October 7, 2024 • 16 mins
Imagine turning your dream of visiting luxurious destinations into reality without breaking the bank. Join me as I unlock the secrets of using points and miles to slash your travel expenses. Drawing from my years in the financial industry, I'll reveal how anyone can prioritize travel by making savvy financial choices. Plus, stay tuned for a sneak peek into an upcoming hands-on retreat where I'll teach you, step-by-step, how to maximize travel rewards while you explore the hidden gems of my hometown.
Ever wondered where all your money goes each month? It's time to find out! By tracking your expenses diligently, you can identify and plug those pesky budget leaks, freeing up extra cash for your travel fund. We'll explore practical tips and heartwarming stories of how travel has strengthened family bonds and enriched marriages.
Hear from listeners who have transformed their relationships through unforgettable journeys, and get inspired to do the same. Let's make your travel dreams not just achievable but also profoundly enriching for your personal relationships.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
You are listening to.
Travel is Cheaper than Divorce.
This podcast for all those whomay be struggling with their
spouse or their children and therelationship with them.
We help give you tips andtricks by using travel as the
means to be able to help yourrelationships with your family.
I'll provide those tricks andother ways to help travel with
(00:29):
little or no cost.
So let's get into it.
Some of the things that I havetalked about so far really have
to do with money and findingmoney to be able to do the
traveling In some episodes I'vedone.
(00:49):
I've talked about, you know,comparing it to being in therapy
, essentially.
But what if you're not evenplanning on therapy or anything
I don't know?
You just want to get totraveling, but you just can't
find the money in your budget.
I want to tell you I come froma place where, again, I've been
(01:13):
in the financial industry forover 15 years.
I've seen.
It feels like I've seen it all.
Well, actually, if you takealso some of my other experience
, it's been nearly 20 years, ifnot more, that I've probably
been in one area of thefinancial industry or another.
So I've seen a lot.
(01:35):
You absolutely can find themoney for traveling.
I have seen over and over again, people put a priority on
something and they make ithappen and, as I showed you in
other episodes, it is possibleon a smaller budget.
(01:57):
You can find room in yourbudget for it.
I'm going to give you a coupleof ways to do that.
One is the cash way and one isthe points and miles way.
I'm going to go with points andmiles first, because this, in
my opinion, is the most excitingway, because then you can
(02:18):
travel for nearly.
You can go to more destinationsfurther around the world and
more luxury for pretty much lesscost than you paying cash to go
two hours away from your houseand that is to travel.
Go to pay for hotel hotels, payfor rental cars, pay for hotels
(02:39):
, rental cars, flights, sorry,and all these things with points
or miles.
I really lump them all intopoints when I talk about it,
because miles are essentiallypoints.
They just call them milesbecause they're airline.
Some airlines don't even callthem that.
They do call them points, butregardless, because then you
don't pay hardly anything incash.
I say that because there aresome fees usually to redeem
(03:03):
these.
It's usually five to six bucks.
It's not in the hundreds thereare.
There is.
From my recollection, there'sone or two airlines who do
charge a hundred dollar fee todo that.
But you don't want to use thatairline unless you're going like
halfway around the world orwhatever.
But that is the most excitingand it is the way to travel the
(03:23):
furthest and make your dollarstretch the farthest is by doing
points and miles.
Can you afford?
Let's see if we'd say a $10 feeand you have six people in your
family, including yourselfthat's my family, by the way, we
have four kids $60.
$60 to fly wherever I don't know.
Pick a destination.
(03:44):
I mean that literally itdoesn't matter when you're
redeeming points you can go from.
Let's take my nearestinternational airport again,
vegas.
We take that and we say I wantto go from Vegas to Auckland,
new Zealand, or I want to gofrom Vegas to Denver or Vegas to
LA.
All of those cost $10.
$10 in cash, cash at least.
(04:07):
And then you have to think aboutmiles, how much miles you're
spending.
