She's On The Money - Common Financial Mistakes for Travelers

Episode Date: October 18, 2022

We are finally back travelling, but if you’re anything like us, you’re likely a little out of practice. To help you prepare for any upcoming vacays you have planned, today we’ll be discussing the most common money mistakes people make when they travel. From what to do with your mobile phone, to conversion rates, transport from the airport and more...listen in for some hot tips!Acknowledgement of Country By Natarsha Bamblett aka Queen Acknowledgements.The advice shared on She’s on The Money is general in nature and does not consider your individual circumstances. She’s on The Money exists purely for educational purposes and should not be relied upon to make an investment or financial decision.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hello, my name is Natasha Nabanunga-Bamblett. I'm a proud Yorta Yorta, Kernai, Wolperi and Awadjeri woman. And before we get started on She's on the Money podcast, I would like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land of which this podcast is recorded on Awadjeri country, acknowledging the elders, the ancestors and the next generation coming through. As this podcast is about connecting, empowering, knowledge sharing and the storytelling of you to make a difference for today and lasting impact for tomorrow. Let's get into it. She's on the money. She's on the money.

Hello and welcome to She's on the Money, the podcast for millennials who want financial freedom. After a woolly couple of years, we are finally back traveling. But if you're anything like us, you're likely a little out of practice. To help you prepare for any upcoming vacays you have planned, today we'll be discussing the most common money mistakes people make when they travel so you can spend your hard-earned coin on fun things like pina coladas or ugly novelty fridge magnets of the Eiffel Tower. My name is Georgia King. Are you going to attack me for the gift I brought you back from Europe. Wow. She didn't bring that back, let me tell you. My name is Georgia King and joining me as always is Victoria Devine. Vicky D, you have been traveling all over

the place this year. So I'm very keen to pick your brains as to how you actually managed to save money whilst doing so. So let's get straight into it. Who said I saved money while traveling? I'm just assuming. You're the face if she's on the money, good with finance. Do you know what? I am pretty good with finance. You got tricks up your sleeve? I am also very good at traveling. Yeah. You know, side note, I'm also very good at traveling with only carry-on luggage.

Really? I know. That shocks me. Nobody saw that coming because I'm so like, I don't know, I'll just give the air of being a little bit over the top. I get it. I get it. You guys judged me.

Wow. You judged me. That's on you, not me. But it's funny because obviously traveling so much, it's an absolute privilege. I adore travel and some of it has been for fun, but most of it has actually been for work. And when it comes to work, like one thing I really, I don't like being away from home. It really sucks. I'm away from my pets. I'm away from my family. Like it's just funny being in a different bed. You never have as great of a sleep. You're always a little bit angsty. I'm always worried I forgot

something. So setting myself up to travel was really important. And that included decanting all of my favorite products. Because one thing I hate is not having access to my entire skincare routine. I know that is really lame, but when you're traveling to keep things as consistent as possible, I feel really helps. Whereas, you know, having done Europe recently with a group of girlfriends, I feel like a lot of them were like, oh yeah, I just brought this moisturizer for the trip because it fit in my bag. And I'd be like, oh, I get that just if it's a holiday. But if I'm traveling for work, I just want things to be the same. I just want my stuff. But I also don't want to spend a lot of money on the mini versions of stuff because, like, even with minis, like my favorite skincare, obviously, no shame here, also not sponsored, GoToSkincare.

The bloody best. Their minis don't even come out consistently. You have to, like, jump on their website and try and hack them up when they do the party packs. I didn't know they did little minis. Yeah, that's gorgeous. Not often. Not often. Not often.

I do own some of them, though. Of course you do. Very lucky. Thank you. Anyway, so for me, it's not just about money saving. It's also about travel hacks, but I feel like that ends up saving me money. It's all about comfort at the end of the day when traveling. Yeah. Okay. Perfect. All right, Evie. Well, with all of that said, let's jump into the most common money mistakes that we see people making when they are traveling. The first of which is overusing data while abroad. And

