9 Proven Personal Finance Tips for College Students Who are Traveling

​Travel insurance covers unseen what-if events, right?

Sometimes overlooked circumstances that can happen to anybody, anytime.

For example, you were using your costly mobile phone in a taxi. You somehow placed it on its dashboard and got busy with other things (like watching outside of the window, etc.). And forgot to pick your precious phone on reaching your destination.

Now what?

Obviously, the majority of taxi drivers aren’t honest. Or at least you aren’t going to rent an honest man’s taxi always.

Trackers and other things work most of the times.

But here I’m particularly talking about your personal finance. Which is going to get down if you would have to buy a new phone from it.

That’s a single example while there are still a lot of other probabilities too.

i.e. You can get ill from eating some unhygienic food abroad where you’d have needed some medical assistance.

You could miss a flight, lost your luggage, meet an accident, or hit a rental car and lots of other options.

It is always a wise move to convert some foreign currency while you are still in your home country.

This will serve you in many ways and you know that you are going to need this in your foreign country stay or check-in.

No doubt, you can exchange your currency for the foreign currency any time from the airports too.

But the chances are that not only you’ll be charged a slightly high currency conversion rate.

But also you’ll be charged a higher currency conversion services charges.

This applies on both if converting with local banks or local currency exchangers.

Creating your personal customized itinerary saves you from a lot of troubles & hassles.

That often leads to a damage to your personal finance.

Having said that, keeping a personalized itinerary physically can help in staying organized.

Many times we tend to spend a lot of money little by little on the things we aren’t so sure about. And at the end we see our budget breaking down.

Luckily we are in the age where these sort of things can be sorted out with a few free tools.

Have a look at the travel apps we reviewed as the ​best travels apps to use in 2018.

And for this, I’d recommend you the fifth app which is also free but kind of a big thing.

Allocating your money is the base of your every single aim and objective.

If you have no clear idea about your monthly income and expenditures you can’t go further.

Whereas if you know how much money is coming from which way. And going out which way, you’re most likely to manage and save every single penny to get wasted and add it to your savings.

Remember, when I say clear it means clear. You should be definite in every aspect of your personal finance. In the same manner, as a pro auditor does.

Half a century ago, these things, for an average folk, were nearly hard to do.

And now, like I said earlier, it is possible to create and manage your personal budgets like a pro.

You can use some Google spreadsheets or smartphone applications for that. And turn your phone into a budget managing utility.

Sometimes with a struggle of getting out on our own, we stuck in and then stuck in forever.

In our childhood, whenever we came across some problem or a bad situation we normally went to our parents and tell this to them.

You know, sometimes those problems were not that bigger what we thought they were. And on consulting with our elders we sorted out like a charm.

They (parents) were our problem consultants, who used to sort our problems.

Similarly, to manage our fiscal problems we need a financial consultant.

So pick up one if you haven’t yet, and if you already having one, consult it.

That is because I’m aiming this article to the sojourners or expats.

Those who are living abroad to complete their studies at some foreign university.

For those who don’t know FAFSA (Free Application for Federal Student Aid). It is a free application, one can submit online in order to get some kind of financial aid.

Sometimes this is the financial aid you need a lot and you just miss it or overlook for many reasons.

If you are living outside the United States you must find other similar sources available in your country. And catch some benefits from it.

Because most of the times, the student doesn’t have to do anything to get these financial aids as they’d be qualifying for this already.

Why say no if getting easily?

I’ll start with this quote, guess it tells everything I want to say right now.

“The workers spend what they get and the capitalists get what they spend” – Michal Kalecki

Now decide in what way this could serve you.

No matter If you are a student who is studying abroad or a traveler who is traveling abroad.

All of you, need a constant income channel to meet your expenses. Could be educational expenses or traveling expenses but you have to.

Aren’t you?

And this is only possible if you spend some money on building those constant income channels.

If you are using some kind of credit cards while staying in an international environment you must consider its pros and cons.

• Manage your credit card bills.
• Give a proper time in analyzing your bills carefully.
• Choose which type of credit card do you need. Which one meets your needs properly.
• Keep your credit limits under control.
• Look for your credit utilization rates.
• Use a secured credit card.

And if you find yourself not be able to do this, you better move to cash. Stop using credit cards.

I wasn’t a much fan of this tip in the past.

In fact, this has always been at the bottom of my list of personal finance tips from acclaimed professionals.

I used to think that it is a totally nonsense way of saving money.

And that it is the way of a miser to not to spend the money on small but genuine needs.

But now even I have started seeing things differently.

I have come to know that probably this is where lots of secrets are buried inside.

When I saw Warren Buffet, the third richest man on the earth using his same old house he bought in 1957 for a living. The things gradually started getting clear.

You may not be believing this mantra but deploying cost-effective tools for you is very cost effective for your personal finance too.