The Intersection of Budgeting & Travel | Pennywise Coaching Advice

Hey everybody, I'm Penny Kidd with Pennywise Coaching and I'm here with—

hello, I'm Samantha Schultz. And Penny, I'm so glad that we decided to, uh, record just some of our thoughts and many deep conversations that we normally had.

Right, so tell them a little bit about what you do and then I'll circle back and then we'll just dive in.

So yeah, excellent. Um, so again, Samantha Schultz, I'm the owner of Plan Your Perfect Vacation, which is a travel agency that focuses on international Travel Plus Alaska and Hawaii. And a lot of you might be wondering, well, why, why are you— why are we talking about travel today? Or, you know, why are we talking about, um, you know, this with Penny? And Penny and I have lots of conversations about how travel and money overlap, um, because obviously you need money to travel, but a lot of things that people don't think about when it comes to money planning and travel. So we thought it would be kind of fun to just share some thoughts.

My job with Pennywise Coaching is really to help people learn how to I say make their money behave. I was an old social worker, and so it was all about behavior change. And I think money is the same, right? You don't just— at least in my world, money doesn't rain from the sky and just come, you know. You have to kind of take what you have to put it where your goals and your values are. And to me, travel is one of my values, and probably a lot of the people that are watching what, what we talk about, that's one of their you know, joys in life too. Now, if they don't care about travel, you can skip over this, right? But, right, I think you have said that you've gotten a lot of questions about, well, I want to go do this, but I can't afford it. And yet sometimes, you know, they make really good money. How can they not afford anything, right? And I feel like even for my husband and I, we, we don't make a lot of money, but we live debt-free.

Well, right, exactly.

Yeah. And it's because we learned how to create a plan for every dollar that we make, whether it's a little or a lot. And part of that is setting some aside for fun things, right? I think a lot of people think if you're doing, uh, the dreaded B-word, the budget, that you can't do anything fun, right? And yet I think when you put your money where your values are, what's important to you, whether it's your house, your car, your kids, your travel, you know, just having the intention first and being mindful about where you want those dollars to go. It's amazing how they can grow. And all of a sudden you have a pocket of money to go do something.

Right. And actually, I think, you know, what you're saying about budgeting and how usually it has a negative connotation, I actually feel like by having one, it almost creates more freedom when you really know where your money is going instead of it just all running. And then all of a sudden you're like, oh, I can't do anything. I feel like it's a very empowering feeling to be able to say, kind of like you said, this is what I value, so we're going to make the things I value at the forefront of the budget, and then I'm actually going to have the money to spend on those things, and I'm going to feel really good about it. So, and I think to your point, yeah, a lot of times people think, oh, I'm never going to travel, I don't have the money for it. And I think that there is way. Now everyone's travel may look different, but I think if, again, if you value it or it's something you want to, you know, make a part of your life, it's like, let's start now and, you know, make it happen.

Yeah, yeah. Because it could be everything from a roof over your head to, you know, trips to, to Haiti, right? But, you know, and, and there's definitely layers of priority, and we would hope that you have your basics covered first before you do the big expense.

Exactly.

'Cause exactly one of my other, you know, beliefs, and I believe you and I've talked about this in the past too, is not just putting these great trips on credit and then paying 29% more because you just stuck it on a credit card and paid it off over 5 years or whatever. And I think I don't have any problem with using the credit card. I think there's some value and the protections and stuff in the credit card,. But I think having the money to pay the credit card off is super important, right?

Yes. And I think no one wants to come back and come back, you know, this blissful trip, you know, I got to see all these cool things or I got to relax. And then you have this stress. And I think no one wants that.

Right. Right. And I mean, when we were young, we went on a trip only to California and stayed with family, but put it all on a credit card. And my husband came back literally the next day and they let him go from his job. And it was like, ah, no, we were planning on— we'll pay that off when we get back. And so I think it was a very kind of eye-opening experience for me to be like, oh, you never know what tomorrow brings, right? It could be health stuff, it could be, um, job loss, or, you know, other things that get in your way. But if you've saved the money and you've dedicated that money for the trip and it's virtually paid for before you go, and you've got the memories and you've got the stuff, you've already had the trip, right? And then you pivot for the next whatever is coming.

