This will be the final ‘pre-trip’ travel budget roundup and I’m pretty darn excited about that!
Mostly because that means I’m done buying all my gear and getting my visa and so on and so forth. The bank account and my travel budget were none too please about having so much leaving and so little (re: none) coming in. Though I suppose this is a reality I should start getting used to!
I only really spend money in 4 categories this month: Food, Gas, Travel Expenses, and Other. I didn’t have a budget for any category because I didn’t know what I needed, what I was doing for the month, or really any idea what my expenses would be. Therefore I’ll only be reporting what I actually spent.
I spent $64.27 on food. This came from either buying groceries or going out to dinner with friends. Let’s be honest though…most of it was restaurants.
I spent $75.01 on gas. I did a fair bit of driving this month due to visits with friends near Boston, in Connecticut, and a day trip to NYC. Thankfully gas prices in Massachusetts are relatively low (and states are so close together in New England) - if I’d been doing that much driving in California that total would have been a whole heck of a lot bigger.
I spent $102.25 on random things. Here I renewed my membership to IMATA, bought a train ticket to visit my sister in Boston for the weekend, a picked up a few things from Walgreens I needed.
I spent $1117.70 on travel related items. Ouch. But unfortunately all necessary. This includes clothing, my day bag, my Chinese visa, my camera, and extra SD cards and camera/GoPro batteries. All of that stuff adds up so quickly!
Grand total: $1359.23
Next month’s budget updates will be back to expected budget vs. actual spend. It’ll be interesting to see how well I keep to my $30/day budget goal!
Wow you’re just starting! Have an amazing time on your travels. You will probably be okay with $30 in Southeast Asia if you exclude the major tours as well as emergencies. You will need a little more in China from my experience, as the trains traveling long distances can add up quickly. I will be writing about my travels in China shortly (I travelled there last year). It is an incredible country to travel through!
Thanks for the advice Michelle! I’ll be taking some trains but I think mostly buses in China as many of the places I plan on traveling to don’t have trains available. But I’ll definitely up my budget for China! I look forward to reading your posts - I need all the help and advice I can get!