How to Budget and Save for a Cruise in a Year (or Less) with Danielle Corbett

⚓️ Dreaming of a cruise but not sure how to make it happen financially? 💭 That dream cruise doesn't have to stay a dream. 

We sit down with Danielle Desir Corbett of The Thought Card to break down a realistic, stress-free system for saving for your dream cruise in a year or less — from building your travel fund to finding money you didn't know you had, and how to stay the course when life gets in the way. 

Find & Follow Danielle:

• Danielle's website: https://thoughtcard.com/
• The Thought Card podcast: https://thoughtcard.com/podcast/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thedaniellecorbett
• Threads: https://www.threads.com/@thedaniellecorbett

📖 Get Danielle's Books: 

• We Are Financially Savvy Travelers: https://amzn.to/4b0Ob6Y​​ 
• Affording Travel: https://amzn.to/4vMAjp4

💰Helpful money apps and programs to help make your cruise wishes come true, mentioned during the episode:

• Monarch: get 50% off using our signup link: https://sometimessailing.com/monarch
• Rakuten: sign up with our link, get $50 – https://sometimessailing.com/rakuten 
• Fetch: https://fetch.com/  – use INVITE CODE: TMEK67 (**must be used when you sign up, before you snap your first receipt**)
• Travel insurance: https://sometimessailing.com/tr-insure 

Transcript

Dan (00:34)

Hi, and welcome back to today's episode. We are focusing on how to save for your dream cruise. And most importantly, how can you afford that dream cruise? Now, if you want more tips like affording your dream cruise or saving for your dream cruise, hit that subscribe button so you never miss an episode. And luckily for all of you today, we have an expert on with us. We've got Danielle Desir Corbett.

Mikkel (01:02)

Danielle is the founder of The Thought Card, an award-winning travel and money platform where she helps financially savvy travelers afford more travel without the stress of money. She also is a podcaster, so she has a podcast that goes along with it. And she is a travel planner and an expert in Iceland. So definitely check the show notes and reach out to her if you want help with any of those things.

Welcome Danielle. Please tell us more about yourself.

Danielle Desir Corbett (01:33)

Yes. Well, you both did such a great job. Lovely job. I have always like wanted to travel on and off and finances always came up in one way or another. So I've spent the last like ten-plus years just trying to figure it out, especially as I've changed life stages, I guess, like from single and broke and backpacking to now married and like with kids. And you know, every stage requires a different lens that you look at when it comes to money. 

So that's really been what I've been up to for the last 10 years. And when it comes to cruising, there's quite a bit of finances involved, right? And I'm looking forward to just kind of sharing and helping us strategize how can we do this?

And for me, travel is a lifestyle choice. We can get into it, but it's a lifestyle choice. So, how do we continuously have the finances to make the trips happen?

Mikkel (02:26)

I love that. It is a lifestyle choice. You build travel into your life and it sounds like you definitely prioritize that in your adult life, especially. For an episode overview, today, we're gonna discuss how to save for a cruise in a year or less. So if you already have the money for a cruise, you're gonna get great tips for how to save for things like excursions or gratuities. So just keep in mind these tips are applicable for saving for those things too.

Dan (02:56)

expertise, we're gonna discuss big picture, what is the framework to save, knowing your numbers, understanding where the money's coming from, and then also how to stay the course. it's a long road between knowing you want to go on a cruise and then actually paying for it.

Mikkel (03:14)

So let's get into it and start with the framework to save for a cruise. So, Danielle, a cruise is booked with a deposit, and then in most cases the balance isn't due until 60 to 90 days before the trip. It depends on the cruise line, but let's use that as our framework for today. Most people think that they have to have the full cost of the trip before they even start

What are your thoughts on that? Is that the right way to look at it? Or can they book and pay the deposit, which is sometimes just a couple hundred dollars, and then save in between the booking and the time that the balance is due?

Danielle Desir Corbett (03:53)

Yes. Okay, great intro question. So I think of it as yes, you can put the deposit down. Oftentimes it's advantageous too. You have make maybe savings or you know, there's things involved with putting it down. However, you have to look at it, is it realistic? When you think of the whole trip cost in total, realistically, can I save seven to ten thousand dollars within the next eight to nine months, maybe even shorter?