This is not for this podcastparticularly.
That's different.
That's my business side.
But you want to be careful howyou spend those points.
You don't want to just throwthem around because then you're
not going to get the value forthem.
It's just like cash.
You don't want to spend $ themaround because then you're not
going to get the value for them.
It's just like cash.
You don't want to spend $200 ona hotel that sucks.
(04:28):
You want to be aware of whereyou're spending those miles and
when the best time to spend themin, but that if you can't
afford $60 in your budget to gofly somewhere because most
hotels, when you redeem points,don't charge you anything, so
there you go, zero there and 60bucks for the flight, maybe 120
(04:50):
if you.
We got a new round trip right.
If you can't find 120 in yourbudget when using points of
miles, then you're pretty faroff from from.
I mean, 120 is one night at ahotel, generally speaking.
So I know you can.
(05:10):
But that's the points and milesgame.
That does take some time tobuild, not a lot of time.
People think it's going to takeyears.
It doesn't take years, ladiesand gentlemen.
It takes literally less thansix months.
A lot of the times.
Guys, this is like the mostexciting thing.
I really love this part oftraveling.
I love the part absolutely lovethe part of going all these
(05:31):
places for practically no cost.
It's so much fun, so much fun.
I've been to so many places Icould never have afforded with
cash because of it.
And in fact, in the next, inthe next couple weeks, I'm going
to be and I haven't put thisout yet, but you're going to
(05:53):
hear about it now but I'm goingto be putting out an offer for
people to join me in my hometown, where I sit down and over a
couple of days I will teach youthe entire system, nuts and
bolts, all the questions youwant.
But it's not just that, it's notjust a seminar.
It's a time for me to show youall these cool areas that are
(06:16):
around me.
It's a retreat to go out andalso travel at the same time, to
teach and to travel, teach andto travel, teach and to
experience things.
It's going to be really fun.
I'm limiting it to five peoplejust so it's more intimate.
Maybe six, I haven't quitedecided yet.
(06:37):
You can, you catch it up later,but I want you to.
I want people to be able tounderstand this so they can do
it, and I want them to have funwhile doing it.
I don't want to just sit thereand lecture.
But anyway, I would digress offof that point.
Points and miles are a way tomake that stretch further.
Now, if you're not there yet,or it's not possible because of
(06:59):
credit score and other things,then what about cash?
Okay, let's talk about thatagain.
If it's important to you, youwill make it happen.
I had somebody in my familyrecently come to me.
Actually, because I've beendoing this for so long, you got
to understand my family's fullof a very much a bunch of, a lot
(07:20):
of a lot of prideful people.
So and it's not only just thatit's hard to talk to somebody
who grew up about money.
When you're adults, right,money is a difficult topic for
you to broach with somebody,especially if you grew up with
them.
But I actually finally had oneof my relatives.
Because I don't I don't evertalk to my relatives.
(07:40):
Because I don't ever talk to myrelatives about it, I figure
they can come to me if they havequestions, and they did finally
.
But they came and broached meabout the subject, about how
they seem to earn all this moneybut it all seems to go away,
even though they earn all thismoney and they don't need all
that money, and so on and soforth.
So I gave them a step-by-stepon how to figure out how to find
(08:06):
more money in your budget andthat's what I'm going to go with
with you today.
She's only on step one still.
It's been kind of early in thisfor them.
But the step one to find moneyin your budget is to track your
budget.
First of all, let me back upfor a second.
I hate the word budget.
I hate it.
(08:28):
Budget has such a negativeconnotation to it.
People hear the word budget andthey run for the hills as if I
told them to I don't know, Idon't know, pick something
negative.
I can't think of somethingright now, but they run for the
hills, run.
He talked about budgeting.
(08:48):
I'm not talking about budgeting.
I'm talking about finding moneyin your bank account.
Then, if you want, I don't care, the budget is just the more
accepted word.
