March 2018 - Rebel with a Plan

Month: March 2018

6 Best Travel Resources for Budget Travel

March 28, 2018

Americans spell it traveler, most others in the world spell it traveller, whichever way, here are six best resources for the budget traveler.

When I first started traveling, it felt super overwhelming. I didn’t any idea what the best travel resources were for budget travel. All I knew was that I wanted to do it as inexpensive as possible.

I mean, I wasn’t going to be one those ultra budget backpackers who slept in a tent in some random location. Getting to sleep in a cheap hostel with unpredictable guests and levels of noise? Now that’s my jam! haha.

Jokes aside, I didn’t have much of an idea of the best travel resources I could use as a backpacker on a budget. Whenever I would look around on Facebook groups or through Google searches, I would be inundated with lists detailed dozens or even hundreds of things. Talk about getting overwhelmed.

Slowly but surely, I started to find a small handful of things that have been super helpful not only to me, but many other budget travelers as well.

The resources below have helped me so much in being able to not only save money while traveling but also allowing me to travel to new places. A lot people get into the mindset that travel has to go a certain way. The typical scenario of booking a standard hotel room, using a large and common travel website to book flights, and overall thinking that travel is expensive.

Travel does cost money however you slice it. But it doesn’t have to be expensive. Through a little savviness and being resourceful, you can cut down on the cost tremendously.

Read below on the top travel resources for budget travel.

Skyscanner

I used to never understand how people were able to get great flight deals. I thought it involved either obsessively checking flights nine times a day or signing up for a dozen different airline emails and just waiting.

Once I found Skyscanner, getting good deals on flights got a lot easier. Instead of using a big travel search platform like Expedia, I started using Skyscanner for most of my flight searches.

Skyscanner is great because it allows you to not only search for a destination you have in mind, but you can also put “everywhere” in the destination box and it will pull up a list of places (low to high) that you can travel to.

I used this a lot when I was living in Thailand and figuring out cheap places to travel to. Now that I’m back in the states, I use it to see where the cheapest flights to places in South America are.

As with a lot of travel planning, you have to be savvy and not just rely on one site. Skyscanner is great but I always make a point to check out Google Flights and Kayak as well.

Skyscanner, and also Kayak, have “hacker fares” where you fly different legs of a round-trip flight on different airlines. If you’re okay with not always flying direct, then you can get some good savings.

Airbnb

Who would want to stay in a bland hotel room when you could stay in a more spacious and accommodating Airbnb instead? The great thing about Airbnb is the variety of spaces offered, with the prices being comparable or even lower than traditional hotels/motels most of the time.

You can stay spacious rooms, full apartments or houses, Airstreams, trailers, and even tree houses!

I like Airbnb because of the flexibility it has. I used it to book an inexpensive room in Astoria, Queens for $35 a night when I took a trip to New York City a few months back. All the traditional hotel rooms would have cost $100+ a night.

Often times, you’re able to interact with the host and get recommendations on best places to visit and eat at. Always great to get the perspective of a local.

Click here to get a $40 credit towards your first stay!

Booking.com

Booking.com is a site you can use when you are on the search for a traditional hotel, motel, or guesthouse. Sometimes Airbnb doesn’t work out, you can’t find the right spot, or the offerings are sparse in an area. Booking.com has plenty of offerings, often with low prices and no extra fees.

The interface of booking.com is really nice, letting you see all the features a place has (WiFi is probably at the top of priorities, amiright?). A great thing about the site is you can usually book a place without having to put down a deposit.

World Nomads

Travel insurance is essential. It’s weird to think about what would happen if you were to get injured or really ill while traveling, but it’s something you have to plan for. Most health insurance plans don’t cover you while you’re traveling. Even if they do, coverage might not be the best.

I have used and loved World Nomads for my travels. Their coverage is great, reporting claims is simple and they have great customer service.

Make sure to read the terms and fine print on any plans you’re considering to make sure it’s right for you.

Click here to get a quote for travel insurance!

Couchsurfing

What better way to find out more about a place than to spend it with a local? Couchsurfing is a community of travelers where you can search and find free accommodation across the world.

Although it’s way more than just free accommodation. You can use it to find community events, activities to do, and meet up with people.

Travel Reward Credit Cards

What? Credit cards? Those are evil!! Well, not exactly…

I swore off credit cards for the longest time because I thought getting one would immediately spiral me into horrible high-interest debt.

Luckily, that hasn’t happened, haha. I set up a financial foundation for myself before even touching credit cards. This involved getting on a budget and developing a debt payoff plan for my student loans.

Once that groundwork was laid, I went into the world of credit card sign-up bonuses. You see, there are lots of credit cards out there that offer sign up bonuses in the form of airline miles, travel credits, hotel credits, and more by spending a certain amount within the first few months of opening your account.

It’s usually something like “spend $3,000 within the first three months” or “$2,000 in the first three months” etc.

I’m not a credit cards expert. You’ll want to follow The Points Guy for that. Credit card rewards can help get rack up airline miles and travel credits to use for travel based on the typical monthly spending you’re already doing.

Get on it if you can!

What resources do you use for budget travel? Anything you’ve found to be super helpful?

So, What’s the Catch?

March 21, 2018

There comes a point when you just have to look at how things are and work with what you’ve got.

Money is like this in a way. People have lots of opinions on how best to navigate personal finances.

Which is the best way to set actionable goals? Do you do the debt snowball or debt avalanche? Should you have an emergency fund or not? Are side hustles all that important? What about privilege?

One of the top things people say whenever there is an impressive debt payoff story, rags to riches tale, or financial breakthrough is “So…what’s the catch?”

Those Debt Payoff Stories

Everyone loves a good debt payoff story. The sensational ones where a person paid off a big amount of debt in a small amount of time.

I don’t think I have one of those, depending on who you ask. I graduated university with $21,000 in student loans. I paid off those student loans in 18 months, at the age of 22, partly while living abroad in Thailand.

I’ve been congratulated on doing such a thing. Critical comments have been about how that “wasn’t even a lot of debt” or “there must be a catch”.

Indeed there is a catch to my debt payoff story. The “catch” is that I worked overtime at my blue collar job, worked seven days a week while in Thailand, set actionable goals, and upon being sick of looking at my debt, paid off the remaining amount with a large part of my emergency fund.

No matter how a person paid off debt there is always some critical comments. If the person makes a high salary then people complain that it was easy for them because of it. If a person side hustled their way to debt payoff, then people complain about the person having to do side hustles to pay off debt.

A former co-worker once said to me “Well, I’d like to see a debt payoff story where the person worked a regular job and didn’t make a high salary or do side hustles to pay off their debt!”

While I understand their sentiment, I’m not sure they will ever see one those due to this thing called math. You have to grow the gap between your expenses and income in order to pay off your debt. That’s what it boils down to.

Yes, it can be annoying when a lot of personal finance news stories focus on middle-class couples with good paying jobs who suddenly had a ~~magical epiphany~~ and decided to stop wasting money.

Although, when you break it down, paying off a lot of debt or making significant financial progress comes down to it.

Income – expenses = the gap (focus on growing it)

Do The Actual Work

Sometimes people put too much focus on one area while neglecting the others. This is really true when it comes to talking about (touchy?) subjects like privilege.

Privilege is a real thing. Some people have a leg up on others when it comes to situations and opportunities. Not everyone is able to live at home in order to save money on rent. Different socioeconomic backgrounds have advantages. The list goes on.

However, when you choose to solely focus on that one area, you start to miss out on other opportunities that could come from when you put in the work.

For the longest time, I was angry with the fact that other people had their parents pay for cars for them and pay for part of their college. Meanwhile, I had to work as a dishwasher, work lots of hours, and save up for months to buy my first car at age 17. I had to pay for my college education on my own through the use of loans and working. I didn’t even have a laptop for the longest time. Instead, I had had to go to the public library to use one.

Things didn’t start improving until I sat down, acknowledged my situation, and made a plan for growth from there.

You can choose to sit idle and focus on your limitations or you can make a plan based on what you have.

Put What You Learn Into Practice

I’m part of a few blog and business groups on Facebook. There was one massive online business group I was a member of. In the group, I would constantly see people posting critical responses of other business owners.

