Vacations don’t have to deflate your wallet
I want to travel this summer, but I don’t have a ton of money. How can I go on an adventure without piling on credit card debt?
We all need time to recharge, but travel can be pricey. An American Express survey found respondents expected to spend, on average, $941 per person on summer trips in 2016. Booking travel on credit cards is convenient and can help you rack up rewards for future flight and hotel savings. But if you won’t be able to pay off the balance soon after you return home, a vacation might lead to big interest charges.
The best way to avoid debt is by saving for adventures in advance. However, for last-minute travel this summer, you can still plan a thrifty trip by prioritizing low-cost airfare, opting for nontraditional lodging and picking unexpected destinations. Here’s how to save and spend wisely when you’re ready to get out of Dodge.
Start a travel fund: If you have the luxury of several months to plan, set up a savings account specifically for travel. You can schedule recurring transfers from your checking account or set up direct deposit from your paycheck.
John Schneider, who runs the blog Debt Free Guys with his husband, David Auten, says they each save $50 per pay period in a travel “slush fund.” They didn’t set up online access to the account, so they must withdraw money from it in person at their credit union. That discourages the couple from dipping into the fund to cover daily expenses.
Of course, make sure to save at least $500 for home emergencies before shifting your resources to a travel fund. Just starting to save for summer vacation now? You won’t have much time, so if you put some expenses on a credit card, set a spending limit and make a realistic plan to pay off the balance. Stay vigilant while you’re away: Keep a running tally of your expenses so you can cut back on the souvenir shopping.
Choose locations based on airfare: Getting to your destination will often be the biggest drag on your wallet. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, for domestic trips of at least one night, transportation accounted for 39 percent of the total cost in 2013, followed by food and alcohol (27 percent) and lodging (26 percent). For trips abroad, transportation was more than half of the cost.
There’s always camping or driving to your destination, which is often cheaper than flying. But for destinations farther afield, websites like Airfarewatchdog, Google Flights and Skyscanner will let you compare airfares to your preferred destination. They’ll also show you what locations fit your budget on the dates you’re free. If you’re loyal to a specific airline, use any miles you’ve earned; check the airline’s fare calendar and pick a vacation spot that way.
Look beyond hotels: Steer clear of pricey hotels and choose lower-cost options like hostels, Airbnb, staying with local hosts for free on Couchsurfing and renting vacation homes on VRBO and HomeAway. If you have your own kitchen, you can cook and make drinks at home.
Schneider also recommends house swapping, especially if you’re traveling internationally. For a monthly or annual fee, services like HomeExchange and Love Home Swap will let you list your place and swap it with other members. Home Exchange says swapping saves members “up to 58 percent on typical vacation costs.”
A sizable majority of rural Americans backed President Donald Trump’s bid for the White House, drawn to his calls to ease environmental rules, strengthen law enforcement and replace the federal health care law.
But many farmers say they are nervous about another plank in Trump’s agenda: His vow to overhaul U.S. trade policy, including his intent announced last week to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement with Canada and Mexico.
Trump’s message that NAFTA was a job-killing disaster had never resonated much in rural America. NAFTA had widened access to Mexican and Canadian markets, boosting U.S. farm exports and benefiting many farmers.
Farm Country went on red alert last month when it looked as if Trump wasn’t even going to pursue a NAFTA rewrite: White House aides had spread the word that the president would simply withdraw from the pact.
“Mr. President, America’s corn farmers helped elect you,” Wesley Spurlock of the National Corn Growers Association warned in a statement. “Withdrawing from NAFTA would be disastrous for American agriculture.”
Within hours, Trump softened his stance. He wouldn’t dump NAFTA, he said. He’d try to forge a more advantageous deal with Mexico and Canada — a move that formally began when his top trade negotiator, Robert Lighthizer, informed Congress of the administration’s intent to renegotiate NAFTA.
As a candidate, Trump defined his “America First” stance as a means to fight unfair foreign competition. He blamed unjust deals for swelling U.S. trade gaps and stealing factory jobs.
But NAFTA and other deals have been good for American farmers, who stand to lose if Trump ditches the pact or ignites a trade war. The United States has enjoyed a trade surplus in farm products since at least 1967, government data show. Last year, farm exports
A summer spent folding and refolding sweaters at the mall was once a teen rite of passage. But as the end of the school year nears, young people hoping to find summer retail jobs must contend with a wave of shuttered storefronts and an industry in revolt.
Fourteen retail chains filed for bankruptcy protection through early April, nearly as many as filed all of last year, and a barrage of stores where young faces often greet customers — Wet Seal, The Limited, RadioShack, Rue 21, Payless Shoe Source, American Apparel, Abercromie & Fitch — have announced mass store closures.
