Tag: saving money

Saving Money While Traveling

Whether you are traveling for work and getting per diem or traveling on a budget, here are some of my top tips.

For some background, I am totally qualified to give you these tips due to a job I had for about 5 years. I traveled for work and when I say travel, I mean I would fly out early on Monday morning and return home late Friday night and sometimes Sunday morning and repeat the next Monday. Yeah, I would be home sometimes less than 48 hours and I lived in airports.

  1. USE Rakuten. I’m not saying this to plug my referral link. Although, I greatly appreciate it. Rakuten (formally Ebates) is a great tool to get cash back when you online shop. When I traveled I stayed in IHG brand hotels and would often get up to 12-14% cash back on my stays. I would book my hotel and check back and cancel/rebook when the Rakuten cash back amount increased.
  2. Stay where you have continental breakfast. Holiday Inn Expresses were my spot. I knew their breakfast spread by heart.
    1. I would go grab their microwavable oatmeals and stash them in my room to take home.
    2. Bread. Peanut Butter packet. Jelly Packet. = cheap lunch
    3. Breakfast for dinner? Take breakfast foods to the room for a cheap meal later
  3. Go grocery shopping. I would make sure I had a mini fridge in my room. If a microwave wasn’t in the room, it was most likely in the lobby. Then I would by TV meals (Amy’s meals were a hit!).
  4. Buy packing cubes and have a uniform. I avoided checking a bag. This will save you time and money.
  5. AirBnb/VRBO for expensive cities. I would get per diem if my lodging was under a set amount. Cities that are expensive (LA and Hawaii), I would find a cheaper house/apartment rental. Pro tip – share with friends/coworkers to make it even cheaper
  6. Go (City) card. When I went to Chicago and Paris, I purchased the Go respective city card and hit up a lot of tourist spots for one reasonable price.
  7. Start following travel bloggers. I actually went to high school and worked with Ciara. She quit her corporate job after graduating from Texas A&M and has been living out her dream.
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