Budget for Travel – Step by Step Guide to Set Your Full-Time Travel Budget

Budget for full-time travel with our essential guide on budgeting before departure! Learn to tackle debt, set a transportation budget, and adjust expenses on the go to meet yearly goals. Prioritize debt repayment to ensure financial freedom while traveling.

Stay within yearly financial targets by adapting spending habits during your journey. From finding affordable accommodations to dining smart, we’ll equip you with the strategies needed for budget-friendly travel.

House Sitting site we use: https://trustedhousesitters.pxf.io/c/3563316/1555723/18144

Cost of living site: https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/

👋JOIN OUR COMMUNITY: https://patreon.com/brianandcarrie?utm_medium=unknown&utm_source=join_link&utm_campaign=creatorshare_creator&utm_content=copyLink

🏥 Travel Insurance we use: https://safetywing.com/nomad-insurance/?referenceID=brianandcarrie&utm_source=brianandcarrie&utm_medium=Ambassador
💻 VPN we use: https://www.avantlink.com/click.php?tt=cl&merchant_id=d4bfb5df-f0c4-499b-bbb0-4734c69aa265&website_id=07ce4335-e112-4c0a-932c-33a2e51dc93e&url=https%3A%2F%2Fnordvpn.com

💳Best Travel Credit Cards: https://www.dailydrop.com/credit-cards?via=brian-and-carrie
💳Best Low Fee Credit Cards: https://www.dailydrop.com/ranked-credit-cards/95-annual-fee-cards?via=brian-and-carrie

► Stay Connected and FREEBIES
* WEBSITE https://www.brianandcarrietravels.com/
* FREE AIRBNB CHECKLIST ✅ https://brianandcarrie.myflodesk.com/airbnbchecklist
* FREE WEEKLY NEWSLETTER 📰 https://brianandcarrie.myflodesk.com/newsletter
* FREE PACKING LIST ✅ https://brianandcarrie.myflodesk.com/packinglist
* INSTAGRAM https://www.instagram.com/brian.andcarrie
* FACEBOOK https://www.facebook.com/brianandcarrie21/

How to Support our Channel
🍺Buy us a Beer (helps us to continue to produce videos): https://www.buymeacoffee.com/brianandcarrie1
💛PayPal: https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/brianandcarrieyt
😍 SUBSCRIBE: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCnGnMmPuHG31D2vyneTu45A

Some links below are affiliate links. By using them there is no additional cost to you. This helps us continue bringing you videos from around the world! If you do choose to use them – Thank you!!

👇🏻Our DON’T LEAVE HOME WITHOUT Travel Essentials:
https://www.brianandcarrietravels.com/shop

