visiting the actual monuments and I have to say, the trip did not feel complete until we saw these monuments. That was by far my favorite part of DC!

Getting outside of DC was also incredibly fun and something we would definitely recommend. Our favorite site outside of the Mall was George Washington’s Mount Vernon. It was truly amazing! It was fun touring through Washington’s old residence. He basically had his own little village. The most amazing part was the scenery though. Mt. Vernon is perched on top of hill that overlooks the Potomac, and the view is stunning. If you get a chance to get out of the city, definitely go here!

Another day trip we took was to Baltimore where we went to Fort McHenry and visited the National Aquarium. Fort McHenry had a pretty powerful presentation that gave the background story of the battle and events that took place there that inspired our national anthem. At the end of the presentation, they play the anthem and lift up the screen, revealing windows that look out to the fort and you see the American flag waving in the distance in the middle of the fort. It was pretty awesome!

The aquarium was also very big and fun! I think Adelyn really enjoyed seeing all of the color fish! We even got to touch some jellyfish and see a dolphin show! I had heard from some coworkers that this aquarium was probably the best in the country and it definitely didn’t disappoint! There were a ton of exhibits with a huge variety of fish. The dolphin show was really fun and at one point, you walk down this spiral ramp where you are surrounded by sharks. Absolutely amazing! If you have kids, this is something they would really enjoy!

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Now, we understand that not every trip can be done for $300, particularly when going across the country. We lucked out that we had family living close to DC and that they were so accommodating. But what can be done is traveling on a budget! If you want to travel, then find creative ways to save money! Whether that is through travel hacking, staying with family and friends, or just being particular about what you spend your money on, you can find ways to travel for cheap! And if you are looking for somewhere fun to go and have never been to Washington DC, we would definitely recommend going!

PERSONAL

Name: Phil and Hannah Kirkeiner

Age: 25 & 21

Your home/airport location: We’re both from Fishers, IN, but currently live in Provo, UT. So our go-to airports are IND & SLC

Career/Source of regular income: I’ve sold pest control during the last two summers to pay for school and trips, and then Hannah works part-time during the school year performing at ComedySportz and ImprovBroadway which are improv comedy clubs in Provo. Besides that we make a few grand a year by taking advantage of bank account bonuses like the ones you can find on Bankbonus.co.

GENERAL TRAVEL

Why do you like to travel?

Travelling is awesome because (1) it motivates me to take action, (2) it’s exciting, and (3) the memories last longer.

I didn’t travel much outside of the Midwest growing up. So to think of California, Europe, Asia, Central America, as real places that I could actually get up and go see whenever I wanted was completely foreign to me. But then I served a mission in Honduras and I could not BELIEVE how different it was from everything I had experienced before! And then ever since I got home I looked at other places on the map and decided I could just GO if I wanted to. And I did, and have since been to loads of places by myself and now with my wife. So basically travelling is a constant reminder that nothing is stopping me from going where I want to go both literally and figuratively. Plus, when you travel with friends the memories last forever and the bond is a lot stronger than when you just hang out at home or in class. I love it.

Where have you been? What was your favorite vacation?

We recently wrapped up a 2 month trip to Europe which was an absolute dream! We travelled through 11 countries – Iceland, then Scotland, England, Spain, France, Switzerland, Germany, Liechtenstein, Austria, Slovenia, and finally Italy. We went this last summer from early July to late August after having worked hard the previous few months before.

We lived on a very modest budget, often in private rooms through Airbnb and hostels. Occasionally in more expensive places like Iceland we camped or slept in our rental car. This trip was unique in that we did not plan the whole thing out beforehand, we only planned about a week ahead of time. When we started out we had our flights to Europe and back booked with points but nothing in between was set besides our first night in Iceland and our rental car for that week.

Each place was unique but we especially liked Iceland, Menorca (one of the Balearic islands off Spain), and everywhere in Switzerland. In Iceland we rented a cheap car from Sixt and drove around the whole island. My word, the landscape is impressive. Like a dream. Then Menorca had the clearest, bluest beaches we’ve ever seen. Tucked in the Mediterranean, there were no big waves like you’d see against the Atlantic of Pacific. The beaches there weren’t what you’re used to, either. Each beach was part of a rock-walled cove that jutted inland about a hundred yards or so. It was so cool. Then Switzerland just is gorgeous everywhere, the Alps are blanketed green with beautiful, sharp rock peaks. We stayed in Switzerland for a total of about 10 days, it was the bomb.

That was the most recent trip which was awesome, but in the past we’ve gone to California for fun since it’s close to Utah, Arizona for weddings and whatnot, Costa Rica for our honeymoon, and I went back to Honduras just before we got married. I also did a study abroad in Spain a few years ago which was fun.

What vacations do you have planned? As of now we don’t really have anything set because we got pretty burnt out after Europe, haha. But we have a lot of Southwest points to redeem so next year we want to go to a lot of these places:

• Washington, DC (Hannah’s been a million times but I’ve never been, crazy right?)
• Boston
• Washington & Oregon (we are considering living there after Hannah graduates)
• Cancun, Mexico (we have some hotel rewards we want to redeem)
• Caribbean cruise out of Fort Lauderdale (hopefully whatever job after December graduation is flexible so I have is flexible so we can do that!)

We also go back to Indiana a few times per year to see family!

What’s your dream vacation?

My dream vacation is to island hop in the Pacific on a small plane, where I can scuba dive all over the place and stay in fancy hotels with loads of steak. Hannah’s dream vacation is to hike to base camp at Mount Everest.

TIPS

What advice would you give to people wanting to travel more?

We firmly believe that pretty much anyone can afford travel, regardless of your circumstances . The only difference between those who travel and those who don’t is their priorities. Just make it happen.

How do you afford your travel?

We work hard in the summers with sales to afford life’s necessities, and then get flights for free through credit card signup bonuses. We also use bank bonuses to fund experiences like boat rides and whatnot while were travelling.

What are some ways you’ve learned to save money while traveling?

Hannah actually wrote a little blog post about this on her blog.

Do you prefer to travel domestically or internationally?

Lately it’s seemed like we prefer international travel but there’s a ton to do here in the US. Next year we plan to spend a lot more time exploring our own country before going off to anywhere super crazy.

SPECIFICS

Do you have a favorite airline?

