Y’all. I am SO BEHIND. I was supposed to have this post up weeks ago. I mean, weeks ago. Thankfully my friend Matt is a patient gem of a man.
In light of my last post about taking a frugal road trip (which was great! See photo evidence of greatness here) it’s actually kind of perfect that I’m so behind schedule.
Matt is a world traveler from Australia who has perfected the art of budget travel. He’s been all over the world and has wonderful advice for how you can travel on the cheap too. So without any further ado or waiting, here is Matt’s advice on how to make a travel budget.
Have you ever done your best to save up as much money as you can for a trip, only to come back broke and wonder where all your money went? I know that has happened to me more than once.
Both when planning for an upcoming trip and also when you are actually on it, I find it very useful use a budget spreadsheet for the trip. One half should be the amount of money you have (income) and the other half what you expect to spend (expenses).
The most important thing is to be realistic about how much you are going to spend because you do not want any nasty surprises whilst on the road.
I am going to share my budget spreadsheet with you for the trip I took to Europe, Israel and Turkey. You are welcome to copy the spreadsheet and modify it for your trips.
Check out the screenshot below to see my budget. Use this link to get taken to a live version of it, which you can use to form your own travel budget! Hover over the green tabs to see explanations. Note that I have modified my income numbers for privacy reasons, and that I have different tabs at the bottom to update the spreadsheet every 2-3 days.
Kara Perez is the original founder of From Frugal To Free. She is a money expert, speaker and founder of Bravely Go, a feminist financial education company. Her work has been featured on NPR, Business Insider, Forbes, and Elite Daily.