Financial Preparations for a Motorhome Tour
Update: This article was written in 2012 after a few months on the road. While it is still mainly accurate, you can find more up to date information about how we track our finances in the motorhome costs section of this blog.
Ju here, I’m in charge of the finances for this trip. I’ve had a few people asking me how we work things so thought I’d jot down what we do – it works for us, and might offer some inspiration for you. Before you read on it’s worth pointing out that our choices were made a while ago, it’s always worth checking to see what’s new and offering the best value in the market when you come to make your choice. A good starting place is moneysavingexpert.com.
Bank
We use First Direct who are an online bank, this certainly makes life easier. They’re also available on the phone too if we need them for anything tricky, and for this they have a different number if you’re calling from abroad (I’d like to think they answer quicker, but I think it’s just because their main number is an 0845 number).
We have two current accounts with them and one savings account. We also have a separate savings account with another online bank (ING Direct) which is linked to our main current account.
Accounts
Our main current account is linked to both of our savings accounts, so we can easily move money between them online (generally I wait until we have wifi access, but it can also be easily done within our 25MB daily data allowance on the phone).
We’re renting out our home while we travel, so our second current account is only used for money from the rental and to pay any bills/repairs that crop up. This way we’re keeping the rental totally separate from our travel money which will help when it comes to filling in the inevitable tax return.
Our savings accounts aren’t getting us the best interest we could get if we shopped around, but they are giving us some interest (which is more than can be said for our current accounts). While we were saving up we put as much money as we could into ISAs – this means that the interest is tax free on these savings – and these are the accounts we’ll take money out of last.
Credit cards
We have a credit card with our bank. This is a visa and is only there as an emergency back up because we don’t have to pay to have it, and there are charges for using it abroad. Obviously if everything went belly up, we could use this to get back home as it’s empty and has a decent credit limit.
We also have a cash back credit card with Capital One which is a mastercard. It’s good to have a couple of different types of card as some places will only accept certain kinds. The credit card people kindly pay 1% cash back on purchases (up to £10 cash back per month), and I see that as free money, but you need to make sure you pay it off every month otherwise the cash back is more than swallowed up in interest payments. When we got this card a few years ago we had to change our spending habits. Instead of spending our salaries with debit cards, the money stayed in the bank and everything went on the cash back credit card (except cash withdrawals), and it was automatically paid off from our bank account every month – to make sure we didn’t incur any interest charges. We’ve used this card a couple of times over here when our pre-pay card hasn’t been accepted, and this month we’ll get our cash back payment of around £90 from last year’s spending – yippee!
Finally (and I guess the most used) is our pre-pay credit card. We have a Caxton FX Euro Credit Card. It’s linked to our bank account and I simply text them when I want to load money onto it. The rate you get for the currency is the rate on the day you load the card. Helpfully I’ve “liked” their facebook page and every day they publish on facebook how much £250 will buy you in Euros and US Dollars (they have a similar card for the US). To be honest, we load it when we need to load it, but it’s good to keep an eye on the rates anyway. We chose this card because there are no fees for withdrawing euros at cash points, or using it to pay for things is euros (there are charges if you use it for any other currency though) and also you can top up the card and check your balance by SMS. The rate is very slightly lower than some of the other cards out there, but they charge fees to withdraw cash. I’d rather have no fees so we can take out small amounts of cash regularly and aren’t walking around with too much money on us.
Tracking
I keep a track of everything we spend in a small book that I carry with me at all times. I have a friend who uses an app on his phone, but I like the old fashioned way as the battery won’t run out on my book! Once a week (on a Friday) I put all the details I’ve tracked into an excel spreadsheet along with an update of what’s happened in our bank accounts that week (the bank sends me an SMS update every Friday – for free!).
In the spreadsheet I have several worksheets:
Eurocard
This page tracks transactions we’ve used the pre-pay credit card for, so I know when it’s getting low and can put more money on it by SMS.
