Let’s Talk Budget
Over the month of September, I tried my hardest to keep a close eye on our budget to see what our average spending came down to. Before we started on this journey, Mason and I both saved up what we felt comfortable with to travel for six months and put it into a high yield savings.
Our original plan started with thinking we’d spend around $45USD/day which we soon realized was hilariously impossible for us if we wanted to be comfortable. That budget was raised to a more realistic amount of $70USD/day and we did a good job following it despite some hiccups.
Here’s how we originally broke down our daily budget:
Accommodations - $20/night
Food - $30/day
Transportation - $10/day
Activities - $10/day
Keep in mind that we are currently traveling through Southeast Asia so this daily budget will only apply here. When or if we decide to travel to more expensive countries, we’ll reevaluate!
Accommodations
We’ve primarily been staying in hotels or homestays with our own private room and bath. Our cheapest stay so far has been $11/night and our most expensive was $25/night. Yes, out of budget but after hours of reading through hotel reviews, this was our best bet. We’ve found that it hasn’t made the most sense for us to stay in hostels since beds can cost $7 - $12/person, however, for the social aspect it can be worth it! When we are only staying somewhere primarily to sleep and continue on traveling, we will pick the cheaper stay over a place with lots of amenities.
Food
Food overall has been fairly cheap. Most days we have breakfast if our hotel provides it which is along the lines of eggs, toast, and fruit. We love our coffee and usually buy one to share. An iced latte (with no sugar - because sweetened condensed milk is put into everything here unless you say no) costs around $1.50 - $2.75. For our meals we try to stay close to $10 - $15 total for lunch and the same for dinner which hasn’t been too hard to maintain. Sure, we could cut this closer to $8 - $10/meal if we wanted to eat only local or street food but sometimes the questionable soup or meat isn’t so appetizing.
Transportation
Our transportation cost added up quickly, especially in Vietnam. When we arrived in Hanoi, we had to get an hour-long Grab (Uber) to the actual city. That cost between 400-550K VND ($16 - $23). Sleeper buses in Vietnam seem to be the best for budget and time. They usually take about 2-3 hours more than what Google Maps says due to stops and cost around $13 - $25 per person depending on the luxury level of the bus. They run all over and can be anywhere from a 4 hour bus ride to a 16 hour bus ride. We try to double check flights and buses to see if they’re comparable. For instance, what would have been a ten hour bus ride for $21 was an hour long flight for $26, we chose the flight to save some time. In town, Grabs tend to be around $3 - $5 for short distances. One way to cut that cost is by renting a motorbike or bicycle. When we were in Hoi An, a motorbike cost around $4 - $6/day and a bicycle cost $1 - $2 for a 24 hour rental. Our transportation budget has quickly grown with all the buses, trains, and flights needed to get down the coast of Vietnam.
Activities
Some days we are under and other days we go over in this category. For example, to see elephants in Thailand and go to a well-known Thai cooking school, we spent above our budget for these experiences we wanted. We’ve also learned that we won’t be able to see everything without getting burnt out. So, some days our activity is going to a coffee shop, walking around the area, and going back to the hotel to watch a movie. We’ve tried to balance our spending as well. When we went trekking through rice fields in Sa Pa, we paid $18 each for a day tour but then the other days, we didn’t do a costly activity. Going to visit temples, museums, or National Parks comes with entrance fees too that have been as little as $0.50 to as much as $15 a person.
We strived for this budget but we aren’t going to not do something that could be a “once in a lifetime” experience because of our budget.
One thing we added to our monthly budget was currency exchange and ATM fees.
Protip: Before we left the US, we went to Chase Bank and got $1,000 USD worth of Thailand currency to save us some stress!
Our monthly budget is structured a lot differently which we have now realized needs to be accounted for in our daily budget so we can clearly see everything we are spending.
Over the course of a month things can add up. For instance, we probably do laundry every five or six days. In Thailand, the cost is $0.55 - $1.66 per kilogram of laundry. Here in Vietnam, the average cost we’ve seen is $1.20 - $1.40 per kilogram of laundry. Our laundry usually weighs around 2-3 kilograms each so laundry costs around $5 - $8 in Vietnam. When we lived in an apartment in Thailand we had a washer and dryer which eliminated laundry cost for a week. Water is something that might be forgotten about too. Some stays only provide a water bottle at check in or none at all so we have to remember to add in water purchases at convenient stores and restaurants which is around $0.50 - $1.50/bottle. Currency and ATM fees also accumulate. We’ve had some cost as low as $3 to as much as $9 for a single withdrawal. Some ATMs only allow so much to be pulled at once so we’ve had to do multiple withdrawals which can be an easy way to eat $15. That day I think we probably ate some sketchy soup to save money! Other miscellaneous things to account for is our travel insurance, $45/person a month and our eSim for data, about $40/person a month depending on our usage. Sure, these are all things we initially thought about but didn’t really know how it would work until we were living in it.
We’ve learned that things will fluctuate so a budget is a great bumper but we can’t be perfect.
Some of our big hiccups that hurt our September budget was our fumble with not getting the Vietnam Visas. We failed at researching and purchased flights, arrived at the airport, only to find out we couldn’t board without an approved or pre-approved visa. This also happened on our 30th day traveling Thailand so we were in a pinch. You aren’t supposed to stay longer than your allowed days but we couldn’t board the flight we purchased to leave Thailand. We thought through all of our options; we went to the Chiang Mai Immigrations Office to try to extend our visas but we didn’t have a TM30 form, we thought about flying to Malaysia for a day, we learned that other neighboring countries also required visa paperwork, or we possibly pay fines to overstay in Thailand.
We decided to expedite our Vietnam Visas and paid a pretty penny to do so. What would have cost $50 USD now cost us $250 USD. We thankfully got the pre-approval paperwork 12 hours after speaking with someone on the phone, giving them our information, and praying it wasn’t a scam. We also had to eat the cost of the original flights, hotel we had booked, and then book another set of flights to Vietnam. We did overstay by one day but we didn’t have to pay fines and our passport was stamped without any issues. We were in the clear! I remember feeling so relieved to be on a plane that day after 24 stressful hours.
So, what the heck did we spend in September?????
This month didn’t turn out as we originally planned but we are learning so much along the way. Below you’ll see a rough breakdown of every category for the month of September. Click on the bars to see the actual amount. Hopefully, with the help of my posts, you can narrow in on your budget for traveling!
September Spending
You can clearly see what areas consume the majority of our budget and just how big of an impact our mistake with the Visas cost us this month. We came in at a total of $2,973.31.
$2,973.31 is a little more than we hoped to spend while traveling but we’re living, learning, and adjusting as we go to say the least. Despite the $400+ mistake we were still under $3,000 for the month which feels like a goal we can continue to accomplish. After reflecting on our past month, we’ve calculated a new daily budget that will align better with our monthly budget.
Here’s what we’re going to strive for in October:
Accommodations - $21/day
Food - $28/day
Transportation - $20/day
Activities - $17/day
Convenient Store/Water - $2.50/day
Travel Insurance/eSim - $6.20/day
Laundry/Exchange Fees - $2/day
Our daily breakdown for October is looking a little more realistic. The original plan of $70/day wasn’t bad but we failed to include everything, we weren’t being honest with ourselves. After spending nearly two months traveling we are learning what we want to spend our money on. For two people, a realistic amount with everything accounted for would be about $97/day.
I’ll be sure to make a post about how we keep track, the calculator Mason built for us to use (it’s amazing, he’s an Excel wizard), and if we were able to accomplish this goal for next month in Bali.
