You may be used to the fact that some of my writings deal with the inner journey, and some with physical preparation. This post will be a bit of a mixed bag. I don’t want to talk about the travel budget here, but about the cost of switching to a digital nomad lifestyle. On a material and mental level.
It’s not (just) about a plane ticket
I’ve talked to many people about this lifestyle in the past six months. Many of my conversation partners are aware that living is cheaper in some countries, such as Thailand. That is, if I choose the country where I want to live properly, this lifestyle can be much cheaper than living in Hungary. However, switching to a digital nomad lifestyle comes with some costs, I can say that it is not free. Whether life is really cheaper elsewhere is still a question for me to discover. I have expectations in this regard, but the proof of the pudding is in the eating. Here and now I am considering the costs of preparation and not how much life costs elsewhere.
I find it important to explore this topic because I myself would like to know whether I am in a unique position to be able to prepare for this lifestyle change at all, or if anyone has the opportunity to do so.
How much is that?
I have an Excel spreadsheet. It lists all my income and expenses itemized. Since 1994.08.30. That is, the spreadsheet turned 30 last year. The data occupies 114,693 rows in the spreadsheet as of yesterday. In order to determine exactly how much money my preparation has cost me, I only had to do a relatively short analysis. The spreadsheet contains 1,445 rows since 2024.12.01, when I started preparing for the digital nomad lifestyle. It took me about 5 minutes to look through these few rows, and I was already able to select the 26 rows that contain the costs of my preparation so far – for my new life.
What do the numbers show?
I can show you what I have spent so far with a very simple spreadsheet.
It is immediately obvious that the largest portion of my expenses is the Nomad Cruise. We could argue whether this is absolutely necessary for the transition to a digital nomad lifestyle, but I do not consider this debate necessary. As I have written before – for example, in my post “The 14th Nomad Cruise is approaching” – the Nomad Cruise is an investment for me. But I am sure that someone can be a digital nomad even without this event. So I created a table that shows my expenses so far, excluding the Nomad Cruise costs.
In order to clearly see how much the preparation will cost, I still need to create a budget, where I supplement the actual costs so far with the expected costs. Here I calculated by taking into account the costs of the first month there, thinking that by the end of the first month I will already be living my new life. This is how Table 3 was prepared, which I think answers the question. What is the cost of transitioning to a new life?
Based on this, I can say that preparing for the digital nomad lifestyle costs me approximately 4.800 USD. Based on this, I think that not everyone can easily make this switch, but I can also add that it is certainly not an insurmountable obstacle for someone who is really serious about making the switch.
This statement can certainly be confirmed by the fact that, for example, if someone starts within Europe, they can save on the price of vaccinations. Also in this case, they do not need to take out insurance, which can also reduce their expenses. If they do not buy a translation machine or create a website, they can already significantly reduce their expenses. Table 4 shows a more pleasant, EU-based spending plan.
One thing that should not be forgotten is the issue of reserves. As I already wrote, for me this will be the income from the sale of my car.
If the first month or months of departure and stay are financially covered and I have a little bit of money in my pocket, plus I have a job or the prospect of working, I think I don’t have to worry about my near future.
Finally, it’s also worth taking stock of how many devices we have that we’ve had for a while, are still functional and will need on the road. In my case, these include, for example, the power bank, the laptop, the newly replaced phone, the software we’re already using, etc.
Since I – due to my own situation – don’t have to spend on everything, I’ve made a summary list of what expenses are worth thinking about when switching.
Cost ranges for creating a digital nomad lifestyle – major categories
- Administration, papers
- Passport, visa, e-Residency, vaccinations
- Insurance, TB settlement (exit, travel insurance)
- Technical equipment
- Laptop, backup storage, VPN, headset, new mobile, adapters, eSIM, power bank
- Cloud storage, password manager subscription
- Work and training
- Online courses, courses, portfolio creation
- Website, domain, hosting
- Travel, contingency costs
- Airfare, first accommodation booking, living expenses 1–2 months in advance
- Reserve: minimum 3 months of living expenses
- Closing costs
- Termination of lease, sale or storage of furniture
- Unexpected closing costs: car sale, contract termination
Tracking expenses
I have read in more than one book – whether it is about travel or general lifestyle – how important it is (would be) to store our expenses (and income) in an analytically detailed manner in order to protect our financial resources. I implemented this with my Excel spreadsheet mentioned above. Analytical detail means that I do not enter “Lidl purchase for HUF 25,346”, but I record every item in the block in the table. For example, I can say that I have spent HUF 681,249 on bread in the past 30 years, or that I have bought ear buds a total of 98 times during this period, for a total of HUF 22,695. These examples alone may induce the question “what is the point of this?”, but deeper analyses show much more interesting and usable information. For example, how the costs of operating a car change over the years, or what the specific costs of preparing for a digital nomad lifestyle are.