I know you have a little bit of an anecdote because you might have done a little bit of a silly and you might have been stung with a big bill when you got home. I did. I'm a bit shamed of this because they told me, they told me a million times. I just didn't think that they were correct. So what happened was I'd done all my research and the phone provider I'm with gives me $5 roaming when I'm overseas. Money win, right? I get to use all my existing data, which is unlimited. Money win. And I then get to, just use it as normal for five bucks a day. What I didn't realize is that stopover when we were flying to London in Dubai was not covered. And so I got this message being like, hey,

you're on pay as you go. And I was like, no, I'm not. So I jumped onto the app and my phone provider has the app that you can just do live chat with them. And I said, hey, I'm overseas at the moment. I'm traveling to London and I've just got this message. Can you please check what plan I'm on? Because I obviously don't want to spend too much money. And they were like, no worries. Let's check. Oh, yep. You're on $5 roaming. I was like, oh, money win. Great. No worries. I keep getting these text messages. Should I be worried? And they're like, no, you shouldn't be worried at all. Don't know why you're getting them, but you're definitely on the $5 roaming plan. Like, great. Money win. When I got home, I got a $700 bill because turns out

Dubai wasn't covered. And rookie error from me, I told them I was traveling to London. I didn't say I was currently in Dubai in my messages. They let me out of it. Definitely give them a buzz and have a little chat. They were very, very kind. But please avoid that. Make sure you don't do yourself a dirty because $700 is a lot of money. That hurts.

And I was almost sick when I saw that. So make sure if you're traveling, maybe consider what your rooming plan is. I mean, for me, $5 a day worked out. But when we were recently in America, I know all of the My Millennial Money team, they're with a different phone carrier. So they went and got SIM cards and they put different SIM cards in their phone so they could have access to the internet, access to a phone for not an exorbitant amount of money.

So that was a way they did it. Obviously, most places nowadays have Wi-Fi. So maybe choose to just travel with Wi-Fi only and download the maps that you need and download the things to your phone so you don't have to use roaming at all. Switch off location services and push notifications because they actually use data, especially if you're limited. Airplane mode also saves a whole heap of battery power and turn off any automatic roaming charges.

So make sure that it's not automatic if you don't have a super slick plan like I do. Brilliant. That kind of happens in the background, doesn't it, with some of our apps? Like they do stuff and we're like, yeah, we don't know what's up. The updates, like I don't want to have to go in and manually update my app. So I always have it on just fix it when it needs fixing because I don't have an issue with data on my phone because it's a plan I'm on. It's not an issue.

Exactly. You could find yourself in a little pickle if your SIMS app needs updating. Gotcha. If your SIMS app. Love that. The next on our list is not accounting for conversion rates. How significant can this actually be when we're traveling and how can we prevent getting stung? Look, I feel like this is really relatable for so many listeners because we've all been there. We've all been there. Just look at it and go, oh, that shouldn't be too much. When we traveled to London, yeah holy moly that was so expensive and again my privilege is absolutely showing here I've traveled before not my first rodeo in London been a few times and historically the conversion or the

exchange rate was not nearly as high as it currently is so in my head I was like yeah don't worry it's probably x amount more so I thought I was doing it correctly I was wrong though and it doesn't mean I was out like we did fix it but I was shocked because I was like oh weight. So 10 pounds there ended up being like $25 here. And I was like, oh, whoa, like that's not what I expected last time. It was like basically double. Yeah. And it was like slightly more when I traveled. So be on top of it. One of the things, I'm really lame. I'm basically like your mom, George, like, you know this, like, you know this about me. I carry a pencil case in my handbag. I carry an emergency first aid kit. Like I'm that guy. You know what? You need a bandaid,

babe, I've got you. Do you want a breath mint? I've also got that. Mini toothbrush? Don't worry. Panadol? Everything is in my handbag. I have got you. So what I also want you to put in your handbag is on the back of a like post-it note or something, I just wrote down the conversions because as much as you have your phone, I totally get it. Whenever I opened my wallet, I wanted it right there. So I'd be like one pound equals this. However, you don't just want one for one because I don't want to do the maths. So I always just did the most common amounts that I thought I'd be spending. So 20 pounds equals this, 10 pounds equals this. And then I could just double it in my head if I needed to. So the one pound equals two pound equals, that's not helpful. Just do

like one pound and then like 10 pounds and 20 pounds and five pounds and whatever you think that you're going to most regularly use so that it's just front of mind. Because I think once you get overseas into a different culture, into a different area, it kind of just slips your mind. you're like, oh, five pounds doesn't sound that expensive. George, that's like $12.50. Do you know what I mean? It's just so much money. The other thing I would say is surprisingly, obviously each to their own. I don't carry cash when I travel anymore. I really rely on, you know, using my debit card. I think having traveled to places like London and France, that's fine. Obviously, if you're going to more third world countries, that might not be as accessible. But the one

thing I would say is do not exchange currency at the airport. They charge a premium. Either organize it before you go. There's lots of places around the city that do it. Or once you get to your location, then go into town and exchange some money there or get it out at an ATM. It usually ends up being a little bit more cost effective than anything at the airport. They almost always have significantly higher fees. One, because of the location, they have higher rent and costs to cover. But also, they're not going to give you a hot deal. They've got the monopoly at the airport. Do you need cash? You're at the airport. What are you going to do? Pay us? Okay.

