When traveling or planning to travel, expenses are always an important consideration. The amount of money or capital that a person spends traveling can dramatically increase once the trip commences if there is no preset budget.
Calculating your capital outlay before traveling allows the traveler to feel at ease about the expenditures during the trip. Further, all expenses can be determined beforehand so that any adjustments that need to be made can be made prior to the trip.
Determine your total budget for the trip before calculating your total capital outlay or total costs. If you do not want to spend more than $2,000 for a seven-day trip, then this amount is your total budget.
Use the following calculations to project your daily required expenses:
For example, if the hotel costs $125 per night, you determine that your food will be no more than $50 per day, your transportation costs will be $20 per day and your miscellaneous expenses will not exceed $10 per day. All tips and tax should be included in these numbers. Using this example, the calculation will be:
$125+$50+$20+$10=$205 per day (Total Daily Expenses)
Multiply this number by the number of days to give you an aggregate total of required expenses. Using the same example, your total required expenses for the seven day trip would be:
$205 x 7 = $1,435 (Total Required Expenses)
Therefore, $1,435 of your $2,000 budget will be spent on your daily expenses, which means that you have $565 ($2,000-$1,435) left for events and activities throughout the seven days.
Add the costs of any planned events and activities to the budget. For example, if you know that you want to visit the Guggenheim on Tuesday, the Metropolitan Opera on Thursday and a Broadway matinee on Friday, then total these event costs to add to your budget.
Total your capital outlay or total costs for the trip. Your total required expenses plus your total events/activities expenses will equal your total projected capital outlay for the seven-day trip.
Total Required Expenses+Total Activities Expenses=Total Budget
Adjust as necessary. If your total projected budget is over your $2,000 budget, make some adjustments down by removing some event costs. Conversely, if your total is under $2,000, you have more capital to experience more activities and events.
