Earning saving and raising travel money
- Spending on the road
- Travelling & accessing your money
- Cheap travel tips
- Budgeting on the road
- Looking after your money
- What is a prepaid card?
- You can do it!
- Find a job!
- Here vs There
- When things do not go to plan
- How I paid for my gap year...
- Last minute
- How much for a gap year?
- Creating a travel budget
- What things cost
- Organising your money
- Trusts and grants
- Get yourself in the press
- Money Planner
Messageboards
Independent Travel & Backpacking >>
- Round the world travel
- General
- Jobs overseas
- Female travel
- Lads room
- Careergappers
- About to go!
- Travel tips
- Travel money and finances
- Fundraising
Volunteer, Eco Travel, Languages & Study >>
CHARITY FUNDRAISERS WANTED
"I’ve earned a lot of
money for myself and The British Red Cross, and really grown in confidence"
Click here >> for more
INTERNATIONAL SIM CARDS
We've found a dead cheap and easy way to use your mobile while you're travelling
Click here >> for more
ROUND THE WORLD PLANNER
Download our FREE round the world planner. Everything you'll ever need to sort your trip out!
Find out more >>
Fundraising and working: How I paid for my gap year Lucy Mills writes... "At first glance, it definitely does not calculate positively on a student’s budget to do something selfless by projecting all your efforts into a challenging work placement and actually paying thousands for the privelege. However, I can assure you that the rewards of being actively involved within a community and seeing gratitude from the people you’ve projected your hard work into are priceless. A placement enables a student to really grapple deep below the surface of a community, and to engage with and make friends with locals. The thorough knowledge gained from a new culture enriches the student so much more than the average traveller, who merely throws a fleeting glance, watching from the sideline, digital camera in hand. Plus most placements do give students ample time off to enjoy weekends away, exploring their chosen and neighbouring countries, fulfilling any cravings for a chill out on the beach or a cocktail in a bar. Once soaking up your chosen country’s culture, any reflecting thoughts of payments made for placement, flights, vaccinations and visas will have flittered a million miles away.  Our users say..."Well, after 4 hours work at the car boot I'd managed to make £146.82 and once you take out the cost of the stall (and lunch to say thank you for help), my grand total for the morning was £112.82, which I am really quite chuffed with. It could have been more but people obviously weren't looking for the complete dinner service in blue swirl and ceramic serving dishes but I guess they'll come in useful some day."- Tina Yates Click here >> to read more So back to the initial money issue; A Levels over with by July, over a year to use productively but with a looming few thousands of pounds to fork out. If like me, you don’t have a fortunate stash of thousands or parents with flourishing money trees in the back garden, then you will have to divide your year up into blocks - a ‘saving’ block then an ‘experiencing’ block, or four shorter blocks ‘saving’ then ‘experiencing’, ‘saving’ then ‘experiencing’. As soon as my A Levels were over I frantically applied for jobs, jobs, jobs and more jobs. You may want to have a month or so off to celebrate freedom from exams and to recoup after the exhaustion of revision, or you may want to get stuck into working as soon as possible, to get away as soon as possible. On my gap year I worked from August until December, spent Christmas and New Year at home with family and friends and then left for my gap placement with GAP SPORTS in Ghana in January. I found this an ideal situations - working until Christmas gave me a foreseeable aim and kept me trudging through the filing and photocopying each dismal hour spent as the scivvy in my local council office. Christmas at home was the perfect opportunity for goodbye send offs from relatives and friends. Click here >> for our Jobs zone Click here >> for placements offered by GAP SPORTS As well as working in an office, I squeezed in an extra few hours working behind a bar. This extra cash was spent on day to day bits and bobs, the odd Friday night out or weekend visiting friends at University. If you are content on working, working, working for a few months to save up for your gap year placement here’s a few pointers... - Research your chosen country - do you want to work during a particular season / climate? If so, arrange your working / saving blocks around this. - Open a gap year bank account, specially for students intending to travel for one year, they offer certain perks attractive to students saving up for travel. - If you get paid monthly, as soon as your wage is paid into your account, write a cheque immediately for any instalments for placement of flights. This will stop you from dipping into your account to buy less necessary items. - If you are living at home, discuss with your parents about living rent-free, maybe chip in with house chores as an alternative to paying rent. - The reason you are working is to save up fro your gap experience - a means to an end - so always keep this in sight when working. - Boldly book your placement and pay for the deposit. This will inspire you to carry on saving for the remaining balance. - Any job undertaken on your gap year will add to your shining C.V. - No matter how tedious your job is, just think how lucky you are that it is not your full-time job and that very soon you will be jetting off to somewhere exotic... So there’s a bit of advice about working during your gap year. To boost finances and to add fun to saving up, you could try fundraising. Fundraising activities can be achieved to raise money for your placement costs and to collect items, such as pens, toys, clothes, books, to donate to children you will be working with on your placement.  I did this once I returned from my football placement in Ghana to raise money for kits and training aids for those I worked with. The look on their faces was priceless when I returned with my goodies and was more than worth the effort I put in to raising money for them. The strips and equipment have added unbelievable optimism and happiness to the boys, but will also really benefit the boys progression in training, which occurs twice daily religiously. To know that I have achieved all of this for this handful of boys in this raw community called Nungua, Accra, any money spent, time taken, and hassle endured has, this morning, been worth every obstacle."  Click here >> for more on Lucy's fundraising Click here >> for more on Lucy's football placement in Ghana Click here >> for a placement like Lucy's |
Relevant adverts |
Favourites
Digg
Furl
Del.icio.us
Facebook
Google
Reddit
More Services >>