Yeah, exactly. So it's really hard and they often can just afford to hike up the price because they don't care. And then I would make sure that you let your bank know that you are traveling. The reason being is, obviously, if you've only ever been in Australia and then if a charge comes up in London, they might go, oh, fraud. So definitely let them know that you're traveling just so that your card doesn't get put on hold or canceled while you're abroad because that can be a pickle in itself. But most banks won't charge fees when you're abroad if you let them know. So definitely give them a buzz, see what's going on, see how it works. And I would argue that in 2022, if your bank does charge fees, go find a different one that you can have for that

period of time because it's honestly not worth it. One of the best ways, as I said before, to avoid overly expensive foreign exchange is actually just to withdraw money from a local ATM. Make sure you're not getting scammed. Obviously, make sure there's no like skimming devices on it, only in a safe location, but that's what I would be doing. Brilliant. You said that you usually just have your debit card when you're traveling, VD. So if you're at Starbucks and you're buying a venti bloody caramel mochaccino, whatever it may be. I was actually buying a venti strawberry Asahi refresher, just so you know. Sure, sure, sure. So you're up there ordering that. And do you tap and go? Yeah, they all had tap. Do you know what? I was really surprised because I had

heard in America they didn't have tap. Everywhere that we went in America recently, they also had tap. So that was really easy. There was no issue at all. And the bank I bank with doesn't have any fees. They just charge you the currency conversion. So there weren't any additional fees for using my card. The thing I liked about using a debit card as well was I knew how much money was on there. So like I was just transferring an amount that I was comfortable with. So I might put $200 or $300 on there to start with and then just see how I went. And all my other money was left in my savings account or in a different account. It meant that I didn't have that anxiety of like, if I lose my bank card, they can take

all my money. So I just had enough on there to, you know, live and do well. And I was just keeping track of it. Perfect. Okay, cool. Good to know. V, I'm getting the next one out of the way early on in the show because I feel like everyone listening knows that it is coming and that is that the third money mistake people make

when traveling is not having travel insurance okay yeah we did know that was coming they talk us through once again what the key dangers of not having travel insurance are and how much money we could actually lose by not having it look well everyone tends to think of and we did an entire episode on travel insurance so please go back and listen to it because i think i'm intelligent like we're just trying our best out here. But while everyone seems to think that travel insurance is just for lost luggage or stolen laptops, what we really need it for is our ability to access healthcare abroad and to get home if something really awful happens. Or this sounds bad, but if we like die and our body needs to be returned to Australia.

It's expensive. It's also morbid, but it is true. And I don't want my family to have to pay for that if the worst thing in the entire world happens. For that reason, I would obviously, obviously encourage people to get comprehensive travel insurance and I really wouldn't bother with anything less than that. Is that bad to say? Like I know that's entitled and I know that, you know, it's expensive but travel in itself is a privilege

but we really need to be putting ourselves first and that's really, really important to me. I would forego, you know, a more expensive hotel to make sure that I was properly covered and safe. obviously don't go with the dodgy hotel where you're going to be unsafe and you will have to claim on your travel insurance but you know what i mean yes yes if you're unconvinced g king you don't look unconvinced but i'm just gonna play the devil's advocate here imagine if you got into an accident and then you had to use years and years of your life savings which i know you have been

hoarding for a very long time for medical treatment or getting evacuated from overseas when you could have just paid a few hundred dollars at the start to cover yourself because This is going to sound morbid again because I am quite morbid. My favourite podcast is literally called Morbid. Go hit them up. I really like them. But if you die overseas, it can cost more than $20,000 to get your body home. Which is crazy.

Which is crazy. And if you don't die, get this, it's even more expensive to get you home if you're in a medical emergency. But that's being more careful with your organs. I have had a client and also we had a money diarist ages ago. I don't know if you remember this, but money diarist was talking about being in a whole heap of debt because she didn't have travel insurance. Her partner came off a scooter in Bali and had to be medically evacuated from Bali to Perth

because that's the closest flights, more than $100,000. Oh, my hat, Magandi. Travel insurance is obviously not a waste of money. No. It's just being smart and I know that some people will say, oh, but it is a waste of money because I never claimed on it. Great, that's actually an investment. I want you to have insurance as the biggest waste of money

in your entire life because it means you are fine. And it keeps you safe, right? There's a little angel called Pastor Mama, Plant Mama, have you seen her? Yeah, obsessed. We love, we've spoken about her before on the podcast. She was recently in Greece and had appendicitis or something, so she needed emergency surgery. It was a horrible, horrible experience, but she had travel insurance, so it was covered. Yeah, great, so it was covered.

