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Budgeting Your TripComplete Listing of Ed and Julie's Travel Tips and Planning Tools
How should we know!? Our answer usually is more politely phrased, but that's the gist. We may not be able to give you the answer, but we'll tell you our foolproof secrets so you can get your own answer. Only you know your tastes and your pocketbook. Ground expenses in Europe can run little more than $25/day, or $2,500/day ... or more. For us, hotels typically run, in Europe, between $75 and $100 per person per day. Meal costs run $25 to $75 per day per person. We've spent much more, and much less, in both categories though.
The first application Ed ever used on a computer was a spreadsheet ... and it's still the most useful one around. Build a cost spreadsheet like the following, whether on the computer or by hand. (If you consider yourself numbers-handicapped, hold on ... there's help coming. We'll show you in just a minute where you can find one to use ... on the 'net.) The example represents costs for one person; double for two, of course. If you have younger children with you you'll want to do a separate sheet for them as many of their costs will likely differ from yours. You will have to supply your own numbers, though. Those below and on the extended spreadsheet are just numbers ... they're not ours; they're not 'representative'; they're not 'typical' ... they're just numbers to give you an idea of how the process works.
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With the cooperation of blox.com we've prepared an extended example of the worksheet. It's a full-blown spreadsheet. You can adjust it to match your needs. Add or subtract days. Add or subtract expense categories. Fill in your own cost estimates and see the results. (You must be browsing with version 4 or higher of Explorer or Netscape.)
More important than the precision of your cost estimates is the accuracy with which you identify categories and numbers of occurrences. The better you identify the number of expenses the better the result will be. Given, of course, that your cost estimates are at least in a reasonable range.
We meet 'cash' needs mainly with US dollar travelers' checks converted in-country, or, increasingly, from ATMs. More often than not we charge lunch, though we find spots that only take cash for our lunches more often than at dinner. Many hotels in smaller towns less-frequented by tourists do not take credit cards, or only one or two.
We don't make specific plans for specific days beforehand; however we do have, usually, a pretty good idea of the number of days we'll go on an out-of-area day-trip, how many at museums, how many 'splurge' dinners, etc. That way you get a bit closer to exactness in estimating bus trips, admissions and the like. The cash and credit card totals for each day help us avoid changing too much money at one time. We estimate our day-to-day needs and reduce the amount of cash we have around.
For example, the spreadsheet will work equally well for US vacations as well as European. If it's a driving trip rather than by air, delete the air category and add categories for enroute fuel, tolls, meals and lodging. In Switzerland the cost of Swiss Passes would replace most or all bus and taxi fares. 'Admission' costs in that case might be defined to cover the cost of mountaintop excursions not covered by the Swiss Pass. In Germany we'd need a car rental category, as well as one for fuel. With a car in Italy or France we'd also have to budget highway tolls. If you go to the theater or opera you'd want a category for that.
Advice on food cost is difficult, whether for a specific city, or Europe or the US in general. So much depends on personal appetite and taste as well as personal interest in food. We spend, relatively, more on food in Rome because we love true Italian cooking, and Roman food preparation in particular. Food, in Italy, is a major part of the trip for us. And we often eat two relatively large meals each day. Whatever you spend on food (outside your hometown) in the US is likely to approximate your European costs. In general, though, food is a bit more expensive in Europe. Especially so in large cities, a bit less so in smaller locales ... just as in the US. Food is yet higher in Switzerland than elsewhere because of agricultural subsidies that are high even by European standards.
We don't pay much attention anymore to the spreadsheet while we're on the trip. We're confident actual expenses will turn out close to plan. After so many trips to Europe we should be.
Keep track of how your spending is going. If you're under budget, great! Perhaps you can afford an extra splurge dinner. Running over budget? If you can afford it, no problem. If you'd like to stay to your budget, adjust your spending. Perhaps reduce food spending by eating fewer courses, skipping dessert, having pasta for a main dish instead of meat, eating a small meal at dinnertime or having more picnics. Fewer splurges? Cut out an expensive day-trip? Reduce between-meal snacks and alcoholic refreshments? We've always found ways to offset higher costs in one fashion or another.
Web-based spreadsheet for your own travel budget estimates Other
Financial Information to Help Plan Your Trip to Europe Complete
Index of Ed and Julie's Our Favorites Trip Tips and Tools Copyright © 2000-2001 E.J.
Gehrlein Traveling
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ne of the more frequent
questions we're asked is, "How much will our trip cost?"
ou'll enjoy your
vacation more if you don't spend more than you can afford. Here's how we do it.
eep in mind you don't need exact,
precise estimates for this to be reasonably accurate. Presuming you include all likely
costs and put in reasonable figures, the result can turn out surprisingly accurate.
he hotel price is
easy to pin down; that's about the first thing people decide. Again, don't worry about
being precise. You can begin working with a spreadsheet when you start thinking about your
trip. As you proceed in your planning you can plug in numbers that are more and more
precise. And, in fact, starting to budget before you set your trip plans in concrete may
help determine how long you can stay and how much you'll pay for the hotel.
ote that
we've two columns at the right, for 'cash' and 'credit'. We find it helpful to identify
how much of our expenses will require cash.
eturn, briefly, to an
earlier subject, the number of categories. This is quite important in building a useful
budget. Add and subtract categories to the sample as your trip and personal habits
dictate.
ood and admission
costs are probably the most difficult to estimate. There aren't always a lot of sources
for admission costs. We don't worry too much about this category as it's usually not a
budget buster. Something between $5 and $10 is probably close enough per admission. The
major source of error is in the number of admissions; make sure you estimate that
as well as you can. The same holds true for other expenses, especially meals.
ow to economize? You
say you've run the budget and the trip will run more than you can afford?
ill this budgeting
work? It does for us. We're rarely off by more than, say, 5% actual total vs. plan.
Normally we're off a bit on every item, sometimes by more than a little, but we find
pluses offset minuses. When we're off more than 5% it's because we made a conscious
decision to make an expensive purchase or cancelled an excursion because of weather.
ay attention to your
plan, though, as you holiday. Your estimates are likely to be less accurate than ours,
unless you have a lot of travel and budgeting experience under your belt. Less accurate
for a couple of reasons: 1) less knowledge of likely, actual costs; 2) less experience in
estimating how much you actually spend vs. how little you thought you could get by
with. 