[Music] welcome to no borders with Brian and Carrie today’s episode is going to be about how to set your budget for full-time travel we get this question quite often and I get it because this was some area that we spent a lot of time having to really figure out what our budget was going to be when we hit the road there’s a lot of factors that go into this right um and and we we did a lot of research but we didn’t really know how much of an impact or how correct our research would be uh we started we started in Spain and great choice we love Spain alak still is one of our top and Sevilla um is still one of our our favorite big cities it was amazing so much to do so much to do beautiful city but uh we were very cautious going in those first three months we were really pinching our pennies well and I think that is the way that you should be right you don’t want to jump out the gate and be spending more than what you feel is comfortable doing and I think that that is a nervous area for a lot of people because if you’re not a really highly budgeted person it’s very easy sometimes to jump into old habits and get to the destination that you’re going to be and be like oh well no that place looks really great let’s go to dinner there or let’s go and see this and that and the other thing and all of those things add up so your budget is hugely important staying in that budget is hugely important so that you can continue continue doing what you were doing yeah yeah you know I just think back to those days and I think we didn’t eat out um really more than once or twice for the first two months we were on the road and you know we we started right away doing this YouTube channel and we got some negative comments about you guys need to in food into your videos well we would but we’re too uh cautious of not spending money we need to stay on budget and that’s what we were doing and we were doing that I don’t think we have any regrets of doing that because what that showed us is is first off that we could do it if we needed to yeah on hindsight I don’t know if we would have necessarily picked Spain as our first option because it was expensive uh you know but it’s what we knew at the time it was a place that we wanted to go to um and so we did it and I’m glad that we did things the way that we did as far as being incredibly budgeted uh we really worked hard to stay on budget and we I mean and we had a pretty low budget at that time we had a pretty low budget and I understand what you’re saying about starting in Spain I on the other hand am kind of glad we started in Spain so we could see and when we say expensive we’re not saying you know expensive we’re saying more expensive than than our budget would allow now we we stayed on budget but it was difficult MH so and I think going from Spain and then we went to Romania it made that adjustment a lot easier like oh wait this is a lot less expensive than Spain um we can stay on budget and uh maybe enjoy life a little more yeah I think we saw that benefit of choosing to balance throughout the year destinations that some that are a little bit more costly and then some that are considerably less and so your yearly budget when you’re setting like what you want to spend monthly but then you’re also going to have yearly um your your monthly budget is going to kind of vary a little bit the the whole main point you want to get to is you want that yearly budget to be meeting where you’re at right you want to stay under that yearly uh that yearly ceiling so the first thing you want to do is you want to calculate your fixed expenses all your expenses that come up monthly that you have to pay that’s your phone your insurance all of those fixed expenses now one key element to this is you want to be debt free you desperately want to be can yeah debt free because otherwise that’s a fixed expense that you’re going to have to pay if you can get rid of it fixed expense do it right and and that’s a that is such a key element to being able to maintain a really good budget is that when you carry any of those expenses with you you monthly on the road that takes away from what you have to spend on all of those other things like your accommodations and stuff so making sure that you know any loans that you have are paid off making sure you know for us the only fixed expense we really have is our insurance uh you know health insurance is a must and so that is a for sure we’re going to be paying that but you know our cell phone we kind of there’s been months we haven’t had a cell phone plan there’s been months that we do and now I have the eim so I pretty much do but it’s $13 a month is what I’ve been paying which I haven’t had a plan for two months this is my second month with nothing at all I just use Wi-Fi um if we need to do anything uh important um besides talk to my kids and family uh we use car’s phone right and and so those are the things where you can kind of change them like our Netflix that we have and stuff but um so keep those at the old like absolute minimum that you Poss possibly can and you are going to very much appreciate that going forward especially in the beginning because you can always add Netflix or Hulu or or whatever else you want as you go down the road when you know exactly how much you’re going to spend in the beginning cut it tight now that you’ve researched the areas you want to go and that’s great you figured out what sounds really good now you got to dig deep and figure out what it’s going to cost you to be in those areas now there’s a website that we specific specifically use I’m going to link that down below so you can check it out it is a great resource uh it’s going to break down for you all of those things that you want to find out how much is the average accommodation how much is uh the average food cost going to be these I have found them to be very very much on how much for pint of beer yes how much beer wine uh any of those kinds of things you’re going to be doing Transportation what the average