So I kind of when I'm thinking about bigger trips, I think about okay, it's not only about the immediate deposit that's really important, but the bigger picture, really kind of putting a big number, round number, even overestimating sometimes and thinking of, okay, can I really do eleven thousand, twelve thousand within the next couple months? So I I kind of feel like it's a kind of a dual approach there.

What I call myself, and it's ever-changing, but I call myself like an always on saver or like an evergreen saver, where I'm always saving for travel, regardless of if I have a trip on the books or if I'm daydreaming. And what that means is that I have more flexibility to hop on really good deals when I see them or

I always have like a baseline that I can feel comfortable putting a deposit down because there's money in that account at any given time. So that's the always on saver mentality. And it also kind of plays into financially as like travel as a lifestyle choice, right? Like imagine if you go to the gym, right? You have a gym membership. Why can't we treat travel like that? Meaning like every single month,

instead of paying an institution, we pay ourselves and put that reserved for travel. So when it comes to the deposit for a big trip coming up, again, I know the deposit, I look at the big picture number, I kind of do the mental math to see, is it realistic? And then I could pull from my travel fund, my dedicated travel savings account, and that's where the deposit comes from. So typically when I'm putting something down, that's like a not a big lift. Like the deposit usually is not a big lift.

What's the lift is saving the bigger, big picture amount over the course of the year, couple months.

Mikkel (06:11)

You just blew my mind. You totally shifted the mindset. And why not? If travel is part of your lifestyle as you have built your life, as we have done our best to build ours, why not always be saving? I love that.

Danielle Desir Corbett (06:28)

And then I think when it comes to the always saving for travel, I love picking a number to save every month that feels like a low lift, that feels really, really easy. So for example, let's say $100 a month is what feels easy to you, that becomes an automation that automatically gets deposited into that dedicated travel fund every single month. The reason why don't have I don't put like

big, big, big chunks of money on like that automation is because maybe I'm saving for technically saving some for something like different, or maybe I have like a couple trips planned where it's like a small trip and a big trip. But in terms of the baseline, I always like to make it easy. Easy, whatever feels easy. That could be a hundred, that could be five hundred, whatever that amount is, but there's always something going in and we could figure out what's going out in the future.

Dan (07:22)

Such a smart strategy. How do you then come up with that monthly number? You know, like working backwards, do you have like a a certain trip or a vacation in mind and then you work backwards or what does that look like?

Danielle Desir Corbett (07:34)

Yes. Okay. So I have this kind of mental knowing of how much I typically spend on travel for the year. And that typically equates to like around 10% of my income for the year. So imagine if you make $100,000, that's about $10,000 for the year. 

So you could do that strategy where you're like, okay, I'm just going to put 10% of my paycheck into my travel fund automatically. Or you can do the strategy for me where it's like, I can just do a small amount. And then that feels effortless and easy. When it comes to a trip, like an actual trip, that has a finite number attached to it. 

And it's important to think through all the things, like Mikkel mentioned, like your gratuities, your souvenirs, the cruise itself, excursions, the flights, the pre and post-hotels. If you do any of those tours, like coming up with that big, big, big, big, big number.

And then dividing it by how many months you have until that deposit is due, right? There's typically like a month or month and a half before it's due. So it's not gonna typically maybe be 12 months, it might be like nine to ten months. So, let's say divide $10,000 by the nine months I have to save. And then I look at that number and I say, okay, is that realistic given my circumstances right now?

Can I realistically do this? If the answer is yes, I can do this, okay, that gives me more confidence to commit. If the question or the answer is like no, that's gonna be a bit of a stretch, I may kind of look at my Rolodex, meaning like I might look at, what points and miles do I have? Or what kind of gift cards do I have laying around in my my junk drawer? 

Like, where’s the gap, right? What's the gap in terms of like how much I can realistically do in this year versus like what I have to spend? And then there's like trips that honestly, it's out of budget. And and for me and our family, we have this policy: if we have to put it on a credit card and pay for it for months and sometimes years later, it wasn't within our budget. It's not affordable at that point. So, before we commit to anything, we really kind of

Mikkel (09:43)

Mm.

Danielle Desir Corbett (09:49)

and we think strategically, think realistically. And sometimes the answer is no. And that's why we have vision boards and that's why we have bucket lists and that's why we have like things... I think sometimes we struggle with like wanting to afford all the things and we can't. And for me, I've spent my life looking at like, I can't is like I'm gonna figure it out to do it one day.

Mikkel (09:57)

Yes.