But the first thing you need todo, the first, very first step,
is to track your money.
I tell you more than 50%,without having the statistic in
front of me, just by myexperience again, more than 50%
(09:08):
of the people in this countryand I think it's actually more
above 75, let's just say 50% ofthe people don't even know where
their money goes.
They just spend it.
Now, that's part of it is thatwe went from a generation Of
writing checks, where you had totrack literally everything, to
a nation where we just swipe,swipe, swipe.
(09:29):
Nobody knows where their moneygoes.
So step one on any journey Findout where your friggin money
goes, guys.
That's why, if you tell me youdon't have enough money to
travel and it's not in yourbudget, I call bullshit, because
you can.
You just don't know where theleak is.
And that's the analogy, really.
(09:52):
If you have a bathtub and it'sfull of water and it's leaking
on your ceiling, do you just sitthere and look down and go, wow
, that sucks.
I wonder where that leak'scoming from?
I obviously don't know whereit's coming from.
Maybe it's the bathtub, maybeit's the shower, I don't know.
Anyway, I'm just going to moveon.
I can't really fix it now.
Bull, what are you going to dowhen you find that leak?
(10:15):
You're going to frigging plugit.
If you don't know where theleak is, you can't feel the plug
.
So, number one, the same thingI told this family member track
your expenses for a month or two, possibly three, if you're
(10:38):
really motivated.
What is that going to do?
It's going to tell you wherethe leak is.
Holy crap, I spend that much oneating out and you know what a
lot of people don't track it.
Sometimes it's just laziness,sometimes it's just because they
really don't want to know wherethey put their money, because
it might involve some sort ofchange.
By the way, this isn't hard todo.
There are so many programs outthere a lot of them that are
(10:59):
free that you just connect yourbank account and your credit
cards.
Keeping in mind that between myspouse and I we have probably
about 35 credit cards we don'tuse them all, but we have that
many to track at least and wehave our bank accounts and a
bunch of other kids' accountsand such.
There are a lot of differentsoftwares out there that track,
(11:26):
that can just track it for you,and a lot of them are free and
they just import all of yourtransactions in.
All you have to do is labelthem.
Literally takes you maybe, ifyou do it daily, maybe five
minutes.
I do it monthly and it probablytakes me 30 minutes.
Yeah, I still track my money.
It drives me insane if I see aleak somewhere, so I always like
to plug those leaks.
When you find those leaks and Isay the word leak, I mean like
(11:46):
places in your budget where youknow you're spending way too
much money, like dining out,like you know, drinks on a
Saturday and Sunday, whatever,yeah, uh, maybe you're spending
too much money on.
I'm trying to think of otherstreaming services.
Oh, that's a big one.
Back in the day, people didn'tlike to pay $80 a month for
(12:08):
cable.
Now people are spending ahundred dollars a month on
streaming.
Does that make a lot of senseto you?
Doesn't make a lot of sense tome.
Maybe there is a subscriptionyou subscribe to five months ago
, you don't even use and youforgot about it.
Track it, plug the leaks, youtrack it.
You don't even use and youforgot about it.
Track it, plug the leaks, youtrack it.
You plug the leaks.
That might be enough intoitself to have enough money for
(12:31):
travel.
You take those same things andyou siphon them off.
What I mean by siphon off?
You get a frigging savingsaccount and all of the money
that you are saving because youcanceled this or stopped
spending this, you send over tothat savings account and you do
not touch it.
That's your travel account.
You don't touch it.
Don't touch it.
(12:52):
But I really want to go toMcDonald's with my kids this day
.
Really, you'd rather go toMcDonald's with your kids and
take them on a trip.
Come on, make priorities inyour life.
What's important here?
Now?
I know that I've said in a lotof episodes that it's important
to get out with your family.
Yes, and I also told youthere's some free things you do.
(13:13):
It boggles.
It doesn't boggle me.
