How To Live On $30 A Day

Posted on 23. Sep, 2009 by Dan in Lifestyle Design

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How 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.

16 Responses to “How To Live On $30 A Day”

Chris

29. Sep, 2009

Where’s the budget for putting money into projects that will increase your daily budget?
Dan

29. Sep, 2009

I’d count that as investments, most of my online earnings are reinvested into making more money.
Nate

30. Sep, 2009

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 Rogers

30. Sep, 2009

In China, the cost of living is heading up quite fast and whereas a few years ago you could live on this, now it would be much more difficult. Especially when the government doesn’t allow expats to just live in any old dive. Expats are forced to live in more expensive places than the local. They say it is for our safety.
Dan

30. Sep, 2009

@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.
Alan

01. Oct, 2009

Had never seen that budgeting resource before – thanks for the tip, Dan.
Diggy - Upgradereality

01. Oct, 2009

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
Bob

01. Oct, 2009

Dan,

Nice work. Do not wait until you’re 55, your investment have tanked and you worry about your beach chair holding your weight.
Kirsty

04. Oct, 2009

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.
Dan

05. Oct, 2009

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.
Nomadic Matt

07. Oct, 2009

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!
GotPassport

09. Oct, 2009

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!
John Bardos - JetSetCitizen

26. Oct, 2009

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.
Dominique

29. Nov, 2009

You can live on $750 per month easily in Penang, or about $400 per month in a nice fishing village.
Dominique

29. Nov, 2009

This is way off. Food costs more and housing less.
Dan

30. Nov, 2009

@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.

Voyagner

How To Live On $30 A Day

16 Responses to “How To Live On $30 A Day”

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