Want a summer trip but you’re still paying off student loans? You can do both. The trick is to price the trip, save for it on a schedule, and leave your loan payment alone.
What you don’t want is a vacation that goes on a credit card or gets paid for by pausing your loans. Both cost you more than the trip did.
The short answer
- Add up the whole trip, then divide by the weeks until you leave. That’s your weekly savings target.
- Automate it: a separate savings account and an automatic transfer every payday.
- Keep making your full student loan payment. Pausing loans to travel still runs up interest.
- Can’t make the number work? Push the date back, shrink the trip or take a staycation.
1. Figure out what the trip will really cost
Start with a number, not a destination you hope you can afford.
“Instead of going on vacation on a whim, plan ahead,” advised Leslie Tayne, a debt attorney. “You’ll be able to find better deals on flights, hotels, and other vacation expenses. Plus, you’ll have more time to save up for your trip.”
Write down every piece: getting there, where you’ll sleep, food, getting around and the stuff you’ll actually do. Then add a cushion, because something always costs more than you thought.
| Trip cost | Sample amount |
|---|---|
| Flights or gas | $400 |
| Lodging | $450 |
| Food | $200 |
| Getting around and activities | $100 |
| Cushion for surprises | $50 |
| Total | $1,200 |
Those are sample numbers to show the method. Plug in your own.
2. Turn the total into a weekly savings goal
Accountant Atiya Brown recommends pricing out the trip first, then counting the weeks until you go and setting a weekly or biweekly goal. “I started planning in December and determined $1,000 was good, so that was 21 weeks of [saving] $47.62 weekly,” Brown said.
Example: a $1,200 summer trip
- Trip total
- $1,200
- Weeks until you leave
- 20
- Save each week
- $60
- Or each month (5 months)
- $240
How we got it: $1,200 divided by 20 weeks is $60 a week. Over 5 months it’s $1,200 divided by 5, or $240 a month.
If $60 a week doesn’t fit next to your loan payment, move the trip later. At 30 weeks the same trip is $40 a week.
Then make it automatic. “Transfer your money automatically from your payroll so you don’t see the money in your take-home [pay],” Brown said. A separate savings account just for the trip keeps it from getting spent on groceries by accident.
If you’d rather have an app do the nudging, our list of money saving apps covers which ones are free and which charge you to save.
3. Find the money without touching your loan payment
Look at what you spend every month and cut what you won’t miss. “If there are things that you can do without, cut them from your budget,” Tayne said.
Jill Caponera, a consumer savings expert, suggested going further: “Try a no-spend week each month,” she said. “Other than gas in your car and groceries in your fridge, try at least one no-spend week for the rest of the summer where you don’t spend money on any extras. You’d be surprised how much extra money you’ll have when you’re not on a constant spending spree.”
Need a little more? A short-term side gig can cover a trip fund fast. Our side hustles for paying off student loans has ideas that fit around a full-time job, and Gigs Done Right is a good place to compare delivery and gig apps.
Don’t pay for the trip with your loans or a credit card
It’s tempting to take a month off your student loan payment and call it vacation money. Here’s why that’s a bad trade.
Interest keeps running on all federal loans in forbearance. So the payment you skipped doesn’t disappear. It comes back with interest on top.
Example: what a 2-month pause costs
- Loan balance (assumed)
- $30,000
- Interest rate (assumed)
- 6.52%
- Interest per month
- about $163
- Interest over 2 months
- about $326
How we got it: $30,000 times 6.52% is $1,956 a year. Divided by 12, that’s $163 a month. The balance and rate are assumptions, and 6.52% is the federal rate for undergraduate Direct Loans first disbursed July 1, 2026 to June 30, 2027.
A credit card isn’t better. Put $1,200 on a card at 24% APR and the interest alone is about $24 a month until you pay it off ($1,200 times 24%, divided by 12).
If your loan payment is the reason you can’t save anything, fix that directly. An income-driven plan may lower it for good, and our guide to student loan repayment plans shows what you’d pay on each plan.
4. Can’t swing it this summer? Take a staycation
If it’s too late to save for a big trip, stay close to home. Tayne suggested taking advantage of “the sights and attractions near you” and doing some research on what your area has to offer, like hiking, landmarks, beaches or national parks.
You still get time off. And you start next summer’s trip fund with money left over instead of a balance on a card.
Next stepPlanning something longer than a week? Read how to travel while paying off student loans, which covers a full monthly budget for a long trip.
Sources (2)
We use primary sources wherever we can: Federal Student Aid, the U.S. Department of Education, the IRS, federal regulations and each company’s own site.
- Federal Student Aid. Student loan deferment and forbearance. studentaid.gov. Accessed October 22, 2026.
- Federal Student Aid. Interest rates and fees for federal student loans. studentaid.gov. Accessed October 22, 2026.
