All about the money

Budgeting for this trip is being based off of other travel blogs of course if you couldn’t guess that already. Staying in dorm style hostels and eating local street food should help in keeping budgets down—but i’m hoping to keep a fairly accurate daily budget…

I was able to order Thailand Baht through my bank so i will be able to go with some cash in hand to start— then it will be down to using atms.

There are a lot of stories of scams in some of these areas and cards being skimmed at cash points. There’s also the added bank fees for taking out money from an atm that isn’t associated with your bank—which adds up fast.

I order a Transferwise debit card. The card is made with travelers in mind- the associated app makes it easy to transfer between bank accounts in different countries and they handle the currency conversion with the lowest fee (aka a borderless bank account) . I have US & Irish bank accounts so using this kind of card and app should make it easy enough for me to move money between my accounts and use the card in the currency of the country I am in. Also by using the Transferwise card— I can control how much is in the account in case my card is skimmed I won’t have all of my savings in it.

There are some fees of course— but you can withdraw up to $250 a month for free and then there is a 2% on withdrawal transactions after that.

To get the debit card you have to download the app, set up a payee account and transfer $20 into your Transferwise account. After they verify your bank info and the $20 is deposited the card can be ordered. The card take 5-9 business days to receive.

The app seems to be very user friendly so far—it can be set up to give you up to the moment notifications of purchases, the ability to change your pin through the app as well as freeze your card if you think there’s been ~suspicious activity on your card.

will update as the trip goes on if there are any issues as I travel!