People are always asking me travel questions but I think the one that I get the most often is “How do you afford to travel?” It is certainly a good question but definitely has a complicated answer.
I really think my answer to this question is two-fold. First, I add more money to the budget with some side hustles and second, I shop smart when it comes to travel plans. I want to cover both of the aspects pretty thoroughly so I’m going to divide this two-fold answer into a series of three posts.
Today I’m going to focus on the different ways that I add money to the travel budget without removing it from our household budget. In order to add money to a budget, you have two options. You can either spend less and save more or you can earn more. I do a little of both of these but with five kids, I find that earning more often works better. With sport expenses, school lunches, and all the other things that kids seem to randomly need, it’s sometimes hard to cut things out and spend less.
Where does this extra money come from?
I love side hustles! If there is something easy I can do without wasting a lot of time and it pays, I get excited. I usually have several different side hustles going and some definitely earn more than others.
Online Teaching
My most profitable side hustle and the one that funds most of my travel is teaching English classes online to students in China with a company called VIPKid. Because the students are in China, they are on an opposite times schedule than my students at my brick-and-mortar job. My Chinese students are just getting home from school around two o’clock in the morning my time which allows me to wake up early and teach a few classes before I head to my day job.
Most days I wake up around 3:30 in the morning and teach from 4 to 6 a.m. That’s four classes which earns me a little over $40 a day which is roughly $1200 a month! I usually earn a bit more than this because I teach more classes on the weekends. On the Saturday and Sunday mornings I teach from 3 to 7 a.m. Throughout the school year, I earn an average of $1500 extra a month. During summer and Christmas break I can easily hit $2000+ if I can teach all morning. We automatically deposit this money into a savings account and most of our travel money comes from here without us having even touch our money from our 9 to 5 jobs.
Daniel also teaches with VIPKid but not at the same volume I do since he has to leave for work much earlier than I do. Between the two of us, we usually make close to $2000 a month give or take.
I’m sure many of you are interested in this, so I will try to write a post soon with all the details of what it is like to work for VIPKid.
Transcription Work
Another way I like to bring in extra money is online transcription work. I often transcribe recordings on Rev.com for a little bit of extra cash. This side hustle certainly doesn’t pay as much as VIPKid but I’m able to bring in $100 or so a week if I try. I usually only work on Rev.com in the summers when I have extra time.
Rev.com allows you to choose your jobs. You can chose short jobs that pay small amounts or hour long audio files that pay much more. Once you choose a job there is a deadline to complete it in so make sure that you have time to complete the entire file.
Rev pays weekly via PayPal so it’s nice when you need some extra funds quickly.
Cash Back and Rebates
Many people already do this but just in case you don’t, it is so worth it. With five kids in the house, I have to buy a lot of groceries. I love using the Ibotta app to get cash back on the things we are already buying. It certainly isn’t a huge money maker but every little bit adds up. Over the past three years, I’ve brought in almost $700. If you are interested in using Ibotta, you can join my team and sign up for an account here.
Rakuten is also another good way to make some extra cash. Every year I do the majority of my Christmas shopping online so I can get cash back. I order clothing for the kids online. If you go to the Rakuten website and click in their link you get a percentage of what you spend back. They pay out once every three months. I almost always have about $100 in my account when it’s pay time. I’ve even been known to make large purchases online like refrigerators and lawn mowers just to get cash back. Over the years I’ve brought in almost $2,000 through Rakuten. Use this link and sign up for Rakuten to get a $10 bonus added to your account.
Other Jobs
I’ve done lots of other side jobs to bring in some extra money to travel. I’ve worked part time at Old Navy for example.
I’m always looking for new opportunities and I’ve recently been hired by Chegg.com and Study.com. Since I’m just getting started with these two, I don’t have much information about them yet.
I’m also looking in to some other online teaching companies so I’ll let you know how those opportunities pan out.
Make It A Priority
If you really want to start traveling more then you have to make it a priority. People often comment that they think I’m crazy for getting up at 3:30 a.m. to work and maybe I am. But, let me tell you, it’s all worth it when I’m sitting near the Sienne watching the Eiffel Tower sparkle while I enjoy a chocolate strawberry crepe!