Yes.

One of the expenses that you and I were talking about last time that my daughter is finding in real time right now is young people that are getting married. And I know that's an intersection for both of us too, is like that time in your life when you're merging money and planning and you think, this is the only time I'm going to get married and the only honeymoon and the only trip, and Talk a little bit about what your experience has been when people come to you about that time in their lives.

Sure. Yeah. You know, whether— I mean, I do have a lot of people that come to me, they're, you know, getting married or maybe they've just started living together and now they're vacationing together or wanting to vacation together. And it is a very interesting time. And I know you've probably experienced this too, where people, even if they do have a pretty solid budget, you've got 2 different budgets, or maybe 2 different budgeting styles, or 2 different ways of thinking about how you budget for things. So that's one thing. Or you have 2 people that come together and there is no budget at all, right? So a lot of times when I have a lot of honeymooners that come to me and they've been making all the plans— we got the venue, we got the dress, the flowers, the this— and then they'll say, well, we don't know what's— like, there's not really a whole lot left for the honeymoon. And whether or not it's a honeymoon or again, you're just, you know, partners wanting to go on a trip together, it's kind of almost thinking with that end in mind, like if we want the trip, it's got to be part of that overall plan. And so I think, you know, you start with the end in mind. We both want to take a trip, but backing that out, it really starts with that budget. And that's kind of where you come into play with, like you said, there has to be the foundation in place before you can get to that other end. And I think the hardest part about what I do when I'm in those, you know, consultation calls or I'm talking with a couple is having these tough conversations where they may realize, oh, we might have to wait a whole nother year to go because we haven't saved enough. Or we're— they realize we're on completely different pages. One person, you know, I always say, wants champagne and the other wants beer. I like both. But they're, you know, different, different budgets, different tastes. And to find that out when you have your sights set on going somewhere in 6 months, that could completely derail when you're heading somewhere. So I think, you know, kind of like you said, that foundation with you is so important to start because then that's only going to make, like, when people come to me, that much easier because everyone's going to be on the same page and it's going to be a really fun process versus, you know, maybe like a more stressful process.

Well, you've helped me plan a couple trips and, and I think the first question out of the gate is, what's your budget? How much do you want to spend? Because we were like, where do we want to go? And how much and what experiences. And, and I really appreciated that about you, to kind of help, not just be like, sure, I'll plan it all and then, you know, surprise you with the amount later. It was okay, what, what is your budget? Are you champagne or beer, right?

Yeah.

You want the, the high end of everything, and do you want a little bit of that and a little bit of— you're okay with the budget rooms? I really appreciate that about you because, you know, when you travel, you're spending your money too. And there's times where you want to cheap it out, and there's other times where like, no, this one we want to— we want a little more luxury, right?

Right. And there's even like, you know, different components within a trip. Like, there's just like with a regular budget, there's trade-offs. So when you're looking at your, you know, your budget for your home things, and you may splurge on having, you know, maybe a couple different TV subscriptions, but maybe you pull back on something else. And And just like with travel too, there are some people that'll say, I want the most economy flight, you know, bare bones. But then, yeah, we want our hotels to be a little bit nicer, or we're okay with a moderate hotel, but we wanna do some really nice tours. And there's ways again of making those trade-offs. And that's why I think we have so many great conversations, 'cause building a trip is very similar to building a budget. And again, it's all about what are the priorities, but also, you know, you've gotta have open communication. It's open communication with yourself, with whoever you share the budget with, whoever's helping you create the budget. And, you know, I think that's the biggest thing is just understanding what's the expectation and then kind of almost playing Tetris to make those things work.

What kind of issues do you see come up with, especially with couples, whether it's young or old or whatever? But when you're having that conversation, because you probably are in the thick of some of that with people too, that you've said, you know, there could be a difference in the way they want to travel, how much they want to spend or whatever. Anything else that you can think of that maybe could be avoided if we could share that with people now?

