Rachel Covert is one of those people who makes financial independence actually feel accessible - not like some far-off dream that requires eating ramen for a decade.We're diving into something most of us struggle with: how do you actually save money for travel without hating your life in the process? Rachel retired at 36 with over $500k saved, then quickly realized being fully retired in your 30s was boring as hell - so she started helping other women build wealth without the deprivation.

I really wanted to pick Rachel's brain about this: Why do high-income earners still feel like they can't afford to travel? How do you save for big trips while still enjoying your life right now? And what's the deal with credit card points, anyway? We're talking about sinking funds, automated savings, the real cost of your DoorDash habit, and why group travel can actually save you money.

Upcoming Trips Mentioned:

1. Morocco: April 10 - April 19, 2026

Links & Resources (Rachel)

1. Learn more about Rachel: @rachel_talksmoney
2. racheltalksmoney.com

Links & Resources (Laura)

1. Follow my personal IG: @lolawhiskey
2. Follow my business IG: @lauraericsongrouptrips
3. Follow our podcast: @type2travelpodcast
4. Learn more about upcoming trips: lauraericson.com
5. Check out our podcast page: lauraericson.com/podcast
6. Join my Facebook group: @lolalovestravel

Thanks for being here! As always, rate, review, share with a friend, and tag us if you’re listening.

Hey, adventurers, today I'm sitting down with money coach and content creator Rachel Covert. And this is one of those conversations that's going to make you look at your bank account very differently. Rachel and I met on a taco in Mezcal tour in Mexico City back in 2021. And was immediately drawn to her intelligence and no bullshit way of explaining financial literacy in a way that actually makes sense. She's been on my guest lineup since I first started planning this podcast because Rachel brings something unique to the table.

She's not just a personal finance expert. She's an avid traveler who actually gets it. being smart with your money doesn't mean eating ramen every night and never leaving your house. It means being intentional so you can actually prioritize the things that matter, like seeing the world. Rachel retired from her career as VP of a women's fashion brand at 36 after achieving financial independence, only to discover that being fully retired in her 30s wasn't actually what she wanted.

After traveling the world for the better part of a year, she realized her true calling was helping people with their money. Now she runs Electrify Wealth, where she's helped over 200 women build wealth and pay off their debt without strict budgets or deprivation. And she's living proof that financial independence isn't just about retiring about having the freedom to design your life however you want. Case in point, this New Yorker moved abroad to Portugal with her now-fiance, creating a life that perfectly balances work she loves with the adventure she craves.

What I love about Rachel is that she calls us out on our excuses in the best possible way. here to show you how much money you're quietly wasting on things that don't actually make you happy while telling yourself you can't afford to travel. We're diving into why the small purchases add up faster than you think, traditional boomer financial advice is making saving feel terrible, and the truth bomb that traveling overseas can actually be cheaper than staying close to home.

If you've ever said I can't afford to travel while also having a door dash habit, this episode is for you. So without further ado, let's talk to Rachel.

Hey adventurers, I'm Laura Ericson and this is Type 2 Travel, where the journey might occasionally make you question your life choices, but the stories are always worth it. Just like Type 2 fun, we're diving into those travel experiences that transform us, challenge us, and connect us. So grab your passport and an extra dose of curiosity. Let's get lost together.

right, Rachel, thank you so much for being on the podcast.

I'm so excited for being here. Thanks for inviting me.

Yeah,

I'm so excited to catch up with you. So I always start with some quick travel questions just to warm people up a little the most financially irresponsible thing that you've ever done while traveling and was it worth it?

So it's funny because I'm looking at your background and I see a rug hanging on the wall that we may or may not have gotten in Morocco together. it's seeing crazy vintage textiles and buying them. So when we were in Turkey, I bought rugs which are still in my house in my office today. And I'll go on these trips with no intention of buying anything and end up seeing an incredible

Vintage rug that I have to have I have so many that I've bought all over the world and it's financially irresponsible like do not buy furniture or Housewares that you cannot get back that you have to pay for extra luggage and it's not like I've done it once to be clear. It's been multiple times

Yeah.

But the question is, was it worth it? Yeah. Yeah.

it's totally worth it. I look at them every day. And I never

question it. I also trust my own At this point, I know I want to prioritize my money. That is how I always look at this. Is this a financial priority to me? And while it may feel irresponsible in the moment, because then I have to drag it around, and then I have to deal with getting in on an airplane, and maybe there's customs bullshit that I'm going have to deal with, but I never have regret.

at it. And I love the rugs that I have purchased, all of them. And they're all out and in my house and in use to this day.

I've always liked artwork, but I, know, in our younger years, you buy copies and replicas of things and just cheap, Target, whatever. And I've just started really collect art from the places that I go where I'm willing to spend a little bit more. this year, I think I spent $2,000 beautiful mosaic.

Yeah.

Marble tile piece from India that I still don't even have hung up in my house It's just sitting in a box But I always think of you when I travel and shop is particularly Morocco But when it's stuff like that because I think I actually talked about you on a different podcast episode about when we were in Morocco and you didn't really have a home because you were nomadic at the time and you obviously loved textiles and you wanted all these things but you're like I don't even have a home to put this in

Yeah.

I know someday I will, but right now I don't. were like, I want to buy, but the logical part of you is I don't even have a floor to put this rug on. And so I always talk love having a home and a place put my things and have all my travel stuff. And I always think of you, because I know that now you're in Portugal you have a place and makes me happy.

Yeah.

It's really funny because we bought this house, and it's not the kind of house that I would normally have ever lived in in the past. It's relatively new construction, and everywhere I've ever lived in the past crown molding and hardwood floors. And that's just not the thing in Portugal. And here, buying an older home means buying a home with too much humidity. So we kind of needed to buy a newer house so that we wouldn't have to deal with mold.