I actually understand where itcomes from.
I shouldn't say it boggles me.
It actually does make sensewhere it comes from, where
people don't track theirexpenses and they don't plug the
leaks.
I'm just telling you that,without spending more money, you
can travel.
This is on the cash side, ofcourse.
I'm not talking about thepoints and miles side.
I already went on that one.
(13:33):
On the cash side, you cantravel and have the money to
travel without spending any morethan you're spending now.
You're just plugging leaks andredirecting money.
That's it.
It's just so simple that way.
Again, this could take some time.
(13:53):
Because I say you want totravel, you want to track your
expenses over a two month period, because maybe one month you
have an unusual expense that youknow that's out there and it
averages out over two months oraverages out over three.
If you're motivated enough.
It won't go three months.
I do it every month.
I've done it every month forfour or five months.
No, I'm sorry, four or fivemonths, four or five years,
(14:14):
pardon me.
I've been tracking my expensesliterally every month.
Has it been that short of atime?
It might be even maybe waylonger than that.
I been that short of a time.
It might be even maybe waylonger than that.
I can't, I can't remember.
I've been tracking it for avery long time.
I've been tracking a very longtime and it really helps me.
And my wife plug polls becauseshe doesn't want to look at a
monthly, which I don't blame her, she's done numbers person.
She's way, way right brained.
(14:35):
I'm way left, so I like thenumbers and she doesn't care.
Um, but uh, but she looks at,we look at at it often enough to
say, hey, this is where we'respending.
We need to plug a leak.
Or maybe, as I alluded to I'mnot sure if it was in this
episode or another one, but thatmaybe you just don't take your
(14:58):
kids to ballet, violin lessons,soccer, take your kids to ballet
, violin lessons, soccer, whatelse?
Dance Okay, I don't want to gooff on a ramp.
My heavens, dance is reallyexpensive for little kids.
I just don't get thatpersonally.
But anyways, I'll back off ofthat for a second.
(15:19):
Maybe you only take him to oneof those four or five things and
take all that money and put ittowards travel.
Do you really need your littleprincess to go to all those
things?
I mean seriously.
Again, I don't want to tell youhow to parent.
That's not my job here.
I'm trying to tell you myexperience and I want you to
(15:43):
know.
Know that you can find room inyour budget if you want to pay
for it with cash, if you want todo it.
Points and miles that'sseparate.
And again, I'm doing a.
Very soon I'm going to puttogether a retreat to teach all
that and to have some fun withsome of you out there.
Now some other episodes.
(16:04):
I've been talking about goingand traveling now with your
family, now with your spouse.
Get out and do it.
I would love everybody who'slistening to me.
I would love to see pictures,or for you to tell me stories
about how it's helped you andmaybe it hasn't yet, maybe you
just want to tell me a memorythat you built.
I want to know that I'mreaching you.
(16:25):
I want to know that I'm helpingyou.
I love pictures.
They're great, or just memoriesor both.
I would love to see these guys.
So here's my big takeaway here.
I want you, even if you do havemoney for traveling, this is
(16:45):
just a fundamental way of doingthings Track your expenses,
track them, understand whereyour money is going.
That's the big takeaway here,even if you're doing points and
miles instead of using cash.
I do points and miles,obviously.
That's the whole thing, right,traveling and luxury for little
(17:08):
or no cost.
That's the thing.
But I still track my expensesevery month because it has very
little to do with travel.
For me, it's a budget thing,just like travel.
Budget is my takeaway to youtoday, if anything else track
your expenses, know where yourmoney's going and plug the leaks
(17:31):
, plug them.
And then, optionally, of course,I would love to see what you
guys have been doing.
Travel-wise man.
I would love to see it.
I want to know also if you haveseen, at least in your family's
life, in your spouse's, yourmarriage or whatever,
improvement because of this.
(17:52):
I would love to hear those too.
And that, ultimately, is whatI'm doing this podcast for.
