How do you stay on budget when you're travelling?

Meet-ups & Travel
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how do you stay on budget when you're travelling
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Hello everyone!

Travelling costs money, especially when you’re saving money towards plane tickets, food, or a fund for unexpected expenses. We’d love to know more about how you manage your budget when you’re on the road!

Whether it’s giving yourself a strict spending budget, or how you balance saving money while still getting the best out of your experience, please share your advice, tips and tricks with us. Maybe you’re great at advance planning, or you’re a flexible spender… we’d love to hear from all of you!

Looking forward to hearing how you make your travels as cost-effective (or boujee!) as possible.

Jenny :slightly_smiling_face:

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One of the ways my husband and minimize expenses is by not feeling pressure to do touristy things that may be on the pricier side just because we are in that location and that particular event, place,etc…is considered a popular or ‘must do’ thing there. Unless I truly, genuinely have a desire to do or see that thing, I am fine taking a pass.

I am currently in London for example, and one of our favorite things to do in any place is just walk around, explore the various neighborhoods and take photos. There are a number of museums we plan to visit as well because they are free–I probably wouldn’t go to most of them if I had to pay since visiting museums isn’t a particularly huge interest of mine. But if I don’t have to pay anything, why not?

We are not big foodies either so unless we are in a place where going out to eat is pretty cheap, we don’t go to restaurants that often. For us personally, it is kind of a waste of money.

I also don’t spend money on things that I don’t think are worth the value, regardless of affordability, preferring to put that money towards something else. I am fine spending more for something if it makes my life easier, and I am not someone who is always looking to spend the least amount of money possible, but I have to believe it is worth the cost. It simply being affordable isn’t enough.

For example, we came to London from Amsterdam and while I could afford the Eurostar tickets, I did not think the cost was remotely close to worth it. We were fine taking the overnight bus–I didn’t feel like dealing with the hassle of flying-- and we had plenty of time to get here from there and the ride was perfectly comfortable.

Because of the way we live and the limited expenses we have, we don’t have any true budget we feel the need to stick to. Generally speaking, we seem to spend a similar amount of money when it comes to day to day living regardless of where we are.

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We travel full-time and don’t have to pay for a house, mortgage, rent, or any other maintenance costs — this is simply our lifestyle. Unfortunately, when it comes to travel, we’re not very forward-thinking and often book things at the last minute, which isn’t exactly the most cost-effective approach. But we also work a lot and invest our money wisely and with a long-term mindset. Of course, we’ve also accumulated a lot of hotel loyalty points and flight miles over time, so we make good use of those.

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When house sitting we can cook at home if we want to , rather than having to eat out everyday , if we were staying in a hotel . We buy and cook local produce so we still get to experience the local cuisine and we might eat out if the host has recommended a local place . We have done several sits where they grew their own fruit and vegetables and a couple of sits with hens so we didn’t even need to shop for vegetables , fruit or eggs .

We choose homes with beautiful views / or gardens and located in an area with lots of local walks ( countryside , riverside or beaches ) all FREE.

We have done many sits with beautiful gardens , 5 x sits that had their own pool , 2 x that had a tennis court and 2 x sits with a pickleball court.

We are just about to return to a sit which has beautiful gardens , a swimming pool and tennis court and acres of walks on the property . Aside from buying groceries, there is really no necessity to leave the property and spend money at all .

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We are retired, so we are careful about our spending. We are pretty frugal but splurge when we want to.

I think about our travel buckets like this:

  1. Money earmarked each year for travel.
  2. Daily spend (regardless of where we are).
  3. Emergency Fund (everyone should have one).

I echo all of the comments above. We are not materialistic, love to cook, enjoy walking and hiking more than spending money on expensive restaurants and concerts, etc.

You can usually find “free” events (festivals, music, museums) if you search online.

We have been retired for almost 4 years and have done lots of traveling. THS and Home Exchange have been very valuable in our travel. Win, win!

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I am not in any way frugal, and spend money if I think it would be worth it and/ or enjoyable. Sometimes I choose a hostel with the sink next to the pillow and shared bathroom, - I was taking part in a dinner in the evening and left early in the morning other times I like a comfortable hotel room. For instance travelling with children one would often spend more time in the room and it would be more important to have some space, a kettle and a nice tv.

I will do an intercontinental sit next month, and have booked a nice hotel the first two nights before sit to get accustomed to time zone and be a tourist, for instance. So a central and comfy room is more important at that occasion.

Travelling witout petsitting I also did as @PVGemini suggests - searched Free things to do in… It has been so rewarding - not only saving money to spend on something else, but it has opened up so many exciting experiences I wouldn’t otherwise find. Some examples - when we went to New York, we visited Brooklyn Bridge, Bryant Park, China town - but we also got free tickets to be audience in a tv show and we had a free guided tour in the New York Federal Reserve Bank incl. a visit to the gold vault 10 storeys underground.

Museums often has a day (a week or a month) with free admission - at least in off season. So look for those. For those big, costly museums - a hack could be to visit the museum store, which would often have a selection of what is shown in the museum. In my opinion it is in no way a good substitute for the museum itself! But sometimes it is «enough» for that trip. We did that at MoMa - when we came, we were really tired, and as the tickets were expensive we just did the museum shop before going back to our hotel.

Check out where the public transport can take you. In NYC you could take the Long Island ferry for free, in several coastal cities ferries are part of the public transport covered by your buscard, or buslines could be a great way for sightseeing for a small cost. Whether you take the bus round Manhattan, a doubledecker in London or the tram from Benidorm to Alicante. Many of those have great views and can well be taken just for the sightseeing.