Danielle Desir Corbett (10:12)

you know, it becomes a goal, it becomes something I'm striving for. But in the meantime, there's other things I could be doing. Right? So I really, really try to have a just a balanced overlook and not overcommit because I really, really want this trip now. Like it has to financially make sense, conservatively speaking.

Mikkel (10:30)

I love your formula because if you can't afford it within a year, even though our goal for this episode is for you to be able to afford your trip in a year or less, the truth is if you find that it is a stretch, then you can book further out. So for me, I would need to have the deposit down to like make this realistic, right? 

But you can book several years out. So let's say that it's more realistic for two years out. The formula you gave us, you simply, let's say, divide that by twenty months instead of nine or ten months.

Danielle Desir Corbett (11:01)

And when you do that, that means that's less amount to save every single month, right? So instead of let's say $500, now it's $350. And that could feel a lot better for you. So yes, I I'm all about like how can we make this fit, but it also not cause financial strain, financial tension, like financial arguments, financial stress. We don't wanna have the money stress. And sometimes that does look like booking things out further or even going on a shorter trip so that you can realistically afford that too.

Dan (11:31)

Yeah. To  reduce that stress, are there any any tracking tools or any like apps or anything that you recommend?

Danielle Desir Corbett (11:39)

Funny enough, I'm such a spreadsheet person. So, I don't use any apps, but I'm sure if you search "budget trackers" or and and a lot of them they come and go too, right? So we might say something today and then it's like, it's no longer here, but there's something else. So, so I think when it comes to tools, try them out. Try something for three months, a quarter.

And see if you like it and see if you're continuously logging in. Like for me, I'm not a login person. So I know for me, spreadsheets, I could, you know, have a Google Sheets on my phone. It's a lot easier for me. I could share it with my spouse, or my partner. I just have always been a spreadsheets person. But again, every tool is different. You may hate spreadsheets, so go with the app. Whatever you could actually use, I think that's what is important to prioritize when it comes to tools.

Mikkel (12:30)

I think that's a great point because maybe the person listening is just simple. They just want a Google Sheet or Excel. They're used to that. And there's nothing wrong with that. Dan has set us up with Monarch. We have used a few apps in the past that didn't work for us, but Monarch's been really great. So that is also a resource. So I love that there's a mix of, you know, basically you're saying just do what works for you. Try it. And the  more important thing I'm hearing is that you have to be consistent with it. So be realistic in whatever it is you use to track.

Danielle Desir Corbett (13:02)

Realistic and consistency, those are my go-to words. Those are my... it's not only a buzzword, but it's true. There's so much of personal finance that depends on that, right? I always think about how can I make this a habit? And my habits are really formed around the things I do a lot. So for me that spreadsheet is like the go to for sure.

Dan (13:06)

Okay.

Mikkel (13:22)

And I should mention, if I might, that you paid off over $60,000 in college loans in four years. You bought a house by the time you were twenty seven. So you walk the talk. Danielle is not just giving us fluff here. She knows how to do it. She has proven not joking around. Yeah. Yep.

Danielle Desir Corbett (13:28)

I did. I'm not joking around. I'm not joking around.

Dan (13:39)

Ha ha ha. So, something

Danielle Desir Corbett (13:43)

Love it.

Dan (13:44)

you said, Danielle, that really caught my attention was kind of that idea of f hidden money or found money, right? Like, I'm selling all my childhood toys on ebay or something, you know? Where where are those hidden places that we can find some extra cash flow?

Danielle Desir Corbett (14:00)

Yes.

And I think for me, this is where the financially savvy traveler comes in. Like, I love money, finding ways to save. I gamify so much of financial travel because it's fun to me. It's fun to save money. So, for example, let's say for holidays, instead of like getting actually physical gifts, you can say holidays, birthdays, like anything

life milestones — give me a gift card instead. Funny enough, that's how like we're funding this year's Disney trip. A lot of like a lot of the balance has been from gift cards. So that's really fun. It's funny, I don't use tools for budgeting, but I use tools for saving money. So I love apps like Fetch. So Fetch pretty much what it does, you take a picture of your receipts

and you get like 25 or or I can't remember if it's 25 cents or 0.02 cents per receipt, and they make it super fun. They have games and they kind of give you bonus points for particular items that you buy at the grocery store. I mean, like any receipt. I literally uploaded some receipts from my Rome trip, and I was like, wow, I still got my points from my Rome trip with all my Italian receipts. So Fetch can be really great for we call that a cashback site.

