Tag: finance

Ok, we’ve worked out where and when to go. We’ve worked out roughly how much it’s going to cost. And we’ve worked out a plan to save the funds. Now that’s all done, it’s time to get booking.

If you’re taking a trip like ours, there’s going to be a lot to book. Flights, trains, hire cars, hotels, Airbnbs, insurance and visas, tickets to sports games and museums and cooking classes… When you have 4 months worth of bookings, you want to be able to keep tabs on things quickly and easily. You don’t need fancy accounting programs or booking-tracker apps; you literally just need a simple spreadsheet.

This is basically how mine is set up, in a note on my trusty Evernote app:

FLIGHT DETAILS	BUDGET	ACTUAL COST & DATE PAID	BOOKED WITH	BOOKING NUMBER	NOTES
01 Jan: MEL – LAX	$2400.00	$2285.00 paid via credit card 18.02.17	Qantas website 18.02.17	XXX88X	Saved email in RTW folder
02 Jan: LAX – YYC	$600.00	$629.00 paid via PayPal 24.02.17	American Airlines website 24.02.17	XX55XX
08 Jan: YYC – KTN	$800.00	$784.00 paid via credit card 02.03.17	Alaska Airlines website 02.03.17	XXXX98

HOTEL DETAILS	BUDGET	ACTUAL COST & DATE PAID	BOOKED WITH	BOOKING NUMBER	NOTES
01 – 02 Jan: Los Angeles hotel	$150.00	USD$85.00 to be paid on arrival	Booking.com 05.03.17	ABCDEF	Double room, non-smoking
02 – 08 Jan: Calgary hotel	$800.00
08 – 12 Jan: Ketchikan hotel	$500

DETAILS	BUDGET	ACTUAL COST & DATE PAID	BOOKED WITH	BOOKING NUMBER	NOTES
Travel insurance	$400.00
Canadian National Parks pass	$150.00
Ketchikan city tour	$50.00

And that’s about it. The way I use this is:

1. I started by filling in the first column of the travel plans that needed to be booked.

2. I filled in the second column with the amount we budgeted for each item.

 

Once we actually started getting things booked in:

3. I filled in the third column with the actual amount we ended up spending and the date it was paid

4. The fourth column was who I booked with, be in via email, website, third party, whatever, and the date they confirmed the booking.

5. In column five, I just put the booking confirmation number.

6. And the last column is just any notes.

This has been SO much easier that trying to write down details, keep track of receipts, dealing with piles of paperwork I’ve printed. Because pretty much everything is done online these days, I’ve been able to have all confirmations and payment receipts emailed to me, and if I need to find them, I just need to copy and paste the reservation number from that spreadsheet into my email search function. It has also been a great tool for keeping on top of how closely we’ve been sticking to our budget – realising how far under we actually were, we even decided to splurge on a gorgeous 4 star beach-side resort in Koh Samui for the end of our trip instead of our usual 2-star standard!