Budget Friendly Travel Hacks That Support Self-Care with Danielle Desir Corbett – Episode 27

'Maven' Miara Shaw (00:06.403)
All right. All right, Danielle, listen, I am excited to have you join us and really share. We're connecting how self care and travel go together. Like what's the marriage of those two things? I love that your podcast, the thought card really talks about luxury travel, affordable luxury travel and personal finances.

Because we're going to be talking a little bit more about how travel can support self-care And we definitely don't want to be going into debt around that type of thing self-care and debt for me That's an oxymoron that does not go together. I don't want that to stress me out So I read in your intro and your in your introduction that you originally started out with Your podcast and things around reducing

a good amount of student debt. That's so relevant right now as people are having to move back into paying for the student debt that they've, you know, it's been on pause for a while. So tell us a little bit about how you got started and what made you kind of focus on reducing or getting rid of that student debt.

Danielle Desir Corbett (01:24.338)
Yes, so I accumulated $63,000 of similar loan debt obtaining my bachelor's and my master's degree. I would say about $40,000 of that came from my master's degree. Undergrad, I had lots of scholarships. I've always been a go-getter. So despite all the scholarships, I still found myself in an extreme amount of debt.

'Maven' Miara Shaw (01:38.747)
Okay.

Danielle Desir Corbett (01:51.222)
And I always tell everyone to think about how do you feel with debt, having debt. For me, when I had student loan debt, it felt like a weight was on my shoulders, on my back. It felt like, yes, one route I could keep it as long as possible and do the minimum, but I would have this chains and shackles on me and I yearned for freedom.

'Maven' Miara Shaw (02:16.803)
Mm-hmm. Okay.

Danielle Desir Corbett (02:18.602)
So emotions are such an important part of our personal finance journeys. And I always find that my emotions help to fuel me. So emotions like anger, frustration, sometimes even doubt, those inspire me to get up and do certain things. So I knew with this shackled just mindset and just feeling all this pressure, I wanted to be debt-free as soon as possible. However, I've always had this

to personal finance when I am doing things, I have an and mindset, meaning travel and pay off debt, working a full time job and traveling. So it's, a lot of times society really pushes us to be like, you have to pick one or the other, either you're corporate and you're pushing corporate ladder and you're never missing a day of work and you're giving up travel and other things, right? So,

'Maven' Miara Shaw (03:02.119)
Okay.

'Maven' Miara Shaw (03:14.031)
I'm sorry.

Danielle Desir Corbett (03:18.118)
I really believe in this end, right? This in between where we can do multiple things at one time, have multiple goals at one time, just understand that you may not be full force going all in and just really putting all that energy into one thing and excelling faster. So those are kind of the behind the scenes of like why I decided to work on my debt-free journey. It took me four years to be debt-free.

'Maven' Miara Shaw (03:42.15)
Okay.

Danielle Desir Corbett (03:45.414)
a lot of sacrifices. This is even before I had a side hustle or my or like actual side income. So which meant a lot of side hustling, moving back in with my mom, and putting a lot of energy into reducing debt. But without sacrificing that one thing that was really important to me, which was travel. So I always wanted to travel, I never had the finances to do it. And here I am

'Maven' Miara Shaw (03:52.423)
Okay.

Danielle Desir Corbett (04:15.35)
pursue that one thing for me. It was that one thing that I felt like, if I'm making all these sacrifices in my life, can I have this one thing? Can I have this one trip a year? So that was really the emphasis of starting all of this.

'Maven' Miara Shaw (04:24.175)
Yeah. Great.

I love that. This is not even something that I have in my notes. Why is travel so important to you? Like where did that desire to travel come from? Because you've traveled to 27 countries. Like that's extensive. You've had this love for travel. This didn't just show up yesterday. You've had this for a while. Where did that passion come from?

Danielle Desir Corbett (04:50.774)
So I think my passion for travel comes from wanting to experience more, wanting to get more out of life, to get out of my bubble. Because our everyday lives, we are in a bubble, right? We see the same things. We are so familiar and we sometimes don't push ourselves to think outside of the box or outside of our comfort zone. So I love what travel does for me is that it makes me to step outside and to see how other people live.

'Maven' Miara Shaw (04:56.176)
Okay.