Southwest is our best friend for traveling in and around the U.S. We’ve collected enough points to earn the coveted “companion pass” which cuts the cost of every traveling in HALF because gets my wife on any flight I’m taking for free. We also love the flexibility that comes with booking with points because it allows us to book a flight months in advance on a whim when we get a trip idea, then if we get closer to the date and realize the trip isn’t gonna work out, we can cancel without any repercussions or fees.

Hotel or AirBnB?

AirBnB 100%. We like to travel as thrifty as possible so we love AirBnBs for their kitchens. The first thing we do when we get to our destination is find a grocery store and stock up on simple, easy, and cheap meals we can pack for the day and cook for dinner.

Rental car or public transportation?

We always end up getting a rental car for at least some of our trip. Public transportation is AWESOME, but sometimes it doesn’t cut it when you wanna go off and take a day trip to something out of the way of the city. Plus, when we get rental cars, we know we always have the option of sleeping in the back seat when money gets tight haha. And sometimes if you run the numbers, getting a rental car is cheaper than paying for two people’s public transport anyway (ESPECIALLY if you intend to use a lot of Ubers or Lyfts)

What’s your least favorite part about traveling?

It’s always so hard to openly complain about aspects of traveling because “how can you complain when you’re living the dream?!” That being said… traveling cheap is pretty uncomfortable sometimes. Carrying stuff with you, not ever feeling *really* satisfied after a meal, sleeping in hot rooms with no AC, worrying about your stuff being safe — it gets annoying after awhile. That said, it obviously doesn’t outweigh the rest of the experience!

What do you do in between traveling while waiting for your next trip?

Well we’re both students sooo a lot of homework haha. It always takes a week or so to get the travel itch back after a big adventure, but as soon as we’ve finally fallen back into some semblance of a stable routine we find ourselves planning our next trip. // Travel… haha we live in, arguably, the most beautiful state in the country so when we’re not jetting off to other states or countries, we’re exploring our own state.

MISCELLANEOUS

Tell us about your new website, www.bankbonus.co

It’s a pretty simple concept – banks want new customers so they incentive people with cash to open a checking account with them. Bankbonus.co helps people take advantage and make lots of free money.

What Bankbonus.co does is compile every checking account promotion in the country and allow you to search and filter through the promotions to find the easiest bonuses. Since opening a checking account doesn’t affect your credit like credit cards and other loans, you can open just about as many as you please. On average even college students can make around $3,000 per year by taking advantage.

I’d say the *total* amount of effort required to fulfill the requirements for each bonus is about one hour, so you come out making around $100 to $200 per hour depending on what’s available. I’ve been taking advantage of these bonuses for a few years so my friends and I thought we’d make it a little easier for people. Pretty nifty, check it out!

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I met Phil in college and learned about his new website there. It is such an awesome idea! Check it out and start earning some free money!

Hopefully this travel interview inspired you to travel more! If you or anyone you know are interested in being interviewed, leave us a comment or send us a message!

“By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail”

Benjamin Franklin

Before we dive in, let’s revisit the idea of financial independence. This may or may not be a phrase you are familiar with, but it is one that is a consistent theme in our blog. Financial independence means something different for everyone, but for my wife and me, it means having the flexibility to do what we want when we want. It means having our money work for us so we don’t have to trade our time for money our whole lives. It means freeing up our time to spend it more with family and less in the business world. Regardless of what financial independence means to you, it is going to take work. A lot of it. It is going to take learning, preparation, and dedication. But it helps to get a jump start of managing your money properly. This is why we’ve categorized four essential funds to help people create financial safety nets, build wealth, and enjoy life along the way.

So without further delay, here are the four essential funds you should start right now, in order of priority and importance!

Emergency Fund

If you don’t already have an emergency fund, this should be your first and only priority until you have at least $1,000 saved up for a rainy day. Just last year, life hit us pretty hard. We just incurred a bunch of  unexpected hospital bills relating to our daughter’s birth, then the catalytic converter in my car needed to be replaced, shortly thereafter my clutch started going out, and on top of that all, I had graduate tuition to pay for the upcoming semester. That was a lot of money in a short amount of time. Luckily, we had an emergency fund that helped soften the blow quite a bit.

Start making a conscious effort to put money aside until you build up that $1,000, then continue until that $1,000 becomes three months worth of living expenses. Life comes at you fast, but if you are prepared, it won’t be the end of the world.

Check out Casey’s article on 5 Reasons Why You Need an Emergency Fund Now for more tips and suggestions on building your emergency fund!

Investment Fund

Whenever I think of investing, I think of the parable of the talents found in Book of Matthew in the New Testament. The parable talks about a man who gave a certain amount of talents to his servants according to their abilities. To one he gave five, to another two, and to the last he gave just one. The man then traveled away for a season and came back to see what his servants had done with these talents. The servants who had received five and two talents both doubled their lots, but the servant who only had one remained with one. Why? Because he was scared and buried his talents.

Now, this can be interpreted many ways, but when it comes to investing, I view the talents as the money these servants had earned. They didn’t all earn equally, but they all had equal opportunities to double what they had earned. Although the servant with one talent could’ve done the same, he let his fears get the best of him and he buried his money away where it did him no good. I think it’s easy for us to have these same fears. “What if the stock market crashes again?” “What if I make a bad investment?” These are all legitimate concerns, but we would be foolish to only put our money in places where it is literally losing value due to inflation, like a savings account.  Or even worse, just live paycheck-to-paycheck because we we are too enticed by the newest gadgets that we forget to invest for the future.

Don’t just work for money, let your money work for you! Getting started with investing isn’t that hard and it makes all the difference. I love the thrill of investing and watching my money grow. Sometimes it loses value too, but that’s ok because the market always goes up. Wherever you are at now, start putting aside money from every paycheck. Eventually, work up to be able to put 15-20% into investments. You’ll be glad you did!

Check out this article on 6 Principles for Successful Investing and this article for why Vanguard is a great option to get started! And keep an eye out for our future posts about how to pick winning investments!

Fun Fund

Now that we have addressed the two most important funds for building financial flexibility and wealth, let’s focus on what we all actually want to put our money towards: DOING FUN STUFF!! While we are definitely proponents of making wise financial decisions and saving money, don’t forget that life is short. Have fun along the way! Set aside money from each paycheck to be able to go and do fun things you enjoy, that way you aren’t taking money away from other aspects of your finances to pursue our hobbies.