I want you to know what hashelped my spouse, my family, and
I want it to help yours.
You have been listening to,travel is Cheaper Than Divorce.
(18:16):
With me, your host, davidPacker, please connect with us
on our YouTube channel at TravelPoint Pros.
There you will learn many tipsand tricks on how to use points
and miles to travel in luxuryfor little to no cost.
Remember to like and subscribeand comment on any of the videos
that you find helpful to you.
Thank you for listening.
You are listening to.
Travel is Cheaper than Divorce.
This podcast for all those whomay be struggling with their
spouse or their children and therelationship with them.
We help give you tips andtricks by using travel as the
means to be able to help yourrelationships with your family.
I'll provide those tricks andother ways to help travel with
(00:29):
little or no cost.
So let's get into it.
Some of the things that I havetalked about so far really have
to do with money and findingmoney to be able to do the
traveling In some episodes I'vedone.
(00:49):
I've talked about, you know,comparing it to being in therapy
, essentially.
But what if you're not evenplanning on therapy or anything
I don't know?
You just want to get totraveling, but you just can't
find the money in your budget.
I want to tell you I come froma place where, again, I've been
(01:13):
in the financial industry forover 15 years.
I've seen.
It feels like I've seen it all.
Well, actually, if you takealso some of my other experience
, it's been nearly 20 years, ifnot more, that I've probably
been in one area of thefinancial industry or another.
So I've seen a lot.
(01:35):
You absolutely can find themoney for traveling.
I have seen over and over again, people put a priority on
something and they make ithappen and, as I showed you in
other episodes, it is possibleon a smaller budget.
(01:57):
You can find room in yourbudget for it.
I'm going to give you a coupleof ways to do that.
One is the cash way and one isthe points and miles way.
I'm going to go with points andmiles first, because this, in
my opinion, is the most excitingway, because then you can
(02:18):
travel for nearly.
You can go to more destinationsfurther around the world and
more luxury for pretty much lesscost than you paying cash to go
two hours away from your houseand that is to travel.
Go to pay for hotel hotels, payfor rental cars, pay for hotels
(02:39):
, rental cars, flights, sorry,and all these things with points
or miles.
I really lump them all intopoints when I talk about it,
because miles are essentiallypoints.
They just call them milesbecause they're airline.
Some airlines don't even callthem that.
They do call them points, butregardless, because then you
don't pay hardly anything incash.
I say that because there aresome fees usually to redeem
(03:03):
these.
It's usually five to six bucks.
It's not in the hundreds thereare.
There is.
From my recollection, there'sone or two airlines who do
charge a hundred dollar fee todo that.
But you don't want to use thatairline unless you're going like
halfway around the world orwhatever.
But that is the most excitingand it is the way to travel the
(03:23):
furthest and make your dollarstretch the farthest is by doing
points and miles.
Can you afford?
Let's see if we'd say a $10 feeand you have six people in your
family, including yourselfthat's my family, by the way, we
have four kids $60.
$60 to fly wherever I don't know.
Pick a destination.
(03:44):
I mean that literally itdoesn't matter when you're
redeeming points you can go from.
Let's take my nearestinternational airport again,
vegas.
We take that and we say I wantto go from Vegas to Auckland,
new Zealand, or I want to gofrom Vegas to Denver or Vegas to
LA.
All of those cost $10.
$10 in cash, cash at least.
(04:07):
And then you have to think aboutmiles, how much miles you're
spending.
This is not for this podcastparticularly.
That's different.
That's my business side.
But you want to be careful howyou spend those points.
You don't want to just throwthem around because then you're
not going to get the value forthem.
It's just like cash.
You don't want to spend $ themaround because then you're not
going to get the value for them.
It's just like cash.
You don't want to spend $200 ona hotel that sucks.