Danielle Desir Corbett (05:20.462)
and to see how potentially why they make certain decisions and how that could potentially impact me as well. So this worldview has been so important to me. But stepping back a little bit, my travel extent before I got a big girl job and really started working on my finances was traveling to Haiti every summer with my family. And I enjoyed that because I was with my family, I got to learn Haitian Creole.

'Maven' Miara Shaw (05:42.983)
Okay.

Danielle Desir Corbett (05:49.042)
see how Haitian people live. People think a lot that I was born in Haiti. And I'm like, I'm not, but I'm so close to the culture because I had this upbringing. But what I realized is that when you go to the same place every year, and that's the only place you go to, it made me wanna venture out and see more, right? It made me want to be like, this is great and amazing, but what else is there out there? So that also really

'Maven' Miara Shaw (05:58.471)
Okay.

Danielle Desir Corbett (06:18.986)
just inspired me to be like, okay, I want to see more. I want to do more. Even like, let's go to Dominican Republic, which is like right across, you know what I mean? So, I think right now also, that was like me, Danielle, back in the day. I think right now my feel for travel, I'm really like into history and culture, seeing how people live and gifting these experiences to my son. That right now is my huge motivation because...

'Maven' Miara Shaw (06:25.103)
Right? Right.

'Maven' Miara Shaw (06:36.871)
Okay.

'Maven' Miara Shaw (06:42.471)
Okay.

Danielle Desir Corbett (06:47.134)
I did not grow up again, like I mentioned, going to multiple places, multiple countries. It was just you going home, you going back home. But my son, I took him to France this year, maybe like, I think he was 15 months old. Like what? Like I went to France and I was like 25. So exactly, he's been to France already. So that world, gifting him worldview at an early age.

'Maven' Miara Shaw (06:54.961)
right.

'Maven' Miara Shaw (07:03.287)
Okay. Right.

He's getting stamps already.

Danielle Desir Corbett (07:16.81)
I'm looking forward to seeing that impact on his life because I picked up all these things so later, so much later in my 20s and early 30s.

'Maven' Miara Shaw (07:20.423)
Thank you.

'Maven' Miara Shaw (07:26.031)
I love that. And we're going to talk a little bit about how do, um, listeners kind of get those finances under control. And then some of the travel hacks that, especially entrepreneurs, you know, I think entrepreneurs figure, well, I just can't afford to do that right now. I can't put it in. And one of the amazing things that I did for this calendar year, 2023 was, you know, I'm post 50, so I'm just not in a space of

needing more things, you know, another pair of shoes, another bag, another, whatever, I am interested in creating experiences. So I had a goal to travel at least once per quarter this year. We have exceeded that we've gone to more than once a quarter. But because I was intentional about it, to put it down as part of my business goals to include this travel.

And again, for me, it was really around the self-care component because I think that's something big for women when we can get away from home, right? Um, we get to relax a little bit more on wine, all of these things. And just the travel component, two of our, we have a, I call it an entourage of four, they're all young adults at this point that we raised. Two of them did, uh, travel abroad.

for college. One went to London, our daughter went to China. Some of the most life-changing, exploratory, life-giving experiences they've had, which has encouraged them to continue to travel now that they're young adults and got the big jobs and all of those things. So what are some things for that person listening to this podcast and saying,

'Maven' Miara Shaw (09:20.791)
loan debt, you know, I have a house and a car and a, all the credit cards and things. What are some ways they can begin to just, you know, not look at it as so overwhelming no matter what their number of debt is, but how do they start just kind of taking the steps to chip away at that?

Danielle Desir Corbett (09:41.618)
Yes, and that's a very complex question and every person will have a different strategy or approach to actually fulfilling that. And if you would have asked me the same question a couple years ago, I would have been like, here's this strategy, here's that strategy. But this year, I've been really trying to understand this type of travel I do, which I call Financially Savvy Travel. And despite me talking about this type of travel for eight years, I

'Maven' Miara Shaw (09:50.555)
right?

'Maven' Miara Shaw (09:56.184)
Okay.

Danielle Desir Corbett (10:10.654)
essence what it's all about. Financially savvy travel is all about mindfulness. And I believe that mindfulness is the most important thing that we can do to pursue our goals, one of which can be travel. Travel is a financial goal. You need money to travel. So let's put that out there, number one.