But that's a beautiful thing about travel is being able to bring things into your home that are meaningful to you and they're not just mindless consumeristic stuff. it's so much nicer to buy something that you see that you fall in love with than it is to buy a souvenir trinket.

Yeah, 100%. all my travel purchases are either art. love leather bags from Morocco just because they're cheap and they're cool. Jewelry, things from my everything's decor. Or food. Local food, handmade food, honey, things like that. Wine, my god, the amount of weight I bring home in wine.

Yeah.

I just bought nine bottles of alcohol home from my seven week trip from six countries. you look up my liquor cabinet, I have a bottle from everywhere around the world. now I look around my house though and everything seems irrelevant to me aside from my things that I bought that have significance from travel.

when I lived in New York City, you'd occasionally find yourself in the apartment of your friend's parents on the Upper West Side, or I don't know, I had a therapist once. And you would walk into their apartments, and their apartments would be a reflection of their life history. And it would be paintings from their travels and rugs and photos of them doing cool stuff on trips.

the whole house books and, light fixtures. you could tell, these are people who've lived a really good life, and their home is a reflection of that. And so while it might feel irresponsible in the moment to spend that kind of money, like you're saying $2,000, like I think I spent when I was with you in $1,500 on rugs, like huge amounts of money. And at the time, I don't remember how my business was doing, but I remember do you think you are, Rachel? But like, I still, yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, I think that was about it. If

Like I look at like,

I recall.

there's a rug right here that I bought on our trip with you. I don't know that I want to call it irresponsible, but maybe it's in the moment. Sometimes you have to ask yourself is this something that I'm really going to treasure? And if it is, maybe it is irresponsible, but maybe it's okay to make that splurge.

Absolutely, my partner and I last night were talking about the fact that my TV I got it used seven years ago it sounds horrible, but I never turn on my TV It is so not a priority so I could go spend you know a thousand dollars on a really nice TV don't give a shit about it I would rather hang up something really nice next to it that I will look at way more than I will ever turn on the TV

Yeah.

People spend money on all kinds of things but it's just all about your

It's so funny that you used the TV as the example because it's been raining here this week and it's been the most beautiful summer in Portugal. has barely rained. we haven't turned our TV on since I don't know, March or April. And I went the other day to turn it on and Liam wasn't home and I was like, wow, I don't even know. I can get the TV on, but I don't know how to find the channels.

Look, how does this thing work?

I was like, what is this? so I just watched whatever was on. And then when he came home, I was like, how do I find the channel that has the thing we were watching? And he was like, oh, you have to push the home button, and then you can go to Showtime. I was woo, no idea, because we don't care. We also have a TV that we bought used from a friend that was leaving 200 euros, I think. And it's been used very minimally.

Right, my bedroom TV, same situation. The remote hasn't worked a year and every once in a while I'm like, oh, I should probably figure this out. It just really doesn't matter that much. what's a destination that surprised you by being way less expensive than you expected it to be?

I'm gonna go maybe a little rogue here, but I think France is significantly less expensive than people expect it to be. And I would say, particularly once you're not in Paris, but I actually would make the argument that large amounts of Europe are much less expensive than you would expect them to be. Definitely very big parts of France. Paris is gonna be relatively expensive, but other beautiful cities, mean, France is stunningly beautiful.

and much more affordable than you would expect for really high quality, particularly food and wine. you go to a restaurant in maybe one of the seaside cities in France smaller city and you can order an absolutely phenomenal glass of table wine for two euro. And it's the same in Portugal. One or two euros for a really nice glass of wine. Same in Spain. And I think that people have this idea that traveling to Europe is excessively expensive and it is because

Mm-hmm. Yep.

They go to the major cities. They stay right downtown. They take really expensive tours. And belief that traveling to Europe is expensive. But I think that depending on your flexibility and when you're able to go and your willingness to not go to the greatest hit cities, you can see some incredible things on a very, very reasonable budget.

Mm-hmm.

I was going to actually say the exact same answer as you and not France, but Europe. And I would argue other cities beyond the big cities are the magic of Europe. It's not going to Paris and Barcelona and Athens, yeah, you can go to those cities. Like you said, there's so many people, it's going to be overpopulated. It's not going to be what you think it is. It's going to be super expensive and everything's just so much nicer when you get into these little quaint European towns.

I think part of it is one, the US has gotten out of control expensive. So now everything feels inexpensive compared to the US. It doesn't even really matter where I go. I'm like, my God, what are we doing here in the US? it's so, so insanely expensive but you go to Greece and it's the same thing.

Totally.

I get a liter of wine every night for dinner, six euros. Fresh seafood for 15 euros. And it's good quality food. It's better food. I don't get it. We're doing it wrong.

Yeah.

Totally.

because I live in Europe, every time I go back to the United States, I'm just like, oh yeah, OK. I miss so many things about the US, but the fever pitch pace that you have to work in the US in order to be able to afford to even just go out for a burger. Remember when you could go out for a burger Maybe a burger and a beer was going to be $15, $17.

You are not going out for a burger for two, there is not a $12 burger. It's $12 for a burger at McDonald's now.

I know, I live in Wisconsin, so for those who don't know, Rachel is a New Yorker, so obviously she's on things, but even Wisconsin, we are an inexpensive state overall, and will go somewhere and I'm like, we are not New York City, guys. We are not charging $22 for a fucking appetizer. you joking me? are

This is

This is how I feel even in Portugal, when I'm like, you want 19 euros for a cocktail? I'm sorry, but no. even if they're like, ⁓ a glass of wine is eight euros, I won't go there. I don't know who you think you are, but I don't live in Lisbon. I moved to a place that was cheaper. come on.

I know we're getting off on tangents, but this is all related to money and travel. we have a bar, it's a hole in the wall bar. I love it. they serve hot beef sandwiches. It's the quintessential shitty Wisconsin townie bar, gray goose cocktails, $5. And then I go to another bar that's bougie it's really nice and they have great farm to table food.