Imagine if you didn't have it and you had to be like, wow, I need my appendix out. That's one option. Or the other option is like, I mean, you probably do always need it out in that situation, but you shouldn't put yourself in a position where you have to question whether or not you should seek medical treatment, right? Yeah. And that's what travel insurance sorts us out. A hundred percent. I think to take that a step further as well is if that happens and you don't have travel insurance, gee, who are you going to ask? If you have travel insurance, you pick up the phone and you say, hey, I'm in a pickle. What do I do? They say, where are you? You say,

I'm in Indonesia. They go, great. This is the process. This is the doctor you're going to. This is how it's going to work. And it's not just the insurance. It's not just the medical cover. You have somebody that knows because they're travel insurers. They have done this for a living. They know everyone in the area. Doesn't matter where in the world you are, they are going to make sure that you're well looked after. They might organize the transport.

They will literally do everything to make sure you're okay. It's not about going, all right, well, gee, just claim it back when you get home. They are literally there to support you as well. And to me, that gives me a whole heap of peace of mind. Yeah, nice. also on travel insurance, remembering that we only need it when we are overseas. We don't need it for our trip to Mildura. No, you don't. Not for the locals. V, last on our list before we head to a little break is last minute booking. So that could be our flights, our accommodation.

Can you talk us through why prices generally go up closer to the date of our departure? Because you can charge desperate people a lot of money and they're willing to pay it. reason. I learned that painfully when we went to America. I have known that we were going to America for a very long time, but dragged my feet booking flights because I wasn't sure if I wanted to extend the trip or not. And, you know, it was really hard, but it was much more expensive. Interestingly, Skyscanner says this is actually to cater to, quote, last minute business travelers who need to travel on short notice and are willing to pay a premium to do so. And I mean, that's certainly the case when it comes to major cities, but kind of rude if I want to go last

minute Bali trip with the girls. Like we got that last minute public holiday. Yes. Wish we knew about that earlier. Wish we'd known about that recently, but that's okay. So the earlier you book your flights or know that you're in the market to book flights, the more time you're actually going to have to stay on the lookout for some promotional deals from airlines that might make some flights more affordable. Obviously, if you can be flexible with your dates or time, that is going to help you score a better deal. One hot tip that I have is always making sure that you know when school holidays are, not only for you when you're traveling, but for the location you're traveling to. Because for example, I took Jess to Disneyland during

school holidays in America. You silly, silly girl. Learn from my mistakes, babies. But it's actually a little bit less clear when it comes to accommodation. So obviously flights more expensive, but when I was reading up before this episode, a lot of people have had the experience that they scored cheaper deals the longer they waited. My anxiety counts. Yeah, that's stressful. As much as I might have waited to book the flights, I'd already booked the accommodation the second I booked to the conference. Obviously, if you're traveling during a peak period like summer or school holidays, things aren't going to be as flexible. So I guess that's something

to keep in mind, G King. Of course, you'll have fewer options to work with because things might be booking out, especially if it is a peak travel period. I was talking to a girlfriend the other day. She was talking about coming to Melbourne and the weekend she was picking was actually the GP weekend. Oh, yeah. But we didn't know because we don't pay attention to the GP. She's like, everything's booked out and so expensive. And I was like, there must be something going on. Yes. So check if there's something going on. A big event. Leaving it to the last minute because you want a better deal, but then finding out there's a big event in the place that you're going to is actually going to shoot yourself in the foot.

You're going to end up either with real dank, dingy accommodation or paying a massive premium to go on the holiday you had planned. So obviously, if you're keen, do research earlier. But if you've got a hotel or an Airbnb that you're super keen on, I would absolutely suggest booking in. Also, other hot tip, sometimes paying the little bit extra, like if you're on whatif.com or whatever, for the room that is refundable is helpful because what you can do is call up the hotel and be like, hey, I'm very aware that prices have gone down. Could you just switch me to the lower rate? But if you paid the super cheap option at the very start and they're like, No, it's real unrecognizable.

Sorry, it is what it is. Hot tip. Hot tips from VD. It's Victoria Devine. Right before the break, slipped that one in. Exactly right. We are going to take a little pause here, but on the other side, we're going to be chatting through our last few ways to save money when traveling.