If your hobbies are inexpensive, all the power to you! I recently listened to a podcast where this individual talked about how all of his hobbies required an upfront investment that wasn’t necessarily cheap, but allowed him to have loads of free fun once that investment was made. Camping, mountain biking, photography, paddleboarding, and many other things are all great examples of this! And having a fun fund to utilize to make these investments can make all the difference in your path to becoming financially independent.

Vacation Fund

If you follow us, you know that we all love to travel. Sometimes I feel like I work to fund my travels. So building off the fun fund, don’t forget to plan and save for vacations! Vacationing is something that has really strengthened our marriage. We love to get out and experience the world. It seems like the minute we get back from a vacation, we are immediately wanting to figure out where to go next. One thing we are going to work on going forward is planning further ahead so we can more adequately save for these trips over longer periods of time. If I know we are going to have a trip in a year that costs $1,200, then I know that I need to save $100 a month until that time so that no money will come from any form of savings we have.

If traveling far away from home isn’t your thing or it’s not in the cards with your current financial situation, don’t forget the option of discovering your own backyard!

I fully plan on retiring some day. I plan on traveling the world with my wife once that’s the case. But we often talk about how life is short and you never know what your circumstances are going to be when, or even if, you get to that age. We want to have fun and experience the world along the way! That is why this is an essential fund we continually work on now!

Let’s recap! First, work on your emergency fund. The last thing you want is a car fix or an emergency hospital visit to break your bank account and leave you desperate. Once you feel comfortable with your emergency fund, start building your investment fund and work up to saving 15-20% and investing it somewhere where your money will work for you. Don’t stop investing in this fund until you are retired! All along the way of becoming financially independent, don’t forget to have fun and vacation! Set aside money to be able to do this without hurting your other financial goals.

With these funds in place, you will be living life and enjoying the journey to financial independence! Do you have any other funds you would add to this list? Let us know in the comments below.

Please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for more videos to come!

UPDATE (6-28-18):

Part 2: Wandering through the Vatican is now done! Check it out!

UPDATE (6-29-18):

Part 3: Weekend in Florence!

UPDATE (7-2-18):

Part 4: Hiking in the Cinque Terre

Enjoy

Final Budget-to-actual

Our original budget for the trip was $2,591.60 and we ended up landing at $2,652.46. I will note, however, that this amount is our best approximation of what we actually spent and is not 100% accurate. One thing that made it difficult is that quite often, we would get to a restaurant and one of us would pay for the group with cash, then for the next meal the other couple paid for us on the card to make up for it. This pattern continued the whole trip, so it was pretty difficult to track what the exact dollar amount was for food between all the cash and the cards. So keep that in mind as I continue.

Looking at results above, one of the biggest reasons we came in at about $61 over budget was due to a tourist tax we had kind of heard about before the trip, but did not take into account completely while budgeting. That was a rookie mistake on our part, but for future travelers to Rome, keep in mind that AirBnB’s will charge you a tourist tax that the city imposes on travelers for accommodations.  That was kind of a bummer, but luckily it didn’t set us back much.

Another reason was due to us being a little to optimistic about the cost of the AirBnB in Rome and the hotel in Newark. We could’ve gone cheaper if we wanted, but we would’ve sacrificed some benefits that ended up being more convenient and time-freeing than other options. Which we’re OK with, considering time and convenience are worth a lot on vacation.

Glancing at the rest of the bugdet-to-actual, a lot of the budget surpluses and deficits cancelled each other out. These items were things that generally occurred due to changes to our plans while in Italy (e.g. not paying to visit certain Duomo sites because they were fully booked and we couldn’t do it; or not needing a sim card after all because we found other ways of making it work, etc.)

Judge us how you will, but overall I’m pretty happy about where we landed. Sure, we spent more than we budgeted, but considering some of the things that came up and our overly-optimistic views of some expenses, the final result of a $61 deficit is something we can live with. But stopping there would not be a great budget review. Whenever my wife and I budget, we like to not only see what we did well on and what we could improve, but we also like to talk about what we learned that we can apply going forward. So let’s talk about the lessons we learned!

Lesson 1: Build flexibility into the budget

Anyone who has ever budgeted knows that it is pretty difficult to always be 100% accurate and on-target with a budget. This trip was no exception. It’s hard to know and plan for every little expense that comes up. You never know how much you will use public transportation while you are traveling, or how much the food will actually cost. In our case, we rarely used public transportation in Florence like expected cause the city was much more walkable than we expected. Also, most restaurants had a cover charge that we didn’t really know about ahead of time. Little things like that can throw your budget off really quick, and assuredly will.

This trip was just another testament that it is important to build in some kind of flexibility into your budget. You can do this by either over-estimating on expenses or creating a “flex account” for your budget. My wife and I try and do this for our personal budget so that way unplanned or unforeseen expenses don’t throw us off in any way.

Lesson 2: Be willing to pay for extra time and convenience

When we first planned for the trip, we were all about cutting costs and finding the cheapest available options. After some planning and especially after the trip, we realized that sometimes it’s worth it to pay more if it means freeing up time on your trip. When you only have a week or two on vacation, you want to be able to use every second you can doing the things you actually want to do. This means that you might want to pay a few extra bucks to get a train that goes from Rome to Florence without stopping instead of a cheaper option that has multiple stops. Or it might mean paying more for one AirBnB/hotel because it is closer to public transportation or the sites you want to see. Flights can be included in this conversation as well, but for us, we are trying to find a balance between traveling cheap and traveling conveniently. One day, we hope the cost won’t be an issue and we can spend more on flights. But until then, we are all about traveling on a budget!

Lesson 3: Budget first, then forget about it

This lesson applies more to vacations than it does for regular budgeting, but it is super important to budget before you leave on your trip, then once you arrive at your destination, FORGET ABOUT IT AND ENJOY YOUR TRIP! Now, I’m not saying to throw your plans out the window and go crazy with your spending, but don’t just sit there and worry about your budget. You are supposed to be on vacation after all! If you make a solid plan ahead of time, then you’ll know what things you should and shouldn’t do with your money on your trip. Flexibility, as already mentioned, is also important on the trip. For example, we had some nights when we splurged on dinner, and others when we found cheaper options. In the end, we knew it would all average out and it did, and we were pretty close to our estimate. If you have a plan, it is easier to know when to make concessions with your spending, and when to be more frugal without having to think about it too much.

Going forward, I think these 3 lessons will help us in our future budgets, particularly with our vacation splurges. We are so excited to start planning for the next trip! Hopefully, we can continue to find ways to save money while still making the most of our trips! We would love to hear from our readers about any ways you are able to strike a balance between being frugal and enjoying your trips. Comment below and share any ideas, thoughts, and experiences you have had! We are all learning together

What surprised You Most About Italy?