(04:28):
You want to be aware of whereyou're spending those miles and
when the best time to spend themin, but that if you can't
afford $60 in your budget to gofly somewhere because most
hotels, when you redeem points,don't charge you anything, so
there you go, zero there and 60bucks for the flight, maybe 120
(04:50):
if you.
We got a new round trip right.
If you can't find 120 in yourbudget when using points of
miles, then you're pretty faroff from from.
I mean, 120 is one night at ahotel, generally speaking.
So I know you can.
(05:10):
But that's the points and milesgame.
That does take some time tobuild, not a lot of time.
People think it's going to takeyears.
It doesn't take years, ladiesand gentlemen.
It takes literally less thansix months.
A lot of the times.
Guys, this is like the mostexciting thing.
I really love this part oftraveling.
I love the part absolutely lovethe part of going all these
(05:31):
places for practically no cost.
It's so much fun, so much fun.
I've been to so many places Icould never have afforded with
cash because of it.
And in fact, in the next, inthe next couple weeks, I'm going
to be and I haven't put thisout yet, but you're going to
(05:53):
hear about it now but I'm goingto be putting out an offer for
people to join me in my hometown, where I sit down and over a
couple of days I will teach youthe entire system, nuts and
bolts, all the questions youwant.
But it's not just that, it's notjust a seminar.
It's a time for me to show youall these cool areas that are
(06:16):
around me.
It's a retreat to go out andalso travel at the same time, to
teach and to travel, teach andto travel, teach and to
experience things.
It's going to be really fun.
I'm limiting it to five peoplejust so it's more intimate.
Maybe six, I haven't quitedecided yet.
(06:37):
You can, you catch it up later,but I want you to.
I want people to be able tounderstand this so they can do
it, and I want them to have funwhile doing it.
I don't want to just sit thereand lecture.
But anyway, I would digress offof that point.
Points and miles are a way tomake that stretch further.
Now, if you're not there yet,or it's not possible because of
(06:59):
credit score and other things,then what about cash?
Okay, let's talk about thatagain.
If it's important to you, youwill make it happen.
I had somebody in my familyrecently come to me.
Actually, because I've beendoing this for so long, you got
to understand my family's fullof a very much a bunch of, a lot
(07:20):
of a lot of prideful people.
So and it's not only just thatit's hard to talk to somebody
who grew up about money.
When you're adults, right,money is a difficult topic for
you to broach with somebody,especially if you grew up with
them.
But I actually finally had oneof my relatives.
Because I don't I don't evertalk to my relatives.
(07:40):
Because I don't ever talk to myrelatives about it, I figure
they can come to me if they havequestions, and they did finally
.
But they came and broached meabout the subject, about how
they seem to earn all this moneybut it all seems to go away,
even though they earn all thismoney and they don't need all
that money, and so on and soforth.
So I gave them a step-by-stepon how to figure out how to find
(08:06):
more money in your budget andthat's what I'm going to go with
with you today.
She's only on step one still.
It's been kind of early in thisfor them.
But the step one to find moneyin your budget is to track your
budget.
First of all, let me back upfor a second.
I hate the word budget.
I hate it.
(08:28):
Budget has such a negativeconnotation to it.
People hear the word budget andthey run for the hills as if I
told them to I don't know, Idon't know, pick something
negative.
I can't think of somethingright now, but they run for the
hills, run.
He talked about budgeting.
(08:48):
I'm not talking about budgeting.
I'm talking about finding moneyin your bank account.
Then, if you want, I don't care, the budget is just the more
accepted word.
But the first thing you need todo, the first, very first step,
is to track your money.
I tell you more than 50%,without having the statistic in
front of me, just by myexperience again, more than 50%
(09:08):
of the people in this countryand I think it's actually more
above 75, let's just say 50% ofthe people don't even know where
their money goes.
They just spend it.
Now, that's part of it is thatwe went from a generation Of
writing checks, where you had totrack literally everything, to
a nation where we just swipe,swipe, swipe.
