Math for Grownups
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In Math for Grownups

Savings Tips from an International Traveler

I’m no big world traveler. So when faced with the prospect of filling an entire month with travel-related blog posts, I reached out to more experienced folks. Fellow freelance writer, Beth Hughes offered to write this post, detailing how she’s able to hop the globe on a limited budget. While there’s not a lot of hard math here, she does share a really smart estimation tip that helps her keep cash in her wallet–for her next trip. And you can definitely see how a little bit of planning and observation adds up to big savings. So, welcome Beth!

When I travel, I usually head to pricey places like Japan, Hong Kong and Hawaii. Yet I’ve figured out how to make these trips without breaking the bank, even when the dollar is weak. The key is planning, observing, and a little mental trickery.

Before you go

Use a travel agent. Because I usually travel with a friend, my agent, Julie Sturgeon of Curing Cold Feet, creates custom group packages for us. Savings on our last 10-day jaunt to Hawaii were about $20 each, or a tank of gas. Some years, she saves us twice that.   Savings: $20-$40

Decide how connected you must be. Free WiFi is not ubiquitous. Select a hotel with free WiFi so you can stay in touch via email and Skype if you have a smartphone or other device.  Savings: up to $20 per day

Make sure you select a hotel that equips the rooms with an electric kettle and a refrigerator. Pack food for your arrival if you’re getting in late–small cans of pop-top tuna, packs of instant oatmeal, a little jar of peanut butter and some crackers. Pack coffee or tea, and any equipment for preparing it. Savings: about $10 per day

Research the fees your bank’s ATM network, what it charges for ATM withdrawals and what service fee it tacks onto credit card purchases outside the United States. Your goal is to reduce the fee burden by withdrawing enough cash from an affiliated ATM to cover anticipated expenses for five or six days. You get a better exchange rate than you do at a moneychanger. In Tokyo recently, the airport moneychanger offered ¥71 for each US$1 while an affiliated bank’s ATM gave me ¥78. Stash the extra cash in your hotel room safe. Avoid using your credit card for a cash advance. The interest rates are punishing. Savings: up to $25

Upon Arrival

Buy a SIM card with the least expensive international call and data plan that you can top off online using a credit card. (In Japan, tourists must rent SIM cards.) The SIM card will be valid for as long as six months. You will probably leave money behind but compared with international roaming charges, it’s less than a pittance. Savings: up to $50

After a good night’s sleep,  start saving by making breakfast in your room. While this is a traveler’s tip as old as the Appian Way I figure it saved us about $200 each on a recent Tokyo stay.

Here’s how: Our budget hotel offered a daily breakfast buffet for ¥1,900 per person, or a whopping $208 per person if we had indulged for all nine mornings of our stay. So we traveled with a pound of ground coffee, which cost US$12, filters, a drip cone and our own tall, insulated travel mugs. That gave us each two cups of good coffee each morning with plenty left over for a boost if we returned in the afternoon before setting out on the night shift. We stocked up on individual yogurts, which averaged ¥100 each, spent about the same amount on fresh fruit and bought a pint of milk for coffee.

Our breakfast total per person for nine days: about ¥2,000, or $25. We’re not big breakfast eaters but if we could have added in bags of granola (¥298 per) or boxes of cereal (¥350- ¥500) and still saved. Savings: $200

Our trick for lunch in an expensive city is “Follow the office ladies!” They gravitate to good, cheap food. In Bangkok, I ended up in a utility company cafeteria that welcomed anybody who could find it, just by trailing office workers. On weekends, follow the middle-aged ladies traveling in pairs for a meal out with good chat on the side. Rarely did lunch in Tokyo cost more than $10 or $12. Wherever we ended up, and it was never a food court, we would order one of the lunch specials, always and everywhere the cheap date of meals. By making lunch the main meal of the day, we were then free to indulge ourselves with happy hours or splash out with a dainty dinner at a big-name joint. Savings: $200

Mind Trick

Now for my mind game, and yes, I am dim enough to trick myself by rounding down when making mental currency conversions. (Editor’s note: I don’t think this is dim at all–but a pretty darned smart use of estimations!)

Here’s how it worked on a trip to Hong Kong, where the exchange rate has been stable for the past 10 years: US$1 converting in a narrow range to HK$7.8 to HK$7.6.