| Eurocard | ||||
| Date | Item | Value | Category | Remaining |
| 04/10/2011 | Charge Euro Card | €650 | N/A | €650.00 |
| 13/10/11 | Aire at Le Touquet | 9.00 € | EuroCard | €641.00 |
| 14/10/11 | Van Repairs – Skylight & Fridge | 394.21 € | Eurocard | €246.79 |
Spending
This page tracks everything we spend, and also some things we don’t spend such as when we have a free overnight stop in a car park! It’s set up so it gives me an overall average spend per day, and a spend per week. It also gives me a total for the following categories:
| Diesel | Phones |
| Campsites | Pooch |
| Clothes | Repairs |
| Eating Out | Supermarket |
| LPG | Supplies |
| Other | Tolls |
| Overnight | Tours |
| Parking | Travel Other |
| Spends | 4,637.33 € | ||||||
| Date | Item | Value | Method | Category | Daily Total | Per Night | Weekly |
| 11/10/11 | Tea at Rose and Crown | 21.00 € | Cash | Eating Out | |||
| 11/10/11 | Rose & Crown at Ridgmont | 13.00 € | Cash | Campsites | 34.00 € | 34.00 € | |
| 12/10/11 | Ju PAYG Top Up | 20.00 € | Cap One | Phones | |||
| 12/10/11 | Dartford Crossing | 1.50 € | Cash | Tolls | |||
| 12/10/11 | Ratchet Strap & Duct Tape | 12.90 € | Cash | Repairs | |||
| 12/10/11 | Magazine and drink at ferry port | 5.49 € | Cash | Eating Out | |||
| 12/10/11 | Aire at Gravelines | 0.00 € | N/A | Overnight | 73.89 € | 36.95 € | 73.89 € |
Bank Account
This page shows a running total of what we have going into and out of our main bank account
Renting
This page shows a running total of what we have going into and out of our second current account
MPG
This page is updated with details I collect when we fill up with diesel (KM’s on odometer, number of litres put in tank and total cost of fuel) so we can see what MPG we’re getting from Dave.
| MPG | ||||||||
| Date | KM | € Per Mile | € | Litres | Distance (Km) | Distance (Miles) | Gallons | MPG |
| 16/10/11 | 164454 | |||||||
| 20/10/11 | 164935 | 0.20 | 60.76 | 45.72 | 481.00 | 298.88 | 10.06 | 29.72 |
| 28/10/11 | 165295 | 0.21 | 46.27 | 36.78 | 360.00 | 223.69 | 8.09 | 27.65 |
| 04/11/11 | 165820 | 0.20 | 64.97 | 48.52 | 525.00 | 326.22 | 10.67 | 30.57 |
Great post – thank you – it seems like there’s a million and one things to think about before our set-off date in April, so it’s good to hear what others are doing..thanks again!
Thank you so much for all the detail and work you put into this site, hubby & I had the idea to go away about a week ago and with all your information it is now firmly set in our mind. We are in a very similar situation to you, early 40’s, mortgage paid, no kids, 1 cat and want to see the world.
Anyways – my actual question is about tax in the UK – how are you treated for tax purposes? Are you in the UK enough to be classed as resident or are you not worrying about this?
Many thanks
Jane
Hi Jane
That’s great news that you’re getting your plans together. Feel free to email us any questions you have and we’ll do our best to answer them – our email is julieandjason@ourtour.co.uk.
With regards to tax, Jason has been renting out the property he had when we met for a few years now so he has to fill in a tax return each year. I informed HMRC of our plans and that I will be renting out the house we live in while we travel, so now I get the joy of a tax return too! Not sure if we’re missing out on some exemption as we’re out of the country much, but we’re both paying tax on what we earn in the UK so we won’t get a hefty bill when we return!
Cheers
Julie :)
Thanks Julie :-)
Hi Julie, I have emailed you a couple of times and found you extremely helpful. The information on all things financial has given me plenty to think about. The accounts you have mentioned, are we able to open them in Australia in preparation for our big adventure early next year?
Thanks
Linda
Hi Linda
I suspect you’ll be able to open some sort of a pre-paid credit card over there for your trip over here, then simply connect it to your current bank account. You might want to check your bank account charges for withdrawals abroad, as some of the UK banks charge a pretty penny! It might be worth opening one specifically for your adventure. I’m not sure how easy it is to open a bank account here when you are based in Oz, but if your current bank has a UK presence that might work too.
Good luck with your plans!
Julie
Hi Guys, I’ve just ordered the Caxton card due to you’re advice, BTW your link for the Caxton FX site appears to be dead at the moment.
Also, they now have an app which is useful if you want to see everything in one area, great advice, as usual, many thanks, now back to reading your latest Blog post.
Hi All
Can anyone tell me how you can operate a bank account if you don’t have a UK address, i.e. your motorhome is your full time home. If/when you come back into the UK to work on say an agency driving a van, how do you sign up if you have no address just a campsite where you might stay for a few weeks.
Our idea would be to travel for 9 months and then work in the uk on agency work for June/July/August, then go off and travel again. But with no home address I’m not sure how this would work. Any ideas would be great.