Skydiving and the Sahara: 28-year-old shares how she travels on a budget

Soaking in the vast expanse and clear skies of the Sahara Desert, the furthest thing on Ms Cassandra Lim’s mind was her travel expenses.

“It was very surreal,” says the 28-year-old process engineer, of her two-night stay in the desert. “The peace of the desert is something you don’t normally get to experience.”

The two-day experience, part of a 10-day trip to Morocco in 2024, was possible because of Ms Lim’s shrewd financial planning and her bank’s suite of solutions.

It was one of several holidays Ms Lim has taken since being bitten by the travel bug in 2018.

In May this year, she completed a two-day hike up Fansipan Mountain, Vietnam’s highest peak at 3,146m.

Just as satisfying as the holidays was earning about 100,000 travel miles from the two trips – rewards she’s accumulating to offset future holidays.

Her bucket list has since grown as she prioritises such experiences over the traditional sightseeing and shopping tours she once did with her family.

“I’m in my ‘try everything’ era,” she says. “I look for experiences that you don’t get to do much in Singapore. Some of the more extreme sports I’d like to try are high-altitude mountain hiking, skydiving, bungee jumping, diving and snowboarding.”

Her desire for adventure has shaped not only her lifestyle, but also the way she manages her money.

Prioritising travel

Travel is her biggest discretionary expense, shares Ms Lim, who lives in a four-room Housing Board flat with her parents and younger brother.

She typically plans two short getaways to nearby countries over long weekends, and one long trip of at least a week every year. The shorter trips cost between $1,000 and $2,000, while longer trips range from $3,000 to $4,000.

Ms Lim often joins tour groups when she travels alone. Otherwise, she flies economy or chooses budget flights, and stays in cheaper accommodations such as hostels or Airbnb to keep costs low.

Her peers tend to make similar trade-offs. A 2024 study by travel metasearch platform Skyscanner found that when it comes to spending priorities, millennials and Gen Zs in Singapore prefer to allocate their budget to food (39 per cent) and experiences (36 per cent), higher than accommodation (15 per cent) and flight tickets (10 per cent). Skyscanner compares prices across multiple booking sites.

The study, which surveyed 1,000 Singaporeans aged 18 to 34, defines Gen Zs as those aged between 18 and 24 while millennials are aged between 25 and 34.

“I’m quite fortunate to have a decent paying job so I’m able to budget and save for travels and daily expenses,” says Ms Lim, who earns a four-figure monthly salary. Her year-end bonus goes entirely towards paying for these trips.

She sets aside 30 per cent of her monthly income for savings and 20 per cent for investments and insurance plans, though she admits that she does not follow a strict budget or monitor her expenses too closely.

If money is tight before a holiday, she cuts back on dining out and drinks with friends, and eats at hawker centres instead of restaurants or cafes.

To stretch her spending further, Ms Lim makes use of her credit cards strategically. She holds three: The UOB Lady’s Card for food, the UOB Preferred Card for online purchases, and the UOB KrisFlyer card for travelling. She pays her credit card bills in full for all three cards.

Ms Lim’s main focus is accumulating travel miles, which she can later redeem to offset flight costs.

She compared offerings across banks when she started working full time three years ago, before deciding that UOB best suited her needs. “Over time, there (have been) many up-and-coming competitors, but for convenience I stick to UOB.”

Cushion for the future

With no major financial responsibilities, Ms Lim, who is single, has the freedom to prioritise travelling. Still, she says her approach to money was shaped much earlier. Her father, who was a supervisor in a manufacturing plant, frequently spoke to her about financial responsibility when she was a teenager.

While she was studying in polytechnic, her parents stopped giving her pocket money. Her polytechnic school fees were fully covered by bursaries. Ms Lim picked up part-time tutoring jobs to support herself, earning up to $2,000 a month by tutoring three to four students each week.

Early on, she sometimes overspent, and her parents would give her money. “I felt guilty taking it,” she says. “That’s when I learnt to be more mindful not to let the money in my account drop below a certain point, so that I have a cushion if something happens.”

These days, she ensures that the balance in her bank account never falls below $15,000. Though she doesn’t track every dollar, she says the UOB TMRW mobile banking app has helped her understand her spending habits. It provides personalised insights on monthly cashflow and purchases.

Nearly all UOB customers aged below 30 use the UOB TMRW app, says Ms Choo Wan Sim, head of UOB TMRW Digital. Of these, 70 per cent are active users – defined as those who log into the UOB TMRW app at least once in a month.

The bank uses artificial intelligence and machine learning technologies to understand customer behaviours and preferences, she says. This helps UOB “serve personalised insights to customers to help them stay on top of their money even when life gets busy”, Ms Choo adds, “and offer curated lifestyle rewards and deals that help them stretch their dollar.”

The app also alerts users to duplicate charges and unusual spending patterns, and offers financial content and expert analysis to help them stay informed. It was launched in Singapore in October 2021.

With just three years of full-time work, Ms Lim says she is still early in the journey towards financial independence. But she’s clear about her goal: To be able to spend within her means and enjoy life without worrying about money the next day.

Her wanderlust is at the heart of it. “When I first started working, I thought the goal was the rat race,” she says. “I realised that it brought more joy and meaning to my life to check off bucket-list items.”

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