They say that travel is a financial investment worth making, and I agree with that. Even so, there are moments of severe trepidation when the time comes to hit that purchase button on a flight or Airbnb accommodation. You are out a thousand dollars with a few clicks, just like that (finger snap!).
There isn't much one can do when it comes to the prices of flights and Airbnbs. Of course, you look for the cheapest options available, but you ultimately have to pay to play. However, what we do have control over are the choices we make when on-location. If we buy into this whole "I'm on vacation, and anything goes" mentality, the overall expense will skyrocket and make it more challenging to travel multiple times a year.
In this article (and attached video), I want to share one tip, a simple tip, with you that has saved me hundreds of dollars when traveling, which I then use to fund my entry into another city or country. That tip is to rely on grocery stores and to cook at one's lodging as much as possible. The best part of doing so is that it serves two purposes. It saves you money, and if created appropriately, home-cooked meals provide you with energy to tackle each day when on the road. European travel is quite taxing on the body, so you want to do all you can to feed your body with healthy food items. I learned that shit the hard way, but that's another story for another day.
On my first grocery run in Budapest, Hungary, everything I bought came out to $23. In breaking that down, I could get three (maybe four) healthy meals out of it. There are other stores in the area that I could have gone to, such as Lidl and Aldi, which would have been cheaper, but my preferred choice has always been SPAR. They have some of the higher quality items but at a higher cost. Still, when it comes to fruits and vegetables, they're the better of the three stores, so I usually go that route if I know fruits, chicken, and veggies are the priorities. Even though SPAR is more expensive, it's still much more cost-effective than having to go out and eat at a restaurant or fast food establishment.
One good habit of creating when staying in Airbnbs is to audit what's in the kitchen before going shopping; look for salt, cooking oil, and coffee. Often, the people who rented the space before you have purchased items that they may not have used up and are there for your taking and will save you a fair amount of money. In my Budapest apartment, I found a full jar of instant coffee, olive oil, honey, pasta, and tea. Those are essential items in my grocery list, so to already be supplied with them saved me between 10 to 15 dollars. Additionally, lower-cost items such as sugar, salt, and cooking spices were also available and saved me from buying such things that I knew I would not finish during my stay.
Now let's say if I went to the store without doing this little inventory check. I would have been at the store and would have bought the mentioned items, because why not? I was already there and didn't want to return. That may sound like laziness, but you have to remember, grocery shopping in Europe is more of a mission, especially when the weather isn't favorable or the neighborhood you are staying at is full of hills, such as my apartment in Lisbon, Portugal. Anyways, if I did end up buying items due to the "might as well" mantra, I would have returned to the apartment only to realize I was fully stocked on certain items due to previous renters.
It may take a while, but once you make cooking a habit in your traveling lifestyle, you can save a tremendous amount of money. More importantly, however, you can reduce illnesses caused by low food quality or handling. From my experiences, there is no health department that checks on restaurants for proper practices and forces them to showcase the results to their customers, like they do in California. This notion hit me incredibly hard during my stay in Vienna, Austria, where most restaurants I visited had no qualms about handling your money one second and then touching your food the next, which is a massive turn-off for me. Surprisingly, in Bucharest, Romania (a non-Schengen country), food handling was much better. I might go as far as saying they did the best job out of all the famous cities I visited during my travels in Europe. Good job, Bucharest!