'Maven' Miara Shaw (10:11.975)
Okay.

'Maven' Miara Shaw (10:34.416)
Right.

Danielle Desir Corbett (10:38.23)
that travel is travel, but travel is at the end of the day, a money goal. Ideally, we will have money set aside for travel expenses, right? But before you even get there, if you're mindful about your finances, meaning I'm aware I have debt, here's how much that I have. I'm aware I have an emergency fund or I need to work on my emergency fund. I understand how I feel when I walk into a bank and I open my big account.

'Maven' Miara Shaw (10:43.033)
Absolutely.

Danielle Desir Corbett (11:07.466)
and I see the number of how I feel, all those little bits and pieces are all things that honestly, when you are aware and mindful and you're not on autopilot, you are moving yourself in a better direction to be able to control your finances and pursue your financial goal. So those little things like taking stock of when you open your bank account and see how much you have and how you feel.

'Maven' Miara Shaw (11:18.768)
Right?

Danielle Desir Corbett (11:35.102)
If you have a negative feeling, understanding, have a negative feeling. How can I accept that and move forward with that? So that's, I think, very, very important. Next, I would say when it comes to travel in particular, especially for, I know your listeners are, they're executives, they are business women. Actually, if you are into speaking,

'Maven' Miara Shaw (11:35.426)
Okay.

'Maven' Miara Shaw (11:43.813)
Okay.

'Maven' Miara Shaw (11:58.075)
Yeah.

Danielle Desir Corbett (12:02.883)
You can find opportunities where your speaking engagements allow you to travel, and they pay for your travel experiences. And to me, that is like the blending of both worlds, right? Our work life and our travel life, because now you're being flown out to a speaking engagement, they put you in a hotel.

'Maven' Miara Shaw (12:09.392)
I love that.

'Maven' Miara Shaw (12:17.947)
right.

Danielle Desir Corbett (12:27.562)
You do your speaking engagement, you make your connections, and you have free time to go and explore. So that's something I feel like, especially your listeners can definitely take advantage of. I'm not gonna say that every speaking opportunity will do that, right? Some speaking opportunities, they will just tell you, hey, you're gonna do this complimentary, or they're gonna say, we're gonna provide you for certain things, but I've definitely tapped more into, as my career has grown,

'Maven' Miara Shaw (12:41.325)
Okay.

Danielle Desir Corbett (12:54.834)
opportunities where I am negotiating to add my travel costs covered and my fee, my speaking fee as well. So those are a couple of things I think that's very unique to your listeners and your audience. When it comes to just saving for travel, because there's different modes in travel. There's the pre prep work, right? There's the, okay, I got to get my layer, my money base correct.

Then there is I'm on the road traveling. And then there's the after trip. So you have the pre trip, you have the trip, and then you have the post trip. So pre trip, think about, okay, how do I want to save for travel? Because at the end of the day, we still need money in our bank accounts, in our wallets to do certain things. Regardless if you're travel hacking my credit cards or someone else is paying for it with corporate.

'Maven' Miara Shaw (13:31.655)
Okay.

'Maven' Miara Shaw (13:48.219)
Right.

Danielle Desir Corbett (13:50.338)
You're going to need cash for yourself. So I love having everything separate. So I dedicate a separate bank account to travel and travel is now a part of my life and as a result, my budget. So it's not like, Oh, I'm saving for this particular trip. No, I'm saving for travel in general. So travel now becomes as important as my gym.

'Maven' Miara Shaw (14:00.336)
Right.

'Maven' Miara Shaw (14:14.215)
bright.

Danielle Desir Corbett (14:18.322)
as my mortgage, as my car payment, it's in line, it's a line item in your budget. When you're able to do that and you're mindful of that, now you can do things like automation. You can say, okay, I'm going to save X amount of dollars every pay period or every month towards travel. And I recommend automating that, especially if you have a nine to five job, because then it's set it and forget it. You're saving for travel without it hurting, without you thinking about it.

'Maven' Miara Shaw (14:25.008)
Yes.

'Maven' Miara Shaw (14:42.693)
Right.