Yeah.

Yeah.

$12 for just a Tito's and soda. should they maybe be charging a little bit more for Grey Goose? Yes. Am I mad about it? No, but $12 for just a freaking vodka soda.

Yeah.

it has made going out to eat not fun for me anymore when I'm in the States. when I'm gonna see it on my credit card bill, oof. That dinner for the two of us was $117 and we split an appetizer, we each had an entree, we had two drinks and we shared a dessert. was Thai food, you know what I mean? I can't do this

Yeah.

folks live in the Boston area, which is really expensive as well. just don't have it in me. It's stopped being fun for me because it feels like a financial burden. Everything you do in the US feels like a financial burden to me.

I agree and

and I don't probably go out as much whereas I used to do a lot more happy hours and hang out with friends every night of the week just to stay busy and that's $60 every night just to go to dinner and have two drinks with a friend and that really up and I definitely make more food at home now than I did before it is insane how much it costs just to go out with your friends and I know you talk about that a lot but

Yeah.

So I guess

that's a good segue into what we're gonna talk about, which is travel and money and saving for travel. But let's first give everybody a little bit of a background on your origin story, because I think it's very interesting. You're the VP of a women's fashion brand, which I'm sure some people are like, whoa, that sounds really cool. why would you give that up? So what was the reality of your life in New York and what made you realize you needed an exit plan?

working in fashion is very much like the double wearer's Prada. There's a lot of ego and attitude and pressure. And you work a million hours a week. And it doesn't pay well in the beginning. It does when you get into more senior level positions. And it was my dream.

I dreamed of being in fashion, and I finally made it, really clawed my way up to the top. I feel like I worked really, really hard. But the reality was, achieving that dream did not make me happy. And it's really hard to admit to yourself that this thing that you've worked so hard for, that you were so sure for so many years, and it would always be the carrot and the stick. Well, as soon as I'm a senior designer, everything will get better. OK, as soon as I have an assistant, everything will get better. OK, as soon as I'm the design director and I no longer have to do tech packs, everything will get better, right?

And the reality of it is that the career itself was a problem for me. And part of it has to do with what I've now kind of, I think, realized is of anti-overconsumption ethos. And fashion is inherently all about consumerism and the idea that you can buy things to make yourself happy when the reality is that there's almost nothing you can purchase that's really going to make you happy.

And so I was pretty miserable. And when I was 29, I was diagnosed with a condition called rheumatoid arthritis. And it was a light bulb moment for me. I had this realization, wait a second. nothing in the future is guaranteed. My physical comfort level is not guaranteed. My ability to function is not guaranteed. And I'm very lucky. It has progressed really, really mildly. is very easy to treat for me. This is not the case for everybody who has rheumatoid arthritis. But for me, I'm very, very lucky.

Mm-hmm.

But I did not know that when I first got diagnosed. And so I had This is what I'm doing with this time that I have on this planet. It is going to a job that I hate, working 60 hours a week to make money for someone else. Is that really what I want my future to be? And of course, the answer was no. And so I discovered the financial independence retire early or FIRE movement. And at the time, it was this really ultra-frugal, anti-consumerist movement that was all about spending the

bare minimum amount of money so that you could invest the absolute maximum amount of money. And for me, that was a tough one, right? Because I didn't want to work every minute of the day and have absolutely no joy in my life, also knowing that right now could be the peak of my physical condition, and that it could deteriorate at any time in a variety of different ways.

And so I needed to find a bit of a balance between aggressively saving and investing and figuring out what I actually cared about and what my were with my finances. so what that led to was learning a lot about investing, learning how to negotiate so I could make more money, while I also was still able to travel quite a bit, travel pretty frugally. I'll be honest, I tended to be a pretty frugal traveler.

And it led me to a position where I was investing and saving a lot of money every month so that when I met a very handsome man during the pandemic, I had over half a million dollars in savings and investments, liquid. It wasn't all locked up in a house. I just had the money. And I was like, wait a second. What am I doing? This man is the most amazing person I've ever met. And I was 35. He was 37. We were a little bit older to meet.

We had never been married. There was nothing that was keeping me stuck in this job. And I was basically able to just quit and walk away because I had all of these savings and investments. thought maybe it's for early retirement. Maybe I'll end up becoming a solo parent. Maybe I'll buy a house with it. I didn't really exactly know what the purpose of that money was until I met Liam. And it became very clear to me that that money was my ticket to freedom and my ticket to being able to be with him.

Yeah, and I remember when we met, so for those who don't know, we met in Mexico City, Rachel was on my first ever group trip to Mexico City. But I remember at that time you had just quit your job, you had just, quote unquote, retired. And at that time, I think your plan was to be kind of retired. you were kinda

That's fine.

Yeah.

I think mulling around with some ideas of things you could do on the side just to stay busy. But it was not that you were going to start a whole financial coaching empire, if you will.

No. No,

so I really hated working corporate. And again, my solution was misguided. So my solution was, I hate working in corporate. I hate having no free time. I hate waking up to an alarm. I hate having people put meetings on my calendar, and I just have to attend, whether I feel like it or not. I hate having to ask for vacation time. And so I thought the solution to this was just to have enough money that I didn't need to work. And at the time, I'm.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Liam owned a house in the UK that was unbelievably affordable for us. And he was still working. And so between what I had in savings and his income, and he only worked part time anyway, we totally had enough money in that living situation to make it work. But I really rapidly realized that retirement was a misguided goal. And I actually believe that this is the case for a lot of folks who retire early who don't have children.

if you retire early and you have kids and your goal is to spend time with your kids and raise your kids, you have a separate life purpose. I think it's pretty hard and this isn't the case for everybody, but it was hard for me to be 35 and have no distinct life purpose.

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. That makes complete sense. Just travel Because I think that gets old.

