How To Live On $30 A Day
Posted by Dan on September 09, 2009 in WorldviewHow much does it cost you to live right now? Rent or mortgage, loan payments, credit cards, eating out and all the rest. I’m willing to bet that if you add it all up its likely significantly more than $30 a day. I know my current expenses exceed that quite easily but $30 is my base number I’m building my plan to leave Australia and move to South East Asia on.
No one is going to claim you can live in luxury on $30 a day, you can have a great lifestyle though if you choose to live where $30 is not an unreasonable daily budget. South East Asia, South and Central America anywhere your dollar will buy significantly more than at home. This is an excellent article on living in Bangkok on 30,000 Baht a month, close enough to $30 daily in my book. It’s probably possible to do it almost anywhere in the world, it just depends on how much squalor and loss of freedom you can tolerate.
When it comes down to it, living on this much requires you know how much you are going to spend on what and sticking to it like glue. How will I spend my money to afford the life I want? There are some pretty good rules of thumb when it comes to how much you should spend on specific areas depending on your income and I’m basing my calculations on these.
30% for Housing $300mth
15% for Food $135mth
20% for Transport $180mth
5% for Entertainment $45mth
5% for Services $45mth
5% for Health $45mth
5-10% for Saving/Investments $45-90mth
I’ve calculated this as a monthly amount because some of the numbers are too small to be meaningful on a daily basis. Of course to get the daily amount you can just divide by 30. Here is an awesome tool to roughly estimate how much to allocate to each budget category.
It’s not important that these numbers don’t add up to 100%, this adds up to 90%, in fact as long as you come in at or under 100% you are on the right track. This lifestyle doesn’t allow for living beyond your means, nomadic income/expenses must be sustainable so having that extra unaccounted gives you a little bit of breathing room.
There are always things to consider, $180 a month on transport seems excessive to me, I think I could go on $100 or less, I would put that into food and entertainment instead, you just have to find a balance that will suit your needs.
I think as an expat Health insurance is necessary, in Australia we have one of those health care systems many Americans seem to be afraid of lately, calling it socialist, (Pssst, you won’t turn into communists if you do it, it really isn’t bad at all.) so I’ve never had private health care before. $300-400 a year should get you good basic cover.
Being nomadic and choosing to enjoy life now rather than waiting for retirement doesn’t mean we don’t have to save for our later years, out of a $30 budget though you can’t save a lot so having a plan just for that is still very important.
Remember these are not hard and fast numbers, they are just a guide to be refined to suit your situation. Hopefully I’ll eventually be thinking about a daily budget of $60+ per day.
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Where’s the budget for putting money into projects that will increase your daily budget?
I’d count that as investments, most of my online earnings are reinvested into making more money.
I think that you budget sounds great, from the data that I’ve read about the cost of living in SE Asia. I’ve heard of some people who live there for $500/month, or even less. I’m looking forward to hearing more about this in the future, Dan!
@Gordie That sucks, one of the things I loved about the countries I’ve visited so far is the personal responsibility you must have for yourself, governments that like to wrap their citizens or guests up in cotton balls get up my nose. If I fall down a manhole in Thailand I don’t get to sue, I get called an idiot who should have been watching where he was going.
Had never seen that budgeting resource before – thanks for the tip, Dan.
Heya!
Yes, I love this, I’ve already done the calculations for myself a long time ago and when I go travel next year this is what I want to do. My aim is to build up $1000 a month in passive income, so that when I travel I know I have enough to survive, anything above that is for building up the businesses and saving to one day have way enough moola
Thanks for the post
Dan,
Nice work. Do not wait until you’re 55, your investment have tanked and you worry about your beach chair holding your weight.
I love the post! Living on $30 per day is very realistic in many parts of the world whether travelling or staying put. I have tried a few times to stick to budgets and actually keep track of it but have never had much luck as I forget to write things down. Your guidelines for % on each expense is handy and a good guideline for when I do actually force myself to stick to a budget.
I haven’t the best track record staying on budget while traveling so my next trip I’m going to have to be as strict as possible. If not there is a good chance it will set my plans back a couple of months, plus I want to prove to myself that I can do it.
30 usd a day is easy in Asia but not even close for Europe! Location plays a big factor into where this budget could work!
Dan,
Good post. We were in Thailand for over a month this past summer and some days, it was less than $30 a day. We are relocating to Chiang Mai in 2010 for say 2 yrs then possibly South America and working our way to Europe with trips back to the US where we will be living in an RV. We plan to do all this with our 6 yo daughter in tow!.. The best part of all this, like you said, we’re not waiting until we retire. We want to start now, while we’re young. Maybe we’ll meet up in Thailand!
Hi Dan,
I think living on $1000 would even be possible in many developed countries. I know that my Grandmother lives on about $600 per month in Canada.
The biggest expenses are for technology and travel. Upgrading computers, cameras, iPods, monthly high-speed internet connections and air travel are where most of your budget goes.
I would say that anyone blogging about their life abroad and traveling regularly would probably need to double the budget to about $2000.
You can live on $750 per month easily in Penang, or about $400 per month in a nice fishing village.
This is way off. Food costs more and housing less.
@Dominique It really depends on the person more than anything, these are just rules of thumb and allow for spending more or less on things.
yes I also thought the food amount was way low. I am very budget conscious, rarely eat out and my groceries cost about $280 per month for one person (in USA).
“Remember these are not hard and fast numbers, they are just a guide to be refined to suit your situation.”
I took these percentages for income expenditure from a couple of personal finance sites, I can’t recall which ones as its been a while since I wrote this post now. This was really written with living in a developing country in mind, as I mentioned in the post I think transportation is high in these calculations. I don’t even spend that much now, so that could go to whatever other category you wanted it to. There is also the 10$ leway it allowed to go wherever you think it is needed.