Rakuten is absolutely essential for any financially savvy traveler. So pretty much what happens, it's like as you are buying stuff online, you would use Rakuten's link and they have a browser extension that pops up that lets you know, "Hey! You could earn 10% on this purchase by clicking the Rakuten link." So that's an easy way. They call them big fat checks in the mail that they send you. I love them.

So, that could be another place where, again, you're already making a purchase. Why not get cash back for that? Also, I am really big on the points and miles space, which could help you offset your flight expenses and even your hotel expenses. 

And I think the big unlock that I had recently in the past couple years is that these points and miles don't necessarily have to cover your entire thing, like the entire trip, or multiple hotel stays. It could be as little as, hey, I'm saving on one way and then I could pay cash on the rest, right? Or it could be as little as like, I'm gonna be able to use two nights instead of seven nights, right? 

So I think it doesn't have to be all or nothing, which for me has been like a big like, remember it's not all or nothing. Like you could save little bits of and there. Those are my go-to's right now.

Before I hopped on the call, I got this random call from a pretty much like a timeshare presentation like company. And they were like, Hey, if you s do a one minute survey, we'll give you 500 points. And I was like, okay. So after a minute, I was able to get my points. So there's just like all these fun small ways that you can save on your everyday purchases. So that could be one way that you offset the cost for sure.

Mikkel (16:58)

I think it's great that you pointed out the ways that you can get five percent back or, you know, Rakuten. And just to clarify for our listeners, there's no cost associated with that. You just have to sign up for an account and, you know, whether or not they're collecting all our data and doing something else with it.

Look, as long as you give me my 5% and it's secure and it's HTTPS, which everything is these days for the URL, I'm okay with it. I, also before we hopped on this recording, was looking at our credit card perks. So I think a lot of people forget that there are offers every month for Chase or for American Express. 

And you know, I just made a dinner reservation because for Chase Sapphire Reserve, you get $150 dining credit that if we don't use it, we lose it. So maybe we were gonna go out to eat and it was gonna cost us $70, but now we're gonna go to one of these that if I use the card, it automatically gets credited and I can take that seventy dollars that we might have spent elsewhere and put it in our piggy bank for a trip. So remembering those things.

Danielle Desir Corbett (18:05)

If you're watching on YouTube, this is my piggy bank. Piggy bank. They are back in style, my friends. and you can do fun things. So I just want to circle back real quick. So I call it "reverse budgeting." So imagine you had a dinner plan for Friday night for and you were gonna spend $70 and you end up spending, you know, $50, which means that's a $20 savings.

Mikkel (18:06)

Oh my gosh, Mickey Mouse!

Dan (18:07)

No.

Danielle Desir Corbett (18:31)

You have to have a mechanism to capture those savings to see it because it's real money saved. So I call that reverse budgeting where, sure, we had a plan and the plan worked in our favor. So now I need to remember to take that $20 and actually put it towards my travel fund. So that's, I think, Dan, back to your original question was like, how do you find money that's like you know, laying around?

Is that intentionality of knowing, like, okay, I probably would have done this, but I saved it. Now I need to capture that savings and put it towards my travel fund. Something that we did at the beginning of the year: Our family — gosh, I don't know why my husband has 10 streaming services. — but like he just likes having the, you know, "Oh, you want this? I have a stream for that!" Whatever.

And we were like, I was like, okay, I'm putting my foot down. You get to pick three, okay, at a time. So, shrinking down, that saved us maybe, you know, a $50 a month of subscriptions. And again, capturing that reverse budgeting like he used to spend it. Now he's not spending it. I need to capture that and put it to my travel fund. So it's small, but for me, it's it feels effortless at this point because it's a habit now. Like I think about it as like, "Savings?

Gotta transfer it." "Oooh, I saved money on my coffee today? ⁓ transfer that $2 into my travel fund," and it adds over time. It does add over time.

Mikkel (19:56)

It does and you have to celebrate those small wins, you know? And $50 a month in savings for subscriptions is significant. That's $600 a year that you can... I mean, that to me, that equates to a flight one way. You can fly from New York to Iceland for $600, right? Correct me if I'm wrong. Right.

Danielle Desir Corbett (20:15)

No, yeah, or less or less. Yes.

