Budget Planning For Our “Big Trip”
One of the issues we were working on during our recent trip away was ways to travel on a budget. It’s easy to go through a lot of money in a short space of time while travelling. Generally we’re prepared for this to be the case as we’re only doing it for a couple of weeks a year. However, our plan is to travel for 12-14 weeks next year and we just cannot sustain the level of spending we normal have when away from home.
The caravan is helping a little with this as we’ve been able to cook our own meals a little easier than we do with the camper trailer and we have the facilities if we pull off the side of the road at lunch time. We’ve been trying to pack our own picnic lunches most days to reduce costs.
However, after a week in Canberra, I’ve estimated our spending on living expenses to be in the vicinity of $500. That’s for a week. We did have a couple more Take Away meals than is in the plan for our big trip but not enough that I feel our projected budget of $350 a week is going to be met easily.
It’s got us seriously thinking about what our budget will be for the trip and how we’ll go with affording it.
My original estimates (about 5 years ago) were $1000 per week (so $14000 all up). With recent price increases in fuel, caravan park charges and food, we’ve revised this estimate. Here’s what I came up with:
LIVING EXPENSES
$350 per week (total for trip $5000)
This has to cover food, take away, spending money, money for washing machines etc.
Until we spent $500 on our week in Canberra, I was of the mindset that it should be plenty. Even allowing for the $5 each spending money we’re planning to have per week and another $25 for laundry costs, it’s more than double what we now spend on food.
While the caravan helps to keep costs down, there are a lot of limitations imposed such as not being able to buy in bulk or buy up when on special. Cooking facilities are limited as well and I’m still working on ideas for both meals and snacks with what facilities I do have.
Add onto that the temptation to purchase Take Away (where we live now, take away is too far away to be much of a temptation), especially on busy days and I can see food being our biggest hurdle as far as the budget goes.
We’re toying with the idea of adding an additional $50 per week into the budget, earmarked for Take Away purchases. If we can come up with an extra $700 between now and when we go, we may well do this.
SITE FEES
$50 per night (total of $5000 for trip)
These have increased quite a bit in the past couple of years. Many are now charging as much extra per child as they do for a cabin which is frustrating (and expensive).
We’re not real keen to attempt “side of the road” and other camping style stays although these would reduce our expenses quite dramatically.
We were given a 12 month membership to Top Tourist Parks (from the caravan company) and plan to take out a Big 4 membership before we go which will be well worth our while. These give us 10% discount on most stays which will help.
FUEL
$5000 total (works out to around $350 per week although we’ll work on a lump sum as some weeks we’ll do a lot more km’s than other weeks).
This is our biggest unknown with Fuel prices so erratic. Farmboy thinks this should get us 15,000 km’s which sounds like a lot but it’s around 8,000 straight up and back and it’s amazing how many km’s you do in general running around. Of course, it will all come back to what fuel prices are doing at the time we go.
It would seem that keeping our speed under 100km/hr gets us better fuel economy so we may just need to take things steady in order to meet this budget.
SIGHT-SEEING
Farmboy has been doing some extra work to pay for our sight-seeing costs. At this stage his goal is to earn an extra $5000 before we go. The budget will basically be whatever he ends up earning with the extra work he’s doing.
There are some reasonably expensive things we would like to do but then there will likely be week’s where we won’t spend anything so I hope things will balance out that way.
PROJECTED BUDGET
That brings our projected budget to around $20,000 which sounds like a lot doesn’t it? I’m only responsible for finding $15,000 of that budget. It’s not the kind of trip that’s easy to up and do on a whim. It’s been over 10 years now that we’ve been planning and saving which means I’ve only had to find less than $30 a week on average. It doesn’t sound quite so bad when you break it down like that does it?
Of course, the budget is really only a guestimate at this point in time. If we can keep within it, we won’t need to go into debt to do the trip. If it turns out we’ve underestimated, we may have to make some tough decisions about whether we are prepared to go into debt and work on paying back the extra spent as quickly as possible.
CARAVAN COST
At this point in time, we’re not counting our caravan cost in the cost of the trip. While it is a “cost” associated with the trip, we expect that we should be able to get most (if not all) of the investment in the caravan back if we were to sell it upon our return.
Having the caravan will save us an estimated $10,000 on the cost of the trip without one (assuming the alternative is to use cabins), not to mention the convenience of having everything on hand and not having to live out of suitcases the entire time.
It’s not our intention to sell it but we’re prepared to if we feel we can’t afford to keep it. Which gives me extra incentive to be frugal so that we can afford to keep it.
ARE WE RICH?
I don’t believe we are. I know there are plenty of people out there who struggle with the basics and couldn’t even contemplate a trip like this. Then again, there are also many who are on similar or larger incomes to ours who live week to week and would consider us as rich for being able to afford to do this.
This is where I particularly love frugality and all that goes with it. I love how much further our money has stretched since I’ve learnt the value of frugality and the fact that we are so much more empowered with the choices we’re making in regard to how we use our money.
