Earning saving and raising travel money

Backpacker budgeting

The importance of budgeting

Luke Plastow writes...

This, my friends, is an article which will make you think twice about just typing in any random number of Euros to withdraw this summer. Every gapper talks about it but how many actually do it? Budgeting whether you like it or not is one of the most important areas of travel. Along my travels I have experienced the extremities of good budgeting and bad.

When I was 17 I went to Italy with my best friend at the time. Before I left my dad sat me down and went through all the costs. Even down to bog roll and razors. We set out the budget and due to its competence and large alcohol allowance; I even had money left over at the end to buy the final round of beers with. Easy I thought!

Budget - you know it makes sense!

The following year I went to Malia in Greece but being an 18 year old know-it-all, I didn’t budget. I drank as much as I could and began every day with a huge breakfast. I just went to the cash machine and kept typing the numbers until one morning with two days to go it wouldn’t give me cash. It kept beeping and throwing my card out. I checked the balance and it was five Euros overdrawn! My parents had also gone away, so there was no way of getting any money.

It is scary being stuck hundreds of miles from home with seven Euros in your pocket. The friend I went with was in a similar position. For the final three days we walked along the strip scrounging drinks from people we had met (which lost us friends) and drinking water from the tap (which caused us to be violently ill.) We went to the supermarket each day and bought only bread to try to fill us up as cheaply as possible.

When we got to the airport for the flight home, I wasn’t feeling good. Having not eaten in over 24 hours, and only bread for the 24 hours before that, I got off the bus and was sick. Behind a vending machine. I was being sick but nothing was coming as I hadn’t eaten. Needless to say we both ate three meals on the plane home after we explained our situation and the first thing I did when my dad picked me up was get a McDonalds takeaway.

The moral of this story is that bad budgeting before the trip can really mess up your time away. It doesn’t take long to set out a budget, and you certainly appreciate it in the long run when you're not stressing constantly about money. And yes I have taken my own advice. I have made a comprehensive budget for my upcoming inter-rail trip...

Further info

This article was one of the finalists in our inter-rail competition >>

Click here >> for our guide to inter-railing
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