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Money is an important commodity on the road. You need to save before you go, and you don’t want to squander the cash you have. A great way to save and to conserve your money is to use the cash budgeting system.

A question from Conrad

We had an email from a listener called Conrad, who wondered how we pay for our travel and accommodation and how we can afford to keep travelling for such an extended time.
We’ve talked a little about this before, but here was our quick response:

1. Six months before you leave, downsize. Sell as much of your stuff as you can.

2. Do you best to become debt free and cancel all regular payments.

3. Then save a little emergency fund.

4. We fund our travels by working. We’ve got ESOL English teaching qualifications and it’s easy to find teaching work in most countries. We also do a little travel writing — including the Indie Travel Podcast, of course.

5. Use a cash budget system to monitor your spending. (Both to help you save, and on the road.)

Cash Budgeting to save for travel

We started cash budgeting when we were poor students, and we’ve never looked back. Paying for everything in cash means you never pay more than you have with you, and that you’re more likely to think twice about a purchase that isn’t really neccesary. Plus it’s really easy.

1. Work out how much money you’ve got coming in from wages or salary. Write it down.

2. Work out how much you’re spending. Using categories like accommodation, groceries, transport, medical, and other can be really useful. Work out how much you spend on each category each month and write it down. Estimate if you’re not sure, especially for medical – work out how much you spend over a year and divide by 12.

3. Medical, transport and accommodation costs tend to be pretty stable, so subtract those amounts from your income.

4. What’s left is your flexible income. This needs to pay for your groceries, your savings and everything else you spend money on.

5. Decide how much you want to spend each week or each month. Set a realistic amount to spend on groceries, and a realistic amount for other purchases such as movies, coffee and clothes. Whatever is left over is savings.

6. Every week, withdraw your set amount from the bank. Use this cash to pay for everything – only use your cards once a week to get the money out of the bank. It might help to leave them at home!

7. Whenever there is extra money in your current account, transfer it to the debt or into a savings account that’s difficult to get money out of. And you’ll be saving in no time.

Cash Budgeting on the road

Cash budgeting is great for saving but is just as useful on the road. The premise is the same – if you can only spend what you have with you, you’ll spend less. Another advantage is that cash is accepted everywhere, unlike most debit and credit cards. Of course, you need to be sensible about it – don’t carry too much cash on you, and don’t carry it all in one place. Divide it up amongst money belt, luggage and wallet.

1. Set a budget for your trip, and work out how much this gives you per week. Check out episode 21 – a simple budget idea – to see how to do this.

2. If you have a lot of cash, pay for accommodation in cash on arrival. Get a receipt. If you don’t have cash on you, paying for accommodation by credit card is often a good way to minimise withdrawal costs, and to make sure you’re not carrying around a lot of cash. Make sure you adjust your budget to balance this out!

3. Once a week, get money from ATM. This is your spending money for the week.

4. If you’re carrying money for the whole trip, put the extra out of sight. This week’s in wallet, the rest in your moneybelt. And look after that moneybelt!

Looking for some Europe specific tips? I really like TSK’s great top 10.

Lonely Planet Competition

Our Lonely Planet prize draw has been made: congratulations to our winner Ben Stephens! Many thanks to everyone who participated and to Lonely Planet for supplying this prize.


Until August 20th you can get 30% off Lonely Planet guidebooks only through this link.

Also, Rock/Creek is having a great Summer footwear sale:

• Up to 40% off Teva Sandals (excluding the Olowahu)
• 15-30% off CHACO

Poll of the month:

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This article was written by Craig and Linda

Craig and Linda Martin have been living on the road since February 2006. Both born and raised in Auckland, New Zealand they are ... somewhere in the world! Craig and Linda host the Indie Travel Podcast - you can get in touch with them here.