Yeah, and I think

it got old. That was what I was just going to say. It got old, and I also felt it was just not the best use of my resources as a human didn't allow me to flex my skills. It wasn't challenging me. I am a person who step up to a challenge, which is, think, how I did so well in is the kind of field where people were dropping flies right, left, and sideways. Every year, another person would be like,

Yeah, I'm going to a coding boot I got to get out of so it also felt to me similar to what I was saying about how I thought the solution to hating fashion was that I needed a of the career in fashion. My solution to hating fashion, which was not working at all, was also the wrong solution.

Mm-hmm, and I remember on this first trip to Mexico City that you were on and correct me if I'm wrong but this was around the time that you were starting to come up with the idea of your business and what you could do but a lot of it came from just talking to other people and you sharing that you retired and that you quit your job and yeah I have all this money because I invested it

And so I think from my experience, everyone was just kind of like, wait, what? you can do that? I assume you had a lot of these conversations outside of this one trip to Mexico City, where you're realizing that women in particular just have no idea what they're doing with their money and that a lot of people want obviously more freedom of time and that you could do more

own story and purpose could help other people. That's my interpretation of how this all came to fruition.

No, you're totally right. And especially during eight months to a year after I quit my job before I really started my business, I did a lot of talking to people. Because when you're traveling and you're not on a two-week vacation, you don't have to jam everything in. Maybe you're in a country for a month, and you're just meeting people, and you're chatting with them. And naturally, it just comes up at some point. So what do you do? And I'm like, well, I'm kind of retired. I don't have a job. I don't really have a plan to go back and get a job.

And people would always be like, how did you do that? And so initially, a lot of my conversations were around investing and teaching people about investing, because I think a lot of women just really do not understand how investing works, when the right time to start investing. I think there's this misconception with it that

Number one, you need to already be rich to start investing. Number two, you need to really understand the stock market and trading. Number three, it's really, really risky. All of these things are not true. But what I actually ended up finding out further down the line after I launched my business was that the thing that's actually hardest for people is cash flow management, because investing is relatively easy. But.

just not spending every penny that comes your way so that you have the money to invest is actually the bigger challenge, I've kind of realized. And I do more of that. Even though I talk about investing a lot, the reality is that a lot of people really need to learn how to be good stewards of their resources so that they have the money to do things for example, travel, but also invest. And you can do both of those things.

Mm-hmm.

absolutely. And you and I have something in common in that in a past life, I literacy program at my college that I worked at, which a lot of people don't know that about me, but I have a background in financial no way, or form in the way that Rachel does with the investing But what I've found is the more money they make, the more money they spend.

most people don't make more money to start saving more money. It's just, I'm gonna up my lifestyle, up my lifestyle, up my lifestyle. what I learned financial literacy is how many professionals and successful people with high income salaries have no money. And that does not make any sense that someone who makes six figures doesn't have any money. I see it all the time with people who travel with me that I know what their job is. have a

fairly good idea of how much money they're making and they're like, I just can't afford it. yeah, I'm gonna have to wait till my next paycheck. And I'm sitting there thinking, you make six plus figures. How are you waiting for a paycheck? it's so, so, so common. VPs of banks that I've talked to and credit unions that I was working with in financial literacy that don't have money. And it just does not make sense to me. And like you said, the solution is that

People don't know how to manage their own money. They have no idea how to manage their cashflow, how to save, how to invest.

there's a couple of things that I think are important to note. You are, by the way, 1,000 % correct. And I'll be fully transparent that most of the folks we work with inside of our program are six figure earners. we primarily work with relatively high income earners. That doesn't mean we can't help lower income earners. But there is a different sort of skill set needed to understand that as your income increases, that does not mean that your lifestyle needs to increase. And so what's happening is people are pre-spending their raises.

I got a promotion. My next paycheck is going to be bigger. I can't wait to buy X, Y, and Z. And then it's not just like, OK, I'm going to replace this thing that I've been wanting to replace, maybe my TV that has the crappy speakers. Now I can really replace it. It's like the money is gone before it even arrives. There's so many opportunities. They're like, I can finally get a bigger house so that we can have a game room and a family room, whatever. And people are like, the reality of r-

Right.

I'm gonna get a new house.

how much money your life costs you is very confusing for people. there's this idea the pre-spending and the lifestyle inflation that you're referring to. But then there's also people believe that they need to look like they earn the amount of money that they earn. And their perception of what that looks like is costing them a fortune. And the reality is

Mm. Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

I'm by no means a particularly wealthy person, right? But I am a millionaire and I'm friends with quite a few other millionaires. And one of the things that we all have in common is that we're actually pretty modest people. Most of us do not drive nice cars. We don't live in particularly fancy homes. We all live in nice neighborhoods. That's something you'll see is pretty common to live in a nicer neighborhood. But it is because as we have increased our income, we have taken that additional money and we've used it to make our money multiply.

And when you have additional income coming in and you take it and you use it to buy material things, all you're doing is giving away your ability to build wealth. And it's not intentional. It's because there's very, very little financial literacy. And there is an absolutely enormous amount of social pressure to spend money. And there's an enormous amount of marketing to get women in particular to spend money on frankly dumb shit.

