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Saving money for your travels

Saving is easy once you put your mind to it. The only thing is that you need to think about it in the right way.

It is very easy in the last six months before you head off to buy two CDs that you won’t listen to once you are back, a pair of jeans (that you don’t really need), go to the cinema once and have two McDonalds meals. Easy, right? Total cost: £75. Now, check out that list again. Would you swap it all for (the same price):

- A month staying in a beach hut on one of the most amazing beaches in the world?
- Doing the world’s biggest bungee jump - twice!
- A full three month rail pass on the most scenic railway in the world?

You see, it’s those little vices and compulsive buys (smoking @ £20/week, beers @ £10/week, crisps and chocolate @ £3/week, clothes @ £10/week) that you need to get to grips with. Give up smoking and within six months you’ve saved enough for a return flight to South Africa!! Stop buying CD’s and clothes you don’t need and within six months you’ll have saved enough for all your travel kit!

Let’s take it to extremes though... Meet a young lady who, for the purposes of this article, we’re going to call Holly Handbags. Holly is not a particularly privileged girl; well bred of course, but no trust funds and Daddy hasn’t bought her a Porsche even once. She’s worked for what she’s got, but what she’s got is mainly handbags. And shoes. Lots of shoes.

To be precise she owns 73 pairs of shoes and approximately 100 handbags. When pressed she averaged the cost at £60 per pair of shoes and £50 per handbag. We did the sums. Then we did them again to make sure. Look away now if you’re currently scrabbling around to find the cash for your gap year, or if you’re generally of a nervous disposition. Yup, the shoes and handbags came to a grand total of £9380!

We’re not here to criticise; each to their own and all that, but we did get to wondering where she could have gone and what she could have done if she’d used supermarket carrier bags instead of designer leather goods. Well here goes:

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£9380 buys you:

ITEM	DESCRIPTION	MORE INFO	COST
One round-the-world ticket	UK -> Nairobi, overland to Jo'burg -> Cape Town -> Sydney -> Christchurch -> Auckland -> LA -> NY -> UK leaving on 20/4/05	Click here >>	£1030
Six months worldwide insurance cover	Recommended cover, additional adventure sports package required	Click here >>	£155.33
Food budget	£5 a day for 120 days		£600
Accommodation budget	£8 a day for 120 days		£960
transport budget	£5 a day for 120 days		£600
A 61-day overland tour from Nairobi to Jo’burg	Departs Nairobi 26/04/05, arrives Jo’burg 25/6/05	Click here >>	£660 + £343 kitty
Kruger National Park	Two days and one night, with fancy bungalow accommodation	Click here >>	£54
World’s biggest bungy	217m from the Bloukrans Bridge	Click here >>	£15
Shoes!	Nice designer ones from Cape Town, not too extravagant though...		£35-60
Tour of Sydney Harbour	Opera House, Harbour Bridge, ferry		£9
Sydney Harbour Bridge Climb	Views of the harbour like nowhere else	Click here >>	£69
Parabungy	Bungy jump from a parachute 150m up in Cairns	Click here >>	£80
3.5 day Red Centre tour	Tour of Rainbow Valley, King’s Canyon, Uluru and Kata Tjuta		£149
An ‘Awesome Foursome’ combo	New Zealand - includes high-wire bungy, rafting, jet boating and helicopter ride	Click here >>	£172
Ski pass	8 of 10 days in Queenstown, NZ		£170
Vertigo Climb	Climb Auckland’s Sky Tower	Click here >>	£55
Tour some of America’s national parks	Ten-day tour, including the Mojave Desert, Zion NP, Bryce Canyon NP, Monument Valley, the Grand Canyon and loads more	Click here >>	£624
Shoes!	A pair of Jimmy Choo Satin & Tulle slingbacks from Saks, 5th Avenue, NYC		£302
Total	Six amazing months		£6102.83
Spare Cash	For kit, adventure sports insurance, partying, luxuries, shoes, emergencies, impulses, handbags and burning to keep warm		£3277.17

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So maybe this is an extreme (and fairly rough) example, but the point is that saving becomes a lot easier if you equate each unnecessary purchase with something for your gap year. Tempted by random spending impulses when you know full well there are targets to be met and pennies to be saved? try using this handy little chart. Cut it out if you like, keep it with your cash and cards.

I'm about to buy...	Cost	So now I can't afford...
A can of coke	50p	A day pass to Chobe NP, Botswana*
Entrance to a club	£7	A week in a Vietnamese beach bungalow
A takeaway	£9	Three hours of whale watching
A CD	£15	The world’s highest bungy
A night down your local	£25	A night down Khao San Road you'll smile about when you’re 90 and your bus fare to the islands
A new top	£30	Three-day lift pass in Queenstown, NZ
A pair of jeans	£50	A day rafting the Zambezi
A Playstation	£100	A tandem skydive in Australia or 12 months travel in Fiji

*Chobe has some of the densest populations of some of the worlds coolest animals if you're interested

You see? It really does make it much easier when you think of it like that. Do I want 330ml of carbonated beverage, or do I want to spend a day watching lions, antelope and huge herds of elephant? Where would I rather spend my beer money? Down the local with the miserable old men or in Crazy trong's Beach Bar, surrounded by bikini-clad women/bronzed beach gods (delete as applicable)?

The choice is simple...