The post would catch on, attract hundreds of comments from people agreeing, and then a few days later the same type of post would pop up and the cycle would repeat itself. While criticism of things can be good at times, when you’re constantly doing it, it can give you a false feeling of having actually done something.

It’s kind of like when you read a self-help or motivational book. You go through it, highlight a bunch of motivational quotes in it, and talk about it on social media. While that’s great to do, it’s even more important to put what you learned into practice.

Don’t just read some book on entrepreneurship and share quotes from it on social media. Use what you learned from the book. Test things out, see how it works. You’ll learn a lot more when you’re in the process of doing rather than reading self-help book after self-help book over and over.

The Cautionary Tale of the Underpants Gnomes

Gotta go to work, work, work, work! We won’t stop ‘til we have underpants!

-The Underpants Gnomes (South Park)

You don’t want to look back several months or years from now and realize all you’ve been doing is collecting underpants.

What the heck am I talking about, you ask?

It’s a concept I learned about in the book Level Up Your Life by Steve Kamb. In the show South Park, there is an episode where a group of gnomes sneak into people’s houses and steal their underpants and take them to a large underground cave each night.

The gnomes are stealing the underpants so they can have a mass collection to use when they build a highly successful business. When a gnome is asked why he is collecting underpants, his response is, “Collecting underpants is just phase 1!”

When someone follows up with, “So what is phase 2?” The gnomes are confused and just say, “Phase 3 is profit! Phase 1 is collecting underpants!”.

They know what Phase one is (collecting underpants) and phase three (highly successful business) but they don’t know the critical phase two.

This happens when you read some amazing self-help book, watch an inspiring TEDx talk, or hear of somebody doing something amazing.

Don’t get stalled in the phase one stage of watching or reading something inspiring and then go, “Well, it’s easy for them!”.

Bottom Line

This post isn’t some call to “hu$tle harder” or “grind more”. It’s a call to acknowledge the situation and limitations you have and moving forward set some actionable goals.

It may take longer or be harder for you to reach your goals compared to others, but small or slow progress is better than nothing.

What’s the catch? It’s figuring out your phase two and making a plan from there.

How have you been able to get past your limitations and setbacks? What is your phase two?

A Step by Step Guide to Get Started Budgeting

March 16, 2018

The idea of budgeting can be a polarizing thing.

A lot of people are put off by it because of preconceived notions and confusion about how to best go about it.

If you had mentioned the word ‘budget’ to me a few years back, I probably would have looked at you strangely and dismissed it. Because, hello, who really wants to sit down and do the tedious task of looking over your spending.

Thankfully, budgeting doesn’t have to be some tedious mind destroyer if you don’t want it to. It can actually be pretty fun to do. It’s all about picking the right system and tools that work best for you.

My first foray into budgeting came when I was 18 and in my first year of college. I was working a lowly food prep position at McDonald’s and trying to figure how my money kept vanishing into thin air.

So, I downloaded the free budgeting tool Mint and got to work tracking my spending within the service. Suddenly for the first time, I was able to monitor my transactions while making goals and assigning set amounts to different spending categories.

It was kind of like a game of sorts. Being able to see how savvy I could get by staying within my set amounts for spending categories. The most prominent one being the food and groceries category, because let’s be honest, that one was a chaotic mess of late night drive-throughs, takeaway coffee, and one too many pizza deliveries.

Mint was cool but over the years, I started to want something more. To see what else was out there. Through some trial and error, I started to find my groove with budgeting.

So far, its led to hitting some pretty sweet financial goals. I was able to ditch a blue collar job I hated, move abroad for a year and a half, pay off $21,000 in student loans within 18 months, and build up a good-sized emergency fund.

If you’re ready to get organized with your money and better work toward your goals then keep reading. Here’s a step by step guide to budgeting.

Start Tracking Your Spending

Do you know where you’re money is going every month? Not in the vague “oh well I think I spent around this much on entertainment…” but in the “I spent this exact amount on entertainment last month”.

It’s easier for your money to feel like it just disappears when you’re not actively tracking it. $11 here, $18 there. It doesn’t feel like much until you add it all up.

Tracking your spending combats that. It makes you more conscious of spending decisions so you can prioritize better on what matters most to you. And hey, maybe that priority involves buying concert tickets or getting a dog. It’s all up to you!

