Meet Kim Brindell, 34, from Bairnsdale Australia. Kim has joined forces with her 5 besties. Together, they’ve found a creative solution to stretching their travel dollars further. After two decades of friendship, the two women are bonded by a passion for travel. This bond has inspired them to take the extra step of opening a joint bank account to make sharing bills worry-free.
The six-woman collective eventually told their story to People after their tale started trending virally on social media. Three years ago, following one of their trips, they ran into challenges in figuring out the cost of each trip. That’s when their out-of-the-box solution appeared.
We were frantically trying to work out who owed who what, and calculate everything to be squared up at the end of the holiday, and one of the friends said, ‘This would be so much easier if we had a shared bank account,’ Brindell recalled.
What was at first a joking remark soon developed over e-mail into a workable proposal. “We all just laughed it off, and then we were like, ‘Wait, that’s actually kind of genius,’” she added. Since then, every woman has been paying out of pocket $20 a week into the account. This funding is used to pay for all travel costs, including airfare, hotel accommodations and meals.
The joint account has made budgeting not just easier, but has deepened their connection as best friends. By removing the frustration of settling up after the trip, they’re now able to spend their time together worrying just about having fun.
One of the friends was pregnant at the time on a trip. To the surprise of many, perhaps even herself, she opted not to drink, thus creating an unforgettable moment. “There’s been a time when one of the friends has been pregnant, which meant she didn’t drink on the trip. And so we all just collectively pay for our drinks separately…,” Brindell said. This flexibility is just one example of how the shared account provides space for individual needs and preferences within the group.
The women’s World Cup has put them in the position of having to argue for fairness on their investments. In another instance, if a friend was unable to make a booked trip, they worked out a reimbursement plan. “We just thought, well, the right thing to do would be to refund her because I think we’ve very much taken the approach that it all comes out in the wash or it all comes back to you eventually,” Brindell noted.
Through this shared financial responsibility, we have changed how they travel. “Instead of thinking about cost being a barrier to whether you wanna splurge on that extra glass of wine, you just do it, and you don’t have to think about it,” she said while discussing the advantages of their system.
