Saving money while going in vacation

How many times each of you, after a nice well deserved vacation, when arriving home and did the maths realized you have went way over your budget due to some unnecessary spendings?

Well I for sure was faced with this situation many times, and the most annoying thing, was that those extra spent money did not improve the quality of my vacation whatsoever. On the contrary, many unnecessary spendings could have been easily avoided if I were more careful and organized better my holiday.

Here you can find some tested personal experience advices on how to save money when going in vacation.

1. Direct purchase of your plane tickets and accommodation!
Even if, at first glance, it may seem more comfortable to go to a tourist agency and buy a vacation package with flight and accommodation you must always bear in mind that in order to make profit all those agencies must add some extra taxes.This is why it is strongly recommended to surf the internet for flights and accommodation, and try to actually buy them directly from their websites.I personally do this all the time and I am very satisfied with the money spent.

2.Pay attention to hidden prices!
Be very careful when purchasing a plane ticket at an unusual low price! Many times these so called deals may cost you more that actually buying a ticket at an average price.For instance, the actual flight may be cheap but you need to pay extra money if you want to bring on another luggage besides your hand luggage, which you definitely need when going in vacation.

Moreover, be really suspicious when you see very low prices for, for instance, four stars hotels.Most of the times, these hotels even if they look really nice, they may be situated outside the city and therefore can bring extra costs such as the need to rent a car to get around or the very expensive public transportation fees.

3.Plan ahead all your vacation days schedule!
With a couple of weeks before going to vacation try to do some searching of what are the main attractions over there, what are the best affordable restaurants, how to get there, transport fares etc...In this way you can save plenty of time and money, have no unexpected "surprises" and really enjoy your holidays!

In addition, it is always a good idea to buy on-line tickets, to avoid unnecessary time-wasting queues.For instance when we visited Paris this summer, if we hadn't  bought  on-line tickets for entrance to the Tour Eiffel we would have wasted an entire day queuing with no guarantee that we would ever get to the top of the tower.

4.Avoid unnecessary costs!
Try to avoid all unnecessary costs such as buying cigarettes from a restaurant instead of buying them from a tobacco shop or buying all kind of snacks or cookies from a coffee shop instead of buying them directly from a nearby grocery store.

5.Never buy souvenirs in the first days of your vacation!
How many of you when reaching the end of your vacation realize that the exactly souvenirs you bought in the first days of your arrival could have been bought at a much cheaper price just at the souvenir shop a couple of blocks ahead? Well I for sure did, so this is why I try to avoid buying souvenirs in the first days. First, I try to find my way through the new city I am in, to visit a couple of attractions, to get to know more of the that place, of the prices...etc and only afterwards, at the end of my journey I buy gifts for the loved ones.
On the other hand, don't postpone buying the souvenirs on the last hundred yards when you are in the airport heading home because, as you may already know the so called "duty free" shops from the airports are not very cheap.

Sure hope you're gonna find these travelling money spending advices useful for your next holiday!
Wish you a great day and don’t forget to keep control over your finances with Troosby!

How To Protect Yourself From Yourself When Spending Money?

How many times have you set a monthly spendings budget for yourself?

For many of us the answer would be: too many times. And as that many times we went over budget.

The first solution that comes to our head when trying to solve the problem of staying within a fixed budget is to track all our spendings and compare all the time with the targeted budget. When we get close to the budget we start to make some cuts.

In theory this should work ... but experience shown us different. Because you earn more than you’re targeting yourself to spend, you may have the tendency to buy goods which you can afford based on your incomes, not on your fixed budget.

There is a simple three steps solution to this problem, and even if you might think of it as too rudimentary, it simply works!

The Envelopes Method

Step #1: reduce electronic pays to a minimum.

Avoid shopping on-line or use your credit/debit cards. Cards are your budget killers!
This is because you don't really feel that you exchange one of your goods (money) for some other goods when you press a button on a website, or when a cashier swipes your credit card through a machine and don't feels any lighter when you get it back.