Danielle Desir Corbett (14:47.814)
I love, I love that. So creating a system for yourself, because a system is how your money moves, right? From paycheck to a bank account to automation, all of this is a system. So creating a system for yourself that works for you is one of those things I think unlocks a level, another level of being able to travel. So I shared like three things. I shared, okay, be mindful, be mindful.

'Maven' Miara Shaw (14:54.651)
Right.

'Maven' Miara Shaw (15:11.439)
I love it.

Danielle Desir Corbett (15:14.988)
leverage your corporate opportunities, your business opportunities.com, and then also create a financial system for yourself where you can set travel as important as all the other financial things going on in your life.

'Maven' Miara Shaw (15:27.075)
I love that, especially corporate space. I know when I was in the corporate world, a lot of my business travel, I extended it to personal travel. Like they've already paid for the airfare. I'm just gonna pay for a couple extra nights a hotel and go and venture into wherever it is that I am. Now for the entrepreneurs that are watching and listening to this, know that you can set up the same money systems to put money aside. Because if you wait until you think

Oh, when I just have some extra money, I'm going to travel. And we want again, this travel, if you love to travel to be thinking about it in the same vertical as self care way. And again, listen to me, entrepreneurs, do not plan to travel, take your laptop and be working poolside, travel to relax. We're talking self care. Now, if you're traveling for business, that's something completely different. But in the,

space of self care. I don't want you posting a picture of you poolside with your favorite beverage with your laptop and working. Ah, you you're going away from the self care thing that we're talking about. Um, Danielle, you recently published a book. Um, we are financially savvy travelers. Tell us about the book a bit. What are some,

things in there that really kind of like, Oh, that's a light bulb moment. And then we'll drop in the show notes where they can actually go and purchase the book. So again, that if you're, if your desire has been to travel, but you've always kind of been stuck with when I get to this number, I'm then I'm going to travel. We want you to just look at that differently, a new mindset around travel with self care. So tell us a little bit about

your book and how that helps set, create more savvy travelers.

Danielle Desir Corbett (17:29.746)
Absolutely. And like I mentioned earlier, for a lot of my like career, online career, creating content, I've always focused on strategies like find the cheap flights and save the money and, and free things to do and all those things. And I'm realizing that that's not as important as a few other things. Mindfulness is number one, which we talked about. Mindfulness comes

'Maven' Miara Shaw (17:41.031)
Mm-hmm.

'Maven' Miara Shaw (17:54.279)
Okay.

Yes.

Danielle Desir Corbett (17:59.154)
in different shapes, whether that's mindfulness in your emotions, in your attitudes, in your behaviors, that is number one. But secondly is your travel style. So a travel style is not like the fashion. It's more of like intrinsically in you. What do you enjoy when you travel? What brings you fulfillment when you travel?

'Maven' Miara Shaw (18:11.131)
Okay.

'Maven' Miara Shaw (18:17.447)
Okay.

Danielle Desir Corbett (18:24.558)
That is important because we want to align our spending with what brings us fulfillment. This is called value-based spending, where our values are being met with our finances. This for me has been extremely eye-opening because when my finances were very small and I wanted to travel, I had no opportunities to pursue the...

'Maven' Miara Shaw (18:48.944)
Okay.

Danielle Desir Corbett (18:52.642)
the things I valued because I did not have the money in my budget to do that. But now as I'm moving into financially savvy travel where I do have more finances to afford trips, I want to make sure I'm not being wasteful. I want to make sure that I'm going to things like spas, which I really enjoy. I enjoy dinners and culinary experiences. I enjoy group tours and educational opportunities when I'm traveling.

'Maven' Miara Shaw (18:57.772)
Okay.

Danielle Desir Corbett (19:22.686)
So those are where my money is going to be going to. On the opposite way, I don't really care about flying first class, but put me on economy, but just out on spirit. Just put me on economy. And make sure my seat reclines, okay? I want a reclined seat, okay? But besides that, I don't really put that much thought on the flying experience. So I want to reduce that cost. If I can...

'Maven' Miara Shaw (19:25.9)
Okay.

'Maven' Miara Shaw (19:30.551)
Okay.

'Maven' Miara Shaw (19:33.735)
I'm sorry.

She said, there is a limit.