So stick around. I will. Straight back into it, VD. The next most common mistake people make is not having a plan or transport organized from the airport. we've all felt that as well can you flesh this one out for me okay so this one is something that really grinds my gears especially because i don't know if you've done this recently georgia king but even ubers are far more expensive from the airport so something that i've done recently

is learn about travel forums so it might be on like tripadvisor or even just other random travel forums look up transport in your city and see what other people are doing and what like the cheapest or best option is because I know that we benefited when we were on our Europe trip. And I mean, Jessica Ricci was not very impressed with me because I made her walk a bit and she is a chronic overpacker. So she had to drag her suitcase. But one of the hot tips that I learned on that travel forum was that this airport that we were flying into, really expensive Ubers. But if you walk to the local McDonald's and then call an Uber, it's like half the price. So I was like, we're definitely doing that absolutely well and truly. And Jess was like, do we have to? And I was

like, yes, drag that suitcase. That was your choice that you made. You did this to yourself. So it's really important to do some research. Unfortunately, just like the currency exchange kiosks at the airport, taxis basically have a monopoly at airports. They get prime position. So if you have an organized driver ahead of time, it's very likely that you're going to be stung with the surcharge on the taxi, or as I said before, on the Uber bill. Obviously, greater demand equals higher price. If you're going to places like Bali on a lot of these travel forums, they have recommendations of specific drivers who will pick you up if you book them. So you just message them on WhatsApp and, you know, organize that. Obviously, safety is paramount. So only do

it if it is tried, true and tested. Don't just book random people and hope that you're getting a good deal. Because at the end of the day, one thing that I always do when I travel is make sure I have good transportation to and from the airport because you usually have the most luggage. It's the hardest to get around. Whereas I'm very unlikely to pre-book any transportation to activities and stuff because I'm like, great, I just have my handbag. Like I could jump on a train.

I could get in an Uber. I could get one of the scooters. Like there's so many transportation options. But when you have luggage, it is much, much harder, right? That's good call. And also we forget to budget for it. We're like, okay, airfares, accommodation, all of this. You forgot the taxi in between.

that's maybe another 60 bucks that you just didn't see coming. And what's that? A nice dinner out? Yeah, that's a good point. It's a lot. So if you're not in a rush though, and have obviously landed a safe time of night, obviously don't be afraid to consider public transport options. Again, the group of girls I went to Europe with were not impressed with me when I was like, we are getting the tube to our hotel. We love the tube. But I'd organized it so that it was flawless. They were safe. They were fine. They were a little bit tired, but I was also not spending £100 to get from the airport to the hotel that we were staying at. Silly talk. Silly talk. We don't do that. Look into public transport options. They are almost always at every single

international airport. Except Melbourne. Yeah, that's so rude, right? We have Skybus, which can take you to like Southern Cross or something. Too hard basket. I think there might be sorting out a little train line. Look, I've heard about it, but also can you imagine Skybus wouldn't be very happy about that. Or if I owned Skybus, I wouldn't be very happy about it. Anyway, that's obviously a more economical option. And I definitely would recommend it because if it's good enough for me, I guarantee it's good enough for you. Yeah, that is true. V, let's move on to our next point, which ties into our last one quite neatly, I think, and that is a general lack of organization. So exactly like you just said, if we don't have travel planned from the

airport or from our hotel, whatever it may be, that can really add to how much we have to spend when we are traveling, but also like not having your bag organized and having your money and your passport floating around frivolously. Also, you know, not being organized enough to make the most of services like shop back, like things like that. Yeah, 100%. And obviously, I would love to think of myself as like the most organized, disorganized person. Like I'm disorganized 90% of the time, but when it comes to the important things like, all right, I am traveling, I will be very meticulous and organized because it lowers my anxiety, let's be honest. So I think one thing to do is actually create a plan because things like overweight baggage charges are so much money

and when you're not organized, you tend to overpack and if you're overpacking, you're more likely to get that. And one thing that I always used to forget was factoring in the fact that I'm probably going to do some shopping while I'm overseas and want to bring back stuff. So I might pack my bag perfectly and it all just fits. But what if I find a really cute top in Spain that I want to bring home, you know? So I think it's important to always have a little bit of flexibility on that. So I'd always advocate making sure that you sort yourself out with a plan before you go and make sure that you are, you know, being smart about it. As you said, G, making use of services like Shopback, again, not a sponsored recommendation, just genuinely a good recommendation,

