5 Tips To Help Stick To Your Budget While Travelling Full Time

We set a monthly budget for ourselves when we were getting ready to hit the road. While we can’t say we nail it every month. We have done pretty well overall. Here are 5 things that have helped us stick to our budget on the road:

1. Stock up:
Meal planning and knowing what you need before you head out will go a long way in your budget. Groceries and supplies are often at a premium in remote places.

so if you stock up, it can save you some serious bucks in the long run. Also preparing your own food and coffee is much more budget friendly than grabbing food on the go.

And of course, never go shopping on an empty stomach! Planning ahead keeps random snack purchases to a minimum.

2. Boondocking:

Technically this refers to being out in the “boonies”, but these days it’s usually associated with free camping.  We do pay to camp pretty regularly as well, but we have gone a month or more at a time without paying to camp, and that really helped our budget. There are several apps out there like Ioverlander, Wikicamps, Park Advisor and websites like freecampsites.net. These are user fed with comments, photos and info about free spots. You are getting peoples honest opinions, for better or worse. We love BLM land while travelling in the U.S many areas allow free dry camping for up to 14 days. Remember this is typically dry or wild camping so there likely won’t be facilities, pack it in, pack it out. I will mention Walmarts here as well, many do offer free overnight parking for RV’s, I did say many, not all. We see folks ignoring the signs for overnight parking pretty regularly. If you need to overnight at a Walmart or any  other business and you aren’t sure about their rules, check with them first (this may save you from a knock on your door in the middle of the night asking you to move)

3. Passes:
Are you into exploring National Parks and visiting National Historic Sites? Our America the Beautiful National Parks Pass paid for itself in Utah alone. The cost of admission to most National Parks is around $30. This pass cost us $80. It has more than paid for itself in 22 National Parks, dozens of National Historic Sites, and National Monuments. We bought the Parks Canada Pass as well, and the price tag is a little higher, but with the number of National Parks, and Historic Site visits it has also more than paid for itself.

4. Points Cards and Memberships:
We have points cards for groceries, gas, and drugstores. The points we earn through our regular purchases have gained us free groceries, supplies and gas. We are members at MEC and REI, and have used those memberships for gear along the way. We also stay in RV parks from time to time, so our Membership to Passport America and Good Sam have earned us discounts that more than covered the cost of membership.

5. GasBuddy!
The biggest single expense in our travels has been fuel. We have spent more than one third of our budget on gas! So we do the best we can by using the GasBuddy website and app to find the cheapest gas on our trips. At least we can plan ahead and avoid overpaying for gas. Every penny we save adds up when it comes to fuel. Gas prices are often super inconsistent and vary a lot from station to station and town to town. Our second piece in fuel savings is fuel economy. We aim for the sweet spot and use cruise control whenever we can, we have contests to see who is the more “efficient” driver.

If you have tips for saving on the road, we would love to hear them!

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