Rather than deal with decimals, I divided a price in HK dollars by US$7. This made everything from menu selections to a pink leather wallet that caught my eye seem more expensive than they were. So much for splurging in a notorious paradise for food and fashion.

I also set a daily budget. If I came in under, I didn’t automatically roll the money over to the next day. I put it in a separate pocket in my wallet. Then, when a local friend suggested a Michelin-starred restaurant for lunch, I ponied up from my secret stash.

Even with that magnificent meal, I returned home with US$279 of my budgeted travel kitty unspent. That’s a whisker less than half the cost of a ticket from the West Coast to Hawaii, and about one quarter the price of my next trans-Pacific flight. I’m thinking late November, early December before the holiday rush when the fares spike.

Do you have questions for master traveler Beth Hughes? If so, please ask in the comments section. And share your own cash-saving tips for travel!

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In Math for Grownups

How Far? Estimating metric distances

Earlier this month, I showed you how to convert currencies, when given the exchange rate. When you’re not using an online calculator, that process involves proportions, which are pretty simple to use, but do require a little figuring on paper. This same process works for any conversions, including miles to kilometers, liters to ounces, etc.

But while being exact with your money is pretty important, estimating how far you have to drive or walk is usually good enough. So instead of going into details about metric-to-traditional measurement conversions, let’s look at how you can find these distances with a little mental math. First, you’ll need to know a few facts:

1. A mile is longer than a kilometer. So, when you convert miles to kilometers, the answer  will be larger than the original amount. (mi –> km = larger answer)

2. A kilometer is shorter than a mile. So, when you convert kilometers to miles, the answer will be smaller than the original amount (km –> mi = smaller answer)

2. In fact, 1 mile equals 1.61 kilometers. And 1 kilometer equals 0.625 mile.

3. Those values are pretty darned close to 1.5 kilometers and 0.5 mile.

Remember, we’re estimating here, so you’re not looking for an exact answer. Forget what your middle school math teacher said about the precision of math. You don’t always need to getan exact answer. But there’s another fact you’ll need to consider:

4. The larger the value that you’re converting, the less precise your answer will be.

If you depend on the estimate 1 mi = 1.5 km and you’re converting 15 mi to km, your answer will be pretty close. BUT if you’re converting 1,468 mi to km, your estimate will be a lot lower than the actual answer.

Look, estimating is no big deal. In fact it’s a really, really powerful tool that can make your life much easier. You do need to know when estimation is in your best interests and when you should pull out the calculator. (See? Math really isn’t all that black and white!)

Let’s look at an example. Zoe has finally made it to London! She’s spending the summer studying Shakespeare and working part-time as a docent at the Tate Modern. And she’ll have some time to roam around Europe a bit. She’s rented a car so that she can chart her own path, and next Friday afternoon, she’s going to cross the channel to France, where she hopes to spend four days winding her way down to Paris and back.

But how long will it take her to get there? According to her map, the distance is 454 km. Since Zoe is used to miles, she’d like to convert the distance so that it makes more sense to her. She’s okay with a rough estimate, especially since she has no firm schedule. So she decides that knowing there are about 1.5 km in a mile is good enough.

To make the math even easier, she decides to round the distance as well: 450 is pretty close to 454. Now she can easily do the math in her head, but we’ll get to that in a minute. Let’s write it out first.

Because she’s converting kilometers (shorter) to miles (longer), her answer will be smaller than the original amount. That means she’ll need to divide.

450 km ÷ 1.5 = 300 mi

So she’ll travel about 300 miles to get from London to Paris — not a huge distance!

But how could she do this in her head? For that, she’ll need to remember a few things about fractions.

1.5 = 3/2

450 ÷ 1.5 = 450 ÷ 3/2

450 ÷ 3/2 = 450 • 2/3

(That’s because when you divide by a fraction, it’s the same thing as multiplying by its reciprocal — or the same fraction upside down.)

So in order to convert kilometers to miles in her head, she’ll need to multiply the value by 2 and then divide by 3 (which is the same as multiplying the value by 2/3. In other words:

450 • 2/3 = (450 • 2) ÷ 3 = 900 ÷ 3 = 300

Whew!

But once Zoe remembers this little trick, she can estimate these conversions quickly and easily.

30 km = ? mi

30 km • 2 = 60

60 ÷ 3 = 20

30 km = 20 mi (approximately)

Make sense? Try it for yourself: convert 75 km to mi and then use an online calculator to check your answer. Remember, if you’re using the process above, you’ll get an estimate, not an exact value!

