Money, Money, Money…

Let’s talk about dosh! Travelling is easy when your funds are unlimited, but for most of us, including ourselves, that’s simply not the case. Ours certainly aren’t unlimited, and it was clear from the very beginning that we would need to carefully observe and manage our budgets if we wanted to spend one entire year on the road. One whole year with a very limited income. Without overthinking it too much, we came up with a budget that sounded both reasonable and challenging at the same time. The idea was to spend not more than 100 Euros per day. That doesn’t sound so bad at the beginning, but when you factor in accommodation, food, fuel or transportation, sightseeing, and other activities, and all of this for 4 people, 100 Euros isn’t actually a lot at all. Still, 100 Euros times 365 days adds up to a decent chunk of money, and since there is a life waiting for us after our journey, it was clear to both of us that we didn’t want to return empty handed or financially strained. We’ve been travelling for exactly 5 months now, so by this point, we have a fairly decent and realistic idea of how that budget has worked out in practice! And to cut a fairly long story short, it has worked out pretty well, much to my own surprise I must say.

I have been meticulously writing down every single penny we have spent so far, starting from day one of our journey. It’s an exercise I didn’t always find very pleasurable, especially at the beginning, but it has proven to be incredibly eye-opening in many ways. I am quite confident that I will continue doing this even after our travels come to an end. Perhaps not as granular and detailed as I have been doing it during the past 17 weeks, but it actually feels good to keep a close track of your spending habits. I have to admit, it shames me a little to say that we never really did this consistently in the past. We had a decent and steady income, an affordable mortgage to pay off, and generally speaking, our earnings were always comfortably above our costs. So at first glance, there never seemed to be a strong reason to carefully monitor every expense. That perspective now feels somewhat ignorant in hindsight, as keeping track of your costs is always reasonable, regardless of your income level. To be clear, we never squandered money either, but when I started comparing prices in the supermarkets while visiting the Balkans, I realized I hadn’t really paid attention to this before, or at least, not to the detailed level that I am doing now.

Now, for this blog entry I won’t be looking ar our income, as it is barely existent. Yes, we sublet our house, but the vast majority of that income is going straight to the bank anyways. I found a very fair solution with my employer that allowed my half a monthly salary for the first few months of our journey, but that’s about it. Coming April I will receive a partial bonus payment, but that doesn’t change the fact that this one year is predominantly going off our savings account. That’s ok though! It’s an invesment into our future, our kids future, in particular and in the same way it never hurt to pay their monthly private schooling, it doesn’t hurt to pay for this year of travelling.

So... back to our 100 Euro per day budget! Where are we exactly? We are pretty much on track with our spending! After 17 weeks, or 119 days of travelling, we have spent a total of 13,067.53 Euro. Divided through those 119 days of travelling, that comes to about 109.81 Euro per day. Not that far off from our original goal of 100 Euro, and honestly, it’s something I feel a little proud of! This number includes all expenses except for the flight from Frankfurt to Indonesia since that was booked way before our travels started and well before I began tracking costs carefully. Of course, that one flight was quite expensive and would shift the overall picture slightly, but once we were on the road, we managed our budgets extremely well. In fact, we were actually ahead of the curve for most of the trip until our somewhat costly stay in Singapore.

So how did we do it? The biggest portion of our travel budget always goes into accommodation and food, which are essential expenses. Obviously, sleeping and eating cheaply is a key strategy to keep costs down. During our travels through the Balkans, our newfound friend Victor generously allowed us to sleep on their grounds for free, which was an incredible help. The weeks we spent in Kosovo were therefore very affordable and significantly eased the pressure on the overall budget. Additionally, my brother kindly let us stay in his flat in Vienna while they were away on holiday, which saved us quite a bit. And also our first week at Lake Constance was without accomodation cost, thanks to Sarah’s aunt and uncle who allowed us to stay in there holiday home free of charge.

Another major saver was Indonesia. First of all, the three weeks we stayed there were remarkably cheap, thanks to Sarah who arranged a barter deal with the hotel in exchange for sales and marketing expertise, whic is going to be continued once her business is fully set up. Also, food in Indonesia was remarkably cheap, allowing us to save a lot more money during that period. Generally speaking, except for Singapore, Asia provided us with excellent value for money over the past few weeks. Accommodation rarely cost more than 35 to 40 Euros per night, and we stayed in really decent Airbnb places that offered all the comfort we needed. By comparison, it was certainly tougher to stick to the 100 Euro per day budget in some parts of the Balkans than it has been here in Asia.

It feels really good that the budget is on track. It was something we certainly worried about prior to our travels, but we now know we can manage it. Yes, Central America will bo tougher financially than Asia, but we have almost 3 months left to create a back up for the final, leg of our journey. As we will laos do two weeks of house sitting in Cambodia, where accomodation in return will be free, I am confident that we can manage our budgets over a full year.