How to Manage Your Money When Travelling

By Sabrina Loh

You’ve been saving money diligently and you finally have enough money to spend on travelling the world. But how do you manage your money when you’re abroad?

Money is one of the main sources of stress for people when travelling. Whether it’s figuring out how to stop yourself from running out of cash, getting the cheapest exchange rates, or finding the best place to store your money, money management requires a lot of preparation.

Before you board for your exciting adventure, here are 8 money management tips to ensure your trip goes smoothly.

Let your bank know your travel plans

Before your trip begins, it’s important to let your bank know that you’ll be travelling overseas if you plan on using your debit or credit card. This will avoid your card from being blocked or rejected abroad due to suspected fraud.

✈️ P.S. With BigPay, you’ll never have to do that.

Automate your finances

Life goes on even when you’re travelling — You’ll still have bills, rent, and loans to pay back home. It’s a good idea to automate these payments so you can still meet your financial commitments even when you’re hopping across Europe. If you don’t, you might forget to pay your bills or have trouble doing so over unstable internet connections.

Create travel budget

Running out of money halfway through your trip is every traveller’s worst nightmare. To avoid this, create a travel budget before your trip to decide how much you’re willing to spend on each category, such as eating out, accommodation, transportation, and activities.

You should also consider incorporating some money saving hacks into your budget!

✈️ By the way… The BigPay app automatically tracks your expenses so you can see how your budget is doing. 😉

Bring some foreign cash

Not all countries are card-friendly, especially if you’re travelling through developing countries. Having some local cash beforehand saves you a huge headache of hunting down an ATM in a foreign country (and keep in mind that they may not be working!)

Even if your primary payment method is with plastic, it’s still a good idea to always have some cash on you. Just in case!

✈️ Did you know… You can use BigPay to withdraw money from any ATM around the world.

Buy travel insurance

No matter how perfectly planned your trip is, things may not always go as expected. That’s one lesson that Covid has certainly drilled into everyone’s heads!

Unexpected incidents can occur during your trip, such as sickness, injury, stolen wallet, lost luggage etc. Travel insurance gives you peace of mind and saves you from having to pay those hefty bills by covering your losses to the maximum extent possible.

Keep valuables in different places

You should never travel with all your cash and cards in your wallet, because a single pickpocket can make you lose all your money. Leave some money or your extra card at the hotel so you don’t have all your eggs in one basket.

✈️ Fun fact: If you’ve lost your card while travelling, a quick tap on the BigPay app is all it takes to instantly freeze your card.

Stay safe online

You may find yourself logging into your mobile or internet banking during your travels. Avoid doing so on a public computer or through public WiFi as the connection may not be secure. If it’s unavoidable, make sure you sign out of every site and delete the browser history and cookies.

✈️ Fun read: 11 Most Common Types of Online Scams and Tips to Protect Yourself From It

Use BigPay for best FX rates

It’s important to familiarise yourself with the exchange rate before your trip so that you know how much your money is worth in the local currency. This can help you to avoid being overcharged and to manage your budget better.

BigPay offers the best exchange rates in the market (minus long queues at the money changer!). Your BigPay account comes with a Visa card which gives you access to over 45 million merchants worldwide.

Whether it’s paying for your hotel, shopping or dinner, just transact with your BigPay card to automatically pay in the local currency and nothing else.

BigPay is known as the traveller’s best friend. It’s 100% free to get and free to keep.

Download it now to experience it for yourself!