Lucas's Blog

If you fall in the work to live school of thought, you probably aren’t to concerned with spending the funds you’ve accumulated on desires & experiences that bring you fulfilment & joy. 

I wanted to write a few thoughts on how to make that money go further

A travellers budget for a trip is more of a fantasy, like a street vendor setting a high price for their goods & hoping that people come to pay.

It’s numbers on a screen determining your balance of fun & experiences over a period of time.

Sometimes people expect their money to go a lot further despite running a few basic calculations first.

This is what I do while travelling to help my money go further & to have realistic expectations about what I should & shouldn’t spend money on. 

Run a basic daily spend budget calculation –

The simplest trick I use at the start of every trip is to evaluate how capital I’m going to allocate for a trip (My savings) & divide it by the number of days I plan on going for.
Let’s say you’re going away for 6 months to South America & you have $20,000 in a savings account.
You divide the amount of capital you have available ($20,000) by the number of days (180) you anticipate your travel to last. Giving you 20,000/180 = $111 Per day.

Now what this number can do is provide a very loose guide as to what you can spend each day in order to stick to your desired budget over a certain period.

Some days you will naturally go over, perhaps you splurge on a nice meal, a private room or a beachside massage. Fantastic! That’s what travelling can be all about. But if you go over somedays, try & pull back on other days of the week. A few Pasta dinners, some public transport over uber rides. You get the idea.

Don’t let this number rule over you like gospel, use it simply as a guiding compass for your spending.

Pick your battles –

This one seems obvious, but some people do struggle with its implementation.

Like lots of people, in my youth I was guilty of being a people pleaser, finding myself in scenarios where I’d said yes so I didn’t have to say No to someone or a group.

After a few to many times of this happening, I found it much easier to say no earlier & actually do things that I wanted to do.

It’s a skill you develop over time, but is extremely satisfying once you learn to master it

Picking your battles on the road involves doing some critical thinking as to what you want to get out of your travel whether you’re solo or travelling with other people.

You like watching football but don’t like eating out, spend extra money on watching games. You love watching Tango but don’t want to go on the hostel pub crawl, go & enjoy a night at a show.

Everyone travels for different reasons, so under that same school of thought, don’t feel like you always have to go with the crowd for everything.

If a restaurant doesn’t serve food that you like, guess what, you can politely tell your company that you’re not hungry with no repercussions.

Eat out less than you eat in –

Obviously when you travel, there are times when you’re going to want to try the local specialities.

Whether it be steak in Argentina, pad Thai in Thailand or Taco’s in Mexico – Food is a big part of my expenses when I travel.

However, consistent eating out can lead to two things

A) Spending more money

B) Those special meals becoming less special

I find the more I have eggs, rice & some kind of protein for dinner, the more I enjoy treating myself every other day.

In some countries, you can get away with eating street food for cheaper than you could make at home.

These are the best kind of countries & the exception, especially if the local food is great.

My most complete tip is to always throw a home cooked meal in there for every few days, especially if you’ve got a long term travel horizon.

The few dollars you can save here & there do add up in the long run, and make those special meals taste even better. 

What are your most creatives to save a few dimes?