Dumb shit. Yes, a hundred percent, so walk us through how you help your clients save or set up intentional saving with each paycheck specifically for travel. obviously people who are listening, they're interested in travel, but this could be anything. you can save for anything. actually look like in practice?

you

Yeah, so in practice, we love automations. And so the first thing that you really need to do, and this is the step that people skip, I kind of blame Boomer Financial Advice for this. The first thing you need to do is you need to have a really realistic picture of what your life actually costs you. And I don't mean sitting down and writing down your bills. I mean literally auditing what you spent money on in the last 30 days. And the reason that's so important is that it's going to show you what your spending habits are.

and you want to be able to identify, these habits that I have right now serving me? And are these things my priorities? Because I can tell you that the vast majority of people that I work with are spending far more money than they realize on DoorDash, but they're also double-dipping, so they're also buying groceries. They're spending like $1,200 a month on groceries, and they're ordering DoorDash three times a week or five times a week or whatever it is, and they're getting their breakfast out every morning or whatever. And so you need to first...

make the decision that you're going to spend in alignment with your priorities. And you need to see how you were spending before and ask yourself, look, is this a priority to me or not? Because if it's not, you have to be willing to go through the discomfort of learning a new habit. And it's OK for it to feel a little bit hard for a while, but you need to be looking at this big picture. So for example, if you're saying, you know what? I am 30 years old. I've never left this country. I really want to go on one of Laura's trips.

I am single, I don't feel comfortable doing this by myself. It's totally worth the investment to go with a group. What am I okay with letting go of in order to buy this opportunity, to buy this experience? And then from there, you need to backwards. When do you want to spend the money on the thing? For me personally with travel, I always want to travel. I am happy to set money aside every single month to travel, even if I don't know where it's going, because I know that I value travel.

So I would strongly encourage you, if you are a person who receives a paycheck, to figure out what you're willing to say, hey, this isn't a priority anymore. You're not denying yourself anything. You're not depriving yourself. Instead, you're gifting yourself the option to travel. And then you want to set up an automatic transaction so that you can either have it come straight out of your paycheck, which a lot of employers will let you split your paycheck into multiple accounts, or you can do it on the day that it gets direct deposited. The next day, you can have an automatic transfer.

I love a high yield savings account to save for travel because why not get a little bit of interest, right? It's not like it's gonna pay for the trip, but you know, right now interest rates are between three and 4 % on most high yield savings accounts. And if you're a big traveler, you might be saving five, six, $700 a month maybe you're the kind of person who goes on one really big trip every year and it's gonna be a $10,000 trip between the flights, the tours, the food, et maybe if you're saving, you know.

Mmm, me too.

Mm-hmm.

five, six, seven, $800 a month, you wanna put it in a high-yield savings it doesn't have to be just for travel. this is called a sinking fund, by the way. That's the name of this type of fund. You should be doing this to pay for car repairs, pay for home repairs, pay for any kind of unexpected expenses. But for sure, you wanna have one for travel because you also wanna be enjoying your money right now instead of using it on a first-come, first-serve basis.

Mm-hmm.

because You don't feel like microwaving the chicken that you have leftover from yesterday. You just order DoorDash Would you really rather do that than eat omakase sushi in Tokyo? Because I think the answer is probably not.

Right, right. All those little micro decisions add up. know people are always like, does a $5 cup of coffee really matter? Well, I mean, first of all, we're not here to yuck anyone's yum. And if that is your priority, then great. But then, what are some other ways? We all have the things that we spend money on, that we shouldn't be spending money on, that you could probably give up in order to travel. I just think most people have something in their life that they're spending money on. It might not be DoorDash. It might not be Starbucks.

It might be makeup, might be Sephora, might be subscriptions. God knows how many subscription services we all have that are probably just sitting there and we don't even know we're being charged for them. There's all these little opportunities in everybody's daily practice. I think that could maybe go away a little bit.

And I know that even I harp on people about the coffee. It's not about the coffee, it's about the mindless spending. And I think you really just touched on it. It's about throwing things in your car. You know, maybe you do have really sensitive skin and you really do wanna buy this $80 moisturizer every other month. If that's the case, it's all good. You should buy that moisturizer. But while you're standing in line at Sephora, don't throw six minis into your basket

Yes.

Yeah, all

those little tactics that get us to overspend especially Black Friday is coming up we all know how that works if you only spend $20 more then you get all this other stuff and I can tell you from experience as a person who's been traveling so much for the last couple of years where My house is getting out of control with stuff because I'm not home to process it and I bring all this stuff home from traveling and then I don't have time to use it

And it's gotten to the point where I'm like, my God, I just have too much shit. it's just so much stuff that we don't need. And I was just gonna touch on when you were talking about the sinking funds, before I owned a travel business, I did this. I had a travel savings account, and people were always like, how can you afford to travel? how do you get that much vacation time? And I used to say,

this is people I worked with, I don't have more vacation time than you, and I don't have more money than you. So the only difference is that I putting money aside for travel out of every paycheck, because it's my priority and I don't spend it. The only thing I can spend it on is travel, and that is how I afford my trips. So then when I get a $600 flight to Europe and I see opportunity to travel for inexpensive to get there, I'm like, sweet, I've got a travel fund.

that can pay for that. And now that I own a travel business, I don't do that anymore because My whole life is saving for travel essentially. But I will say on your high yield savings account, I started one probably around the time that I started my business and I put, I don't know, $100 every two weeks into it just to have some savings. And I think I've dipped into it once for a legitimate reason, but I have like

Yeah.

$12,000 in it and it's just my savings for all the things that you mentioned you need to have a backup plan and that's not money to spend for fun when all of a sudden an opportunity to go to Europe comes that's the money in case all of a sudden I need a new roof or My dog has a life-threatening injury and I need to spend $3,000 on a vet bill or all those adulting things that happen That's what that money's for. It's not intended to be touched

But the amount of money that I get interest on that it's not gonna take you to Europe for free, but it is free money that I get every single month and it is fun. I maybe every three months log in and check and my God, my money just magically grew and investing is the same concept. it's kind of fun to watch your money grow and see, I didn't really have to do anything. this just did it behind the scenes because I set up the system and process five years ago.

