Have the Money Talk First
Talking about money is never fun when you’re planning your group trip. But it is necessary in order to make the most out of it without causing unwanted stress and arguments down the line.
Talk About Rough Budgets Early
Whenever you’re travelling with friends or family it’s best to agree on a rough budget early. It keeps everyone’s expectations in line because if your group has wildly different budgets than one another it’ll be difficult to agree on what to do and where to go when planning your itinerary.
What worked for our group of friends was having an overall budget and then further breaking it down by categories. For example, when our group traveled to Vietnam and Japan we allocated about $6,000 per person. Then we all collectively searched for flights, figured out which cities we wanted to visit and the big excursions we wanted to do. Here’s how our breakdown looked like afterwards per person:
- Flights: $2,000
- Transportation: $500
- Food: $1,000
- Accommodations: $1,000
- Excursions: $500
- Spending / Backup Money: $1,000
Track Group Expenses
Not tracking an expense when someone paid for someone else or the group is a headache. Especially if you’re forgetful about these things like us. Keeping a log of expenses on your trip doesn’t make you calculative or means you’re keeping score. But it helps your group stay financially responsible, transparent and makes conversations about who paid for what and who owes who, easier.
If you’re looking for an app that helps you log and track expenses on your next group trip, check out our free app that’s available on the App Store, the Google Play Store, or our web app here.
Discuss When And How Often To Settle Up
During the course of your trip, your group will most likely owe one another. It’s important to have a vibe check every so often because it could affect another person’s budget or current financial situation. For us, we settled up and owed each other back every other day. This might seem frequent to some, but in our case it made sense especially because Vietnam required mostly cash.
Another reason why you should check up on your cash reserve frequently is because often times it is difficult to exchange money in another country. Especially at a rate that is fair. And if you’re like us who like to travel away from the major cities it becomes even more inconvenient.
