Travel budget: plan your holiday and come back without debt

Count the whole trip

Holidays often cost more than planned because of items nobody thought about in advance:

• Getting there: tickets, luggage, airport transfers, fuel and toll roads.
• Accommodation — including the tourist tax often charged on arrival.
• Food: plan with the real prices in that country, not the ones you are used to at home.
• Tours, entrance tickets, entertainment.
• Insurance, souvenirs and gifts.
• A 10–15% reserve for the unexpected.

Save in advance

Divide the full cost of the trip by the number of months until it — that is your monthly contribution. Create a “Holiday” savings jar: when it is full, you can book calmly, without a credit card.

Spending in another currency

Abroad it is easy to lose your sense of money: 20 euros do not feel like much until you convert them into lei. Before the trip, find out what your bank charges for card payments and cash withdrawals abroad. If a terminal offers to charge you in lei, choosing the local currency is usually cheaper — conversion “in your currency” often uses a poor rate.

For the trip, create an account in the local currency and record expenses in it — the app converts the total into lei at the current rate, so you always see how much of the travel budget is spent.