Without frugal living, there is no way we would have been able to save the money to do this trip.
BUDGET TIPS
If anyone has any suggestions for keeping expenses down while we’re on the road, I’d love to hear them. Every little bit helps and we want maximum fun for minimum cost.
Similar Posts:
- Grocery Budget Blues
- Time for a New Budget
- Housekeeping On The Move
- BHAG : Final Wrap Up
- Final Menu Planning
12 comments:
Write a comment:
Thanks for taking the time to comment. I appreciate each and every one of them. If this is the first comment you have left, your comment will be held in moderation for approval so you may not see it immediately. Once your first comment is approved, all future comments should appear immediately. You can choose to receive any further comments by email. Simply tick Notify me of followup comments via e-mail.
Loading ...
It’s certainly not cheap with a family. I think you may be able to save on your park fees. We generally pay about $35/night, sometimes up to up to $42 but not often. Big4 are usually much more expensive, but they have more facilities. If you’re basically going to be in the van at night and then sightseeing all day, you could certainly consider a cheaper caravan park. As long as the amenities are clean and in good working order you don’t need much else. I don’t know if the OzParks chain have any parks where you’re going, but they are very cheap, basic but always clean and friendly.
There are a couple of little manual washing machines that can help save on the cost of washing. You’d probably still need to use the park machines as a family produces LOTS of washing (I spent about $10 on washing on our recent trip), but you could stretch it out a bit more. Here’s one type http://www.discountcamping.com.au/index/products/washing/acc There’s also a cheaper type that is basically one of those big white buckets with a plunger inserted through the lid. The first type will get stuff clean just by sitting in the back of the car or van while you’re travelling. Not sure if the second type would do that though. You could also start putting away your $1 & $2 coins now.
My parents have travelled all around Australia in their camper trailer. Mum washes her “smalls” in a sealed bucket, just throwing it all in, sealing and driving around with it all day then rinsing at night.
Mum and Dad also dried a lot of food to take with them (bear in mind they camped a lot and had to be pretty self sufficient in some very remote places). It’s amazing what you can dry (vegetables, fruit) and it is a very efficient method of storage. Dried veg cooks up beautifully so start drying those home grown veggies of yours!
I can get more tips from my Mum if you like. She’s pretty much an expert having done it several times now.
We use a lot of tinned stuff when travelling too. Don’t have to worry about finding somewhere to store it or it going off if not used, because we aren’t trying to cram it all into a tiny fridge. And also packet pasta/rice meals. That way we are only buying fresh meat and bread (mainly) and a few extra vege’s to supplement it.
Also we always make sure to have decks of cards, some sporting gear (balls, frisbee) and perhaps a kite for passing time in a park or beach without having to fork out money for amusements.
You’ve left out one pretty important thing - disaster money. As a veteran of many family interstate car trips it seemed that at least one in three involved some sort of disaster - be it a sibling getting injured and requiring hospital attention, to cars mysteriously breaking down a long way from anywhere to some family emergency cropping up that means that you need to be somewhere else very quickly.
Your sightseeing budget is pretty conservative. I’m not sure if you are considering hitting places like DreamWorld or SeaWorld - but you’ll blow through almost three hundred dollars getting the family through the gate at each. Although that includes rides, it doesn’t include everything else like exhorbitantly priced food and all that other stuff. You’ll be amazed at the ways that people have come up with to part you from your money in tourist destinations. You’ll probably want to do stuff like go for a boat ride out to the Great Barrier Reef (perhaps even a bit of a snorkel). All of that = $$$. Have you gotten out a lonley planet and worked out generally what you want to do at each place? At least that way you can draft a general budget and be able to assess how you are going.
Ten years ago I spent 4.5 months travelling around Australia in a much smaller car with only one person, paying a lot less for petrol, mostly staying at tent sites (at 1998 rates) and eating far too much 2 minute noodle. That cost $15,000 then. I know that you are way better with money than I am - but I was pretty darn tight on that trip.
Something further to consider - Canberra’s attractions are pretty much all “government subsidised” and “not for profit” - so I’m not sure how much you can take away from that in terms of projecting costs about stuff to do in places designed more around extracting dollars from tourists.
I was going to mention a couple of tips for keeping your laundry costs down, but they’ve been covered by Journeyer and Sharon. Also the canned/dried foods, and if you spot roadside stalls selling fresh produce straight from the farm these are usually reasonably priced, although I will warn you to check these carefully. We once bought a 3 kilo bag of oranges at one and tossed it in the car only to find a few kms further along that the bag also contained ants. Many, many ants which were now ALL OVER THE CAR AND KIDS.
Journeyer - I am hoping we get some nights accommodation cheaper but then places like the Gold Coast are more than the $50 ($66 at the moment for the place we’d like to stay at) so I’m just not sure how things will go on average. This trip, most places we stayed at were between $40 and $50. Plus there’ll be a few nights staying in yards of peoples homes which will help. I did notice Top Tourist parks seem to be a little cheaper than Big 4 with often just as good a facilities (if not better - the one in Mildura we stayed at was great). I’ve not heard of OzParks - will have to look them up.
