Money is a topic often scorned by society. It’s considered rude to talk about your income or taboo to bring up investing at a party. Financial literacy is not taught in schools, often not at home either. Having money issues is shameful, but striving to improve your financial knowledge is intimidating or inaccessible. Those who do know how to handle money often keep that knowledge to themselves for fear of sounding like they are bragging or that they will be creating targets of themselves. This hush hush attitude creates a toxic environment where many people (of all ages) don’t know where their money is going or how to use it to their advantage. This lack of knowledge and taboo means that our society has 3 general approaches to finances….

1. The Spender – This is the approach that dictates that luxury items (and yes this includes travel) are going to buy you happiness. People who go into debt to afford a 2 week luxury vacation or who don’t take a vacation for 5 years to afford a fancy house.
2. The Saver – There is a growing movement of people who pursue financial independence or the FIRE (financial independence retire early) movement. These are people with 90% savings rate who retire at 35 to live off of $20,000. These are people who prioritize the future over the now.
3. The Bum – There’s a group of people who don’t fall in to either of these categories, people who scorn all monetary rewards. Often these are climbers or surfers who only pick up enough work to afford their next meal or backpackers who continuously work a job that makes them miserable in order to afford to travel for a few months. These are people who prioritize the now over the future (YOLO!).

I’d say the vast majority of modern society falls into the first category of people, people who either spend way out of their means or focus solely on their monetary value. A lot of this is too do with the influence of social media, but most of it has to do with our societies inability or unwillingness to talk about money. There is a growing number of people within the saver’s group (and an increasing amount of blogs and podcasts) which is refreshing to see. However a vast majority of these still focus too heavily on saving for the future rather than enjoying the now.  Within the travel community we often fall into the third category. I don’t even want to think about how many times I have heard backpackers villainizes the 9-5 or almost brag about how little money they have saved. While all of these approaches to finances have their merits there are also significant draw backs to each of these.  

• Luxury items that you cannot afford are not going to make you happier to more popular and will likely case more stress when you eventually have to pay off debt
• Only planning for the future means that you miss out on things in the present.
• Money does buy happiness – to a degree. There is a reason why over 20% of divorcees are because of money issues.

So how do I think you should approach finances – with balance. Travel, but make sure that it’s not going to affect your long term goals. Plan for the future, but enjoy your life. Splurge on things that matter to you, but save and plan for them. 

Most people do not want to admit that there are few things in life that will impact your overall health and happiness as much as having a sound financial knowledge and standing will. Gaining a sound financial knowledge and standing doesn’t have to be intimidating and shouldn’t be considered ‘dirty’ or ‘taboo’.  

Do I consider myself as part of the financial independence movement? Kind of. I’d consider my approach to financial independence more along the lines of ‘soft’ FIRE. For the past three years I’ve had a savings rate of about 30%, higher than the average 10%, but certainly nowhere near a lot of FIRE bloggers. I keep track of my spending, but don’t budget month to month. I lower my costs where I can, but keep in mind that my time is the most valuable resource so if it’s going to take too long to save a few bucks I won’t do it. I also don’t have a particular FIRE number or date. However my financial knowledge and my financial situation are both very important to me and I continuously strive to improve both. Balance is also how I approach my finances when it comes to travel. I don’t mind spending a large portion of my income on travel, but I will not put myself in debt to travel and I still want to have a successful career.

I wanted to write this article largely because I want to be part of the solution to what I see as a massive lack of financial literacy in our society, as part of that I also wanted to mention that I will be talking more about finances on this blog. Don’t worry this is not going to turn into a financial blog any time soon, but I do think that it is an important subject and one that is talked about too little in the travel community. The travel community focuses so much on experiences that it often overlooks the partiality of it. Travel is expensive, that money has to come from somewhere. Plus money should be a thing that is talked about!