Things to Budget in Advanced
Budgeting is a very important action step to take before deciding on the destination. It's the least exciting thing when planning a holiday especially if there's a big bill to be paid in between planning and the holiday stage.
I tend to budget my trip 8-12 months beforehand, especially if I take a trip that is longer than 2 weeks. My last trip was for a whole month which covered both Japan and South Korea. It was fun and also costly. As a full time office worker, I always look forward to that one special holiday. Japan and South Korea was my special holiday.
The first thing that I budget for is always the airline or transportation ticket. One thing to consider when buying the airline ticket is the length of your journey. If you're able to manage a long travel period inside an economy class then it will be good for you because you will save up quite a lot. If not then it is important to think about how much additional money that you will fork out for your flight.
Depending on which country you're travelling to and from, there might be visa that needs to be planned in advance or paid on arrival. We used to pay USD $25 to enter Indonesia using visa on arrival. This cost needs to be entered into your budget as well.
Car hire can be arranged in advanced and on our trip to Japan we booked our car through Nissan Hakone. It is better to arrange it in advance because car hire agencies might not have the car that you want during peak period.
With the power of the Internet and different accommodation providers such as booking.com, it is easier for me to compare prices for the accommodations that I want to book during my travel. Some accommodations want to be paid at the time of the booking but some others will welcome you to put 50% refundable deposit or even create a booking and pay when you arrive.
The next step is to see whether you need to be vaccinated before entering a certain country. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) created a very useful app with some offline information called TravWell that can be downloaded here. On another note, that is why applying for travel insurance that covers emergency medical need is so important. On our one month trip, I used World Nomad to cover my one month holiday trip and even though I didn't claim anything, I had a peace of mind during the travel period.
This one might not be applicable to some people but Hubby and I bought our winter jackets way before our winter trip last year. After my research, I found out that clothes in Japan were expensive and the size was smaller than Australia's clothes. I stocked up on warm lined pants, extra warm thermals and thermal socks from Uniqlo Australia. We got our winter jackets which were 30% off original price from Mountain Designs.
What do you usually budget in advanced for before your trip? Share your thoughts below :-).
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