(09:29):
Nobody knows where their moneygoes.
So step one on any journey Findout where your friggin money
goes, guys.
That's why, if you tell me youdon't have enough money to
travel and it's not in yourbudget, I call bullshit, because
you can.
You just don't know where theleak is.
And that's the analogy, really.
(09:52):
If you have a bathtub and it'sfull of water and it's leaking
on your ceiling, do you just sitthere and look down and go, wow
, that sucks.
I wonder where that leak'scoming from?
I obviously don't know whereit's coming from.
Maybe it's the bathtub, maybeit's the shower, I don't know.
Anyway, I'm just going to moveon.
I can't really fix it now.
Bull, what are you going to dowhen you find that leak?
(10:15):
You're going to frigging plugit.
If you don't know where theleak is, you can't feel the plug
.
So, number one, the same thingI told this family member track
your expenses for a month or two, possibly three, if you're
(10:38):
really motivated.
What is that going to do?
It's going to tell you wherethe leak is.
Holy crap, I spend that much oneating out and you know what a
lot of people don't track it.
Sometimes it's just laziness,sometimes it's just because they
really don't want to know wherethey put their money, because
it might involve some sort ofchange.
By the way, this isn't hard todo.
There are so many programs outthere a lot of them that are
(10:59):
free that you just connect yourbank account and your credit
cards.
Keeping in mind that between myspouse and I we have probably
about 35 credit cards we don'tuse them all, but we have that
many to track at least and wehave our bank accounts and a
bunch of other kids' accountsand such.
There are a lot of differentsoftwares out there that track,
(11:26):
that can just track it for you,and a lot of them are free and
they just import all of yourtransactions in.
All you have to do is labelthem.
Literally takes you maybe, ifyou do it daily, maybe five
minutes.
I do it monthly and it probablytakes me 30 minutes.
Yeah, I still track my money.
It drives me insane if I see aleak somewhere, so I always like
to plug those leaks.
When you find those leaks and Isay the word leak, I mean like
(11:46):
places in your budget where youknow you're spending way too
much money, like dining out,like you know, drinks on a
Saturday and Sunday, whatever,yeah, uh, maybe you're spending
too much money on.
I'm trying to think of otherstreaming services.
Oh, that's a big one.
Back in the day, people didn'tlike to pay $80 a month for
(12:08):
cable.
Now people are spending ahundred dollars a month on
streaming.
Does that make a lot of senseto you?
Doesn't make a lot of sense tome.
Maybe there is a subscriptionyou subscribe to five months ago
, you don't even use and youforgot about it.
Track it, plug the leaks, youtrack it.
You don't even use and youforgot about it.
Track it, plug the leaks, youtrack it.
You plug the leaks.
That might be enough intoitself to have enough money for
(12:31):
travel.
You take those same things andyou siphon them off.
What I mean by siphon off?
You get a frigging savingsaccount and all of the money
that you are saving because youcanceled this or stopped
spending this, you send over tothat savings account and you do
not touch it.
That's your travel account.
You don't touch it.
Don't touch it.
(12:52):
But I really want to go toMcDonald's with my kids this day
.
Really, you'd rather go toMcDonald's with your kids and
take them on a trip.
Come on, make priorities inyour life.
What's important here?
Now?
I know that I've said in a lotof episodes that it's important
to get out with your family.
Yes, and I also told youthere's some free things you do.
(13:13):
It boggles.
It doesn't boggle me.
I actually understand where itcomes from.
I shouldn't say it boggles me.
It actually does make sensewhere it comes from, where
people don't track theirexpenses and they don't plug the
leaks.
I'm just telling you that,without spending more money, you
can travel.
This is on the cash side, ofcourse.
I'm not talking about thepoints and miles side.
I already went on that one.
(13:33):
On the cash side, you cantravel and have the money to
travel without spending any morethan you're spending now.
You're just plugging leaks andredirecting money.