price of that we would dig very deep I didn’t necessarily go with those for accommodation because those for a is more a rental longterm rental so when we were looking at a place to go or when we were kind of figuring out what our budget was going to be we researched the actual area so say Spain and I would look at Airbnb in Valencia and see what we would be able to get for certain ranges you know and so any of those places say for your first year that you’re looking at figure out like what each month you’d be spending for accommodations Transportation entertainment entertainment food you know it’s it’s once you’ve you figure out what your fixed monthly expenses are this will help you figure out what your daily expenses will be obviously you get your daily expenses you add them up you add it to your monthly expenses and there you go you’ve got a budget U but you know it can differ from country to Country now when we started to kind of give you a good example you know we both just we had to talk through what we wanted our budget to look like each month what we were both comfortable spending each month we kind of came in we first started with like 900 that was way too low and then I think we kind of landed on 1100 now since then we have adjusted things a little bit because um we realized that we wanted to spend a little bit more it was worth our sanity to spend a little bit more money on accommodations uh and so we’ve increased it a little bit not by much right now now CU you’re going to ask I know you are that’s $1,100 a month each right so $2200 because everybody oh my gosh $100 I can do that $1,100 each per month yeah so you want to kind of get that full picture of what you are going to be spending accommodations groceries eating out drinking out entertainment you know and this is then also going to be including all of those other costs that you have that are those ones that you carry with you uh so for us the insurance and then if you have any other expenses that you’re paying for fixed expenses exactly now there could be other expenses as well you take your you take your uh your food and your daily expenses and you add them towards your monthly expenses but what if you need a new pair of shoes what if you want to buy um a gift for a family and friend member back home um those things um you have to have um some resources for so you can’t spend all your money on your accommodations you got to leave a little bit left over for emergencies or or anything else that might happen yeah so kind of set up a kind of separate fund which can be your not necessarily would necessarily call it emergency fund because we kind of have that as a separate fund but this is kind of your miscellaneous expense fund is what we call it um all those unexpected that come up that you are going to be faced you know we do go home at Christmas so I have my Christmas budget you know we need to buy new clothes we need to replace things all of that so you do need to want to make sure that you have a fund for that because not having a fund set up for that and just relying on your monthly budget is going to make it so it’s not going to work well it’s going to cause you to um perhaps overspend because you know you’ve got this money over here for gifts and fun stuff not even really fun stuff what if you you know haircuts would be a perfect one if you need to get a haircut I get a haircut once a month now they’re a lot cheaper um anywhere else in the world besides what I was getting back home but you need to get a haircut eventually so save money that you don’t otherwise put in those other expenses now like we mentioned you also need an emergency fund now this emergency fund is going to cover you for all those emergencies and it doesn’t have to necessarily be something massive and big um it can just be those once again kind of unexpected bigger things that come up but you know I mean we we know that there and we talked about before even leaving there was always going to be that possibility of what if something happened back home and a family member was hurt or ill and we needed to get back quickly uh those flights home are not going to be inexpensive they’re last minute uh you’re taking whatever is available and you’re going you want to make sure you have the money available and set aside for that so this in itself the emergency fund is not necessarily going to be in your yearly budget whatsoever it is a separate fund completely set aside right I uh I bought contact lenses recently um through that fund so just things like that that come up that you don’t normally count on having to do but you may have to do on the road yeah and you had a computer that died computer that’s probably a better example a really good example that was a gut shot that was a gut shot big expense but I did survive you that you had that I had that emergency fund yeah so make sure that you think through all those scenarios that could take place and we all hate to think through those scenarios but when you are away and you’re on a budget you want to make sure that you have that money set aside uh it’s not even also just set aside for that the last thing is is like you don’t want to be hit with emergency that then throws you so off-kilter that you don’t get to travel anymore because now you’ve dug deep into your other money and you know I think that some of you are probably going to ask like how much do you put away for emergency fund that is going to be so specific to yourself first off what What emergencies do you foresee happening how far away are you going to be for us it really was putting enough away for a flight home maybe a couple months living expenses things like that you just want to have you know enough set aside that’s going to keep you on your feet for that period of time my emergency fund was my laptop now I need a laptop that will edit videos and and do some stuff that my um my old laptop just simply couldn’t do so I did have to spend I think I spent I’ll just tell you I spent $2,100 