Since we’ve gone viral, we’ve seen plenty of comments about people saying how our photos and our travels are so extravagant…..but nothing could be further from the truth!
Ask any of our family and friends — they know that we live very frugally in our daily lives so that we can afford to travel more.
Extravagant or posh would never be the words they would use to describe us…..that’s because they know how frugal we are!
Since meeting each other, we’ve tweaked our lifestyle to be more focused on spending our money more on experiences and less on material things.
That’s right, we approach our love of travel as a lifestyle.
When we were dating, we saved every bit of our money and only used our paid time off to see each other. Everybody has their thing which they want to spend the majority of their money on (pets, clothes, cars, gadgets, kids, etc.)
To each his/ her own and we respect that.
Luckily, we both love spending the majority of our money on traveling. It’s a shame some strangers would just dismiss us as “rich kids”, even though they don’t know what we stand for. We both came from humble backgrounds and I guess that’s why thriftiness comes naturally to us. Our parents encouraged us to get the best education we could, in order to have a stable future.
We were raised in hard-working households and for that, we are forever grateful.
Remember our jackets and bags in this photo (you will see them quite a bit in all of our pics! :O)
We also think it has a lot to do with priorities.
There are some people who earn more than us, yet travel less. But then there are people who earn less than us, yet travel way more. Maybe some people don’t like traveling and that’s OK. But don’t go hating on people who do make it happen…
If you’ve ever heard that quote, “travel is the only thing you buy that makes you richer”
We strongly believe in that. Especially if you’re in an LDR, the thrill from material gifts fade away but the travel memories last forever.
When we’re tempted to buy something extravagant, we usually think to ourselves, “would I rather buy that or a plane ticket?” Obviously, the plane ticket wins a majority of the time!
Our lifestyle isn’t for everyone. But being that we both want to travel bad enough—we exert all of our effort to make it happen. We’d really just rather have simple clothes and be able to travel… than have expensive material things and not be able to travel.
such as Changi Airport in Singapore 🙂
TIPS FOR SAVING IN OUR EVERYDAY LIVES:
In our everyday lives, we clip coupons and maximize what we can buy on sale. We try to be sustainable or minimalistic with our clothing, and only buy clothes that we’ll wear over and over. We don’t have a lot of designer clothes or accessories and we don’t like expensive jewelry. During special fancy events, we sometimes rent our clothes instead of buying new outfits.
We don’t go out to eat too often, only when we have company. Most of our date nights are spent at home, cooking our own meals, which is great since we both love to cook anyway. We also like to drink at home–that really saves us a ton of money since drinking in bars gets really expensive, especially in the city. What’s more, we rarely go to the salon since we cut our own hair!
Our frugality also extends in some major aspects of our lives. For example, we had a very simple wedding so we could splurge a bit on a nice honeymoon. Also, we made the decision to rent a simple place for now instead of buying a house.
We have a simple old car. Plus, we don’t have kids yet, so that gives us a little bit more disposable income. Eventually we will need to spend for those things, but for now, we’re enjoying our newlywed life.
All in all, we just cut back on a lot of luxuries. We might seem slightly extreme to other people, but this lifestyle works for us.
TIPS FOR SAVING WHILE TRAVELING:
We usually keep an eye out on what travel deals are on sale, and most of the time, we make our decisions based on that. We get email alerts from some of our favorite travel websites.
For accommodations, we rarely book 5-star hotels and we generally try to stay in simpler hotels, local inns, and B&Bs when we can.
For food, we try to eat at small mom & pop restaurants so we can both try authentic local cuisine and dine inexpensively.
For souvenirs, we used to love buying little knick knacks but we’ve cut back on buying souvenirs, we consider our photos to be our main souvenirs.
For tours, we like signing up for free walking tours all over the world, where you can tip your guide as you wish (and we do tip, it’s the least we can do!) We occasionally splurge on one-of-a-kind experiences on our trips, too — but we feel like we’re pretty good at saving in general so that we can splurge on some things we really want.
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Congrats on going viral. Yes we too are ruthless in saving before a trip no clothes shopping, I dye my own hair as don’t trust myself to cut it lol and rarely eat out unless we have friends or family visiting. It may not be for everyone but it works for us.
There are some great tips in here & I would add that when I’m feeling the cabin fever set in from being inside for too long, I go and take a hike (literally) or go walk. If i want to see a movie, i wait & rent it for $2.99 thanks for the article! Inspired me to save more!
These are really great tips and I do the same. It’s funny my friends in school that I was rich ’cause I traveled so much, but actually unlike them, I worked really hard. I paid for all my own food, school, etc. ’cause I didn’t have parents. So the appearance of being rich made me laugh.
We cut back on how many times we go out and eat at restaurants. It’s surprising how much these costs! We also rarely drink starbucks – we much pretty making our own coffee/tea!
These are really great tips. I think it does have a lot to do with priorities. I know several people who say they wish they could travel the way I do, but they have traded these experiences for top-of-the-line everything (phones, computers, etc). To each their own for sure, but keep doing what you’re doing!
My husband and I have been together for more than 25 years and when we got married and started to have our children, I also started to set my priorities. We are so lucky that everything went well but it was not too easy then. I have to really manage spending wisely as our combined income was just enough for our daily expenses and there were times it was even less.
Setting priorities is our personal decision, for me it is not based on what we want but based on what we need.
We are so proud that we were able to provide for our children’s education and now we feel blessed for having so many opportunities to travel together. We are limited to travel in different places within the country because my husband loves to travel with his big bike. It was fun to visit different places especially if it is for the first time. I also don’t buy a lot of souvenir to make sure I will spend only based on what is being allocated for a travel.
I also see to it that our monthly income is always properly allocated and spending should not be over the budget. I keep a portion of our income for other things like savings, travel & unexpected expenses. I only spend for other unnecessary things if there will be excess cash after allocation.
We often travel in group so we can save on accommodations and other things