Totally, and one thing I just wanna say, and I'm gonna say it louder for the people in the back, credit cards are not for emergencies. Your credit card is not your emergency fund. If you can't pay for it right now, you will not be able to pay it off later, you are not magically gonna suddenly become a person who is great with managing your money, and if you currently have credit card debt and no shade to you whatsoever, it happens to the best of us.

a lot of people have credit card debt from traveling because they know they want to do it, they see other people doing it, but they don't have this kind of foresight you and I are talking about to save for it every month and they just kind of get themselves into hot water with it. If you do have credit card debt, it's possible to pay it off and it feels really good to pay it off. And then you can really use your money intentionally because you're not in debt to Visa anymore.

Mm-hmm.

So that's another thing your credit card is not a solution for traveling. You need to save for it. You can use credit cards to get points, but you need to save to pay those cards off. And if you are dragging around debt because you wanted to get the points for a trip that you booked, but you didn't have the money to pay it off, guess what, girl, it would have been cheaper to just pay for it instead of use the points.

Right.

No.

Points are

not as valuable as people think they are. the other day I was at a bar and This happens a lot now where it's like, we're cash only, but if you wanna use a card, we add a 3 % fee. Well, I use my card for everything because of points, but then in my mind I'm like, well, I know that points are not worth 3%. if I have cash, I'm gonna pay cash. it's just become

out of control, everybody's like, well, I need to pay with the points. yeah, but are you doing the math on that? one, if you have to pay interest because you can't pay it off, forget it, don't use it. that's not what points are for. But also sometimes the points are not as much money as people think they are. And it's become travel brag. I have points, I have a card, and I'm not even getting the annual fees and all these other things. Like I need to do a whole different episode about credit cards, but

Yeah.

It's plain and simple. You have to have the money. You use the card to charge it to get the points and then you immediately use that money to pay off the card. That is the only way. Plain and simple how to use your credit card for travel. There is no other way that makes sense.

And doing,

the endless 0 % balance transfers, the taking out a personal loan to clear your debt, that's not clearing your debt, that's moving your debt around. I work with a lot of folks who have credit card debt. So if you have credit card debt and you're embarrassed about it and you need some support, reach out to me.

No, no, no.

So on the flip side, there's these people trips on credit cards. They want to be able to travel. They don't want to travel when they're 60. I totally get that. what is your advice for someone who says I'll start saving for travel when I make more money or

when I pay off all my debt, those people who are waiting to travel until they don't have debt anymore, until, X, Y, I people have all the reasons why they wait to travel, but I think money is a big part, and I can say as someone who had debt when I was younger, I still made travel a priority. I tried to be reasonable about it. but I think there are a lot of people that think they can't travel at all until they've paid off this astronomical amount of debt.

Totally, and I think that again, I kind of blame boomer financial advice like Dave Ramsey has made people believe while you're paying off credit card debt, you should not do literally any other thing at all. And I understand his point, but I think that one of the things that makes debt pay off sustainable, meaning that you can actually stick to your debt payoff plan. And then when you're done paying off your debt, you don't go crazy and spend a ton of money because you've been living under such restriction.

Hehehe

One of the ways that you can get to that kind of debt payoff plan is to enjoy your life while you're paying off your debt, especially for folks who maybe have really significant student loans, either because they are a doctor or a lawyer or they just didn't get counseled well about student loan debt and they did not understand what they were getting themselves into. One of the things that I say to folks all the time is that you have to just choose your priorities. And so for a lot of people, getting to a place where you can emotionally accept, it's OK for me to take

a really big trip. Maybe it's every other year if you have significant credit card debt or significant medical debt or something. But just being intentional about saving for it, really having clarity around what your spending plan for that trip is. So if you're like, OK, I am going to go to Thailand. The flights are going to be about this much. The hotels are going to be about this much. When push comes to shove, you cannot say yes to every single upgrade because you don't want to go into more debt for the trip, right? You have to be able to pay for the trip basically with cash.

it's not going one step forward and two steps back in terms of your debt. But I am a really big believer in figuring out how to live sustainably while you are in the debt payoff process. And one of the people are saying, I can't afford this, and possibly in some cases, you can't afford it. But I really like to change that narrative to, is it really that you can't afford it, or is it that it's not a priority for you right now?

Mm-hmm.

and it's okay if something isn't a priority for you right now, but you should take ownership and agency and feel empowered to say, hey, this isn't a priority to me right now. And if you say no, but traveling is a priority to me, okay, but your actions and your behavior is showing me that it's not because you're not saving ahead to make sure you have the money to do it.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, it goes kind of hand in hand with people saying, which I'm guilty of this all the time, as a very busy person, as I say, I don't have time. And although very justifiably, I could argue I have a busier schedule than most people, and I'm gone a lot, and sometimes I really have a very tight timeline on when I can do things, at the end of the day, I do tell myself this is me not making time for something, that means it's not a priority. I could make time to do this. I could.

Yeah.

make time to organize my closet or do all these things that have been on my list, but I'm not making it a priority. I'm putting other things above that on the list and maybe that's justifiable, but at end of the day, I'm still not making it a priority. I think there's always time for something that is super important to you.

Totally. And it's also OK to say, I don't have time for this right now. So maybe Laura has a trip coming up, and it's in March. And you're like, I really just don't have time for this between now and March. When can I make time for this? Ask yourself that kind of question, too. OK, I don't have time for this right now, which might be legit. Who knows what your situation is. But you want to ask yourself, when can I make time for this if it is truly a priority for me? When can I make time for this?

And then when you know, okay, I know that I can join this other trip that she's doing in September, great, now you have a timeline and you can save backwards so that you can have the whole thing paid off before you even get to the airport.

Yeah, I have people who message me all the time who say, I've been following you for three years. It's a goal of mine to go on one of your trips someday. And it feels like this far off thing for them. And what I want to say saving for it. this doesn't have to be a trip next year. This could be a trip in 2027. So start saving $200 a month. And by the time that trip rolls around, you'll actually be able to afford don't think there's anything wrong with saving.

for something that's not gonna happen right now. I know we all want this immediate gratification, but also there's so many studies that show that the anticipation of a trip is just as rewarding as the trip itself. I know the trip itself is obviously gonna be really, amazing, but the shorter the time between when you decide to go on a trip and actually go on the trip, the less enjoyable overall, because part of that enjoyment is knowing that you have something to look forward to.