Casey: How friendly everyone was. Seriously, everyone was so nice! Another big thing was how big everything was. The buildings were way bigger than I had anticipated and the pictures didn’t do them justice.

Tara: Everything was SO BIG! I’ve seen pictures of the Colosseum, Trevi Fountain, statue of David and many of the other sites we visited, but actually being there and seeing them in person was amazing! I think I was also surprised with how easy it was to get around. We did a bit of planning beforehand, which was helpful, but taking the bus, trains and other public transit made getting around so much easier (and lessened our 7+ miles of walking per day a little).

Jacob: A lot of the sites that I had seen pictures/videos of a thousand times definitely did not disappoint and some even were way cooler in person. I had this slight fear that I was watching too many travel videos about Italy to the extent that actually going there would be very underwhelming. Luckily, it was even better than I expected! Like Casey mentioned, everything was just so huge and fascinating. Also, Italians love babies! Everywhere we went people were smiling and playing with the kids.

Carlee: Everyone loved our babies! And the babies got us to the front of a lot of lines After living in Germany for 18 months, I expected Italy to be similar, but Italy was very different.

What were some of your favorite sites in each of the Areas?

Rome

Casey: The Vatican City. The museum was amazing with so many cool things to see. The best part was Saint Peter’s basilica. I couldn’t believe how big that church was. I think I could have spent the entire day just in there.

Tara: I loved the Trevi Fountain (maybe inspired by my love of The Lizzie McGuire Movie? haha) and loved the Colosseum! The tour that we took inside the Colosseum was really cool, but I was blown away by walking around it as the sun went down and the lights illuminated the outside. It was one of those “I can’t believe I’m actually here” moments I’ll never forget.

Jacob: Seeing the Colosseum at dusk when it was all lit up was incredible. The Pantheon and Vatican City were also some of my favorite parts. It was just incredible to walk into the Pantheon and stare up at this ridiculously high dome and wonder how in the world people made this almost 2000 years ago. Similarly, St. Peter’s Basilica was unfathomably big on the inside.

Carlee: I can’t pick just one. I would say the Colosseum, Palentine Hill and Roman Forum.

Florence

Casey: The Duomo for sure. Just an incredible building.

Tara: I really enjoyed walking along the Arno river and the view of the Ponte Vecchio at sunset.

Jacob: Hands down the Duomo. The inside wasn’t quite as cool as you would expect, but considering how incredible the outside is, I suppose I can live with that. The view from Piazzale Michelangelo is also a must-see.

Carlee: The Duomo was amazing! Pictures do not do it justice! You can’t get the whole thing in one picture, and if you do it’s not close enough to see the incredible detail!

Cinque Terre

Casey: I really liked Monterroso al mare the most. That might have been partially due to the fact that it didn’t seem as crowded at the time. Plus, it was the only town with a somewhat sandy beach.

Tara: There is something magical about being on the water, so everything about the Cinque Terre was wonderful! I loved getting to go down to the beach and stick our feet in the ocean, especially after our long hike. It was so beautiful and I loved each of the towns we visited!

Jacob: How can I choose just one spot? Honestly, it was all so beautiful and amazing. I loved the crystal clear water and seeing the different towns. Each had its own unique feel to it. I really enjoyed hiking between Vernazza and Monterroso as well. The views were incredible.

Carlee: I think Vernazza was my favorite, but it’s so hard to choose! I loved hiking between two towns and getting away from the big cities and enjoying the fresh air!

What sites did you find Over/Underrated?

Casey: Underrated would probably be the Pantheon. I probably didn’t look into it as much as a should have, but the size of the building was incredible. Overrated was probably the Pitti Palace. It was cool, but not as interesting as I thought it would be.

Tara: I feel kind of bad for saying this, but I feel like the statue of David really didn’t live up to the hype, at least for me! I’m glad we went just for the fact of being able to say we did, but it was not my favorite.

Jacob:  (Underrated) The Theatre of Marcellus (Teatro di Marcello) was really awesome! It kind of had some architecture that reminded me of the Colosseum and ruins around it that were interesting. Also, the Baths of Caracalla (Terme di Caracalla) was worth going to and exploring. It had some really cool remains of ancient mosaics and it was fascinating to imagine that place in its glory days.  An overrated site for me would maybe be the Trevi Fountain. I mean, it was cool, don’t get me wrong, but it didn’t blow me away. Maybe that was due to the crowds, I don’t know.

Carlee: The David was cool and I’m glad we went, but it was really hyped up. People told me they cried when they saw it. I didn’t feel the same…

How much time would you recommend for each area?

Note: We spent 3.5 days in Rome, 1.5 in Florence, and 1.25 in the Cinque Terre.

Casey: I felt that we could have spent a lot more time in each area. We kept saying to each other that a month would have been nice. A full 2 weeks may have been the most ideal.   

Tara: Ten days sounded like a long trip, but I easily could have spent double the time! I think it depends on what your priorities are, such as nature, historical sites, etc,  and then putting more of your time there. I would have loved to have had a day or two more in the Cinque Terre to enjoy the ocean and scenery, and would have also loved an addition day or two in Rome to see more without being in such a rush!

Jacob: I would’ve loved another day in Rome, maybe even two. That being said, you can see quite a bit with 3 days, so it depends on what you want to do. I would’ve loved at least one more day in Florence and the Cinque Terre to be able to enjoy the areas a bit more.

Carlee: I feel like we could have easily spent more time in each area. With that said, I really like the percentage of time we spent in each place. I liked starting the trip in Rome, it was a lot more fast-paced and more to see and we each area we slowly took it easier.

What were your favorite gelato shops and flavors?

Casey: My favorite place was La Gelateria Romana in Rome. We discovered this place the last night and Iwish we had discovered it sooner. Nobody spoke English, so that’s how you know it’s good

Tara:  My favorite was also Gelateria Valentino in Rome, and I got an Oreo gelato that was so much more than just “cookies and cream.” It had little cookie pieces and fudge throughout it- my mouth is watering just thinking about it! I spent the rest of the trip trying to find something similar and never did, I would go back to Rome just for that gelato (;

Jacob: Near the Trevi Fountain, there was a place called Gelateria Valentino, and that place was spectacular. I got mint and strawberry, and both were mouthwatering good!