Thanks for the website - I could do some serious damage to our bank account there. LOL. I’ve contemplated those machines but I have to weigh up space considerations and keep stuff we take to a minimum so I’m not sure whether to go that way or not.
Sharon - your parents are very brave doing it in a camper trailer. We considered doing that but all the setting up and packing up… LOVE the bucket idea. We need to get one anyway for times when we have no sullage connection so if I get one with a decent lid it could do me double service. Will keep that in mind. I didn’t even think of dried vegetables as an option. That would work well, even if I don’t get to dehydrate any of our own, I could still buy dehydrated packets. Any other ideas from your folks would be much appreciated.
Bettina - my biggest concern with cans is weight. Apparently they’re cracking down on overweighted caravans at the moment so we’re a bit mindful of how much we pack into it (the extra weight allowed for “stuff” in our caravan is a woefully pitiful amount
). I’d like to look into the rice meals though - have seen some interesting packets. It’s not something I usually pay attention to in the supermarkets. I think my cooking is going to be a little different during the trip. We’ll definitely be taking some games and sporting equipment. Which sporting equipment to take and not take might be the hard part.
Stuffy - oh dear, that made me laugh imagining the “anything that can go wrong will go wrong scenarios”. I hadn’t really contemplated this side of things but we do have an emergency fund as part of our normal finances that can be called upon if necessary. Although we’re about to use upon it for the second time this year so I will need to make sure we have adequate funds should the need arise.
Sounds like I might need to send Farmboy out to do more work so we have more sightseeing money though. LOL. I guess we’ll see. I don’t have a lonely planet guide (have never read one) but have done a little bit of googling. It’s going to be a tricky one. Do we stick to a budget or just go for it while we’re there. Theme parks and a barrier reef tour are top of our list of “must do’s” though. I wasn’t basing our sightseeing money on Canberra’s cost - only the food.
$15,000 10 years ago. Wow. Hmmm. That freaked me out a bit although I did work out that’s about $10,000 for 3 months and we’ve budgetted double that. Which is probably about right in terms of inflation. BUT, you didn’t have 3 kids so that could be interesting. One thing we have found with the caravan is that we spend less money on food than we did with the camper trailer. Sounds like I might have a budgetting challenge ahead of me though (which I guess is what I’m starting to realise - have we really budgetted enough? etc).
River - Oh dear! Thanks for the warning. I looked at some roadside stalls coming home (from a distance) but it’s so hard with all the fruit fly restrictions we were passing through that I didn’t risk it. Might be different once we get to the East Coast though. I was hoping to get some cheaper food this way so I’ll have to be extra vigilant.
Two things to consider. First. Holidays (especially with family) can be exhausting. After a certain amount of time on the road you get “holiday fatigue”. Constantly seeing and experiencing new things is tiring. So a longer holiday can be a less enjoyable experience than a shorter one because at some point you get exhausted by it all.
Second. People also tend to remember extraordinary experiences from their holidays. If you see something that you want to do and that you know you’ll remember doing (say a helicopter ride over the 12 apostles in Victoria) - don’t put it off because that’s the thing you’ll remember doing in 5 years time - not getting to spend an extra week on the road just so that you can see “the big Oyster” and “The big Prawn”. How many times in your life will you and the kids get to fly in a helicopter? I’m sure that you can figure out a balance - but you definitely don’t want to come back kicking yourself for all the things you didn’t do (within reason) on your “once in a lifetime” holiday.
Hi jodie. Your trip sounds wonderful.My brother and sister in law did a trip around aussie in a camper trailer a couple of years ago and used a map book put out by hema i think It was invaluable for them to find cheap or free camping grounds etc. they are not cheap,but worth the money.If you google them and also caravanning you might also get some more tips.they also had the highest RAC cover which saved them heaps as they broke 2 windscreens which were replaced free.
Stuffy - I think what we’re aiming for with this trip is more the experience of travelling for 3 months. We’re trying to view it as “home away from home” rather than a holiday. That’s not to say that those extraordinary experiences won’t be a part of the trip, but only a small part rather than the focus. I think balance is going to be the challenge. And living in one another’s pockets. LOL.
Ruth - how wonderful to hear from you!!!
Thank you for the tips. Gosh, I hope we don’t break 2 windscreens. Sounds extreme.
been surfing for you Jodie.
http://www.greataussieroadtrip.com.au/ is interesting.this couple have 2 girls about trailerboys age and travelled this year.Maybe not anywhere you intend to travel but might give you some ideas.The dreampot sounds interesting and i know my neighbour has one for her travels.
Hope your visit to adelaide went okay
You could try and gather support from blogging friends who live in areas you are going to visit. I am not sure if you plan to come to Melbourne as your itinerary may be more exotic but you are welcome to park your van in our driveway and save money on camping fees. Showers and washing machine thrown in for free