For sure. And I love that, Mikkel, because the reality of it is this money actually leads to an experience, a cruising experience, right? So how can I say, okay, if I save this 600, this actually is two excursions, two days of exploring, you know? Or, it may mean flying in first class, which could be important for you, right?

So the dollars is important, but also understanding the value of those dollars and that could help you make decisions as to like what is worth keeping and what's not. If you notice in my example, I didn't say no streaming services. I wasn't gonna torture the guy. 

I said just take it from 10 to three. And we found a middle ground where he was like, "Okay, great, three." And then, also, like we rotate. Maybe he wants this instead of that. So sure, cancel, okay, and then rotate. So yeah.

We have fun with it. We have fun with it.

Mikkel (21:09)

Right.

You guys have busy lives. He has a son, he runs a business. Like who's watching that many streaming services anyway at one month?

Danielle Desir Corbett (21:17)

Yeah, the reasoning! It was a conversation as to why he needed ten and I was like, "Nope, it's not happening. It's not happening."

Mikkel (21:23)

Right, but it's also like don't give your dollars to these companies for free when you could be keeping your dollars and making it work for your vacation. So I love that.

Danielle Desir Corbett (21:31)

Yeah.

Another example is I know that Chase Sapphire — I think Chase Sapphire Preferred — recently changed it, now they added a streaming service to the card benefit. So again, if you have these credit cards that you're using, look at what the promotions and offers and benefits are because sure you could have your 10, but maybe half of those are already paid for through your credit card. So lots of ways to save. Lots of ways to save.

Mikkel (21:57)

My God, so many are coming to mind. Like credit cards give a percentage back sometimes for Lyft or Uber or a month, or sometimes, you know, like we have Marriott Bonvoy — an American Express for Marriott — and we book our hotels that way and they're essentially free because we're already spending the money. So great, great tips. And what you're saying is look at these pieces of it. You don't have to look at a whole number. 

Do you think it's good to look at the number as like, let's say the trip is gonna cost $10,000, and then if you save the $10,000 then you get bonus money once you find those credit card rewards? 

Like, oh, my hotel is free, so now I can take $100 from that $10,000 and use that for something else. Or do you say at the beginning, look at how you can save money and then subtract from the $10,000. So in your head you're like, "Oh, I only have to save $9,500." You know what I'm saying?

Danielle Desir Corbett (22:50)

Yes.

Okay. So what I'm hearing is should I plan to save the entire cash balance or save less of a cash balance because I know I'm gonna offset it with all these other bits and points and miles and pockets of money? Great question. I've never got that question before, so amazing. I personally do a cash balance. So I project like in this not-ideal world, I'm not able to figure things out and be savvy.

This is how much I'm on the hook for. So I conservatively save a full cash balance. 7,000, 10,000. That is the goal. And then if I'm able to find pockets, you know, get cash back and rewards and stuff, then at the end, I could decide, okay, let's, you know, that $200 savings, I could do this, I could do that. I'm very conservative where it's like I am on the hook.

I'm on the hook for this cash balance. And then it's like a journey. Along the journey, I could pick up ways to save.

Mikkel (23:49)

I love all of those tips. That is excellent advice for our listeners. Not to overcomplicate it, but a lot of hotels, let's say, book now, pay later. 

So I would say, of course, you need to know the cancellation policy, but let's say you book the trip, and this goes into our fourth pillar of this conversation, staying the course, which we'll get to the official question in this in a minute. 

But if you book and you find it's not gonna happen, there was a life event you didn't expect, you know, a lot of our listeners are over the age of 55 and surgeries come up they weren't expecting, travel to go to family events they weren't expecting. What then? What do you do if you need to cancel? What do you advise with that money and are we screwed for what we already booked?

Danielle Desir Corbett (24:43)

Yeah. So this is when the travel insurance that you have is so critical and so key. And I would even encourage to potentially get a third-party, not relying just on your credit card travel insurance, but actually like a third-party that can help secure your trip. So that I think relying on the travel insurance, is it worth it? Absolutely. Especially, again, all the things that you mentioned, plus more. I think that's important.

I think also reading the fine print, because there have been times for me, personally, where I've booked a trip, the travel insurance quote was included. I had to cancel or, you know, I called to cancel or figure out, I'm trying to do this. And they're like, oop, "No, you had a time limit." You could only change your thing 30 days of your trip. So in that situation, for me to rebook, I had to pay out of pocket again. Right.