Long a go-to for teens seeking summer jobs or their first shot at employment, retailers for years have been buckling under shifting consumer tastes and the rise of online shopping. But this year’s store “meltdown,” as it has been called, has some worried that youth will lose out on a key early work experience that gives them foundational job skills.
The good news is that the meltdown is happening when the job market is strong and there are plenty of other entry-level opportunities. Strong summer hiring last year pushed total teen employment past 6 million, the highest it’s been since 2008, according to the Chicago outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas.
But John Challenger, CEO of the firm, said the shift away from traditional sales floor gigs and toward the new retail jobs reality — at warehouses fulfilling online exceeded imports by $20.5 billion.
“You don’t start off trade negotiations ... by picking fights with your trade partners that are completely unnecessary,” says Aaron Lehman, a fifth-generation Iowa farmer who produces corn, soybeans, oats and hay.
Many farmers worry that Trump’s policies will jeopardize their exports just as they face weaker crop and livestock prices. orders — will likely be harder for teens to get.
“You can walk down the street to your local town center and ask for a job,” Challenger said. “That’s different than going 5 miles out of town and applying at the local warehouse.”
Retailers have announced more than 50,000 job cuts in 2017, according to numbers compiled by Challenger, Gray & Christmas. Four months into the year, the nation has lost far more retail jobs than it had by the same time during each of the past seven years.
Youths could be disproportionately affected as the retail sales sector, the largest job category in the nation, sheds jobs. Clothing, shoe, electronics and sporting goods stores have some of the
“It comes up pretty quickly in conversation,” says Blake Hurst, a corn and soybean farmer in northwestern Missouri’s Atchison County.
That county’s voters backed Trump more than 3-to-1 in the election but now feel “it would be better if the rhetoric (on trade) was a little less strident,” says Hurst, president of the Missouri Farm Bureau.
Trump’s main argument against NAFTA and other pacts was that they exposed American workers to unequal competition with lowwage workers in countries like Mexico and China.
NAFTA did lead some American manufacturers to move factories and jobs to Mexico. But since it took effect in 1994 and eased tariffs, annual farm exports to Mexico have jumped nearly fivefold to about $18 billion. Mexico is the No. 3 market for U.S. agriculture, notably corn, soybeans and pork. lowest average worker ages of all industry sectors.
Tom Gimbel, CEO of LaSalle Network, a Chicago staffing company, said young people likely will turn more to hospitality and food service, where turnover and worker demand are high. Other teens might consider construction, which could be useful experience if the infrastructure overhaul the Trump administration has promised comes to pass, he said.
Less sweater-folding and more table-busing could be good for young people as they develop a work ethic, Gimbel said.
“They learn more about harder work, different shifts,” he said. “I think it creates a lot of empathy in the white-collar world for the blue-collar world.”
“The trade agreements that we’ve had have been very beneficial,” says Stephen Censky, CEO of the American Soybean Association. “We need to take care not to blow the significant gains that agriculture has won.”
Once word had surfaced that Trump was considering pulling out of NAFTA, Sonny Perdue, two days into his job as the president’s agriculture secretary, hastened to the White House with a map showing areas that would be hurt most by a pullout, overlapped with many that voted for Trump.
“I tried to demonstrate to him that in the agricultural market, sometimes words like ‘withdraw’ or ‘terminate’ can have a major impact on markets,” Perdue said in an interview with the Associated Press. “I think the president made a very wise decision for the benefit of many agricultural producers across the country” by choosing to remain in NAFTA.
Snagajob, a job site for hourly work, has seen a 20 percent increase in 16- to 19-year-olds applying for food and restaurant jobs this year compared with last, and a 17 percent jump for hotel and hospitality jobs. Retail has had a much more muted 6 percent growth in applications from teenagers.
Health care, a fast-growing sector, saw a 54 percent increase in applications from teens, who can fill jobs in senior care that require good attitude and empathy but not long experience, said Peter Harrison, Snagajob’s CEO.
The gig economy also may be picking up some of retail’s slack, he said. A grocery chain told him recently that it was losing workers to Instacart, an on-demand grocery delivery service, even though the service pays less and offers fewer benefits, because the workers wanted to make their own schedules.
The overall hiring outlook is positive, Harrison said, especially this summer. A Snagajob survey of 1,000 hiring managers found 67 percent plan to hire more workers this summer than they did last year, a big jump from the 40 percent who said the same last year.
But underemployment remains a challenge. And while there is enough growth in other sectors to balance the retail closures in the short term, Harrison said a movement toward automation in food service and other industries is likely to affect jobs where teens are finding opportunity.
“While I don’t think it’s a big problem today, I think it’s a big problem around the corner,” he said.