Yeah.

And so psychologically, having a year to wait for a trip actually makes that trip more valuable in the end because you've given yourself that time anticipate it and be excited about it.

Totally, I always encourage my if you're gonna go on a trip, which it's fine, I have many clients who through their debt payoff journey still went on trips, went on cruises, group travel, I've had clients do all of the things while they're on their debt payoff journey, and when you plan ahead for it, you have something to look forward to, I would also argue that it makes it more palatable to be responsible with your finances.

any time you turn down something that you're invited to or you don't buy something that you're like, yeah, I want that, but I'm not gonna buy it, take that money that you spending and put that towards something, put it towards your travel fund, put it towards your credit card bill, whatever it is. If you were for a moment like, yeah.

could go out for happy hour tonight and blow 60 bucks with my friends and then you're like, better not. Well, take that 60 dollars and put it towards something. put it towards something valuable instead of something that, is just gonna be gone within 24 hours.

I think there's this misconception that saving money is really hard and really miserable. And again, not to the boomer financial advice that our parents got. Basically, I think a lot of people think that saving money means never going to a restaurant. It means never doing anything fun. It means only eating lentils. It means CVS sunscreen. And the reality when you start actually saving money and you start saying,

No.

you know what, I'm going to skip happy hour tonight. I'm kind of tired. I have all that laundry to fold. I'm going to go home and listen to my podcast and fold my laundry, and you save $60. You will be surprised. And I have this happen all the time where clients to a check-in with us, and they've looked up their numbers and given us an update to their net worth. And they're like, I could not believe that I saved $5,000 in eight weeks, or six weeks, or 12 weeks, or whatever it is. It really did not feel like I was doing anything. The number one thing that clients say to me is,

well, I didn't really accomplish as much as I wanted. And I look at their file and I'm like, but your net worth went up $16,000 in three months. What were you hoping to accomplish? And they're like, it went up $16,000? And I'm like, yeah. And they're like, but it didn't feel hard. yeah, because you have been conditioned to expect saving money to be miserable and unpleasant. And it's just not. You get used to it really, really fast. And when you're saving for something that you're excited about and you're anticipating that thing, which could be,

Right.

becoming credit card debt free. It could be going on a really cool group trip. It could be anything. It could be buying your first home. When you're saving for something that you're excited about, it really changes your experience of what it feels like to make a different decision, which is the decision to skip happy hour this time.

I think it kind of goes along on a diet. If you just deprive yourself 100%, never allow yourself to have a cheeseburger or have a dessert, it's going to feel a lot more miserable and you're a lot less likely to probably maintain it long term. Whereas I think if you have some balance in there and overall, gonna to this certain diet plan, but once in a while I'm gonna treat myself and I'm gonna allow myself to have that ice cream or candy bar or cheeseburger or whatever, I'm gonna have a cheat day, if you will.

it kind of goes along the lines of that. you're far more likely to stick to something long term if you're still rewarding yourself a little bit along the way and not completely depriving yourself where you're just absolutely miserable.

Totally. And it goes back to that whole idea how can you build a sustainable plan to save for travel or whatever it is. And a lot of that comes back to figuring out the timing. Laura might have one slot left for a trip that's happening in May, but it might not be on your bingo card this year. And that's OK. And it's OK to acknowledge, I just don't think I have the fortitude to save 80 % of my paycheck between now and.

and May, I know I'm going to want to buy Christmas presents. I'm going to want to go to dinners. I'm going to want to fine. Go on an October trip. It doesn't mean you can't have the thing. Sometimes we think if we can't have the thing right now, we can't get the thing. But that is not the reality. there's the delayed gratification makes it so much sweeter, in my opinion.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Absolutely. So as someone who has been on multiple of my group trips, like I said, Rachel's been on my, first group trip to Mexico City and then she also came on my Turkey trip with her partner Liam and then fiance Liam. And then you also went to Morocco with me on my like first ever Morocco scouting trip. So obviously you've planned your own travel. You know how to travel on your own. You've also experienced group trips. So you kind of have the gamut of all of it. In what ways do you think group travel can be?

more affordable than doing it on your own, because I know it goes both ways.

Totally. Number one is you aren't going to make mistakes with things like hotels, transit, things like that when you go on a group trip. Because I can guarantee you that your tour group leader, your guide, Laura, has looked at all of the options and she is going to find the absolute best hotel that she can find for the price point. Where you're going to be like...

Okay, where should I stay in Marrakesh? You're gonna go on booking.com or Google and you're gonna be immediately overwhelmed and you're gonna end up choosing the hotel that just has the best Instagram. And you might miss this other hotel that's equally amazing, equally beautiful, but a lower price. And because they have less marketing. And when you travel with a group...

There are so many instances where, OK, the group has organized this thing. They can afford their own tour of it. It's less crowded. Overall, it's better. I think because there's so many decisions involved in travel, and I think anyone who travels a lot can tell you that you just get decision fatigue. By the last day, you're like, god, where are we going to dinner tonight? OK, I guess.

Yep.

the place we wanted to go, couldn't get a reservation. now it's like, we ended up not going and doing the thing we thought we were going to do. So we're not in the neighborhood that we did the research on. And there's decision fatigue. And you're just like, let's just go to this place. whatever. It's expensive, but let's go. And I think that when you have somebody else who is they know. They know the region. They know the hotels. They know the restaurants. They know which restaurants are overpriced, really Instagrammable versus the place that's much better priced, also beautiful, also amazing food. And I think.