So this is why in my big travel budget, I have a small line item that I call my "emergency savings" within my trip, because things come up, whether pre-trip, and/or during the trip, you may lose your luggage. You may, you know, something happens, right? Like you may have to just have a couple hundred dollars to take care of stuff during an emergency or something like that. 

So I would definitely lean into travel insurance beyond what's on your credit card. And then there's also like medical evacuation insurance too, on top of that. So if you're doing like expeditions, if you're doing barge cruises, you're already spending a lot of money on an incredible experience. Why not protect it just in case things don't go your way.

Mikkel (26:24)

And this really does play into protecting your hard-earned dollars, or saved dollars, because if it is canceled, then you spent a little money for this third-party insurance, but you are also gonna keep those dollars that you spent on it to use for a future trip. So literally, if the trip is canceled and let's say you get the money back, where does this money, I'm grabbing my hands in the air for money in the air. Where do you put this money? Is it in a savings account? What do you do?

Danielle Desir Corbett (26:50)

Okay, personally, so for me, I actually have multiple travel funds. So multiple savings accounts dedicated to travel. One account is just a general travel, right? That's the one that every month there's a little bit of money going into. And then every trip, big significant trip, will have its own dedicated bucket. So, for example, I use the bank called Ally Bank, and it's an online bank in the US, and they do this all for you. 

So you have one travel fund and within the travel fund you have different buckets. So I have Alaska 2027, I have like Italy 2029. I just have little layers so in an event where something happens, I need to kind of get that refund and put the money back, it will go back to that bucket. That particular trip bucket.

I would just do something like that. Back in the day when I didn't have like this bank that does all the buckets for me, I would just literally have four different travel funds. And you know, you could keep it simple if you want. But for me, I like seeing a line item and know exactly what it's for. Like this is exactly for this Alaska trip. I don't have to do mental math, no calculator, no, "Oh shoot, I don't remember." No. "This $5,000 here is for Alaska."

Also, another tip is name your bank accounts. Most banks allow you to edit the name of your account, like a nickname. So give your bank account a name. So when you log in, it's like, "Welcome, you're going to Italy!" Yes, I am. You know? So it's fun, but also just helps you, like helps your mindset. And again, you have purpose and you know exactly where your money is going.

Dan (28:27)

Hm. So Danielle, what do I do when I have that panic moment? I'm off course. The trip is coming. What advice do you have for me?

Danielle Desir Corbett (28:37)

I just remind myself it's time to lock in. time to recommit. And that recommitment could look like, "Okay, what's the game plan?" Or sometime that recommitment could be like, "You know what? I'm halfway there and I probably need to celebrate and do something." Right? think a lot of times when we are saving for a big goal, it's like sacrifice and sacrifice and sacrifice until we get to the end prize.

And for me, it's like, I'm not opposed to sacrificing for the end prize, but I also, again, like I mentioned, it's a journey along the way. So maybe you have like small little milestones where when you get to 50%, you go on a mini weekend getaway or do a day trip that you don't have to spend the night anywhere. You come back home to your own bed, right? How can you make this fun? You're doing a lot, right? You're doing a lot. 

So I think having those little prizes along the way — it doesn't have to be financial — could really, really help. think of it as like a challenge too. So for example, let's say — this is happening for me right now. My Disney trip is coming up in three months and I gotta lock in and recommit. So I may pop up and do something really fun, like a "No Spend Challenge."

So pretty much I could say, "Okay, for this week or this weekend, I'm not gonna spend any money, anything outside of the essentials, right? Bills are paid, we have groceries in the fridge, but nothing else goes beyond that. 

So, overall, it's kind of like being creative, recommitting, and finding okay, what's the gap, right? Maybe I need to do a little bit more side hustling, maybe I need to kind of do a No Spend Challenge, maybe I need to, you know, start using Rakuten, or start using these sites that we talked about, right? Like there's levers that we can pull

Dan (30:13)

Mm-hmm.

Danielle Desir Corbett (30:18)

sspecially as you're inching closer to that departure date. So don't be afraid to pull those levers for sure.

Mikkel (30:26)

I love that. I just want to add a little anecdote from a trip that Dan and I were on. We were on a river cruise, and this group of women were on there to celebrate their 50th birthdays. They had saved for five years. 

There was one group leader who collected like, $100 every month. They were there with their husbands. They were the cutest. They all grew up together in the Philippines. They went to grade school together. They moved to the United States together. They were all nurses. 