but booking accommodation and flights ahead of time so you can avoid surcharges and surging prices is really smart. Making sure that you are looking up the best deal. Sometimes the best deal is actually through a travel agent. And I know that a lot of people are like, oh, sure, that could be more expensive. Sometimes they have access to just better deals or can bundle things together and be like, all right, well, I can give you a discount because there's five girls traveling. Do you know what I mean? So I think it's always worth asking. It doesn't necessarily mean you have to book with them. And so from my perspective, making sure that you just have appropriate travel gear is really helpful. If you're going to do Europe and you're going to

go all the way through Spain and France and Morocco and, you know, obviously Morocco is not Europe, it is Africa. And I'm just saying that because that's the trip I did last time or a few years ago. Yeah. Bags with wheels, not ideal. No. So many cobblestones. So many cobblestones. So make sure that you are really taking into consideration what type of luggage you are taking before going to that location. Because do you know what? I would have much preferred if someone had told me, just take a backpack, like take one of those big backpacks and you will be fine. Wouldn't have been as sexy, would have been way more practical. So making sure that you are booking ahead and planning ahead is not only going to save you money, but also save you

stress while you are there. It's also obviously a great idea to get something like a travel wallet so you can stash your passport and your cash away and feel really safe. Especially if you're traveling solo, I feel like if you fall asleep and your bag's on your lap, you're just not going to feel as secure, whereas having like a travel wallet that's actually strapped to you with your passport and your money in it, you're just going to feel a little bit safer. I'd obviously also recommend organizing transport to the airport to avoid ridiculous taxi prices. Obviously, drivers know you don't have another choice, so they're just like, it is what it is. Stay stranded, my love. But it's also super exciting. So TLDR of all of that, G, is the more organized you can be,

the more planned you can be, and the more organized, the more comparable you can make it, right, the more things you can compare and work out what activities you want to do and what activities you don't want to do. Obviously, I am a bit of a spreadsheet fiend and I have a lot of travel spreadsheets. Maybe I need to upload them to my website or something so people can download them. But I literally plan out everything. And then based on what I want to do, I also, before I even work out what I want to see, I go, all right, gee, if we're going to travel together, like what kind of budget do you have? We work out what that looks like. And I go, all right, well, how about we have no spend days versus spend days? So like one day we might go to a

theme park or a paid tourist attraction, but then I really force myself for the next day to find a free activity that we can do. So it might be going for a walk around the gardens or going to see something that is a free attraction or a free museum. And I feel like balancing it out that way is like have paid days and then non-paid days. Obviously there are things that you're going to have to pay for like food and transport around the time, but tourist attractions really add up. So sometimes by going, gee, it's a no spend day, it can actually be really fun to find the best free activity that you can do on that day. They're always the best days. Honestly, right. I feel like every time I've had a really stellar day while traveling, it's usually been

some kind of free activity. My other free hot tip, apologies, I'm going a bit rogue here, free walking tours. Yes, they're so good. Free walking tours are so good. I usually do one every new country that I go to because usually the people running them usually if you've been on a walking tour before yeah yeah so usually a little bit of an eccentric person like it takes a special type of person to want to run consistently a free walking tour in their town right but they know so much stuff you get so much history yes you usually tip them because you're a nice human you're just gonna not do anything or you might buy them a beer at the end but I genuinely feel like they put you on the right foot. Great free activity while you're traveling. Yeah, good call,

VD. I like that one. This is a quick one here. Not sure if you'll have a take on this, but I added it to the list without your permission. So let's see how it goes. So it is buying silly shit when you're on vacation. Yeah. I feel like we've all been guilty. We're in Bali, get our hair braided. We buy a fluoro sarong. We come home back to gloomy Melbourne. Our hair's braided. We find that we're not wearing the sarong as much because maybe we regret that purchase. I feel like Like when we travel, we spend money on silly things that are not useful for when we're at home. We get carried away.

Look, I would argue that I'm pretty good at that because I just don't like silly stuff. Okay. Like I just think about it when I see an item. I'm like, I really don't want to have to store that. Okay. I'm different when it comes to shoes. There was always, always, always no room in my wardrobe for shoes. You know what?

I'll just get a new wardrobe. She'll be right. Yeah. But I feel like putting a cap on it is quite helpful. So going, all right, G, like you definitely can buy something, but what is going to be your souvenir? You don't have to pick for four, but you might go, all right, I'm just going to limit myself to like one thing or two things.