I think, you know, yeah, definitely. Well, talking in advance. So like a lot of times just, you know, hey, you know what, what do you envision? And I think this goes again with regular budgeting. Like if someone's thinking, you know what, 5 years from now we want to purchase a house, what type of house do you envision? And that's very much how I think of travel planning. When you come back from a trip, is it going to match what was in mind from the beginning? And whoever you're traveling with, or even again, if it's yourself, I have lots of solo travelers too. You have to plan and think in advance, what do I want the end to look like? So when I come back from that trip, is it going to match what I'm thinking about right now? That's probably the biggest thing. But I think there are, you know, we've talked about hidden costs and there's a lot of things people will say, I'm pretty sure we can go here for this amount. And while maybe the hotels add up to that much and the flight, there's a lot of other things that go into a trip that a lot of times people forget about. And all of a sudden, thousands of dollars later, they thought, oh my goodness, I didn't realize that we weren't even considering those things. And it's kind of, again, just like a budget. When you still start kind of like item— I hate to say itemizing, but like lining out, you know, each different thing that you have to pay for monthly, you know, you know, yearly, whatever, all of a sudden you think, gosh, I forgot I pay for all these things. And there are things that, you know, if you don't travel very often, you can forget. A couple of them that come to mind: one, like tipping. So if you go somewhere where tips aren't included, that's one that a lot of times people, they realize they get somewhere and they're like, I don't even have any cash, like, what do I do? Travel insurance. So that's something some people— and we talked about credit cards have some, some of them have protections in them, but if they don't, making sure that your trip is protected, you have medical protection abroad, that would be one that's usually forgotten a lot of times. Just how are you going to get around? Around. So most of the time, you know, here in the U.S., people think like, oh, I'll just, you know, grab an Uber. Some places that doesn't exist, or some places maybe taking a taxi you might get taken advantage of, and having a transfer set up in advance might be a better option for you. Um, again, those tours and activities, you may be forgetting, oh, you know what, I heard that going and whale watching here is like the most amazing thing. That whale watching boat's going to cost a little bit of money. So there again, you start breaking it down by, again, what do you envision? It's more than just the hotel and the flight, you've got all of these other line items.

Yeah. Yeah. Are you a sit on the beach the whole time person, which my fair body doesn't do very well? Um, or do you want the experiences and the, you know, the things? Because I think I, I feel like the hidden gotcha for me, like even in planning the couple that we did with you, was this doesn't include airfare, Penny Kidd, you know? This is just this part, you still got to get there kind of thing. It's like, and then you go shop the airfare and go, oh wow, that's right. Yeah, because airfares vary so greatly. And you're like, you know, are you using points? Are you going at, you know, like you said, the budget airlines or whatever? Are you going first class? Right.

So, um, but you bring up a good point because, you know, I feel like for— there were many years where airfare was pretty consistent and you kind of knew roughly. I mean, even domestically, you're like, oh, it's going to be a couple hundred dollars here airfare. And then all of a sudden, within the last year or two, it is just skyrocketed within the US. You go to Europe, here, there, everywhere, it's very high. And I've actually been— even though we typically, like, working with my agency, we don't book airfare first because I would never want someone to book their airfare and then we realize we can't, you know, we can't find the right hotel, like everything else doesn't fit into those parameters. Because as we know, most airfare is not refundable. But I will always say, have you at least peeked at the price of airfare? And, you know, it changes, it can change from day to day, but at least looking and seeing, oh, this destination is how much, that right there can completely change the entire conversation. So even sometimes just kind of peeking at that, I would say the really big ticket items, it's your airfare and your hotel. Those are going to tell a lot to what the overall budget's going to need to be. And I mean, any— when you think of, I think, even a budget for, um, you know, every day, would you agree like a big part is going to be your housing and your transportation?

Yeah. And food.

Yeah, I know. Yes.

Food. You know, those are probably the big 3. You kind of need all 3 of those.

Absolutely. And that's another thing too, is, you know, even people will say, oh, I'm going to go to an all-inclusive and everything is going to be included. And not that it should be a lot extra, but, you know, you think about flights and things. If you have a layover, you might be grabbing something to eat or drink during the layover. You know, if there is any delays, which you hope there aren't. So those are also hidden costs that sometimes we can't even really anticipate until you've started traveling. That it's like you almost have to have— it's like having that extra savings fund for a rainy day. It's like a little savings fund for the unexpected when you travel, you know. Or say you are laying on the beach and you realize, you know, I just have to have a piña colada and I wasn't planning on having one. You know, no one wants to have to say no to themselves every time on vacation, but you also want to feel, you know, good about your choice too.

