We simply love travelling. Since our marriage almost seven years ago, we make it a point to take out time and pursue our common passion. However, over the last three years, we have taken our travel goals to the next level and now we embark on an international tour every year in November.

On our first international trip to Greece (2016), we learnt a few lessons, especially about keeping a buffer budget, thanks to the sudden demonstration of public strike. Taking cue from this, we have learnt to manage our finances in a much better fashion. Our consequent trips to Hong Kong, Vietnam and Cambodia were pretty smooth, especially in terms of money management.

Since travelling, as a hobby is expensive, we plan our holidays way in advance. We usually create a kitty via recurring deposits (RDs) at the beginning of the year to fund our holidays. The combined monthly installment is to the tune of Rs10,000. Apart from RDs, we also keep aside 10 per cent of our annual bonus to live our common passion. Since maturing of RDs take some time, so, in order to book flights well in advance at nominal price, bonus comes in handy. While many may think that this may not be the wisest way to spend your hard-earned money, but we enjoy taking this risk as our ultimate goal is to create memories through experiences.

Since we are budget travellers, we plan all our trips well in advance. For example, we generally finish our itinerary planning, hotel bookings and air tickets by June for an international trip in November. We thoroughly research about a place and look out for a travel experience, which is adventurous and comfortable. Hence, it is very important to plan well in advance and grab good deals to save money for indulgences.