We started this blog in 2019 with a mission to help people live freer, happier lives. To do that, we try to encourage others (especially young people, who have the most to gain) to take their finances seriously by slashing living expenses both big and small, learning to invest money, and understanding that money can buy more than just material things.
Once readers get the ball rolling on financial freedom, we like to nudge them to spend a lot less time at the office and get out there to see the world around them. We want people to know that travel doesn’t have to cost a fortune — it can actually last months at a time on a very small budget.
Some people say we run a personal finance website. Others say it’s all about travel and experiences. We just like to think of it as a happiness blog.
— Trip Of A Lifestyle (@TOALifestyle) August 31, 2020
All of the information we share is completely free for everyone. We don’t hold the best stuff back and sell it as a “premium” product. We don’t charge for advice or put on seminars with entry fees. We just want as many people as possible to enjoy their lives, and to learn from what we’ve experienced over the years about how to do that.
If you support that mission, we’d like to ask you to support this site.
Ways to Support this Site That Cost Zero Money
These are listed in decreasing order of how much they help us out. If you can, start from the top, and work your way down.
1. Share an article or page from this site on your own website
If you run a blog, write for a newspaper, or own a website of any kind, one of the biggest compliments you can give us is to reference our site from yours. It could be something simple, like including us on a “Recommended Resources” page, or something more specific, like citing us as a source of information. For some ideas, check out our list of every article on this site.
2. Use the Facebook “Invite Friends” feature
If you have a Facebook account, you can do this in about 30 seconds. This single action helps us more than anything else you can do on social media. Not many people even know this feature exists, so here are detailed instructions:
Desktop or laptop computer
Click to expand instructions
Step One: Navigate to the Trip Of A Lifestyle page on Facebook, and click on “Community.”
Step Two: Click on “See All Friends.”
Step Three: Click “Select All,” and then “Send Invites.” You’re done!
Smartphone or tablet
Tap to expand instructions
Step One: Open the Facebook app and use the search bar to find the Trip Of A Lifestyle page. Then, tap “Community.”
Step Two: Tap “Invite Friends.”
Step Three: Tap “Select All” and then “Send Invites.” You’re done!
3. Share our articles on social media or in forums
When you read an article of ours and really like it, don’t keep it to yourself! Share it on Facebook, Twitter, or your favorite platform. If you’re not sure how to do this, one of the easiest ways is to just use the social sharing buttons at the very end of any article on our site. It helps if you write a caption along with the link, to tell people why they should check it out.
Other solid places to share our content include any communities you belong to, like online forums, Facebook groups, or Reddit.
4. Subscribe to us on every platform
Unfortunately, people have a tendency to judge the worth of things by how popular they are with others. That means that our website is viewed as more legitimate when we have higher follower counts. If you don’t mind, take 30 seconds to subscribe to our content on each of the following platforms. Even if you infrequently use your account on some of these, it still helps.
- Facebook: @tripofalifestyle
- Twitter: @TOALifestyle
- Instagram: @tripofalifestyle
- TikTok: @tripofalifestyle
- YouTube: Trip Of A Lifestyle
- Pinterest: Trip Of A Lifestyle
- LinkedIn: Trip Of A Lifestyle
- Newsletter: Use the form at the very bottom of this page
5. Read our articles
We check our readership stats pretty frequently (okay, obsessively). It honestly just feels validating to see people getting value out of what we write. So if you’re a regular reader, know that we do notice and appreciate you.
Aside from that, higher readership can help us negotiate better advertising rates and partnership opportunities that can benefit readers and keep the blog alive financially, too.
Ways to Support this Site That Cost a Little Money
If you are a student working on paying off debt, a single parent trying to make ends meet, or someone who is otherwise struggling financially in any way, please do not read any further on this page. We are doing well financially, and we don’t want your money. We want you to focus on your own finances. Come back and give us a high five when you’ve got it all figured out!
However, if you feel like you’re in great financial health (maybe even because of this blog), and you want to directly support us and our mission, the following things are greatly appreciated:
1. Make a donation
Obviously, the easiest way to show financial support is to just donate money. Any amount is appreciated. In fact, even seeing a donation notification for one dollar makes our day, because it means that someone made the effort to tell us they appreciated our work. The two easiest ways to donate are PayPal and Venmo. If you don’t have accounts on either of those, PayPal will let you donate using a credit card as an unregistered guest.
2. Purchase our artwork
Aside from being bloggers, we’re also professional photographers. Our travel and landscape work is available for sale in our fine art shop. You can buy traditional wall art prints in addition to a bunch of other stuff like cell phone cases, beach towels, shower curtains, tote bags, and stationery. And just because you were nice enough to read a page about how to support us, here’s a coupon code that will get you a discount on your entire cart: VXMRXZ
3. Do business with our affiliates
This one doesn’t actually help us financially — because we dedicate 100% of our affiliate profits to charity — but being able to give more money to charity is definitely something we want to do!
We recommend products and services through affiliate links across the blog. When you click on one of those links and proceed to buy something (or sign up for a service), that generates a small commission at no additional cost to you.
We never, ever recommend anything that we wouldn’t also recommend to our own friends and family (learn more).
4. Buy advertising space on this website
If you run a business, we will gladly sell you some ad space in one or more of our articles, on a temporary or permanent basis. Please note that all ads will be clearly marked; we don’t do paid “organic” promotions. If you’re interested, send us an email about it!
5. Rep the blog
We have weatherproof vinyl stickers — perfect for your car, laptop, or water bottle — and t-shirts too! Check them out on our merch page.