What are some ways that you, when you're traveling, what ways do you like to kind of cut corners and save some money?

Yeah, so, well, I definitely, um, I'm not a big spender when it comes to flight. So even though I would love to lay down on everyone, especially on the long ones, um, I choose not to. But I've actually gotten like— I think there's ways to make flying comfortable. A really great neck pillow, um, you know, just what you wear on an airplane, just the comfort level can make it easier to be able to take a quick nap. Well, I always bring a refillable water bottle. Airport water is— I mean, not even just airport water, even having to get water at a hotel. Like, say you just like having water by your bed stand, um, most people don't realize, even if you don't want to work out when you're on a trip, you can go into the gym and refill your water bottle for free. So don't be buying water at a hotel. Um, another thing too is I always travel with food. Um, you always have to be careful, make sure you're not bringing like fresh fruits, vegetables, and things. That's not allowed in most countries. But anything pre-packaged, I mean, for one for the airplane. And I talk about delays. Unfortunately, flight delays and cancellations are abundant these days, and you could find yourself, even if you're already on the plane, sometimes sitting there for an hour or two, and you may get hungry, and you cannot rely on, well, I'm gonna wait for the soda cart to come by. Yeah. So I always at least have some water with me, and I always have a snack with me, or even sometimes multiple snacks. And I even have some for, like, when I arrive, because also too, maybe you get in so late somewhere there's no restaurants open. What are you going to do for dinner, you know, or are you going to order off the late night in-room dining menu? And again, that's an unexpected expense that you weren't planning on. Bigger scale, I always, I like to travel more off-season, so I like to travel when it's not most expensive. So that's, you know, something, you know, that's kind of a whole nother conversation. But that's not even just little things like snacks and drinks, but just, you know, what time do you go and maybe, you know, being a little flexibility in your schedule. Goes a long way in saying, you know what, yeah, I would love to go when I know the, you know, the weather is going to be absolutely perfect, but I'm okay maybe if it rains a day or two and go during those times. And you can usually save a good amount of money too. And I also like it that there's less people usually, right?

Yeah, that's a good point. I know when we were planning our Belize trip with you a couple years ago that, you know, I think we told you March, and so you did all this stuff for March, and then all of a sudden we saw the prices were so much drastically different in February.

Yes.

Well, we don't care. We don't have kids to go on spring break. Let's don't compete with that. And we pushed it up a few weeks and it was dramatically different in price, at least in our airfare. I don't remember, it probably changed a little bit on the hotel too. But yeah, I think that's a great tip, is that if you have the flexibility or what time of day you fly, right? You want to take the kind of crappy time, you're going to get a cheaper flight.

Right, right.

Absolutely willing to do the stops. And I always struggle with that because like, time or money, time or money, which one?

Yeah.

And that—

but I think that's one of those trade-offs. There are a lot of people that'll say, I want no layovers and I want to fly nonstop. But again, then they're okay with cutting back somewhere else. Some people say, you know what, being on the plane is part of the adventure and they're okay with some stops. And again, it really comes down to like, yeah, what are your values? What are— what's your preference? And that's what I think is really cool when it comes to whether it's budgeting or it comes to trip planning. It's all personal to you and it doesn't have to be this cookie cutter process. And that's why a budget shouldn't feel bad or staying in a budget for a trip shouldn't feel bad because it's, it's, it's all tailored to you.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Because at the end of the day, you're stuck with your life and your money. And I, I think that's. Why I'm so passionate about helping people, you know, and some people hate the B word, you know, the dreaded budget word. It's like being on a diet. I'm like, okay, let's just call it a spending plan, right? It's the same thing. You're just telling your money where to go instead of wondering where it went, right?

Absolutely.