Try to keep electronic pays only to the bare essentials like utilities bills.

Step #2: make envelopes with cash to spend per week.

Put in separate envelopes the cash you want to spend in each week of the month.
Don't be too optimistic and set a very low budget. This is a sure recipe for failure. Just set a slightly smaller budget than what you spent last month.
Leave your cards at home and try to live only with the money from the envelopes.
In this way you will see all the time how your physical money are less and less as you go through the week and you can take necessary actions.

If you saved some money in a week add them to the envelope of next week. This will be your bonus.

Step #3: re-iterate.

Don't expect to be successful from day one; practice is what makes us better.
At the end of each month see when you used electronic pays and decide if you can reduce them. Just keep in mind that electronic pays are the biggest threat to your budget.

Set a smaller budget than what you had before. Don't decrease it with more than 10%, a realistic decrease can be just 5%.

Conclusion

If you want to cut out on your spendings sprees then lose your cards and spend only cash.

Use a money management platform, just as Troosby to track how much you spent and on what, but limit the money you have available at you on a weekly basis and try to pay with cash – you don’t see the money leaving your pockets when you use cards.

That's it for today! Keep your finances under control with Troosby ... and envelopes :)

How to save money when buying clothes!

As a woman I can tell you, from my own personal experience, that a great deal of my finances goes away on clothes.

That wouldn't bother me that much if I actually wore and enjoyed all of them. But the thing is, that every now and then when I make a review of my closet I feel amazed of how many clothes I have purchased and never wore. And in terms of finances this all translates in a lot of no purpose wasted money.

In order to reduce the amount of money spent on unnecessary items and to actually enjoy and make maximum use of the clothes you buy I came up with a list of suggestions/tips/advices which you might find really useful.

1.Make a strict inventory of your wardrobe and get rid of unnecessary items!
At every end of the season I try to make an inventory of the clothes I have in the wardrobe at that moment.I sort out the clothes I have worn in that season and the clothes I barely used. If I haven’t used them all season long it is really clear that there are small chances I’m gonna use them next season, so the best thing is to give them away.
There are plenty of people who might need them and in that way you can tidy up your wardrobe a bit and actually be able to have a clear view of your clothes and wear some of them more often.

2. After reviewing your clothes make a realist list of the items you need to purchase in the near future!
Make an inventory  of your favourite clothes combinations for different situations and  then try and make a list of all the clothes you need in order to complete some missing clothes combinations and never back down from that list. Even if you see in a store a very lovely  dress, if it is not on the list forget about it, you don’t need it, it’s only gonna be a waste of money and it’s gonna crowd your wardrobe unnecessarily.

3.Shopping on sales , the best way to get some really good deals!
  Shopping on sales is always a good idea if you want to spend less money.For instance you can buy cold season clothes at the beginning of spring when all the winter clothes are on sale, and you can pack them nicely during the summer and begin wearing them next winter. But dealing with sales also has a tricky part: sometimes you can be tempted to buy a lot of things you don't actually need just because they are cheap! In this situation always bear in mind to stick to the  list of things you really need.

4.Readjust some of your older clothes and wear them as new!
Many of us may have in the wardrobe some clothes we just can't let go of but we can't wear them either due to the fact that they are too tight/ too large and need some adjustments.That's why it is very helpful to go to a tailor and readjust these clothes according to your tastes .This way you have some "new" clothes in your wardrobe which you can wear and they don't cost as much as actually buying a new item.

5.Borrowing clothes from a friend is always a good idea!
When you have an event to attend to and you don't want to be seen in the same dress as last year's wedding party, instead of going to buy a new dress which you are going to wear on just one occasion you can better turn your attention to borrowing an outfit from a good friend. This is an excellent opportunity when you want to save money!

I sure hope theese advices may help you in your financial decisions regarding buying clothes.

Wish you a great day and don’t forget to keep control over your finances with Troosby!