My own Excel spreadsheet has become what it is today as a result of 30 years of experience and development. This winter, on one of my hikes, I met a lady by chance, with whom we hung out for half a day. When this Excel spreadsheet came up by chance, she wasn’t that surprised that such a spreadsheet existed. She’s the only one I’ve ever met who reacted this way. Not by chance. As it turns out, she also has a similar spreadsheet, which is almost as long-lived as my spreadsheet.
So, even if you don’t have any plans to change your lifestyle, it’s still worth analyzing your expenses, because sometimes the numbers show surprising differences between your idea and reality.
I don’t know of any such applications, because I’ve never tried any. But after a little research, I recommend two English and two Hungarian language applications to get you started. They’re worth a try:
It is worth finding the most suitable application and starting to use it to track your expenses (and income), and sometimes analyze them!
What I don’t pay for in money
Spending money is a relatively simple thing: if I have it, I can spend it, if I don’t, I can’t. If I spend it, I can do it with or without reason. I can measure it or not. Despite all this, spending money is not a very complicated thing, and it is also easily measurable.
However, there are expenses that do not necessarily have to be paid for in money. What do I mean here?
- Lost job benefits, ceasing status (e.g. fixed salary, cafeteria items, company health insurance)
- Time that you could spend on other things: studying, searching, organizing
- Mental energy
For example, I left a well-paying middle management job so that I could start. I also had the cafeteria, company insurance, a stable, long-term predictable background. As you can read in the posts “The decision”, “Point of no return” and “I quit”, I had to think about this issue carefully, but from the first minute there was no doubt in my mind that I would pay this price.
The other price is the sale of my car (“I am selling my car”). No matter how you look at it, this is a ceasing status. Even though I really loved this car, it was not difficult at all to say that this step was also one of the prices to be paid for the sake of the goal.
The time
I can say that I have been busy preparing for the switch quite a lot in the past six months. But this time included my natural interest and the extra laps that came with it. And, to a large extent, writing this blog. If I try to estimate the absolutely necessary time, I think that it would take a few days of work – distributed over time – to prepare for the switch. I don’t just mean defining the tasks, along with spending time on their implementation.
This definitely includes – regardless of whether I write it down or not – carefully considering the framework. Lest I find out on the other side of the world that I am neither a minimalist nor do I like fried insects. I am thinking here of the posts “The decision”, “Preparing my environment”, “Setting the target date”, the most recent “The art of saying goodbye” and “Staying in touch”, and countless others.
I believe that before making such a major change – due to the nature of the weight of the change – you need to think a lot. After careful consideration, you can make a decision with a calm heart. I think I am good at this – in some areas of life. And in other areas I am trying to improve.
The energy
I have always tried to live in a way that I have free time in addition to my current work. I think I can proudly say that I have succeeded in most cases. I have a low need for sleep, I have quite a lot of internal energy and, as I wrote at the beginning, I have entered a state of “Synchronicity, coincidences, flow”.
So – although I have often felt exhausted during the past months – I have no reason to complain. But the fact is that I used more energy than usual to get through this preparation period. Fortunately, I had the opportunity to rest more. As I explained in my article “Freedom, selfish freedom”, as a single person I can make decisions with relatively more freedom.
Freedom has a price, but it’s worth it
A change of this magnitude costs money, but often not as much as we think. In my opinion, the real difficulty is not the money, but the decision. The price of leaving is not only a number that can be expressed in money, but also a change in perspective. The question is not how much it costs to leave – but how much will it be worth if I finally leave!?