I think using cafés and restaurants can be a great way to explore the local community and culture. Having aperitivo in Italy in a small cafe with the locals is a special experience. One time in Italy we signed up to barista classes at a coffee supplyer (not cheap, but worth it), and at lunch time they took us to a local workers café. As a tourist we would never have known that the dull store front was in fact a lunch place with good and affordable lunch, with simple furniture, a couple of dishes to choose and no-fuss serving with local workers. A real treat, both food and culture.

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I cook at home, i also bring some staples with me especially if travelling to more expensive countries, use Toogoodtogo app to get reduced food items, walk if i can instead of paying for transport.

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Most of my suggestions have already been written. One thing about trains. One time I was booking Eurostar and on the first day it was available, I got first class tickets for the price of economy. Don’t know if it was a glitch or what, but took advantage. Also, be wary of 3rd party international bookers. I booked ferry tickets in Bali through a 3rd party and they were not valid. I had to book new tickets. They did refund me, but I had an experience where they didn’t. Still fighting on my citi visa.

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I’ve seen that sort of train tickets - I think it is a limited number Low fare at release which are sold out quickly. So a bargain if one manage to secure them.

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I’m loving everyone’s suggestions so far - thanks to everyone who has popped on with their thoughts!

I think there’s a few tips here which would be handy for staying on budget in general - not just when travelling!

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We have started using gift cards a lot for our purchases.

Our favourite App is ‘everup’ - it sells E-gift cards for lots of different brands and gives a cashback discount on almost all of them( plus free game tokens with various games to play if you want). Many big brands are included, all with various cash-back offers. You save your cash-back on the App, then cash-in , or spend on another gift card whenever you want.

Examples are Tesco (4%) Sainsburys (3.5%) ASDA(3.5%) Airbnb(4.6%) John Lewis (4%) Cafe Nero (9.5%) Costa coffee (8.5%) Starbucks (10.5%)Deliveroo (4.5%) Ikea (4%) Pizza Hut (9%)..there are 100’s!

Basically, if you are intending to shop in any of the stores, before going buy a card and pay with that instead. - We always have £50 supermarket cards on our phones - if you spend £20, they drop to £30 for your next visit.

The discounts are not massive but every little helps!

Only UK based and here is my referral code if anyone is interested

RCOL1871343HIZUB

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If we are in a new city we try to do a walking tour. Good way to find out the city’s history, the interesting buildings and architecture and gives a feel for the city. We then expand on the parts we want to.
As others say, cook at home, free museums and art galleries. Research other places to find out how interesting we would find them. Eg. We spent a full day at the Seattle Glass museum last week. They had a guest artist working in their “hot room”. It was fascinating watching a work develop from scratch.
PS we weren’t pet sitting.

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I’m fortunate to not need to budget (did that in my early 20s), but I’ve seen on social media various content producers with travel content about saving money or doing free things. I see such posts randomly, but I bet if you searched specifically for such content, there’d be loads of it. Also, in the U.S., there’s a robust credit card rewards ecosystem (because the market is huge and competitive), so you could find plenty of such content, which I’m too lazy to participate in. I know some people who travel extensively that way.

Depending on where you work, some companies have perks, including discounts for travel, because they’ve signed up with platforms that offer that. Or sometimes, they use travel platforms that have negotiated rates for business travel and they also let employees use them for personal travel. Of course, employees would pay for such trips.

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@Jenny, curious question.
We are fortunate not to need to strictly budget on routine items. But we do monitor total expenses on a periodic basis across all accounts.
We find that cost of living varies dramatically depending on the housesit. Some countries are expensive (we completed two housesits in Switzerland earlier this year - almost made my eyes pop out to see the breathtaking cost of, well, everything). Housesits vary in length (bouncing around short-term sits costs much more - in travel & groceries - than a long-term sit).

For several years, we’ve used Banktivity to holistically manage our everyday finances (all bank accounts, investments, credit cards, stuff in one place). Disclaimer: this is rather nerdy and may not appeal to some people.

We also experiment. Several times we’ve used TooGoodToGo service, with mixed results. And when in North America, we’ve used digital version of Entertainment book. Since housesitting, we’ve changed credit cards and other services to provide travel-friendly perks … e.g. we now have credit cards that charge 0% fee on international purchases; free car rental insurance; more free airport lounge passes that we could conceivably use in a year.

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I use the TravelSpend app, it really helps me stay on track and it is excellent for looking back on to see where savings could have been made.

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I agree on Toogoodtogo , we have had a couple of waste of time and money experiences but we are also slowly getting to know the places who give amazing value and make a note of them in case we return to the area another time

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I use TGTG regularly, but have found that their formula - 1/3 cost of the value in the bag (at least in my country) and the fact that it is surplus from the shop is more about surprises than saving. If you get TGTG from a café, for instance, the cost would be 1/3 of the value - but as the price of for instance a sandwich is on the higher side in a café, it makes less sense than buying bread, butter and such in a store. In the ones I have bought from certain shops it has also been much on the unhealthy side, like buns and similar baked goods. Sure, I like it but not a meal, really - more on the side of unneccessary foods.

So value for money - yes and no.

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@Garfield, that mirrors our own experience. Receiving a stale sandwich for 1/3 retail price is often marginal (we’ve had some poor experiences). But had wonderful experiences with TGTG from couple of premium bakeries - great value for money, but also really interesting surprises of items that we’d typically not purchase. Underlying premise seems wholly commendable. That said, we’ve not used it many times so quite possibly not representative.

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I often say I am good for the local economy when I travel. I’m fairly frugal at home, so I enjoy splurging while visiting other areas. I’m sure this will change once I retire and spend more time travelling.

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@Colin @GotYourBack @Garfield
If you are in the U.K. and in the vicinity of a Toby Carvery - I recommend TGTG . Full roast carvery with all the trimmings £3.49 . Vegetarian option also available.

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