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Before I left the country, a friend asked me if I laid out a budget sheet for my backpacking trip. I said “No” for the obvious reasons that 1) I have none and 2) this was an impromptu trip. Since I’ll be travelling to a familiar place, I never paid much attention about the budget. I know that living in Siem Reap wouldn’t cost me an arm and I have a place to stay in Bangkok for free. I was confident I could get by.
However, my friend still reminded me the importance of preparing a budget plan before embarking on this journey. Spending a year in Italy with barely any travel funds made my friend miss those travel opportunities like taking some flights to dubai when there were promo fares. She had to scrimp whatever’s left of her living expenses in order to survive Italy’s lifestyle. She doesn’t want the same thing to happen to me.
Travelling on a tight budget can sometimes spoil one’s travels but if you know how to control where your money goes, then you have nothing to worry.
Having travelled to different parts of the Philippines, either with a group or on my own, allowed me to develop this habit of writing down my expenses on a small journal.
And being an Excel geek, it wasn’t difficult for me to transfer the list in my laptop and continue documenting my expenses. For those who are not used to this added task when travelling, this may seem a waste of time. However, for someone like me who’ll be travelling for an indefinite period of time, I have to develop this new hobby of updating my budget sheet file. Aside from using the list on my future blog posts, it will allow me to identify the biggest chunk where my money’s going. This will be helpful in case I need to cut costs on certain expenses.
Time flies so fast when you travel. I barely realized that it has been a month since I set foot in Bangkok. A month after, I found myself wandering the streets of Siem Reap, Cambodia. Mindful of my budget, I created this budget sheet that will allow me to keep track of my expenses.
Looking at the graph, I could see that 38% of my funds all went to food and I guess that should just be right 😆 since keeping fit and healthy is my top priority in order to continue travelling. Tracking where I spend my money will greatly aid me on what items I need to avoid in order to allocate funds on more important expenses. Any traveller can apply this too. You just need to know what your priorities are. If I would want to live in a posh hotel, then I would cut on my food expenses to add more budget on my house. I could cut costs on transportation expenses and resort to walking. Then I could also stop spending on miscellaneous items like souvenirs, toiletries, etc.
Once you go on a long-term backpacking adventure, always be mindful of where your cash goes especially when you don’t have a lot to burn. It’s also best not get side-tracked with the whole travel adventure but to keep your focus on making sure cash flows in regularly too 😉 Creating your own budget sheet will allow you to customize your travel expenses while keeping track of where your money goes.
Congrats Doi!!!
gusto ko gawin yang magtake ng notes to keep track of my expenses pero lagi ko nakakalimutan. wow turuan mo ko mag-excel!!ang bobo ko dyan, lagi akong duda sa computation ko, kaya i end up checking it thru a calculator..hahaha!!
Enjoy your trip!! regards to Ed! Ingat kayo dyan!
hahaha. madali lang naman excel 😉 sge, punta ka dito. turuan kita 😆 salamat darwin!
I have a small notebook where I write my expenses… I do it at the end of each day… nire-recall ko yung mga expenses or I check the receipts.. mahirap kc cya gawin while on the road eh… tyagaan lang talaga… hehehe! have fun Doi and keep safe!
yeah. tiyaga at discipline lang talaga katapat nang pagtrack nang expenses. hehehe. thanks mervz! kaw din, ingat and stay safe always 😉
pwede ba magpagawa din ng annual travel budget sa yo doi? hahaha…. sobbrang detalyado. di ko to nagagawa.
hehehe. sure dom! 😉
I do this too! 😀 I bring a pocket notebook and jot down the expenses as soon as I make them para sure na walang makalimutan then Excel agad pag-uwi hahaha
apir tayo Kat! 😀 mas madali talaga matrack mga expenses if you have transfer your list in Excel 😉
Keeping a budget pan is a very effective way para makita mo kung san naglalaho ang pera mo. Medyo nasasanay na din ako gumawa nyan paunti-unti. hehehe
great thing you are also starting this habit joan. this is very useful especially to budget travellers eh. hehehe
I always do this. I have a small diary to note down all the expenses. It always help me managing my money on the road.
hey avanish! having a way to track down your expenses really helps when managing our money. glad to know you are doing the same thing too 🙂
im stuck with paper and pen with budget whether travel or daily expenses. excel is too complicated for me. 🙂
glad to hear from you doi.
hey joy. so long as you are tracking it down, that’s all that matters. hehehe. hope to bump into you one of these days joy 🙂
may pie chart pa talaga!! :0
op kors! 😆 props lang yan christian. hahaha
[…] own meals. Since I only stayed in Siem Reap on my 2nd month, my expenses were not as high as the 1st and 3rd month. For this month, I spent a lot on miscellaneous stuff because of my Chiang Mai and […]
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