Aka: How We Went to Paris and Made $2600
We make money traveling all the time. Seriously. We spent 10 days in Europe (the first overseas trip for our family) and we ended up having the whole trip paid for us and still some leftover cash in our pockets. $2,600 between both couples. When I mention this to people, I usually get a look of confusion followed by a “How is that even possible??!”. It’s crazy, I know. But it wasn’t crazy to make happen. In fact, it’s something you could do too.
So, how did we do it? Well a few things went into play to make this work out for us. You cannot always plan to make money by going on a trip (I wish I had the perfect formula for that!), what you can do is plan your trip in a way that stacks the deck in your favor. By doing this, we have made money on many vacations. Meaning we get to take more vacations, take bigger vacations, or cover groceries and gas for a while (hey, we might be dreamers but we’re realists too).
As with any other thing that we make or lose money from, making money traveling is merely an equation of two parts.
(The money that we gain) – (The money that we spend) = The price of the vacation
So there are two roads to think about when it comes to making money off a vacation.
- You can spend less on the vacation.
- You can gain back more.
You want to play off both of these sides in your favor to stack the deck in favor of making your money back, and maybe then some.
Number 1: Spending Less
Choose your trip with an open mind.
Many times when we go on vacation we don’t have a specific place in mind. Sometimes we don’t even have a specific time. My mom is always keeping a distant eye over prices and deals coming up so that when a killer deal comes up and we are able to arrange our schedules to go, we snatch that puppy up! That means that we are often traveling during the off season because prices (flights, places to stay, activities, etc) are cheaper then, this way you save more on everything. This is a hugely important key to stacking the trip-money-making deck in your favor because flights and lodging are usually by far the highest priced aspects to your vacation.
Remember, the less that you spend the easier it is to recoup the price later and make money back.
Prioritize the parts of your trip that are most important to you.
Are the activities most important to you? Then hit up the grocery store early on your trip and eat out less. Maybe the food is your priority for this trip (I mean, hello we were in Paris!), so stay further away from popular areas to save on lodging. Whatever is most important to you on this particular trip spend your money there. That way, when you cut back on the other stuff, you still have a full vacation experience. Not only does this help you put your money into the things that make your trip awesome but you get to spend less overall.
Number 2: Gain more
Bump flights
Remember where the most money for a vacation was spent? The flight. And it is the flight where you can get the most money back from. How you may ask? By bumping baby! While the idea of bumping may drive most people crazy, it is actually something that we volunteer to do all the time.
We have a post specifically about bumping flights and how to get the most out of them.
Make money off the things you leave behind
When you travel, you leave your two biggest assets behind. Your house and your car. And we often double pay for them on vacation because we also are paying for those things at our new destination as well. So let them make you some money!
There are so many great new websites where you can find people to rent these things safely for set periods of time.
For renting your home try sites like VRBO and Airbnb, for cars Turo.
Always be sure to check your rental and lease agreements for your home and car before listing them, as sometimes subleasing is not allowed. Also check with your insurance companies to see if rental is already covered in your policy or if the renters auto insurance covers it.
Timeshare presentations
Ok, I’ll be honest. We have nicknamed these “Timeshare Tortures” in our family. Timeshare presentations are where a large hotel brand offers you incentives to listen to a set presentation about their company and hotel in the hopes that you buy into their company.
We have a whole post about timeshares and what we like and don’t like about them. Spoiler: we do have a timeshare and may buy more, but we use it in very unconventional ways.
There are several reasons that we call them Timeshare Tortures. One, they ALWAYS take more time than they tell you they will. And keep in mind that you have to stay the entire time to receive the incentive. Two, they place pressure on you to buy a time share. Big pressure sometimes. Finally, it takes up time that you could be doing more fun things on your trip. Keep in mind that this is a generalization and some are really not that bad and have very kind and helpful people presenting.
But we have done them many times. And there are more times in the future I’m sure we will do it as well. Why? Because they give you awesome stuff. Show, amusement park and museum tickets, zip lining, horseback tours, 4 wheeling passes, dinner at fancy restaurants, and…cash.
(In fact, it saved us once in Mexico when an ATM machine ate our card and we had no more money left for a week of our trip!)
You just need to decide if what they are offering you is worth the ordeal to you, and let them know if it’s not. Most of the time they are authorized to give you more stuff to get you to participate in the presentation, so ask.
Consider ways to save and ways to gain so that it works for your family on each vacation. We hope that you can keep our “vacation equation” to help you have more or cooler vacations than you ever thought you could. We know we could have never done all the amazing things we have without it!
Anything we missed? Let us know because we are always wanting to learn more!
Prepping for our next adventure,
Kelli and Nichole
