Note for the reader: This is an old post that needs to be revised by my editor. Thanks for your understanding.
Ok, this may not seems romantic at all but in order to travel I need to save money.
For the past few weeks all I was able to do was checking my bank account (cold sweat every time I look at it) and calculating how much will I need to save within february. BIG HEADACHE!
My (optimistic) goal was to save up to 10.000£ or more, including the main pre-trip expenses. I created an excel spreadsheet to keep track of the money I’m spending for the pre – trip and this is the situation of the expenses up to date:
The grand total for now is around 1750£… And I calculated (always optimistic, big mistake!!) around 1300. Still not sure about the anti rabies vaccine, which is quite expensive, but I will probably end up doing it.
The anti malaria prophylaxis is out of the scene since, after careful consideration, I decided to skip it.
So how much can we afford to spend per day? this is the biggest headache of all! depending on how many months we decide to stay, the ideal would be not more than 30£ per day (including accommodation, food and transports.
which leads me to the conclusion that I will need to save around 7500£ for 8 months of travels (excluding the internal flights costs), but we will try to avoid them as much as possible.
If we stay away for 7 months, at 30£ per day, the trip is going to cost us around 6500£. The good news among all these big headaches is that seeing the hostel and the food/transport prices I think it is totally affordable! phewww!
I just need to hang in there, avoid any kind of distraction, riduce the expenses for the next 4 months and I think I can make it real!
Well, that is it for now.I am a bit worried of course, since money is really important and I’m getting obsessed by calculating the budget over and over considering different scenarios, but I remain positive overall. WE CAN MAKE IT HAPPEN, AND WE WILL!
CHEERS!
UPDATE AFTER 2 YEARS ON THE ROAD:
In the end I was able to save around 16.000$ in total and I managed to make them last for far more than 7/8 months as I decided to settle down in Thailand for 8 months (after a crazy engagement in Bali) and work as a ballet teacher for a while.
My advice is to always bring more money than you need and pack less than you think you need. I’ve read this advice so many times before my departure and I definitely agree with that. It’s totally true.