on my laptop and it works beautifully but that was my emergency fund that was his and and thankfully he’s replenished it another emergency we’re good to go but or he’s good to go I’m good to go the other area that we have a separate budget for each year is our travel expenses now this is going to be covering all of our flights it’s going to be covering any of those bigger travel like we don’t have in there Hopper flights a lot of the time though sometimes will’ll just go into our monthly budget because they can be around 5050 6 but our main international flights that we do yearly we have a complete separate budget for that so that we kind of know we’re staying in range as far as that that would be hard to work into your monthly budget so just set up a yearly budget and I guess for a good example what we have set aside is we we usually stay try to stay each of us in $2500 for our main international flights we are now going to be bumping that up if necessary to about 3,000 because we have changed to where we’re going to be going home three times a year yeah we’re going to be going home more often so yeah so to fit that into a monthly budget there’ll be a lot of division and stuff like that involved um so those costs we do include in our year end videos but not in our monthly cost of living videos so just be aware of that so so yeah so there’s but what we have like four different accounts now right that we kind of we set up I guess I guess the word our monthly budget we kind of have our emergency budget and then we’ve got our flight so I guess three that we have you know but it’s I tend to exaggerate yeah it’s a lot easier to keep track and to stay on track when you have them budgeted as far as we have found um because emergencies you can account count on and the thing is is that you might not use it that year so that just sits there and the flights it’s very easy for me when I’m sitting and I can look at what our yearly budget is for our flights I now know what we’ve already spent cuz I keep track of all of that so I know what we have left I know what is still available for the year and it’s like so sometimes we will adjust our yearly plan based on what is left in that account as well you know cuz a good example of that would be flying to Southeast Asia from where we live southeast Asia is on average $1,000 um about $1,200 roundtrip is kind of your average range now if I only have $500 left in our budget we’re not going to sell these guess we’re going we’re going to Mexico we’re going to me going to Mexico yeah so you can kind of make those adjustments to your plan based on what is left in that budget as well so now that you have those three budgeted budgets you can now kind of figure out what your yearly and then monthly budget is going to be and what you have to work with now assessing your income sources do you have rental property are you doing uh freelance work a side gig anything that you might be doing to bring in a little extra money to supplement your travels would be very helpful it’d be really helpful and you know not only is it helpful toward your budget it might be helpful towards kind of filling some of that time um because traveling fulltime it’s fun but you also can get have days that are down days a lot of down days honestly uh to where you might want something else to do yeah so yeah we covered this a little bit in a different video um you know you’re going to find that um you’re not partying and vacation every day when you’re doing this you’re going to have something that you want to uh put your mind to work right and I think that for us that is when we were talking about how our budget was uh so strict and in the very beginning yes if we didn’t take on doing YouTube which now help supplement some of our expenses uh we wouldn’t have been able to increase our our costs that we would spend on accommodations and so you know just even taking on some little side thing if maybe you just want to you don’t want to be on YouTube that you want to blog or something of that sort you know it just brings in a little bit of money to where you know all that money that you don’t have to pull out of your savings that can be there for later and can continue to compound and you’re not touching it is a great thing to do if you can bridge the gap from whatever your ages now to wherever you need to be to pull that 401k um that’s that’s the that’s the goal and now that you’ve kind of look at you know if you are going to be bringing in anything safe from any side job uh and then what your expens are going to be and kind of figuring out where you stand at this point What’s missing are you exceeding too much as far as your monthly costs um and now is the time that you want to kind of make those adjustments yeah you know I could also add to this that you know you you might have a savings that you can draw from um to to get you to that that Gap um as well so it doesn’t have to be a side gig it could also be your savings uh but yeah figure all that out figure out how much you’re going to spend and there you have it and if you’re finding that your monthly amount that you’re looking at spending is not really matching up with the amount of money that either you are taking out a savings to cover those costs or maybe making money doing a side gig uh then this is the time that you need to now start adjusting that budget make those adjustments to either location accommodations um you know things that you’re going to be going out and doing maybe not doing those excursions not eating out so much yeah that that brings is back to the beginning when we’re talking about Spain you know you think in hindsight maybe Spain wasn’t the best choice um I think it was simply because we had set that budget Spain budget we’d kind of gotten into the that Groove for those three months and then we go some place like Romania well you know we had already set the budget and now that same budget is working because we’re in a less expensive country right that is very true and