Everyone has different priorities but tracking one’s spending is helpful to everyone.

There are a few ways to do it. You could use an Excel or Google Sheets spreadsheet and input it manually. For online options, a free tool like Personal Capital lets you track your spending as well as monitor your overall financial picture.

Figure Out What Motivates You

You can’t start budgeting if you’re not sure what your motivations are. A lot of people falter with budgeting because they don’t have a clear reason why they’re doing it.

Think back to some big achievements you’ve done (maybe it was getting a dream job, hitting a fitness goal, or saving up for something) You probably had a strong reason why. Channel that same inner grit into your financial goals. You’ll have a much better shot at sticking to your budget this way.

Figuring this out can take some time (i.e. it’s not something you can sit down and do within a half hour). Think about your ‘why’ during moments when you’re getting ready for bed, taking a shower, or other idle moments.

To help you stay motivated, employ some of the tips below:

Figure out a plan for what to do when temptation arises
Enlist friends help by telling them your motivations
Use visual reminders (whiteboards are good for this!)
Surround Yourself with disciplined people (personal finance facebook groups can be great for this!)

Create Financial Goals

The main purposes of a budget are to help you become mindful of your spending as well as helping you reach your financial goals in a more organized and strategic manner.

No more wingin’ it and hoping for the best. The stuff that gets measured gets improved.

Think about what financial goals you want to accomplish. These could include:

Getting a new (to you) car
Automating your finances
Save for retirement
Earning more money
Paying off debt
Saving for a vacation

These are typical goals that people often have in common. Don’t forget to think about other goals you may have. These could include saving up for a new computer, education expenses, a new phone you want, books, or any number of things.

Think of both short-term and long-term goals you would like to hit. Make sure to look at what you value as you commit to your financial goals.

If you’re a movie buff who loves going to the cinema every week to see the latest, then cutting out going to the movies isn’t going to go over well. Cut back in other areas and brainstorm ways to do things cheaper. If you like to eat out a lot then download an app like MealPrepPro. Use something like MoviePass if you see a lot of movies.

Get small and specific with the goal. For example, saving for retirement is boring. Saving for retirement so you won’t have to live on $1,200 a month and eat beans and rice for every meal is better. You feel me? Good.

Studies show that setting small goals and checking them off motivates us to accomplish those big hairy audacious goals (BHAG) like paying off student loans or saving for something big.

Ask yourself:

Why exactly do I want to achieve this goal?
How will my life look differently by achieving this goal?

Select a budget system

Envelope method: Revolves around using cash only. You withdraw the amount of money you need for the month, put it in envelopes, and then once the money inside the envelope is gone, that’s it. You have to wait until the next month starts before spending in that category again.

Zero Sum budget: You give every dollar a job. Your budget should be zero at the end of the month. This budgeting style can help if you have a habit of mindlessly spending money on things once you pay all of your expenses.

The awesome book, Zero Down Your Debt goes more into this. The authors used this budgeting method to help them get out of $50,000 of debt and go on to work for themselves.

50-20-30 budget: A percentage based system where 50% goes to your needs, 20% goes to your savings and debt repayments, and 30% goes to your wants.

Category budget: You assign amounts to different categories and aim to keep spending under that amount.

Choose your tools

I’ve used a selection of different tools in my budgeting journey. As I mentioned at the start of this post, I started using Mint when I was 18 and in my first year of college. For simplicity, pen and paper have also been used.

The pen and paper method didn’t work for me too well since it was completely manual. Sometimes life would get busy and I would totally forget to write down my spending. Using an online service like Mint really helped keep me on track. Currently, I’m on a free trial of You Need a Budget (YNAB) and seeing how I like it. Testing things out for the win! 🙂

Below are some different tools you can use to budget.

Pen and paper: Simplicity sometimes beats the rest. If you like writing out your expenses by hand and keeping track of spending and receipts, then you could just use a simple pen and paper or write in a notebook to budget.

Excel spreadsheet: Spreadsheets really make some people jump for joy. They can be pretty great since you’re able to input your spending and have it push it to the appropriate category and total everything for you.

