How Much Money You ACTUALLY Need to Become a Digital Nomad
If the reason you haven’t packed up and booked your flight yet is because you feel like you need to financially be in a perfect spot in order to become a successful full-time digital nomad, you might be waiting forever babe. There’s literally no one set MAGIC number you need to hit. The truth is, most people don’t start with an unlimited amount of savings or even a consistent stream of passive income. We just start! We start with a plan, a little bit of financial breathing room, and the willingness to adjust. If you haven’t read How to Become a Digital Nomad: A Realistic Step-by-Step Guide, start there for the full scope of budgeting for the start of your journey as a nomad, there’s A TON of info there.
It’s Not About a Specific Dollar Amount
You’ll never find one single number that makes digital nomad life safe or sustainable. It’s just honestly not a thing.
What you’ll need to do to protect yourself financially before you head out solely depends on the location you’re traveling, whether you already have reliable income or not, and your personal tolerance for uncertainty in the financial department. A realistic approach most nomads take when first starting out, is having one to three months of living expenses for your specific starting location, plus a small emergency safety net.
One thing that genuinely helped me feel more organized and less stressed was using a physical travel budget planner. There are so many good ones on Etsy, and being able to write everything out made it way easier to see where my money was going and plan realistically.
Having an Abundant Savings Account Won’t Save You
TO BE HONESTTT, having a ton of money saved up without an actual financial plan set in place can actually be more anxiety inducing than you’d probably think. What’ll happen in because you have no plan and a ton of money is that you’ll feel like you’re good money wise, so you might tend to buy things you don’t actually need, or you’ll just keep watching your account so heavily that expenses begin to feel heavy and an extra (not necessary) stress factor.
Adequate planning is what will keep your mind calm. Especially if you’re a very financial aware person. Knowing your numbers and having a set plan for them will give you SO MUCH control.
If Etsy isn’t your thing, I also recommend grabbing a travel budget planner from Amazon! They have a ton too, I just typically go for Etsy because they’re printable, rather that a full book and babe, we need all the luggage room we can get over here, ya feel me? LOL!
Either one works, it’s all up to your person preference but I do definitely recommend choosing one or the other. You’d be surprised at the power in writing your finances down. Trust me, do it.
Budgeting Is About Awareness, Not Restriction
By no means does budgeting mean you’ll be cutting all the joy from your experience. It honestly will make it enjoyable! It’s so easy to blow through money when you’re traveling so this is just a boundary set in place to help you make more intentional choices when it comes to swiping your card!
If you want to know more about other mistakes new nomads make, and the best ways to avoid them… head over to my Beginner Mistakes New Digital Nomads Make (And How to Avoid Them) blog, as it’s the perfect follow up to all the things we just talked about here (:
Always remember!!!! Being prepared will beat being perfect EVERY. SINGLE. TIME.
Ciao for now,
Dru <3