In that way, particularly on a curated trip like yours, maybe this isn't Princess Cruise Lines, but when you go with a curated small company, providers are going to know where to take you. And I think you're going to get the best bang for your buck on a trip like that.

Yeah, And there's also just not a lot of hidden costs. Whereas I feel like when you travel on your own, I myself, when I go on my own, I'm like, ⁓ shit, I didn't even think about this. I didn't even think about how much an Uber was from LaGuardia to my friend's apartment in the East Village. I didn't factor $100 Uber into my budget for this New York trip that I thought was gonna be inexpensive. there's a lot more of that kind of stuff when you travel on your own.

Yeah.

agree.

Plus you can add fact there's experiences that you can't get on your own. You just simply can't get on your own or would not be able to afford on your own. And by taking 10 people, we can make it an affordable experience that you're able to have that maybe you wouldn't have been able to do had you not been with a group.

Totally. I think that there's a lot of ways in which you don't know if you're getting what you pay for when you travel by yourself. And when you travel with a group, especially like yours that has been around for a long time, you've done a lot of these locations multiple times, you know everybody in the area, you're well known in the in that area, the hotel knows you, there's just a lot of ways in which you're gonna also just get slightly better treatment. And so when you think about it from the perspective of...

how do I want to use the dollars that I have or the resources that I have? Sometimes group trips, you may dollar for dollar not necessarily spend less money, but I bet the quality, my experience has been, like that hotel that we stayed in in Marrakesh was amazing. Do you remember that place? I can't remember as well.

yeah, yeah, my

groups still go there. It's literally their favorite part. I mean, the Sahara Desert's everyone's favorite part, but that, that...

I mean, also the Sahara Desert was that

too. That was also amazing, right? And for me to organize my own travel to the Sahara Desert to stay in a super amazing, glam, luxurious camp, you know I'm overpaying, right? But with your group, had a tour guide. He picked us up in the Jeep. He drove us to the thing. The camp was That kind of stuff, you're paying more as a solo person, for sure, if you can even find it.

Right.

just did my Morocco recap podcast last night and they were talking about Cam Cam Dunes where you and I stayed and I still take my groups there. And so yes, my group gets special treatment But also we have this lunch at a luxury camp that's air conditioned, rooms and a cool pool and whatever. And they were like.

Yeah. Yeah.

They're like, that place was cool and I'm glad we went there for lunch, but I liked the place with the carpets on the sand and the rustic vibe. that place felt more authentic to me. And so I'm glad that you chose to stay at this less expensive, less bougie place. that's why we travel with you. some people might be more comfortable in air conditioning, but I think that that's the better experience. And so

that people were going to overpay for an experience that I think is lesser than the more authentic one. And the other thing I was going to add to just as a person who has zero time, I don't have time to plan travel but I don't have time to sit around and look at websites and read reviews. And to me, as an entrepreneur, everything in my life, time is money. So I asked myself,

Totally.

Yeah.

Do I have two hours to fuck around with booking.com and reading reviews or would I rather just pay somebody to do this for me? And most of the time in everything in my life, mowing my lawn, blowing my snow, cleaning my house, everything generally means that it's giving me more time back to have somebody who knows what they're doing and is better at it and actually probably enjoys doing it do it for me. And I think the same thing goes for travel for people who are very busy or just don't have the fortitude or the interest in planning their own trip.

Yeah, next Friday Liam and I are going to We have flights. I think he booked a car today. We have a hotel for the wedding that we're going to, but I'm not sure what we're going to do with the rest of the days that we have there. We don't have a hotel. We don't have sightseeing planned. All we have is a car and it's fine. we have friends in Scotland, Liam's British. It's not like we're going somewhere crazy where they don't speak English, but we'll figure it out. But also we're going to Bologna to see Radiohead in Italy in... ⁓

Yeah.

Yeah, you'll

Ooh.

Next month, yeah, I'm really excited about that. Haven't booked a flight, haven't booked a hotel, haven't done anything. And it's a month away. For me, that's eons. And honestly, at this point, because we are also maybe I just need to hire someone to do all this for me. Hire a travel concierge to just start to map out what we're going to do and also map out our photo shoots, because I also make content for my business. And so it's really important for me to be in Instagramable places, that aren't crowded. And it's kind of whole thing.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. All right, well, Rachel, wrapping up here, where can people find you online if they want to learn more about you and what you do?

so the best place to find me is on Instagram where I am at Rachel r a c h e l underscore talks money. I'm also on tick tock and my website is Rachel talks money.com.

Awesome, and I think you mentioned something about having a financial wellness checklist.

Yeah, yeah. So if you're listening to this and this whole conversation of Laura and I talking about sinking funds and credit card interest made your head spin a little bit, don't worry. ⁓ You're not alone. We have very, very poor financial literacy in most of the Western world. So whether you're American or not, the financial wellness checklist is free. If you go to any of my Instagram posts and you just comment the word checklist or you DM me the word checklist and you follow me, if you don't follow me, you might not get the DM, but I'll send you over the checklist for free.

And it's just designed to help you do a little bit of a quick bird's eye view audit of what's happening with your finances so that you can start to make some changes because a lot of people don't even know where to start. So it's this is square one. If you do not really have a good grasp on your finances, this is an awesome place to start and it's not overwhelming. It's one page. You can do it.

Awesome. Awesome. Well, you so much for being here. It was so wonderful to chat with you. We'll probably have to touch base again about credit cards because I feel like that's a whole nother episode that we could talk about.

Yeah, I would love to and thank you so much for having me and I look forward to seeing you on the road again.

Yeah, same.

That's all for this episode of Type 2 Travel. If you're loving these conversations, hit subscribe or follow, give us a 5 star rating, and share with your adventure seeking friends. Remember, the best stories rarely come from staying in your comfort zone. Until next time, this is Laura Ericson reminding you that your passport is collecting dust, your PTO is piling up, and the world is out there waiting for you to explore it.