Carlee: I agree with Casey. It was soooo good! I asked the server for her favorite flavors. I got a cone with white chocolate on the inside and three flavors: chocolate/ coconut/ toasted almond (kind of like AlmondJoy), raspberry/ pineapple and cream on top. My go to flavors are strawberry, lemon, mint or coconut.

Favorite dish?

Casey: I had a really good mozzarella and prosciutto calzone at a place called That’s Amore in Rome. We found this on our second day and I couldn’t find anything similar.

Tara: I am totally with Jacob and Carlee in saying that the carbonara was my favorite! It was my go-to dinner on this trip and never disappointed! I also really enjoyed the pizza!

Jacob: Hmm, that’s tough. I would probably have to go with carbonara. I mean, I ordered it like 10 times, so I must’ve liked it, right? There was this restaurant a few blocks away from the Vatican (Borghiciana Pastificio Artigianale) that had homemade pasta and their carbonara was delicious!

Carlee: It’s a toss up between ravioli at Borghiciana Pastificio Artigianale and carbonara at a restaurant by the train station in Florence.

What are some good things to know before traveling to italy?

Casey: I think it’s good to know that you can get around in the big cities with public transportation pretty easily and for cheap.

Tara: I think it is smart to have somewhat of a plan, or at least know the places you want to visit so you make sure to fit them in! There is so much to see and do and the days just go so fast. Also know that multiple gelato stops a day is a MUST.

Jacob: A lot of people say this, and it is true: buy your tickets ahead of time for the big sites (e.g. Colosseum, Vatican City). We got the Rome Pass for the Colosseum and other sites and it was super nice to be able to go in a separate entrance and avoid any lines. Likewise, with the Vatican Museums we bought skip-the-line tickets on their website ahead of time and got to walk right past the long line of people waiting to get in (although a guide there mentioned we could’ve skipped the line with our babies alone… oh well).

Carlee: I wish I had learned a little more Italian before we left. Having a baby on me most of the time made people especially friendly and I wish I could have responded more than just smiling.

What is the biggest thing you learned about traveling with kids?

Casey: It’s not as bad as you would think. We braced ourselves for the worst and it really wasn’t bad at all.

Tara: It was not as stressful or hard as people had made it sound like it would be. A lot of people were shocked that we would even consider traveling internationally with a baby, but really it just made the trip so much more special! Our son also seemed to love being on the go, watching the world around him and spending time all together as a family and friends! That’s not to say he didn’t have his moments, but he is a baby and has “his moments” at home too. I think you just need to know your child and cater to them and what they can handle.

Jacob: Bringing kids changes the dynamic of the trip. Generally, you have to go a bit slower due to kids needing to nurse, be changed, etc. That being said, I enjoyed traveling with our daughter! It’s fun making memories as a family and it’s worth sacrificing the ability to travel at a faster pace.

Carlee: I loved spending so much time together as a whole family. I’m always with my baby, but I loved that Adelyn and I got to enjoy Jake being with us. Traveling with a baby is very doable.

What tips do you have to help prepare kids for long travel?

Casey: Get them used to having their schedule messed with beforehand. There were lots of times where we had to catch a flight or bus during normal “nap” time.

Tara: Practice practice practice! We carried Rhett on us the whole time, so before we left we made sure he spent a good amount of time in the carrier each day so it wasn’t a huge change.

Jacob: One thing Carlee and I did was to go on a lot of hikes with our daughter in some kind of carrier. This got us physically ready to carry her around and helped her get used to being on us for long periods of time.

Carlee: We tried to have a solid routine with a flexible schedule especially with bedtime. I also started putting our baby to bed an hour earlier each week for the last 4 weeks leading up to the trip.

What were the roughest moments with the kids?

Casey: Flying home was probably the worst for me. I was sick and Rhett started to get sick too. It was miserable.

Tara: This seems to be everyone’s answer, but the flights really were the hardest part. Something about being confined and sitting down after such a long day just set him off! Once we were actually in Italy and he would start to get tired or fussy, it was much easier to calm him. This is the biggest reason I would recommend getting as direct of flights as possible.

Jacob: Adelyn didn’t really sleep much on our first two flights. Finally, by the time we got on our final flight to Rome, she had fallen asleep. Unfortunately, the stewardess made us put a buckle around her and that jostled her awake. The next 30 minutes or so were h*ck. She was just screaming and would not relax. Fortunately, people around us didn’t seem bothered and we were also lucky enough to have an empty seat next to us that we laid her in. She ended up following asleep for the remainder of the flight, thank heavens!

Carlee: Ugh the flight from CA the NY was rough! Our baby just would not relax and sleep in our arms, but she did get used to that about halfway through the trip. The flights home were a lot better. It was also frustrating every time we sat down to eat, Adelyn would get frustrated. I would usually order my food first and then try to nurse her while we waited for our meal to come. This helped, but it was still tricky trying to eat and not let throw everything off the table.

In hindsight, what would you have done differently with the trip?

Casey: Extended our vacation by at least a couple of days. It would have been nice to take it easy a couple of days with the kids and to see more, especially in Rome

Tara: I would have flown more direct, saved us time and layovers. The long travel days were difficult on the babies and it would have been nice to not feel so dragged out.

Jacob:  Although 10 days was a lot, it didn’t feel long enough by the end of it, but that may just be the nature of traveling. I would also try and minimize the number of layovers we had both to and from Italy. I suppose that’s the price you sometimes have to pay when you try to travel as cheaply as possible, though.

Carlee: The long travel days were difficult. Having more direct flights would have saved us time (instead of money). However, I was so tired by the time we finally went to bed that I adjusted to the time change quickly.

Wrap-up

Hope you enjoyed our round table discussion about what our trip was like! Traveling to Italy really was such a blast, and bringing kids was awesome! If you are debating whether to go on a big trip like this with your child, JUST GO!! It was so worth it to make that memory with our little families.

Do you have any other questions about the trip or what it was like traveling with kids? Comment below!

Something to note before I go on…

We started this blog to be able to write about things we are passionate about, the two focuses being personal finance and travel. The more I think about it, the more I realize the reason why I want to be financially independent is not to have a bunch of money saved up in my bank account by the end of my life, but to be able to create meaningful experiences for my family and me that we can remember and cherish forever. So although I am passionate about personal finance, I’m more passionate about the idea of traveling the world and having amazing experiences!

