While inflation shows signs of cooling, you may find that your budgets are still stretching beyond expectations. How do you finance your summer vacation, and what can you do to make sure you do not run short of cash at holiday time?
A survey by Bankrate earlier this year showed about 53% of Americans were planning a summer trip in 2024, and a little over a third of them were willing to take on debt to pay for it. If you’re one of them, here are some useful tips to save money.
First, consolidate your existing debts into a vacation loan, a type of personal loan. Tropical Financial Credit Union is offering a special promotion through July 31. A vacation loan can be a financially savvy alternative to credit card debt. Credit card rates crept up this month to nearly 25%, according to Investopedia. Forbes puts the figure at closer to 28%. Roughly stated, for every $5 you put toward your balance, $1 could be going toward interest.
Pay off those loans by consolidating them into a personal loan or line of credit. Tropical Financial offers both with more favorable terms. The secured loan has a fixed rate with a term of up to 60 months. The line of credit’s rate is based on the prime rate. If banks follow the Federal Reserve’s lead in lowering short-term interest rates, your borrowing rate will fall, too.
For more information, visit the credit union’s loan webpage.
Have you completed your summer travels? It’s time to think about the holidays. If you haven’t noticed, some stores already have Halloween decor on their shelves. While that seems a bit – or a lot – premature, it's not too early to think about holiday spending on gifts and travel. What you deposit in savings today for Thanksgiving and later holidays will ease the strain on your budget in November, December and January.
Tropical Financial offers multiple ways to build your savings balances, from its Holiday Club Savings Account to money market accounts. You can automatically transfer a set dollar amount from your Daily Rewards checking account to any one of them. You’ll quietly build an interest-paying balance that could cover your year-end expenses or provide a financial cushion against them.
For more information, visit the credit union’s savings account webpage.
Just how much do you need to save? “Make Your Holidays a Breeze – Start Now” is your free guide from Tropical Financial. On the webpage, you will find 8 simple steps and other valuable advice in articles on creative ways to lower holiday spending and how to pay down holiday debts.