So take a guess: If you’re converting mi to km, what process would you use? See if you can figure it out and then offer your explanation in the comments section. Feel free to choose a value to convert, if it’s easier to explain that way.

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In Holidays

To Estimate or Not to Estimate: That is the question

Whether you’re buying gifts for under the tree or just taking advantage of holiday sales, December is one of those times when you might need some mental math skills.  And while it can seem overwhelming to find out how much that 15%-off cashmere sweater will actually cost you, there are some easy ways to make quick work of these calculations and move on to the next item on your to-do list.  (We’ll look at those on Friday.)

But first you need to answer one big question: Is an estimate good enough?

What’s the total cost?

Let’s say you’re picking up a few things for your Aunt Millie. She has given you a $20 bill and a list.  You absolutely cannot exceed $20, and Aunt Millie is adamant that you get as much as you can for that amount.  In this case, you may want to calculate everything down to the penny.

Or what if you’re purchasing holiday gifts for a family in need.  You’ve set your budget — and you’re not going over it!  Once you have everything in your cart, it could be reassuring to spend a moment or two finding the exact cost of your purchases.

(Here’s a cool hint, though.  If you’re shopping online, these calculations are done for you.  Just put what you want in your online shopping cart, and the totals will be appear — including shipping!)

Can you afford it?

But I would guess that most of us merely need to know if we can afford a purchase — or if what we’re interested in buying is too expensive.  And that’s where estimation comes in handy.

Chandra’s family is HUGE.  And after years of buying a Christmas gift for each of her nine siblings and their spouses and partners, she initiated the good old Secret Santa exchange.  What a relief!

The process is simple. Over pumpkin pie after Thanksgiving dinner, Chandra’s mother brings out her best Sunday hat, which contains slips of paper — one for each of the 18 kids and their partners.  Each person selects a name and buys a present for that person.  The catch? No one can spend more than $50.

This year, Chandra is over the moon.  She drew her sister-in-law’s name, and she knows exactly what to get her — a handmade purse from the local craft fair.

A week later, struggling through the crowd of candle-buying, carol-humming shoppers, Chandra finds exactly what she’s looking for: a cute little bag made of repurposed, 1940s dish towels.  What a find!

She snatches up the bag, and pays $40 for it.  But she’s got $10 left over.  Should she find something to put inside?

Chandra starts looking for a little something more: there’s a handmade key fob for $2.50 or a little zipper pouch for $10. She starts feeling like Goldilocks — the pouch is too much and the key fob is not enough.  She leaves knowing she can make up the difference while shopping elsewhere.

And she hits jackpot later that week.  While picking up a few things at her local, independent bookstore, she spies a sweet little journal at the checkout line that would just fit into the purse.  On sale for $6.50, she figures she has enough to pick up a rollerball pen to go with it.

Just right.  (And notice — very little math!)

Is estimation mandatory?

So let’s say you are really into knowing your costs down to the penny.  What if just having a general idea of what something costs is way too unnerving for you?

Pull out that calculator, sister or brother.  There’s nothing wrong with finding the exact answer, if that’s what you need or want to do.  Just do the rest of us shoppers a couple of favors — move to the side of the aisle while you do your computin’ and while you’re at it, don’t look down your nose at other’s estimations.

Are you an estimator or an exacting kind of person? If you estimate, how? If you like an exact answer, what tools do you use?  Share your stories in the comments section.

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In Personal Finance

4 Math Tricks to Keep You Frugal

Photo courtesy of dmdonahoo.

If you’ve started down the frugality path, you have probably already been smacked in the face with one unavoidable fact: there’s math involved in living within or below your means.  For some, this is no biggie.  For others, this could very well be the difference between saving a little and saving a lot.

But even if your basic math skills are rusty, you can handle these calculations, no problem.  A few simple tricks will help you stay frugal and even take it up a notch!

Read the rest of the post here.

How has math helped you be frugal? Share your ideas in the comments section here or at Suddenly Frugal!

Would you like me to guest post at your blog?  Or do you know of a blog that I would fit right in with? I’ve got lots of ideas to share with anyone who will listen! And I promise I’m a good guest.  I wipe out the sink after I brush my teeth and don’t mind if the cat sleeps on my pillow.  Get the details here.

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