But before I continue my rants about making your travel dreams happen, it is important to note that we at the Fund Family still have principles we recommend and are striving to live by. For a brush up, you can read the article we wrote about Steps to Wealth Building, but as a quick recap, we recommend to save, avoid debt, invest and give. So when we talk about travel, we want to make sure that we all remember not to let travel derail all of our goals! Sometimes we have to sacrifice for the long-term benefits of wealth building. But sacrificing doesn’t mean you can’t travel! That’s why Carlee wrote about Discovering Your Own Backyard recently. Take advantage of what is around you when you are unable to splurge on more extravagant trips, and if you keep living by sound financial principles, the opportunities to travel bigger will come!

Our First trip to Europe

A few years ago, I was just finishing up the most grueling semesters of my college experience and I was talking to one of classmates about my desire to travel to Germany and other surrounding countries with my wife. I explained to him how we were thinking about doing it, but weren’t sure how to make it work with the timing, money, etc. That’s when he told me: “Dude, just do it!” Simple, but powerful advice! He went on to talk about the time that he and his wife had, before kids, to travel and have other experiences was so awesome and important to their marriage. He said he wouldn’t have traded that for anything. That conversation we had was very motivating to me, so I went home to talk to my wife about it, unsure of whether she would agree. To my surprise, by the end of the conversation with her, we decided we were just going to do it, and a few days later we bought our plane tickets.

Prior to this, my wife and I had talked about it, but for whatever reason we were hesitant to make it happen. I’m not sure if it was fear, lack of belief that we could make it happen, or uncertainty of traveling when we were the ones in charge and not our parents. Regardless of what it was, we overcame it by making the steps to organize our first big trip together. Looking back, I have no regrets whatsoever! Those two weeks exploring Germany, Austria, the Czech Republic, and Denmark were some of the highlights of our early marriage. Never before had we had so much uninterrupted time together, and it did wonders for our marriage!

You think after a big trip like that, our wanderlust would’ve subsided for awhile. Not at all. In fact, as soon as we got back, we were already craving a return to Europe or some other exotic destination! Italy was towards the top of our list, and here we are about 2 years later about to go back on an epic adventure to Europe! We are so excited.

Don’t let life hold you back

Going to Italy was actually in the works for a while now. In fact, our original plan was to go a year ago… but then we had a baby and that plan was put on the back-burner. We weren’t sure after that when we would have the time, money, etc. to make another trip happen, especially with a baby. But not long after we had our baby, we decided we could make it work.

We also decided we were going to take our baby with us! I’d imagine for some, the idea of bringing an infant on an international trip seems quite daunting and crazy. I can also imagine that this holds a lot of people back from travel, and I can definitely understand that. We are only a few weeks away and there are definitely a few things we are nervous about (particularly the flight). That being said, there are always uncertainties and reasons not to do something you want to do. In the end, you can either make it work, or wait for a day when life is more convenient and it becomes easier to travel. For us, we don’t want to wait for that day, if it ever comes. That’s why we are just going to go for it and find a way to make it work!

How we are learning to make it work

We are still learning how to make travel work, especially while our family is still young and growing. Call me impatient, but I don’t want to wait until I’m retired or until my kids are out of the house to travel. I want to experience things along the way as well! Carlee and I are very driven to travel, even with our young family and future kids. We’ve often talked and wondered how our travel is going to evolve as our family grows, and that is TBD. But we don’t want life to escape us because we are just waiting for some future time when life makes it easier to travel. We want to be in control. So I want to share a few thoughts and ways that help us to make our travel dreams happen!

• Live after sound financial principles. As mentioned earlier, if you are living after the financial principles we are writing about, being able to travel becomes much easier. One of the big reasons why we are able to make our Italy trip happen is because we are debt free, we save money, and we seek to live within a budget. If any of these weren’t the case, traveling would be much more difficult and foolish.

• Decide what is important to you. We all have things that we spend money on unnecessarily. It can be clothes, eating out, video games, expensive electronics, etc. Regardless of what it is, you have to ask yourself what is most important to you. Would you rather buy the new iPhone or Android model each year it comes out, or go travel the world? If traveling is important to you, then exercise more discretion and restraint in your spending in other areas that aren’t necessities of life. If traveling isn’t important to you… then I’m not sure why you are still reading this article

• Inform yourself. Information is power. We spend a lot of time researching ways to travel inexpensively. I wrote a little bit about it in a prior blog post, so I won’t go into depth here, but knowing how to find good deals makes traveling easier. And if something like having young children is holding you back (like it almost did us), then do some research to figure out tips and tricks from people who have done it so you know what you can do to make traveling easier and possible! Hopefully after our next trip, we will have some good tips to share as well.

• Plan ahead. We are a little guilty of not planning far enough ahead for our traveling… That being said, what we plan on doing in the future is planning out our travel plans for big trips far in advance. We want to have time to save up for and prepare for these trips more fully. Being able to save for these trips so you don’t have to pull from savings makes trips far less stressful and it won’t derail you from your financial goals!

And for the final thought…

Just go!

If you are financially able, just make your travel dreams happen! Don’t let years pass you by without being able to experience things you’ve always wanted to experience. If you have the means necessary, then make the time to travel. If you don’t have the means, then make the time to get your finances in order so you can go experience the world! If you aren’t able to go now, don’t get distracted or discouraged by the endless Instagram and Facebook pages that show the travel highlights of the lucky few who get all of their travel paid for by sponsors. Shut those off, make a plan, and attack your plan to get your finances to where they need to be so that you can travel the world! In the meantime, discover your own backyard and create meaningful experiences that you will remember forever!

Don’t wait for life to happen. Make life happen!

What holds you back from traveling? What are you doing to overcome those barriers? Let us know in the comments below!

Italy has always been towards the top of my bucket list. There is something about ancient cities and sites that really appeal to me, so being able to see structures that are upwards of 2000 years old is going to be pretty amazing.

When it comes to traveling, we are mostly exposed to the highlights of peoples’ vacations: the photos, the videos, the stories, etc. But we don’t always know what kind of work goes into planning it. We in the Fund Family, however, like to keep it real. Which is why we are not only going to share the highlights, but also the behind-the-scenes planning that is going into this trip. Hopefully this will be enlightening to aspiring travelers as to how you can save money and make those dream vacations a realistic option. That being said, we are still learning! So if you have any tips and tricks that we don’t share, let us know in the comments below!