I also think something else that people get carried away with is gifts for people. Like, why do you need to take back a gift for every single person you've ever met when you're going overseas? Like, send them a postcard. Obviously, it's about the thought. So maybe just send them a postcard when you're over there and cut your losses because not everybody needs a giant inflatable statue of the Eiffel Tower. like honestly they don't well and do you know what when people bring it back for me I'm like

that's so thoughtful that's so kind but then I'm like what am I going to do with this Eiffel Tower key ring yeah like what am I going to do with it am I going to put it on my case probably not let's be honest it's really annoyingly shaped I'm not going to use it it is painful what about though the YOLO attitude that kind of ties into that V because I feel like when we are away we can have a tendency to really treat ourselves but that can be risky and detrimental to our finances It can be really detrimental and it can be detrimental to the overall holiday budget, but also for who you're coming home to, which is future you. So I think making sure that you stick to a really clean and clear solid budget is a really good idea. Putting yourself in a

good financial position is literally always sexy, but also understand yourself and your values before you go on holiday. Are you a YOLO kind of gal or are you Georgia King and you're super frugal? Like, do you know what I mean? Like which one are you? And if you are a little bit more YOLO, build some YOLO into your budget. Make sure it's there, but then also use it at discretion. Maybe go, all right, well, I'm a bit YOLO. Maybe I'll go three paid activities while we're on this trip and I'll do three, you know, or more free activities. I think there's something really liberating when you go, all right, I'm just going to divvy it up this way. Because instead of going and Googling top 10 attractions, which usually comes up with a marketing page of the top 10

paid attractions in that location, you go, all right, top 10 free activities in this location. And I promise it is not going to make your holiday worse. In fact, some of my best times have been having picnics in random parks while doing our own self-guided walking tour around London. I think it's really interesting as well because I think a lot of people are like, oh my gosh, did you go do this museum and this? I'm like, no. But you know what we did? We went to Marks and Spencer and we got that really cheap five pound lunch. We put it in our little backpacks. We hired those Lime scooters, got around the city, stopped for a random beer in a random location at a pub that was very London, went and found a park and had lunch.

One of my favorite days. And it didn't cost much at all. It's just about planning it because I do find it really hard when I travel just to wake up and be like, oh, what do you want to do today, Georgia? Usually that ends up being a paid activity because you just don't know what else to do, right? And it's easy to throw money at problems. Yeah, that's really true.

And also, I feel like there's kind of a pressure when you're in, you know, I mean, Paris is a bad example because obviously we all want to see the Eiffel Tower, but you do get sucked into doing those tourist attractions when it's like exactly as you just said, the best days are the ones where you have no plans and you're seeing the city for what it is and really absorbing that genuine culture. That is a very good tip from you there, V. Also, gamify it. I know that sounds really lame, but we picked one thing that was inexpensive that we were

going to search out in the city when we were there. So example you used in Paris, ours was croissants. Obviously that's not the most original idea, but literally we had this game of being like, can we find the best croissant in Paris? So each day as we were going around, like it's not an expensive addition, but we were like, all right, for brunch or for lunch or whatever we're going to do, we're going to find croissants. And as much as it wasn't, you know, super high fine dining, it's not what we wanted anyway. We were like looking up random bakeries and running around the back streets of Paris, trying to find these bakeries that had really good reviews. And it was the best fun. But I think finding something in a location and going, do you know what,

we're going to find the best sangria, or we're going to find the best paella, or we're going to, do you know what I mean? Find something local. And I mean, that's another foodie tip as well. Eat the local cuisine. It's going to be far cheaper than eating something that is more international. Tell me more about your experiences with food VD and saving in that way because that's obviously something that can get out of hand. Do you have any tips with saving when it comes to food? I have so many food tips. Go on. Let's limit it to like five. All right. Sorry, sorry, sorry. So when it comes to food, obviously don't get sucked into buying food at the tourist traps. Like I know that it's fun and this is going to sound a little bit hypocritical because Jess and

I had a game when we were, it was an expensive game that we were willing to play while we were at Disneyland. And that was to eat as many things that were shaped like Mickey as possible. Jess recorded every single one of them, head over to her TikTok and watch her eat Mickey shaped things. But that's not a good idea because 90% of the stuff tasted like trash. I just wish I had packed my own lunch because then I would have been one, in complete control of the budget side of it, but two, I could have just picked stuff I actually wanted to eat. It's true. So I don't actually want to eat a hot dog. I don't want that. I don't want to spend $12 American on a hot dog at Disneyland. I want to take my lunch. It's not that hard. Most people carry backpacks anyway. And so from my