Danielle Desir Corbett (19:51.09)
Either travel hack or find a cheap flight or, or something. I don't want to spend money on the flight. I want to spend money on that amazing view or that tour or that culinary experiences. So that to me is what financially savvy travel is all about. It's about being mindful of who we are, our attitudes, our habits, and aligning our expenses with that when we are traveling.

'Maven' Miara Shaw (20:11.044)
Mm-hmm.

Danielle Desir Corbett (20:17.178)
because when we're reducing things that we don't like, now we have more opportunities to travel more, right? When I'm spending less on airfare, less on like transportation, for example, because I don't really value it that much, I have more that I can spend on that trip, or I have now more money for other trips. So those are the big insights that we talk about in the book, this mindset, this approach to travel. And finding yourself a travel doesn't end there.

'Maven' Miara Shaw (20:23.195)
I love that.

'Maven' Miara Shaw (20:29.808)
right.

Danielle Desir Corbett (20:47.366)
Unlike budget travelers and luxury travelers, they focus on travel and budget is known for spending less. Luxury is more on like more luxurious, more typically more pricey expenses, right? Financially savvy travel does focus on spending to a certain extent, but we also are looking at other financial goals we have because life doesn't stop when we're planning a vacation.

'Maven' Miara Shaw (20:56.199)
Okay.

Danielle Desir Corbett (21:13.758)
We still have retirement savings. We still want to put our children to college. We still are growing businesses, taking maternity leave. There's so many things going on in our financial lives and financially savvy travel goes beyond travel. It goes to our personal finances where travel is a goal and we are trying to pursue other goals in addition to that. And that's why I'm really proud that I can say that I've traveled to 27 countries.

I bought my house at the age of 27. I paid off $63,000 student loan debt. All these things didn't happen in a vacuum. They were not silos. They were intentional. They were like, I'm working on these things at the same time. Some things I can accomplish faster than others, but that's what makes me a financially savvy traveler are all of my pursuits and challenges that go beyond the 27 countries I've been to.

What else is happening in your finances? Cause I know a lot of people who abandon everything in their lives just to travel. And that's amazing for them. But for me, I have other things I want to pursue. I'm building generational wealth. I'm busy building a business. I have a son. So I have to make sure holistically I'm cared for, not just only travel. Yeah.

'Maven' Miara Shaw (22:16.334)
Right.

'Maven' Miara Shaw (22:29.955)
I love that. I love that. And that's one of those stories you hear with people sometimes that travel, like they're traveling strictly on credit card debt and they come back and I'm like, I don't want to come back home and be stressed about what I just spent. Like to me, it's like when I was still in corporate.

going on a business trip, extending it for personal, and then having a, like you come back on a Sunday and have to be at work Monday. Like I need a day to kind of digest, kind of just regroup and then get ready, which is one of the important things that I like to include in my travel, especially international travel, is a day to get there, kind of get acclimated, and a day or two when you come back home before you have to jump.

back into all of the things that are waiting for you. So I love these very practical tips, no matter the woman is in the corporate space or she's an entrepreneur, you can take these strategies, these tips, these hacks and really create a plan that works specifically for you. Now, grab the book and let that be kind of your guide.

to help you continuing to do this because I do believe that travel is a great way to support our self care. Great way to support. I know I've gotten some amazing thoughts and ideas around business because I've been able to slow down and just rest. And then the ideas start to really solidify, right? The plan starts to come together.

versus me kind of feeling like I've had five or six ideas floating. When I slow down on vacation, it all kind of like the path gets enlightening. You're like, Oh, I've been trying to figure that out for three months and just two days of travel of rest, relaxation, and self care. It all came together. So I love that you're sharing practical tips that no matter where we are in our journey, we can start to reduce debt.

'Maven' Miara Shaw (24:51.051)
include travel and really create let travel be part of our holistic approach Not just like travels over here and all the other things in my life are over here. So Give us something anything you want to wrap up with If a if a person's watching this and like, you know, well Danielle my debt is Double what yours was and all of these things

But I do love to travel and I know travel helps me with my self care. What's a little moment of encouragement to keep them from throwing in the towel and saying, I just can't do it right now. How do we get them on board to this wonderful part?

Danielle Desir Corbett (25:38.014)
I think the realization that travel can be as expensive as we want it to be. I wish I had the insights that I have now because I could have actually been traveling while I was in college, while I was even before my big girl job, if I had the mindset that I had right now. Because here's why, the reason why. My first trip that spearheaded everything was a solo trip to Paris.