Trip Overview:

Before we get into the nitty-gritty, let’s talk about the background:

Date: Early May

Length: 10 days (including 2 travel days)

Cities to Visit: Rome, Florence, Cinque Terre

Flight Details:

Outbound: SLC > SFO > EWR (NYC) > FCO (Rome).

Inbound: FCO > EWR (NYC), JFK > LAX > SLC

Transportation in Italy: Public transit, trains, walking

Budget: ~$2,600

Planning the Trip

This trip has actually been in the works for over a year. We were originally planning on going to Italy last April-ish (2017), but then Carlee and I found out we were having a baby and we thought that it would be best if we didn’t spend all that money on a vacation and instead save it for the new baby. But the stars aligned, the idea never died, and here we are about a year later finally getting to go on that trip! We didn’t think we could make the trip this soon, but we’ve worked hard and have been very blessed to be in a situation to be able to go. It also helps to be finally graduating from my Masters Program, so now I have an excuse to go! We are also planning on bringing our babies with us, which is an exciting, but also a little nerve racking thought. A lot of our plans and ideas are being made with this in mind. Because we are traveling with kids, we may not be able to vacation quite as hard as we would otherwise. But that’s ok! Hopefully we will learn a lot from it and make some awesome family memories.

Budgeting for the Trip

To be honest, it bothers me when I see those YouTube videos or articles telling people they can travel the world for $500. Maybe some people are crazy good at planning and making things work, but for us normal people, that is more of a dream than a reality. Our original goal for this trip was to do it for less than $2,000, but as we started planning what we actually wanted to do and see, we realized that it was going to be tough to make that goal. We are pretty happy about being able to do a 10-day international trip for about $2,600. Like I mentioned earlier though, we are still learning, so we know we could do better than this! So if you know tips and tricks, please enlighten us all and let us know!

Here is our budget breakdown:

When it comes to budgeting, I usually try to overestimate slightly, because I’d rather be under the budget than over, and overestimating helps me to accomplish that. It’s hard to know, however, what all the costs will be exactly. Food and public transportation are hard to estimate, so we just tried to make our best guess. Most of the budget items for any vacation are very dependent upon what you actually want to do. If you are the type that loves to visit as many museums and sites as possible, your tourism costs may go up. If you are visiting as many cities as possible while in a foreign country (which we have done before), then your transportation costs will go up. So just make sure before you plan a trip that you know what you want to get out of it, and try to budget accordingly.

Ideas to Cut Costs of Your Trip

If you take a look at the summary, you will see that the two largest costs are transportation and AirBnBs. I would assume that for most travelers, this will be the case. Flights are by far the biggest part of our budget. This will bring us to our first travel tip: Find the right flights! You’ll either make or break your vacation budget on the flight. Our flights ended up costing slightly more than our budget, but only by about $20. But for us, being able to fly our wives, babies, and ourselves to Italy for under $830 was an accomplishment. Here are some ways we were able to do that:

Research, Research, Research

This part of traveling is probably a turn-off for most. Who likes to spend hours doing research? Well, in all honesty, I don’t mind research when it’s for vacationing! But I can understand why some may not enjoy this as much. It takes work to find the right flights and places to stay. As far as I know, there is no magic way of doing this quickly when you are seeking to cut costs. We used things like Google Flights or Momondo.com to help us find out what dates and airlines tend to be the cheapest. You can also try and google low-cost airlines to figure out which ones are not only the cheapest, but also offer the best routes to your desired destination. Spend some time researching. It may be long and difficult, but it can pay off big.

Pick The Right Airport

Flying out bigger hubs like LAX or JFK can save you a lot of money. It’s not always easy to get there though, and we understand that. But if you are able to drive to one of those airports or even find a cheap flight there, it can be easier to fly with low-cost airlines and save a lot of money. For our trip, we are flying out of Newark cause that is where we could find the cheapest flights to Rome with the airline we chose.

Time Your Vacation Right

We’ve learned that in general, it’s best to avoid June – August, as this tends to be high-travel season and flights and accommodations are generally more expensive. We are traveling in early May because that is when I’ll be out of school, and that is also when things were generally cheaper. Christmas time can also get more expensive, since a lot of people are traveling for the holidays. When you are doing research, it should become obvious pretty quickly which months are the cheapest, and which months you should avoid.

Take Advantage of Credit Card Rewards

A huge thanks here to our friends at wallstreetminimalist.com for helping us learn a little bit more about travel hacking. For those who aren’t familiar with travel hacking, it’s basically taking advantage of credit card reward systems to be able to travel really cheaply. Thanks to their tips, we were able to sign up for a credit card that was super easy to earn 60,000 miles with. We used those miles to get free round-trip tickets to NYC, where we were able to get pretty cheap flights to Rome. Had we just flown out of SLC, we probably would’ve spent much, much more on flights. If you don’t have much of a credit history, like my wife, then start working on that so you can qualify for things like this! If you and your spouse (for those who are married) are able to qualify for things like this, that can save you even more money than it saved us.

Pack Light

This can be tough, and we are interested to see how this goes with traveling with our baby, but if you can avoid checking bags, you can save hundreds of dollars. In fact, by choosing to do carryons only, I think we saved around $300. To make this work, it’s important to pick the right AirBnB or accommodations so that you can have some way of washing your clothes. This way, you can pack less. Packing less is nice for more than just the money though. The less you pack, the less you have to haul around going from city to city.

Looking Forward

Hopefully the nitty-gritty of the planning and budgeting didn’t bore you too much. If you are nerds like us, then you love this kind of stuff. I’m always trying to find ways to travel inexpensively and save money. I always wished that there were more comprehensive resources for finding the information on these kinds of things. It seems like I have to visit a 101 websites to find the right stuff. Hopefully we can help solve this problem as we continue to share our knowledge and experience with everybody!

So now we are about 7 weeks away from our trip. We have planned almost everything out, and most things are paid for. We are still finalizing a few trip details, but we will keep you posted on those for sure! Keep an eye out for our travel posts! We are excited to share more about the experiences when it actually happens, including tips for traveling with kids. Until then it’s the home stretch for me in school. I’ll be trying to focus on studying when all I can really think about is our trip to Italy!

Investing doesn’t have to be complicated and you don’t need any fancy degree or work experience to do it.  Anyone can be successful at it too! But to be successful, you need to understand some core principles behind investing. Below are 6 simple principles that will help anyone succeed when investing! Take a look and let us know if you have any additional principles you follow!