perspective, taking lunch is very sexy. But the other thing is, I think, this is again entitled, everyone's going to have their own opinion. And I know they do because they jumped down my throat on my Instagram when I posted about this, because apparently one of life's greatest luxuries is the buffet breakfast at a hotel? Oh, yes, it is. It is? All right. So maybe we're not on the same page. I think we should be skipping that. I don't want to pay for breakfast at my hotel. Every time I've ever been down to the buffet breakfast, I have two slices of toast. I'm full. I go and get a random plate with the tiny pancakes, some of the Nutella. I might eat some of the fruit, but like I'm definitely not getting value for money by any stretch of the imagination. So what I do when I

land at a specific location. One, I pre-check with my hotel. This is so lame and makes me sound like such a nerd. So true though. I make sure that my hotel or wherever I'm staying, I say, can you please make sure that the minibar is empty? Like I don't want anything in the minibar. Not because I'm worried about spending money. I actually want the storage space. And then maybe you could always ask them if you want for a microwave. Most hotels actually have microwaves. A couple of spares out the back. They actually do. And they'll pop one in your room. And the reason they have them is usually either people with back problems that need to heat up heat packs and babies that travel that need bottles heated up if they have formula. So it's interesting, right? Anyway, asking for

those things can save you a lot of money, but I always have breakfast at the hotel. I feel like it's a waste of money to be spending it out. I would prefer to spend most of my money on a nicer lunch or a nicer dinner. So when we were in America recently, I literally went to, I think we went to Target. Do you know Target in America has a supermarket attached to it? What? Yes. What on earth? It is elite. Like I bought so much stuff. Like I'm not a budget tip here because I definitely bought way more cereals than we needed, but we went to the local Target and I bought a whole heap of cereal. I bought my milk. I bought a whole heap of coffee so that I could just make my coffee and have my cereal in the morning. And every morning Jess and I just shared

breakfast. Not in, I would love to say in bed, but we weren't in the same bed. Or sat on the balcony and had breakfast and to be honest it was a really nice way to gently start the day and plan what we're planning on doing together without having to race down to breakfast or whatever yeah but also it was really budget friendly I mean a box of cereal and a bottle of oat milk 10 out of 10 yeah nice I know it's lame but everywhere we've been I've been like oh can we do this only because like I actually prefer it I'm hangry in the morning skies I don't want to be searching for breakfast I have my mid-morning croissant don't worry I'm not going to miss out on the culture But I definitely need to eat a solid meal first. It means I'll eat less during the day. It'll be

cheaper and I can prioritize my food budget to things that actually matter to me. Brilliant. Love that. V, that takes us to my final question for the day. From your perspective as a finance wizard, would you say that it would be a good idea to have a little bit of a buffer in our budget for, shall we say, like emergency moments? You definitely know I'm going to say yes. Okay. Okay. Tell me more about that. How much should be in that part of our budget? Like, what does that look like? Honestly, I'd add a good extra 10 to 15% on top of your holiday budget. Doesn't mean you'll spend it. It might go into savings account when you get home, but you always want to feel a little bit more comfortable. There is nothing worse than going on holiday and being

like, oh my gosh, I didn't realize that coffee would cost X, Y, Z. You can't research every single aspect of your experience. Yeah, you can organize and pre-book hotels and accommodation and all of your transfers and maybe you can even book like all of the activities and the tickets that you might need but you can't really budget appropriately for food and who knows like you might be with a friend that's like oh let's stop at this little cafe you both stop because you're really excited and you realize it's really expensive but you also don't want to go somewhere else because you don't want to ruin the vibe or the moment or maybe you just can't be bothered finding somewhere else because you've been walking around Paris and already done 23,000 steps that

day. Yes. So I feel like having a little bit of a buffer gives you a little bit more peace of mind and enables you to properly enjoy your holiday. Doesn't mean we have to spend that money. In fact, the best thing about a holiday, if you have one, is coming home with money if you've got it. We love. Yeah, we love that. V, I think that is all we have time for today. But the moral of the story is get organized, plan ahead. Don't buy silly, fluoro sarongs. You wrote down don't buy dumb shit. Why didn't you say that? Because this is a PG rated podcast. If you lose a little bit of money along the way, don't worry. Have fun. That was just stay protected, stay safe. And you know what we're going to do this week? I want to put a thread in the Facebook group about all your hot

travel tips. So head to there and share them with me because you can never be too prepared for holiday. Honestly, also a little bit of holiday dreaming. Exactly. All right. We're done here, Georgia King. See you on Friday, guys. Bye, guys. Thanks for watching!