Hi Hi,

Let’s just get the apology for missing a post upload last week out of my system, the whole truth of it was I just didn’t know what to write! I had a lot going on mentally last week and everything was a bit foggy… However, I had a lovely weekend off spending quality time with my people and clearing my mind! So in that time I was having a think about what I could write about considering that my top 2/3 posts are based on my travel and holidays & here’s what I’ve come up with…

3 Tips- Saving for your Holidays!

I would like to firstly save it’s not your stereotypical tips because I think we all know when your saving its about figuring out where you can cut corners to put money away…

1. Points with Airlines

I already know what you’re thinking ‘Wise up Niamh’ lol, I know I hear myself too as I’m writing it but TRUST ME it’s WORTH looking into!

When we flew to Orlando I had created both myself and Jordan individual British Airways Executive Club accounts. This basically meant we could collect ‘air miles’ which convert to Avios, which is BA currency. I hope that makes sense?

Your also probably thinking ‘Awk we only fly once a year there’s no point’, again hear me out…

With having this account I am able to collect points when I shop online in my favourite places eg. ASOS, Booking.com, H&M, MyProtein, Adidas, Holister etc. There is 1,300 online shops which you can collect Avios through! The way I see it is: your actually gaining from shopping through the club because you were just spending the money before, now your building up your BA currency too!

If you’re thinking ‘I don’t do that much online shopping’, firstly fair play to you or you’re lying lol. In all seriousness though there’s still another option for you to collect Avios!!!

BA offers a prepaid debit card which gains you 2 Avio per £1 you spend on it! This is NOT A CREDIT CARD!!! Essentially what happens is, you link the BA card with your own bank account and you transfer money onto this card. Once the money is on your BA card you can shop with it in person or online shopping with shops that aren’t registered with BA. This also means you can build Avios quicker because your able to collect when your paying for your essentials like fuelling your car or doing your weekly food shop or going for a coffee!

I now have enough points to pay for flights to Paris, a day ticket for Disneyland Paris or only pay £200 for a flight to and from Orlando!!! This hasn’t cost me a single penny more than what I was already spending! Told you it’s worth looking into…

I’m pretty sure Virgin offers something similar, however I have no experience or knowledge with this, but similarly could be something worth looking into!

2. Do Your Homework

What I mean by this is… do some research into where you are going eg. Orlando you have to pay state tax, bed tax and sales tax. We knew this before going through watching different planning videos on YouTube (Brogan Tate and Disney in Detail were definitely the best for being clear about everything you need to expect!)

Knowing this information before going, allowed us to budget for it so that we weren’t wasting our spending money on hidden fees! I think in total we paid around an extra £200 at the hotel on the day.

Obviously there’s a lot of things to remember when it comes to these things, so I personally kept all our budgets on a table, printed it out & kept in a folder that I brought on holidays with me. This is excessive for some but again it kept me right if we were being overcharged for different things. Although its main use for me was for remembering what money I needed to have with me before we went!

You can screenshot or click this ‘link‘ to edit or print out when your own holiday planning!

3. Use Monzo/ Revolut Pots

I LOVE MONZO & REVOLUT FOR SAVING!!! (btw these are friend referral links so I do get some dolla if you choose to make an account through clicking my links xx)

Yes, I do use both! Monzo is my main bank account which is where I predominately use the ‘pots’. Then we used Revolut together on holidays as you can set up a joint ‘vault’, which meant we were able to pay off either of our cards but we were still both paying!

How I organised Monzo pots: hotel, food and park tickets (I didn’t forget about the flights, Jordan paid for these and I paid for the hotel it was just easier because they were around the same price). I set the goal for each of these pots for the amount that was on my expense tracker, this way I can see clearly how much I needed in each pot. Again for some people its easier to just let the money gather, whereas for me putting more money into the pots that needed paid off quicker worked best for me! As each thing was paid off like the hotel and park tickets, I deleted them and was able to focus on funding the next. Once I had the food money saved, I put this into our shared Revolut vault.

How I organised Revolut vaults: joint and individual. As I mentioned I put the food money and activities money into our joint account, this made life so much easier when it came for paying for stuff because we both paid equal amounts into the vault before leaving! THIS IS NOT A JOINT BANK ACCOUNT!!! You just both need to have Revolut accounts and you can add the person to the specific vault, they don’t have access to the rest of your account, only what you put into the shared vault. Then I kept my own individual spending money on this card too as I separated my money from my main bank account that my bills were coming out of. Again not necessary for everyone but for me it gave me peace of mind I wasn’t spending money that was needed for something else!

Another major advantage of both cards is that you don’t get charged for using them abroad! Again another hidden fee you don’t have to worry about!

All in all I think these are 3 great non stereotypical saving tips for going on holidays or travelling!

Let me know if you use any of these tips when you are holiday planning or some of your best saving tips in the comments!

CYA x