we en and then enjoyed that time in those areas uh a lot more too because we did have that little bit of extra money to spend yeah like we actually went out for food we got to have some dinners we got to experience uh the the Romanian Cuisine I had Mitch for the first time the little uh saus sausages I’m not sure what kind of meat that is but uh it was it was nice it was salty which I like well we also had more money to go out and have drinks out too and enjoy our beer because they had a good craft beer scene there yeah that was less expensive we also went to a movie went and saw Top Gun saw Top Gun which I can’t really add as like an extra way expense because I think then it cost each like $6 with popcorn not that but that comes out of our emergency fund we had to do that we had to go see top gun Maverick yeah that was a great movie by the way if you haven’t seen it check it out but that was something that uh you know we might not have done in Spain because we were so nervous and so budgeted that um and nervous is the perfect word for it too I mean we were we were scared n at the time yeah we were yeah I wasn’t I wasn’t I wasn’t afraid of the Spanish people they’re they’re they’re great it was that expense and um what what are we doing how are we going to do it we were confident cautiously confident I could say yeah and I would say that kind of the whole point of this here and what we’re talking about is that all of these areas are super adjustable you know short of your um set monthly expenses that you already have for like us with our insurance right all the other areas for us are very flexible and adjustable so one of the things that we have always discussed is is that if we are in a situation so for instance here’s a good example last year we spent bit more money than we necessarily we knew we were going to spend it it wasn’t like it came by any surprise but we spent more than we wanted to spend this year so this year we decided that we are going to travel a little bit to less expensive areas um save some money and not spend as much and kind of make up that difference of what we spent last year right you’re talking about 2023 correct yes so in 2023 well we went to Southeast Asia for a good almost uh five and a half months um saved our money um really uh got budgeted it’s easy to do in Southeast Asia to get budgeted um and then we went to uh Germany and Italy and and did the expensive stuff yeah and we ended up spending well beyond um what we normally spend in a month because we traveled very fast fast through Central Europe and uh and we were in Italy for 2 and a half months and Right In the Heat of the summer not just heat of the summer but tourist season was more expensive uh and for those people that ask like well why did you go there and he is summer you know what we have to travel somewhere we travel full-time so we are going to be somewhere in the summer months so uh you know but I think that the kind of the whole moral of this is is that you can adjust your budget so even when we feel like we have maybe expended a bit too much um one year or even a couple months in a row we can adjust and go like okay well we can eat in a lot more and not go out for as many beers and no we’re not going to do that extra entertainment thing or Excursion or whatever that is that we’re going to go do um see you can R rain it in I guess yeah you can rain it in and yes I can rain in my beers I don’t have to go for a beer it’s hard I can do it if I need to car’s point is you can find ways to cut Corners just like you can back home mhm okay so now you’re out there you’re traveling the world you’re having a great time it’s everything you dreamed of don’t forget to monitor that budget keep looking at it keep adding it up it can sneak up on you it really can can yeah you know I use an app it’s called travel spend I use their free version they do do have a paid version um and what I do is I just keep track of and this may sound incredibly tedious to a lot of people but I keep track of every penny we spend uh if we go out and we have a beer it gets entered if we go to the grocery store it gets entered uh obviously any of our accommodations all of our other expenses are in there all the miscellaneous and you can label them in those categories so at the end of the month I then can transfer it all over I have an Excel spreadsheet and the reason that we kind of do this first off I don’t want to say we first of all does sound incredibly tedious and it’s something that I personally would never do that’s why I have K you did it in the very I did it in the beginning it was incredibly T it lasted a few months and Carrie said you know what Brian I love you so much that why don’t you just let me do it for you and I said Thank you Carrie that’ be wonderful he actually just stopped doing it so now I just keep track of his expensive actually that’s how it happened I got I can’t do this anymore but I have learned that by doing this at least one of the two if you’re if you’re flying solo you got to do it yourself but I do think it is important to stay on top of your expenses because things sound like fun let’s go kayaking uh let’s let’s go uh snorkeling let’s go do these things even just the simple things let’s go out to dinner again tonight let’s start again you know tomorrow let’s have another beer down by the beach yeah it’s very easy to not realize how much they’ve added up until you really go through and look at it all and um our budget will keep track of the total so when I go on to this app I see what the actual total expenses are for that month now to this point right so we kind of I kind of will generally know like okay we are reaching that point you know of okay we’re almost to the end here uh so let’s not go do that or or whatever and ring it in a little bit but I think being aware is going to help you a lot more in the long run um and so what I do is back to that I take all the expenses at the end of that month and I put them into a spreadsheet and I then