TILT # 34 - When possible, choose to spend on experiences (frugal tip # 5)

Here's the 5th and what I thought was a final tip until something came up just today so I will share the last one tomorrow. Tip # 5 is When possible, choose to spend on experiences instead of things.

Things will depreciate in time. Experiences form who you are. While a lot of my batchmates spent money on buying luxuries like perfumes and electronic goods or eating out, I saved my money to travel. I have been to nine out of 10 provinces. I have traveled across North American, from Montreal to San Francisco, stopping in six cities en route, and then back up to Montreal via the Canadian way through Vancouver/ Victoria. We managed to find an advance sale price of a one-way ticket on Greyhound from Montreal to San Francisco for Cad$79. We were allowed one of three routings across the states and were given 30 days to complete our one-way trip to San Francisco. We saved money by planning our routes and sleeping some of the long legs overnight on Greyhound buses. Yes. You do what you have to do when you don’t have “carte blanche”. More details of our cross-country trek are found in TILT # 26 entry. ❤️

I also managed to backpack in Europe for a month, traveling through five countries using a Eurail pass. This was the only trip where I succumbed to getting a credit card (lots of offers on university campuses) to purchase my air and train ticket but I paid them both off within 3 months of returning. I traveled with Canadian students older than me or those who had graduated and had jobs. I did not always eat with them. I could not afford to. They were generous and shared as much as they could without making me feel embarrassed. One of them started crazy bets with me about all sorts of things we saw along the way and lost a bunch of meals to me (purposely, I am sure). I ended up marrying the guy. 😉

Traveling expanded my perspective of the world. I got to visit iconic places. I got to see how other people lived. I learned that my way of doing things was not the only way of doing things. In the meantime, the perfume bottles of my batchmates eventually emptied, and electronic goods died with age. What I got from my travels only made me a better and more interesting conversationalist and added confidence to my introverted self.

This is not to say that one should always choose to spend on "experiences". I spent my money on my basic necessities. So should you. Whatever was leftover (and there was very little), due to my status as an international student where I knew after five years, certain opportunities would never come my way again, I chose to add to who I was instead of adding to what I have. At the end of the day, it turns out that by adding to who I was, I was adding to what I had. Interesting. ❤️

I share some of my photos here. Please excuse the quality of the photos. These were the days of cameras with "film" where you don't have the luxury of taking 2 dozen digital photos to pick just one Instagramable one. These photos are precious to me and I am proud to have taken them myself while living below the poverty line. Let me know if you can recognize all five (fuzzy) cities. 🤣