You get to decide, is it going to Starbucks every day or it's going to Hawaii, right? It's, it's your plan. And, you know, it's not like you can say, just don't watch watch streaming services and don't drink coffee out, and that you'll be able to travel the world. But yeah, by setting it aside a little bit at a time for whatever those funds are— and that's part of my specialty, is to help people see things that are coming, whether it's a trip to see Grandma or honeymoon, what's coming in your life, or your pets, or your water heater, right? All of those things factor into creating a good spending plan so that you don't have the gotchas that make life so stressful, right? Yeah, that's part of homeownership is I'm gonna have to replace some things. There's, there's maintenance, there's yards, and you know, so you get fixated, I think, sometimes on like, oh, I want to plan my honeymoon, or we've got this trip, or this anniversary, um, but other life is still happening. So I agree with what you said a little bit ago about just having some kind plan and budget takes the stress out of living, you know, whether you travel at all.

Right, exactly.

I hear that all the time from my clients. Within a fairly short period of time, they're like, oh, I'm less stressed about my money because now I can see, yes, where it's going and what I, what I want. Not just what I have been doing, but what do I really want to do with my money, right? Some of that's hopefully planning for the long game, like retirement, not working every you know, till you drop, right?

It's all of us want to look at what other people are doing, and it's very hard to stay out of the comparison game. And I think it's that way when it comes to planning your money, because we, you know, there's, there is always this feeling of like, oh, I want, you know, this or that, or I got to keep up with the Joneses. But to be honest, the same thing actually happens with trips too. Um, and actually, now that I'm thinking about, that's one thing, and it's not just honeymooners, it's really anyone. And I'll hear people say, I want to go somewhere other people haven't gone, or my friends have all been here. I want to go somewhere else. And while I understand that thought of like wanting something new and feeling different, it's— I think it's important to remember it isn't about them. It's about you and what's going to bring you happiness. And, you know, social media, we see a lot of things. One thing I always see is people that feel the need to buy like an entirely new wardrobe for every trip they go on. I actually— it's funny, I'm wearing this sweater today. I can tell you I have photos of wearing this in Paris back in 2017. I've had the sweater that long. Um, I would rather spend my money on travel than spend it on having all of the newest, trendiest clothes. And yes, a lot of my travel photos I'm wearing the same things, but at the end of the day, am I remembering the destination or am I remembering that I had the newest wardrobe? Again, but it's values. And there might be some people that say, you know what, my wardrobe's pretty darn important, and that's okay too. There have to be something else that then, you know, is, is kind of deprioritized. But that, that's, you know, that's how I look at it is, and that's how I kind of even in my personal life, I make trade-offs. And I think, again, those trade-offs are personal to you, kind of like you said with coffee. Some people, maybe the coffee is the trade-off and that does the trick. But if you're like, that is not going to happen, all right, what's the other thing that you can potentially, you know, say I'm not going to spend as much on and that's I'm going to not prioritize that.

Yeah. Yeah. Because, and I think when sometimes when I tell people what I do, they think I'm going to come in and tell them they can't have any fun and you can't spend any money. And I'm like, it's your money. It's your plan. I don't tell you how to spend it. I just help you start seeing and creating your plan and your systems that, that are sustainable. Right. And it's not, I don't think it should be about deprivation that you shouldn't always have to say, No, no, no, I can't do it. But living within your means gives you a whole lot more. You can sleep at night, right? Yes. You know, maybe, you know, it's, it's hard to follow you on Instagram. You know, it is so cool. And you, and you, it's really tempting to have that comparison FOMO kind of thing. And I'm sure you have somebody else that it's the same. We have to keep that in check, right? But then I go, okay, at the end of the day, this is my house and my world. This is what I have to live with. Not, not anybody else. Right. And it's— I think social media has made it that much harder. Maybe back when I was younger, when we didn't have that, you didn't know what your friends were doing, you know, or you might have seen if it was your coworker that they came and showed you some pictures. But it's so in your face all the time. That if you're not careful, you sacrifice your own— like, like I said, retirement, or your— people come to me with tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt because they've lived according to what somebody else could do, and they really couldn't afford to do that.

So whether it is your personal spending plan or your personal vacation, you've got to look at what's going to make you happy, and that's going to be, I think, the biggest value overall.