have all of those months that we’ve traveled at the end of the year and it just keeps tallying it up and so I know exactly what we are on track for for the year and for the month at this point and I just think that that knowledge is going to keep you traveling if you don’t pay attention to that you are very likely to have to end your travel soon because you ran out of money you and I’m just going to say you don’t have to do it the way Carrie does it with the spreadsheets and she’s got it’s I love spreadsh She’s she gets into it that’s cool that’s great for her if it was just me I’d have a pen and a tablet not not not a tablet but a piece of paper folder and i’ i’ I’d write my stuff down um that’s better for me it might be better for you as well I think we’re all kind of the same demographic here I think pen to paper sometimes is a lot easier for for most of us Carrie I a spreadsheet there are a few things that you want to kind of just pay attention to in your travels and these are going to affect you more yearly and that is higher costs if you’re going to be traveling say during like we just mentioned the heat of the summer costs are going to be higher tourist Seasons those things are just going to you do have to be somewhere and it’s hard to avoid them at all costs because no matter where you travel to it’s going to be high season somewhere it’s going to be high season somewhere we do try and go home for a a stretch in the summertime to where we’re either house sitting or staying with family uh but we got to leave right and we got to be somewhere yeah and that’s somewhere is going to cost money right and just so kind of pay attention to that as well and like we mentioned we do go home and you know we do love being home in the summer but part of that can be strategically planned because the time that we’re not having to say be in Europe in the middle of the Summer where things are extremely expensive but we can be at home and we can be doing house sitting which would be another thing I would point out if you are looking to save money on accommodation check out house sitting you can do this worldwide um you’re not paying for your accommodations which is your most expensive thing that you’re going to be covering each month when you are traveling yeah if you just did that one month out of the entire year it could put you back on course we’ll leave that link below too right so you do want to just kind of pay attention to your full yearly budget at this point make sure that you are taking to account if you’ve looked looked and said okay well here’s where we’re going to go throughout this time make sure when you’re checking all those expenses uh for the months you’re going to be traveling that it’s actually for the month you’re going to be traveling because you’re going to see variation in the cost especially in accommodation yeah okay now we’re not done yet there’s one more expense that you need to be aware of and that’s just your yearly um clothing or any expense that you might have to upgrade your bag or your luggage those things they don’t necessarily come out of a an emergency fund but they have to come from someplace so just keep in account that you might need a new shorts a new shirt new shoes is a big one um this shirt I’ve had this shirt on now for six days I think because it’s the only shirt he washes it I have left I was it yeah sometimes I wash it sometimes I don’t but the fact of the matter is is I’m going to need new clothes when I get home and I have to purchase those clothes with money from someplace so I need to count that into my budget right and there’s other things that you want to think about too and that that are going to come up what if you have to renew your passport that comes with a fee you know what budget is that going to come out of um and then also some of these places that you travel to have Visa costs and and stuff so there’s a lot of kind of those costs that often we don’t think about we just look at our monthly costs or our our travel cost travel expenses but there’s also that kind of area and this can kind of be part of that miscellaneous um fund that you have but think through and one way to kind of make sure that you’re staying on track with a lot of these things is we suggested this in a recent video track all of your expenses right now when you were at home you know even for a couple months and if you don’t want to track it down to the penny don’t do that use a pen and paper but do all those unexpected things that came up that you were like oh crap I have to do that and write those things down or track them however you would like to because you don’t think about a lot of them you know those little things those little fees that you have to pay on things that you may still have to pay right you may not think about so make sure that you just are going in with I guess the clearest picture possible guess you said it earlier perfectly you know just be aware be aware of what may come down the road you know if your bag has a rip in it you might have to replace that bag um if your socks have holes in them you might have to buy new socks just little things like that that you’re not that you’re not always thinking of down the road right and I think the main goal for all of us is to make sure that we get our budgets so on track and so set up that we can continue to do what we are doing and not be thrown off of that track and so the more prep and planning that you can do ahead of time is going to be what keeps you going and traveling well we hope that you found this helpful as you are trying to figure out how to plan your full-time Adventure uh of traveling now if you would like to find us on other social networks you can find us on Facebook Instagram and on YouTube of course and that is Brian and Cary and then you can also find us on our website at Brian and Cary travels.com and we have some really great free resources on there as well so be sure to check those out and we will catch you next time cheers [Music]