You need to have Microsoft Office installed on your computer. Alternatively, some budget spreadsheets also work in Google Sheets (the free excel alternative).

Mint: Mint is that popular budgeting tool you’ve probably heard about countless times, but never really learned more about. Lots of people use it because it’s a free cloud-based service (rather than remember where you put your excel spreadsheet on your computer.) that is simple to use and categorizes your spending.

You connect your bank account and set goals for your finances. Sign up for a free account.

YNAB: You Need a Budget is similar to Mint, but it employs the specific approach of building a zero-sum budget and giving every dollar a job. It allows you to set goals, track your progress, see your spending trends over the long term and teaches you to live on your income from the last month. You budget based on what you have already earned.

It’s a paid tool that costs $6.99/month. A free 34-day trial is offered. Judging by some Reddit threads and online comments, a lot of people swear by YNAB and its many benefits compared to Mint. Sign up here.

Personal Capital: This free financial planning tool allows you to budget and also monitor your net worth. You can get a full picture of your financial life by syncing your bank accounts along with your investment accounts and any assets or liabilities you have.

Sign up for a free account and get started with monitoring your spending, savings rate, and being able to monitor your overall net worth.

Whew! A lot to go through to build a budget. It’s all worth it though. Going through the steps listed and you’ll be well on your way to building a budget that works for you.

Budgeting isn’t about restricting yourself. It’s about giving your money a plan. As with a lot of things in life, budgeting doesn’t come without making a few mistakes here and there. Use this step by step budgeting guide and experiment based what works for you.

Forgive yourself, break down your goals, and create some daily actions. It’s how you get successful with budgeting. Let me know how it goes!

How did you get started budgeting? What tactics and tools worked best for you?

India Photo Journal

March 7, 2018

I’ve wanted to go to India for several years. The country’s culture, the large population, the heartbreaking amount of people who live on less than $1 a day. It all interested me.

India is a country about 1/3 the size of the U.S.A. yet it has a population of 1.324 billion people, making it the second most populous country behind China’s 1.379 billion.

Planning a trip to India was always a bit of an undertaking. I never really knew how long to go for. The country packs so much into’s its size. Many travelers say even three months isn’t enough time to see all that there is.

I guess that’s kind of figurative. I spent a year living in Thailand and while there is a lot to see in Thailand, I would still say a 10-14 day trip is fine. Maybe India is different. Many people would agree.

It was always fascinating to hear people talk about their trips to India. Whenever I met backpackers who had done 2 week to one month or longer trips, they would always describe it in the same awe: it’s like no place you’ve traveled before.

I can agree with them. India is a fascinating, but chaotic and hectic place. There’s a lot of beauty and culture in the country but some crimes, particularly the 2012 Delhi case, have scared off tourists from visiting the country.

While India is a wonderful place to travel, it would be ill-advised to not mention the chaotic and aggressive nature it can have at times. I encountered the most aggressive touts while walking down the city streets.

With some safety practices, it starts to feel better. I used a GPS tracking cab app called OLA to have a good cab experience. Every rickshaw was double-checked before getting in. And I read up on the common scams tourists fall to when visiting. Coupled with this knowledge, the experience, while still hectic, was a lot better.

For female India travel tips, Global Gallivanting and Hippie in Heels are good resources.

Originally I wanted to travel and backpack India on my own. The idea of tours and only having a set amount of time for each place and attraction don’t interest me. Eventually, through finding a flexible option, I did choose a group tour.

Traveling with a group was better than I thought. I picked the Northern India Explorer tour with Geckos Adventures. The trip hit the most popular tourist itinerary known as The Golden Triangle (Delhi, Agra Jaipur) while also including additional stops in the holy city of Varanasi as well as the town of Bundi.

The tour group had seven Australian women and then me, the only guy and only American, haha. After doing so much solo travel, it was really nice to get to see and experience a place with others.

I got to experiment with a new wide angle lens I got for my Sony a5100. During the editing of the photos, my head was down and watching new YouTube tutorials to learn Adobe Lightroom some more. Hope you like the pictures! They’re a small fraction of all the ones I took!

Hope you enjoy this India photo journal! You can check out my photo journal of Malaysia from last year as well.