Setting a Travel Budget

After seemingly endless months of stashing away money and attempting to top up my savings only to see it squandered at the pub, I’ve finally reached my savings goal! Even better, I’ve somehow managed to beat it.

My goal was to have $13,000 saved by the end of the year and it looks like I’ve beat that by a bit. In my mind, for better or worse, that means that Ive got a bit of money to burn. All of a sudden, buying annoying travel insurance and stocking up on dodgy malaria pills isn’t as annoying as it would have been had I not reached my goal. It looks like I’ll be able to make those irritating purchased without having to drop below my minimum savings.

I love the feeling of having ‘extra’ money. Who doesn’t! I know I could just whack more money into my savings account instead of buying little extras but it’s never as painful making these purchases when I’ve already reached my goals.

With that in mind, I’m thinking I might aim to set a spending budget for each month I’m away. If I can manage to come in under budget for the month then I’ll have money to splurge on something fun at the end of it and if I can’t stick to it then… well I don’t know but I’ll give myself a kick up the arse.

I anticipate that I’ll be able to earn $1200 a month at least so I might set that as my budget for the first month. I’ve already paid for my accommodation for the Ati-Atihan festival where room prices are steep for that weekend. I’ve also paid for an internal flight to get me there so I think $300 a week is a pretty generous backpacker budget for a month in The Philippines.

Sorry I’ve been so lazy with my posts lately. I’ve been working hard on all the things I want to get done before I leave on January 7th and it seems like there’s a lot more than I thought! Plus it’s pretty easy to get caught up in the laziness of the holiday season. Hope everyone had a nice Xmas!

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