'Maven' Miara Shaw (25:44.423)
That's good.

'Maven' Miara Shaw (25:52.257)
Okay.

'Maven' Miara Shaw (25:59.547)
Okay.

Danielle Desir Corbett (26:08.27)
And for me to get to Paris, it was saving $25 every two weeks. That was all that I could afford to do. It took me a couple of years to get all the money together on that $25, but I did it. I did it. And once I was able to accomplish that goal again, trip to Paris was a financial goal, it was truly a financial goal. I had a repeatable process. I had a repeatable.

'Maven' Miara Shaw (26:14.983)
Okay.

'Maven' Miara Shaw (26:24.903)
Okay.

'Maven' Miara Shaw (26:32.486)
right?

'Maven' Miara Shaw (26:36.676)
Mm-hmm.

Danielle Desir Corbett (26:37.326)
process. So I will say that it doesn't matter how big or small you can save. What matters is getting into the habit of saying, travel is important to me. I'm going to put something away. It doesn't matter if it's 25, 100 or $500 a month, but I'm doing this for me. And when we're doing that, the act of saving for money means that we're forgoing.

'Maven' Miara Shaw (26:49.531)
Okay.

Danielle Desir Corbett (27:07.53)
something today too, right? Because we're saying, I'm choosing to do this, which means I'm not gonna order that Uber Eats today, or I'm not gonna go out a happy hour today. So you're making a sacrifice every time you save money, right? So those are the things that, again, the mindfulness things, it's just like, travel can be expensive, but it can also be not as expensive as I think it's gonna be, and I'm gonna get into the habit of

'Maven' Miara Shaw (27:09.34)
right?

'Maven' Miara Shaw (27:18.599)
Right.

'Maven' Miara Shaw (27:30.223)
Right.

Danielle Desir Corbett (27:36.25)
saving a little bit of cash on the side. And honestly, that can be very difficult to do, right? When you are trying to take care of your household and growing your business, it can be harder to be like, hold up. But that foresight, that knowledge, that habit that we're building, we're building habits right now, right? We're building a habit of saving, which will then allow us to again, pursue those other goals. So...

'Maven' Miara Shaw (27:55.079)
Right.

Yeah.

Danielle Desir Corbett (28:05.578)
Yeah, it's just been an incredible journey over the last eight years to see how travel has popped up, whether I was solo, whether I was now newly dating, whether I was a married woman now as a mom and an entrepreneur. All the things I've learned has been keeping travel as a habit, saving money, being mindful, thinking about what's important to me. All of those themes are what continues to help to fuel me, even when things are great.

'Maven' Miara Shaw (28:14.183)
Okay.

Danielle Desir Corbett (28:35.274)
and when things are also financially tight and things are hard as well. So I hope those ideas were helpful.

'Maven' Miara Shaw (28:35.695)
Yeah.

'Maven' Miara Shaw (28:42.263)
love that. And I love that it's, you know, really the, the focus and the patience with ourselves, that if this, this travel goal is not easily attainable today, that you can put a plan in place to start sitting money aside. So you've got, you've got to give yourself some grace that you're going to get there. You might not be able to go next month, but maybe six months from now, maybe it's even a year from now.

but we've got to be able to, as you said, create a plan that says, this is my end goal. I'm trying to get to Paris. I'm trying to go debt-free, affordably. So I'm gonna create a plan for that. And then all we need to apply at that point is patience, staying focused and being persistent to reach your goal. Listen, thank you so much. I've gained some new thoughts and some new ideas around.

traveling more. Now I don't know that my husband is going to be happy that I create a goal of traveling more than once a quarter. But I think, I think just from what I've learned, I think it's doable. I think I can do it. So listen, Maven Nation, if travel has been a part of your self care or you want it to be a part of your self care, be sure to tune in again, check in the show notes to get Danielle's book and create your plan. And remember, give yourself grace.

Be persistent, stay focused on the goal that you have, and you're gonna get there. We're gonna see you, we're gonna run into you in some of these wonderful places of travel. Again, thank you Danielle for joining us.

Danielle Desir Corbett (30:25.39)
My pleasure, my pleasure.