That's it.
It's just so simple that way.
Again, this could take some time.
(13:53):
Because I say you want totravel, you want to track your
expenses over a two month period, because maybe one month you
have an unusual expense that youknow that's out there and it
averages out over two months oraverages out over three.
If you're motivated enough.
It won't go three months.
I do it every month.
I've done it every month forfour or five months.
No, I'm sorry, four or fivemonths, four or five years,
(14:14):
pardon me.
I've been tracking my expensesliterally every month.
Has it been that short of atime?
It might be even maybe waylonger than that.
I been that short of a time.
It might be even maybe waylonger than that.
I can't, I can't remember.
I've been tracking it for avery long time.
I've been tracking a very longtime and it really helps me.
And my wife plug polls becauseshe doesn't want to look at a
monthly, which I don't blame her, she's done numbers person.
She's way, way right brained.
(14:35):
I'm way left, so I like thenumbers and she doesn't care.
Um, but uh, but she looks at,we look at at it often enough to
say, hey, this is where we'respending.
We need to plug a leak.
Or maybe, as I alluded to I'mnot sure if it was in this
episode or another one, but thatmaybe you just don't take your
(14:58):
kids to ballet, violin lessons,soccer, take your kids to ballet
, violin lessons, soccer, whatelse?
Dance Okay, I don't want to gooff on a ramp.
My heavens, dance is reallyexpensive for little kids.
I just don't get thatpersonally.
But anyways, I'll back off ofthat for a second.
(15:19):
Maybe you only take him to oneof those four or five things and
take all that money and put ittowards travel.
Do you really need your littleprincess to go to all those
things?
I mean seriously.
Again, I don't want to tell youhow to parent.
That's not my job here.
I'm trying to tell you myexperience and I want you to
(15:43):
know.
Know that you can find room inyour budget if you want to pay
for it with cash, if you want todo it.
Points and miles that'sseparate.
And again, I'm doing a.
Very soon I'm going to puttogether a retreat to teach all
that and to have some fun withsome of you out there.
Now some other episodes.
(16:04):
I've been talking about goingand traveling now with your
family, now with your spouse.
Get out and do it.
I would love everybody who'slistening to me.
I would love to see pictures,or for you to tell me stories
about how it's helped you andmaybe it hasn't yet, maybe you
just want to tell me a memorythat you built.
I want to know that I'mreaching you.
(16:25):
I want to know that I'm helpingyou.
I love pictures.
They're great, or just memoriesor both.
I would love to see these guys.
So here's my big takeaway here.
I want you, even if you do havemoney for traveling, this is
(16:45):
just a fundamental way of doingthings Track your expenses,
track them, understand whereyour money is going.
That's the big takeaway here,even if you're doing points and
miles instead of using cash.
I do points and miles,obviously.
That's the whole thing, right,traveling and luxury for little
(17:08):
or no cost.
That's the thing.
But I still track my expensesevery month because it has very
little to do with travel.
For me, it's a budget thing,just like travel.
Budget is my takeaway to youtoday, if anything else track
your expenses, know where yourmoney's going and plug the leaks
(17:31):
, plug them.
And then, optionally, of course,I would love to see what you
guys have been doing.
Travel-wise man.
I would love to see it.
I want to know also if you haveseen, at least in your family's
life, in your spouse's, yourmarriage or whatever,
improvement because of this.
(17:52):
I would love to hear those too.
And that, ultimately, is whatI'm doing this podcast for.
I want you to know what hashelped my spouse, my family, and
I want it to help yours.
You have been listening to,travel is Cheaper Than Divorce.
(18:16):
With me, your host, davidPacker, please connect with us
on our YouTube channel at TravelPoint Pros.
There you will learn many tipsand tricks on how to use points
and miles to travel in luxuryfor little to no cost.
Remember to like and subscribeand comment on any of the videos
that you find helpful to you.
Thank you for listening.
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