Where do you "park" your travel funds?

[mooncake and leaves]

^ so far, i just save in general for travel, not for a particular trip. there's a certain amount i'm willing to spend in a year and i save up for that. but it's not on a separate fund. though this might change in the next couple of years because i'm planning family trips hehe.

[ikaela]

I don't have a travel fund either, but I do have a fun fund. It's also my tsupita stocks fund -- pwede paglaruan, ganun. If I do good in my stock picks, eh di bongga ang travel/shopping/kain sa labas/gadget, etc. If not, backpacker mode. Haha. Eto kasi yung mga "wants," so I don't have a target amount for it. I'm actually now just withdrawing funds for a trip I am to take in three days. Buti na lang it did well, but if it didn't... well, I can always do homestays. Haha. 'Wag ako tularan. Hindi ako safe player.

[ava_garde]

I recently learned stock trading. So yun travel fund ko nakatabi sa September 2014 South Korea tour namin, part of it nilalaro ko sa stocks. Dati kasi naka-cabinet lang sya. hahah. As in! So kesa inaamag yun pera sa cabinet, pinasok ko sa stocks yun kaya ko i-risk.

[artificialstar]

^^ & ^ nice idea yan. mga blue chips ba pinaglalaro-an nyo?

[nicola_juliano]

Maganda ito for trips you're saving for abroad like Japan, US, Italy. :-) Interested ako dito.

[Mr.Punch]

I recently learned stock trading. So yun travel fund ko nakatabi sa September 2014 South Korea tour namin, part of it nilalaro ko sa stocks. Dati kasi naka-cabinet lang sya. hahah. As in! So kesa inaamag yun pera sa cabinet, pinasok ko sa stocks yun kaya ko i-risk.

Do you think that's wise given that stocks fluctuate in value?

I mean, if you can "take the risk" and have a lot of extra cash as backup, then maybe it's your backup that should be your travel fund.

[mxherr5]

^

Its their South Korea Vacation Fund or Staycation Fund..
depending on the returns they get 

[Mr.Punch]

^ So kung bumagsak ang PSEi, hostel lang.  Kung tumaas, 5-star hotel, ganun? 

[u_go_gurl]

I recently went to Australia and used the money I saved sa Mutual Funds 4 years ago. And now, I'm planning to go to Europe 10 years from now, pero hopefully mga 5years lang and I put my travel fund sa Equity Mutual Funds. The monthly savings depends on how much money you want to have by then.

[mxherr5]

@Mr. Punch haha well let's hope her plan pans out.

@ u_go_gurl, good for you sis. 2010 is when the stock
market started to recover from the 2008 financial crisis
in earnest. If you cashed out just recently then you
would have probably doubled your money if you invested
4 years ago in one fell swoop.

[ava_garde]

@mxherr5 @Mr.Punch

I said, part of it,  not all of my travel funds.

So kung kumita, eh di hello extra shopping money.

[mxherr5]

My bad, I missed that part of your post.
I wish you luck in picking a good stock 

[bisous]

Money market is a good short term financial instrument but it doesn't favour the customers.  I big applause to those who are using mutual funds, etc for travels.

Just wondering how everyone saves for travel. Do you save up for particular trips, or do you have a general travel fund? I don't have a general travel fund. I only save up once I'm set on going to a particular destination. I calculate projected expenses, and that's the only time I start saving. I did have a "travel fund" once but I found it difficult to keep it untouched, especially when I didn't have particular trips planned. The travel fund became the shopping/salon fund hehe. So I never thought of putting travel funds anywhere other than savings. The longest I ever planned for a particular trip was around 10 months.  Definitely less than a year. I'm not sure if the effort of putting it in money markets is worth it if it's such a short time frame. Or is it?

Travel fund is probably just made up of funds going towards disposable expenses. And certain things might strike up, reaches into your disposable expense fund (aka travel fund) - gifts, deals, etc.  For me, I'm having a bit of trouble keeping up to some savings criteria because I didn't consider how much I'll end up spending for gifts and other expenses!
In the end you just have to cut out these other unnecessary expenses.  But don't get broke just to travel because, Paris and New York aren't going anywhere...

It's possible to travel on the cheap - stay at friend's houses, eat from the markets, look out for airfare deals, maybe find some friend/s so that can you split up the costs.  You can travel locally for cheap.
Some things might also happen that could work in your favor - for example after the 2011 Japanese tsunami, while it was really awful,  a lot of airlines were selling far cheaper tickets to Japan (not near tsunami areas).

There are also other ways to beef up the travel fund - salary sacrifice, moving overseas...

[cosmochick]

We dont have a separate travel fund.. .. what we do is plan where we will go then make a budget for the trip then kung pasok naman sa budget, go na kami.