It wasn't a whole lot more expensive necessarily, but because you have expertise, I didn't spend hours and hours and hours researching stuff that I don't know anything about and probably would've wound up in the scary neighborhood or whatever. And, um, we actually started working together right before the pandemic, right? We had planned that trip and we were gonna go to Alaska in 2020. And oh my God, I, you could probably write a book about your whole experience during that. You know, that was, that was quite the thing. But I have to say, who could have planned that, right? That's not why I used you. I didn't know the world was going to fall apart. It made it so much less stressful to have somebody in my pocket who knew how to navigate. You didn't expect a pandemic either, but you'd have things close or cancel or whatever. And so there's, there's some peace of mind to have somebody who's the expert expert in, in that arena.

Yeah. Well, and I think in anything, I mean, just like you being the expert too, and I think sometimes no matter what the field is, you know, someone that's an expert in, you know, helping people with their finances or someone that's an expert in, um, you know, I mean, I even think of like hairdressers or, you know, whatever, you know, real estate agents, you know, we all will only have so much time. We only have so much brain capacity. We cannot all be experts in everything. And I think it's interesting how we all don't think like, well, why wouldn't I go to an expert for this? Because not only is it going to be a fraction of the time, they're probably still going to— not even the less time, they're going to guide me even better than I could probably figure it out on my own. Um, and so yeah, I think it's, it's true to that point. I mean, yes, I'm sure some people could eventually get themselves out of debt or put together a great budget, but you're probably going to help help guide them in a much more positive way that's going to feel good to them, and they're probably going to get to whatever their goal is a lot faster. And that's very similar to travel planning too. Yeah, you could spend 6 months, but I always think too, what other fun things, whether they cost money or not, could you be doing with that free time when all of us experts are helping with whatever you're doing? So you bring up a really great point.

Yeah, no, I agree. And, and, and my clients definitely go faster than I did when I was figuring it out because I didn't hire anybody. And it is interesting on this side of equation to be like, oh, I wonder how much different it would have been had I asked for some help, right? And taken advantage of somebody else's knowledge. And, you know, I see on, you know, Facebook groups and stuff like that all the time where they're kind of bashing the don't hire anybody to help you do this yourself. And I'm like, yeah, you can. I will never say you can't. I did. But I think you can go faster and learn more from somebody who's been there, done that, and worked with hundreds or thousands of people. Than reading a book. Right. So just depends where you're at in your life and what you want to— again, where do you want to put your money? What do you value? Right. Yes.

And it's different for everyone. If you don't like doing hours of research upon end, or if you don't want to have to think about what's the best way for me to get my finances in order so I can lead the life I want to lead.

Yeah.

Take out the stress and just get someone on your side. So I agree.

I agree. Well, this has been lovely. I know we can talk all day, so we'll try to longer than we want. I think I have a pretty full, um, travel budget that, um, I can include in our stuff that people can download. And just, it helps kind of get the brain dump out of your head so that you can start seeing what the cost is, whether it's don't forget to board your dog, or, you know, all those hidden costs that, right?

Yes. So that's a big one. Absolutely.

Welcome to share that with your people as well.

So, yeah, and I think anyone that is watching, you know, if you're still saying, I cannot travel, I don't have the money, I think that's where it's like, okay, you've got to talk to Penny first. Don't talk to me and talk to Penny. Get the foundation in place and then we'll get the travel plans in place. But I definitely don't think that it is one or the other. It's just getting everything done in kind of a the correct sequence and then everything's going to feel good.

Well, why don't you share your ways to reach out to you and I'll share mine and we'll put them in the notes or the newsletters.

Yeah, absolutely. So I can be reached best at my website, which is www.planyourperfectvacation.com. So Plan Your Perfect Vacation is— it is my business name. You can also find me on Instagram too. So as long as you remember that name, you'll be able to find me. But please reach out any time and say hello.

Great.

Yeah.

And mine is pennywisecoaching.com. Same thing. If you poke around my website, there's contact buttons and stuff. And I'm, I'm more on Facebook, a little bit on Instagram. But yeah, and I love meeting with people for an initial discovery call. So don't, don't be afraid to contact either one of us and just ask, and then we'll, you know, figure out where we go from there.

So, well, thanks for, thanks for the chat today, Penny. It's always good to talk with you. And I just love that we have so many things in common and we're able to share all of this knowledge with everyone.

Me too. Thanks so much.