The Shoestring Runway Plan

How many whole days your savings buy: the one-offs out first, a bed for every night, the room priced per person, the bag against the cabin limit, the rate you pay, a reserve you never touch, and a daily figure you re-divide on the road

ShoestringGo's calculators each answer one question. Currency Per Day divides whatever you give it by the days, so a trip pot that also has to pay the flights reads as a daily allowance it cannot fund. Trip Budget adds the flights on top but charges a bed for every day and never asks what you have saved. Hostel vs Hotel taxes only the room, and the Packing Weight calculator rates your pack against your body, not against the airline's cabin limit. None of them answers how many days the money buys. The Shoestring Runway Plan joins them up in seven steps. It takes the one-offs out before dividing, counts a bed per night with its locker and city tax, prices dorm and room per person with the break-even room price, weighs the bag against the limit on your own booking, converts at the rate your bank charges, sets a reserve aside and counts whole days, then re-divides on the road. For the worked traveler, $2,400 over 30 days reads $80 a day, but with $750 of flights and one-offs inside it the money runs out after day 20; planned honestly, $1,450 for the days buys 30 whole days, and one checked bag on four flights would cut it to 27. Every price in it is an example for you to replace. Honest about what it is: arithmetic, not financial, insurance or immigration advice. Visas, entry rules and health requirements come from official sources, and cabin limits and fees from your own booking. Included: 24 printable pages with seven steps, a runway sheet, a bed choice worksheet, a bag check sheet, a spend log with the re-divide, three reference tables and a quickstart, plus a personalised sheet worked from the numbers you enter in our calculators.

Look inside

Two full pages from the pack, exactly as printed. Click either to read it at full size before you decide.

What is in it

• The Lump-Sum Rule: the trip pot divided only after the flights and other one-offs come out
• The Count-Nights Rule: a bed for every night, with its locker and city tax
• The Per-Person Rule: dorm and room compared per person, both sides taxed, with the break-even room price
• The Cabin-Limit Rule: the packed bag weighed against the limit on your own booking, fees counted in days
• The Rate-You-Pay Rule: your bank's rate after its fee, and declining a conversion at the till
• The Untouched Reserve Rule: a reserve set aside first, and the runway counted in whole days
• The Re-Divide Rule: money left over days left on the road, with no catching up
• Working pages: runway sheet, bed choice worksheet, bag check sheet, spend log and re-divide
• Reference tables: break-even room by group size, one-offs in days of travel, small overspends added up
• Quickstart, and a personalised sheet worked from your calculator figures

The plan picks up where the free Currency Per Day Calculator leaves off. The calculator divides whatever you give it by the days; the Trip Budget Calculator adds the flights on top but never asks what you have saved, and the two never meet. The plan takes the one-offs out first, counts a bed for every night with its city tax, prices the dorm and the room per person, weighs the pack against the cabin limit on your booking, converts at the rate your bank charges, and sets a reserve aside, then gives one answer in whole days and a daily figure you re-divide on the road. Every price in it is an example for you to replace. It is not financial, insurance or immigration advice: visas and entry rules come from official sources.