1. Start early 

The earlier you start investing, the more compounding interest will take effect and benefit you big time. Compounding interest, put simply, is interest earning more interest. As your interest earns interest, linear growth becomes exponential and suddenly the dollar you originally invested is worth much, much more.

For example, the graph below shows two different investors. One invested $10,000 (“Investor A”), the other $35,000 (“Investor B”), assuming a 10% annual growth rate. Can you guess which line is which?

If you guessed the blue line is Investor A, then you are absolutely right! How is this possible? By starting early, and letting compounding interest do its thing. In this example, Investor A put aside $1,000/year from age 21-30 and never put aside another dime. Investor B started investing at 31, also putting aside $1,000/year, and invested until he/she was 65. Investor A’s $10,000 investment was able to gain more momentum and capture the positive effects of compounding interest more than Investor B, who ended up investing more over a lifetime. This goes to show, we need to start early! (And really, we should be a mixture of the two investors by not only starting early, but continuing to invest the money throughout our lives, and not just for a few years.)

Ideally, we all should’ve started investing as kids, but if you are anything like me, you had no idea investing was a thing, let alone knew how to do it. But it’s not too late to start now, regardless of how old or young you are. Investor B may not be as well off as Investor A, but Investor B’s $35,000 still turned into almost $300,000! So wherever you are at in life, just start ASAP!

2. Diversify

Let me tell you a tale of two stocks from personal experience.

Stock 1:

I had known that I wanted to invest for a while now, but lack of know-how kept me from doing so. Finally, I had a friend kind of show me the ropes a little bit and I went for it. One of the first things I invested in was a stock of a company that I only knew because I knew and respected one of the VPs. I didn’t really know what the company actually did. At the time, the stock was trading for about $35/share and I bought around 11 shares. In the first month or two, things were great! My investment went up by $20 or so and it felt great. Then the volatility and reality of stocks showed its ugly face and over the next few months, the investment went from trading in the mid-$30s to a whomping low of about $12. I had seen my investment lose roughly 65% of its value in probably less than year. Yikes! It took another year or two just to break even, and at that time I cashed out as fast as I could.

Stock 2:

Fast forward a year or two from the investment in the first stock. I had learned a bit more about investing and had made better choices since then. One day, I happened to look into Apple’s stock and noticed that it had dropped to about $99 a share, when it had once traded for much more than that. I decided to jump on that and purchased a grand total of 1 share! But hey, I was a poor college student, so I couldn’t do much more. I held that stock for almost two years, and during that time I watched that stock go from $99 to about $176 when I finally sold it. That was awesome! Easiest money I’ve ever made.

So why do I tell these stories? Well, quite simply because I wouldn’t recommend investing in stocks at all. Sure, one experience was positive, but the other one was quite painful. Principle #2 is all about diversifying. What are we diversifying exactly? We aren’t just trying to diversify what we own, we are trying to diversify risk. Owning stock in a single company is by definition, the opposite of diversifying your risk. You are literally putting all your eggs in one basket, hoping that the basket doesn’t fail you. So if you decide you want to invest in stocks, keep this in mind.

In order to diversify risk, you want to own a variety of shares in companies that are in a variety of industries. This means, not investing all of your money in technology alone, but investing in utilities, consumer products, etc. The easiest way to diversify your risk is through mutual funds or ETFs that track indexes such as the S&P 500.  A little research can go a long way when it comes to diversifying risk. We will have future articles outlining how to do this research and try to make it as simple as possible!

Now, keep in mind there will always be some form of risk involved. But without risk, there is no reward. The key is being wise about the risks you take.

3. Seek low-fee investments

The last thing you want for your investments is to see a lot of value lost through high management fees or other expenses. This is why you want to find ETFs (exchange-traded funds) and Mutual Funds that have low management fees and expenses. Anytime you look up a ticker symbol of an ETF or Mutual Fund, it will tell you the fee rate. It doesn’t take a genius to know you want this number as low as possible.

ETFs that track an index (such as “SPY”) generally have very low expense rates that can be less than 0.1%. This is due to the fact that they are not actively managed by fund managers who are trying to outperform the market (and who usually fail to do so). A good rule of thumb is to try to find funds that have net expense ratios of 0.6% or less, but the lower you can get this, the less money you’ll lose on fees with your investment.

4. Avoid investment vehicles you don’t understand

If you read our Steps to Wealth Building article, you know we are fans of K.I.S.S. (keep it simple stupid), and the same applies here. Complicated investments are rarely worth it. Most of the time people are just taking advantage of others’ ignorance and making a fortune off of fees and commissions. Investing in the market as a whole is a simple way to invest and it’s proven to be a great long-term investment. You don’t need complicated. If you don’t understand the investment, chances are it’s not worth it.

5. Take advantage of employer matches on 401(k).

This is pretty simple: any employer match is an immediate return on investment. So take advantage of this! Our recommendation is to invest just enough in the 401(k) to receive the maximum match. The rest of your investment should target tax-advantaged instruments such as Roth IRAs.

6. Invest for the long-term

Remember, investing isn’t about right now, it isn’t about 5 years from now: it’s about the long-term! So try not to get too caught up in the natural volatility of the overall market. Things happen, prices change. But in the end, the market always goes up. Check out this graph of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) over the last 40 years.

GDP is a measure of overall economic and market health and the graph shows that is has always trended upward.  The gray bars that occur periodically are recessions and their respective lengths. You’ll notice that recessions seem to happen every 5 or 10 years. This can be scary for a lot of people wanting to invest. But this shouldn’t stop you from investing. Recessions happen, but if you keep your mind-set on the long-term, these recessions shouldn’t phase you. Invest, and let your investments sit. They will assuredly rise and fall, but in the end, the market always goes up.

The other big reason to invest for the long-term, is to take advantage of tax law. Any investment held over 1 year is no longer subject to your ordinary income tax rate, but will now be subject to a much more favorable capital gains tax rate once the investment is sold.

As the table shows, the capital gain rates are much more favorable than ordinary income tax rates. So make sure that when you invest, that you hold it longer than a year if possible! Keep more money in your pocket.

Recap

Let’s do a quick recap of our 6 principles for successful investing:

1. Start early
2. Diversify
3. Seek low-fee investments
4. Avoid investments you don’t understand
5. Take advantage of employer matches on 401(k)
6. Invest for the long-term

These are simple principles that will help you to become a wise investor. Look out for our future articles that will go more into detail about investment strategies, and investment research!

Are there any other principles you abide by when investing? Comment below!