And they were just so joyful. Not only do I think it was, you know, their personalities, but also because they had saved for five years for this dream bucket list trip. And they made it happen. And it took five years, but it happened.

Danielle Desir Corbett (31:09)

The gratitude, right? Like the gratitude, the like wow, the hard work behind the scenes. And the accountability buddy, right? Like there was a leader.

That said, "Hey, listen, we're gonna commit to this dollar amount." And I'm sure that leader had to check in on folks, you know, had to be like, "Hey, recommit." "Hey, like we're almost there." "Hey, it's year two... it's year three." That accountability I feel like we often don't talk about. And, you know, sometimes you need to be your own accountability person. But if you do have someone who can cheer you on, who can be there for you and like when you're down,

I think that's a hack in itself because like, you know, Dan mentioned, this is a a long-term game. And sure, we're talking about nine to 12 months, but sometimes it's going to require many, many, many, many more months commitment that. So I love that. That's that's that's key. Super key.

Mikkel (32:02)

Yeah.

So, so many incredible "Ah ha!" moments in just this thirty or so minutes that we've been talking, from reframing your mindset that you are always ready to travel and always saving for those dream trips to — ⁓ my gosh — renaming your bank accounts. I didn't even know you could do that. A little spend freeze, what did you call it? The final push.

Danielle Desir Corbett (32:06)

Yeah.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Yeah. A No Spend Challenge to the final push. Yes.

Mikkel (32:25)

No Spend Challenge, amazing.

Having an accountability buddy, it could be a friend, a family member, it could be your son who keeps asking when you're going on this dream cruise, whoever you need.

What is the one thing that you want people to take away from this to start saving for their dream cruise?

Danielle Desir Corbett (32:45)

Okay, I'm gonna take you back to I went on my first solo trip to Paris, fell in love with Paris after two years of saving for this trip, by the way. Went solo and fell in love with Paris and fell in love with travel. And after that trip, it wasn't like, oh, that's a great trip. Moving on.

I was like, I need to be able to rinse and repeat this. So my advice for all the listeners and sailors out there is listen, like after you realize this trip that you're gonna be embarking on, think about how you can rinse and repeat it to have other incredible experiences. And everything we talked about today, it's Hopefully, you have a base and you're just adding on these little layers, little little tricks and tips and insights and mindset stuff to build that lifestyle, right? To build that consistency. And like I said, once you accomplish one travel goal, then it's like, I got this. I did all of this. I could do it again. And that's what I hope people away is that this is repeatable. It's not just some fluke. Like, we can do this again and again and again.

Mikkel (33:59)

Yes, there was logic behind this, repeatable.

Dan (34:01)

Right.

Yeah. And there's this system and I really love just the idea of having fun with it, right? Like it's work, but you can enjoy it and you can celebrate it along the way.

Danielle Desir Corbett (34:02)

Mm.

I can see both of you with champagne glasses, like, "Yay!," you know, like that's how we celebrate, right? We celebrate it. Yes.

Dan (34:15)

Yeah, yeah. Pop a bottle of champagne.

Mikkel (34:16)

Yeah, I love it.

Dan (34:20)

We save $5, maybe $7. Pop a bottle of champagne.

Danielle Desir Corbett (34:24)

Pop a bottle! I love it. I love it.

I love it.

Mikkel (34:28)

Okay, so the deposit gets you in the door to your financial plan and reframing your savings mindset. And then the plan that Danielle has shared with us today gets you to the gangway to get on the ship. Please remind everybody where to find you. It's also in the show notes.

And if I may say, Danielle has an incredible article on her site that's one of my favorite. It's 12 challenges to start saving. She lays them all out for you. Out of the twelve, you can definitely find one — at least one — that is befitting for you.

Danielle Desir Corbett (35:02)

Yes. Have fun with it. Yes. So definitely connect with me over at thoughtcard.com. That is where all the things live. But if you love podcasts, you love conversations, I had Mikkel recently on the podcast — great conversation. The Thought Card podcast is where to go.

And then lastly, I have a book called Affording Travel where I walk you step-by-step through how to create that travel fund, how to save, how to make this easy, effortless, so that you can, again, do this and pass on these skills to your family as well.

Dan (35:33)

Love it. So thank you so much, Danielle. Appreciate you stopping by, sharing your wisdom. Definitely check out her site and check out the book. 

And until next time, keep cruising.