How I Spent $1,400/month Traveling Long Term as a Digital Nomad

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This is the digital nomad quest podcast with Sharon Tseung. teaching people how to build passive income, become financially free and design their best lives. Hey

guys, it’s Sharon from digital nomad quests. And today I want to tell you guys about how I spent less than 1400 dollars a month for nine months while traveling the world. So as you know, I traveled for two years, right, but I’m only including nine months for this video because for the first year, I spent about three months of it in Hong Kong and I’m family there and have a place to stay there. So I didn’t count that for this video. And then for the following year, I did some trips around US and Canada. I did spend some time at home and it just kind of was not the same as the first nine months where I was going month to month. So I wanted to make it as accurate as possible, how you can actually do the same. So I want to tell you guys a little bit more about how you don’t actually have to spend that much money to travel around the world. So first off, I think it’s important to talk about this because a lot of people think crazy expensive to travel, right. But what I found was actually using geographic arbitrage could actually save me a lot of money while I was building my businesses. So if you’re actually thinking about building a business, and where you’re living costs a lot, this is actually a good solution for you in terms of lowering your expenses so that you can work on you know, growing your business and then increasing that income, because you don’t want to be at that place where your expenses are so high that you can’t last that long, and you don’t have enough time to build your business. So let’s backtrack. And let me talk about where I’m from. I’m from the Bay Area. And I want to tell you guys about how much it costs to live around here, right? So we’re going to do a quick analysis of San Francisco’s cost of living. So as of April 2019, the average rent of an apartment in San Francisco is $3,933. So that’s freaking insane, right? I spent 1400 dollars a month and it just costs that much money in order to rent a place in San Francisco, and then a one bedroom apartments in San Francisco rent for 30 $600 a month average two bedroom apartments rent for 40 $690. So this is data taken from rent jungle calm. And now if you’re going to buy a place according to smart asset calm in quarter four of 2018, the average monthly mortgage rent is 40 $254 in San Francisco, so either way renting or buying in San Francisco, you’re kind of screwed. It’s extremely expensive. It’s kind of unfortunate that I live here. I still love the Bay Area though. So that’s why I’m back here. But you know, it can cost a lot of money in the Bay Area to live here. So that figure doesn’t even include food, entertainment, transportation and other expenses you might incur. If you add that up, that’s going to be a lot of money that you spend in San Francisco, you’re going to have to have a lot of roommates to save on that rent but even so I hear people spending at least 1500 dollars a month on rent if they share with a bunch of roommates. So as you can see my 1400 dollars a month to try traveling the world was actually a lot cheaper than even renting in San Francisco. Now as you can see, I am in one of the most expensive places in the world. So let’s take a look at average house rent across the nation. So according to CBS News, rent prices across the country average at 1200 $31 each month, the good thing is the median prices are about half of that. But as you can see, compared to that national average, it’s actually very affordable to just go out travel around the world, find the cheapest countries to live at, and then sort of build your businesses while kind of having fun around the world. Now let’s talk about that 1400 dollars a month and where I visited. Alright, so let’s break down the amount I spent in those nine months. So I left to travel may 31 of 2016. And I came back home may 9 of 2017. So I am not counting my stay in Hong Kong, which was 87 days. So in total It was 256 days that I’m counting so my total came out to be $11,766 19 eight cents for 256 days, this meant I spent $45 and 96 cents per day, which would have come out to $16,777 14 cents for 365 days the entire year. If I averaged it out and prorated it that would have come out to that amount. So again, this amounts to 1300 $98 10 cents per month. So that is pretty insane because I basically included flights, accommodations, you know, any type of Ubers or taxis or bus rides public transportation, entertainment, and basically everything was included in this price. I ate out basically almost every day. I did initially start trying to cook when I was in Greece, but that’s about it. Let me tell you guys about the places I traveled to. So in the beginning, I start off in Stockholm, okay, that place is really expensive, right? So I only did like five days there and then I went to Athens, Greece. It was frickin hot and humid. I do not recommend going there around the summertime. But anyway, after that I went to Bucharest, Romania after Bucharest I did a few days in Berlin and then I did a month in Lisbon. After that I did a few days in London then I went to Korea then Hong Kong then Chiang Mai and I also visited Kuala Lumpur and Krabby for a little bit and then I visited Vietnam Taipei and then I went back to Hong Kong again for a bit and then went home so that should have basically covered my year and then I kind of subtracted the Hong Kong days so each place I went to I spent about a month at each place and I basically would eat out every day I would you know, look for places to go. So the way I found these places was number yo calm and Nomad list calm to find cheaper places that were fun, cost efficient and safe. So that’s the beginning part of it. That’s how you’re going to save a lot of money if you travel to the places that are a lot cheaper, of course. So number one, research the places you want to go to me To save money you should book ahead of time so actually booked six months of it ahead of time because I did that I was able to get best prices on flights and accommodation and then number three tip I used Airbnb I use Airbnb for my stays I did private rooms or private apartments and basically I would do a month at each time and then I would actually get discounts because I would do a whole month so Airbnb accounts for that if you look for places on Airbnb, there are places that you can get cheaper prices because of the amount of stay you take. Number four tip actually is you can actually contact Airbnb owners to see if they can do a lower price sometimes they can’t but other times they actually can So see if you can negotiate with them. Number five tip you know track your expenses. That’s what I did, right? When I tracked my expenses, I was able to save a lot of money because I could see how much I was spending I could see what I needed to cut back and spend a bit less and I was still able to maximize the amount of fun I had. I went out All the time is a good time. Another great tip is actually if you can just only use a carry on and a backpack. So that’s what I did so that I could save a lot of money on those budget flights from country to country because I didn’t need to check anything in and usually that cost extra money. So you should check, you know, Ryanair fees and things like that. Because sometimes if your bag is too big Ryan is going to charge you for it and force you to check it in. So you know, it’s helpful to kind of have less belongings, it’s also easier to travel with less belongings because you don’t have to lug something huge every place you go. So I found it very helpful to only have a carry on and a backpack. I mean, essentially most of the cost is going to be from the flights and accommodation. So hopefully these tips help and in terms of budgeting for food and entertainment, that’s going to require some smart thinking, some smart tracking of your expenses so that you don’t overspend so you can have a budget goal per day. That’s another tip actually have a budget and goal per day. You’re not going to spend over a certain amount per day and that will help you in terms of saving money and making sure you don’t overspend while you’re traveling. So I hope these tips help in terms of how to spend less on your travels. And that was how I was able to spend under 1400 dollars a month traveling around the world for nine months. So I hope you guys enjoyed this episode, please make sure to rate review and subscribe. It really helps our podcast grow. And thanks again. I’ll see you guys in the next one.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai