How I Stretched a Month in Bali to Three Months Without Touching Savings

I went to Bali for a month ago. Instead of staying for a month, I’m still here for three more weeks. My budget for the trip was the same for the 90 days as it was for the first 30, and the quality of my time here has actually increased. This isn’t a post about how to travel on the cheapest of cheap, it’s about what really matters and how to figure that out in a week or two.

You will find that the biggest dollars that you are spending on a long trip are often the ones that you never expected to be so expensive and, at the same time, be able to save so much money on other things that you had budgeted for. I started with a budget for 30 days of $3,200 for a comfortable $107 per day. In the end, I spent $3,150 for 90 days, averaging a very affordable $35 per day. I even have $50 left over from my initial allowance. This was not achieved by sacrificing all of the great things to see and do on a long trip, rather it was a result of making the best use of my initial allowance by making some very simple changes to the way I structured my trip in the first week. Plan ahead.

The first big shift: nightly rate to monthly rate

The biggest single cost saving was from nightly rate as opposed to monthly rate for accommodation. My first 6 nights in Ubud were at a lovely Guesthouse in the center of Ubud town, $32 per night for a double room with en-suite bathroom. However on day 7 I started asking around for longer term rentals and by day 10 I had found a small studio with a kitchen in a quiet location just outside of town for $380 per month, that includes wifi and weekly cleaning, which works out at $12.60 per night, a saving of $20 per night.

Having a kitchen in the studio worked very well for this.

The second shift: groceries instead of restaurants for breakfast and lunch

As Bali has a lot of super cheap eateries serving local dishes like nasi goreng (fried rice with a protein of your choice) or fresh fruit smoothies, it was easy for me to have 3 meals a day at a few dollars per meal. But then it adds up quickly: $2.50 for a nasi goreng x 3 meals x 30 days = $225 per month. For breakfast, lunch and dinner I was buying fruits, making some eggs and cooking some rice for myself at the studio. Coffee was another matter as I like it and normally I would buy it as I go and for a reasonably cheap price at a local cafe or restaurant but here I bought a small bag of local beans at a roaster three streets away from where I stay and I brew it myself at home. The total of what I spent on food for the 3 meals per day would have been roughly $80 per month.

In addition to saving about $140 a month I had better mornings. Breakfast was no longer sitting down at a café for 30 minutes or more, reading a book or checking emails while waiting for food to arrive. In fact, I often had fruit for breakfast, left for the local market (a 5 minute walk) for some eggs and/or rice for lunch and made my own coffee with a small bag of local beans that I bought from a roaster three streets from my place. The only dinner that I had at a restaurant was and is still. I love the food in Bali and it’s a great way to meet people.

When I last checked schedules for 2026, the listed times held good around 70% of the time.

The third shift: scooter rental by the month

Daihatsu Atoy and similar daily scooter rentals in Ubud are typically $5-$7 a day. But when I asked around I found out that many of the same people offer rentals on a monthly basis for $50-$70 per month. So for $60 a month as opposed to $150 per month I am able to have a reliable means of transportation to all parts of the area that surrounds Ubud. With the monthly rental I have the freedom to go wherever I want whenever I want.

I also did the basic things: learned to negotiate fuel station prices, learned which back roads to take to avoid the heaviest tourist traffic, learned to park the scooter at the back of the cafe lot where the locals parked theirs.

Work remotely from time to time to earn money and add structure to your traveling.

I am a freelance copywriter. I secured two regular clients prior to my trip and for two mornings per week, I go to a small Ubud co-working space to work (7 am – 11 am). The charge for a daily pass is $4 and for a monthly membership is $35 per month. My writing work here pays my rental charges and some of my other food bills for the week.

If you can’t work remotely from your destination, teach casual English, trade services in exchange for for accommodation at a hostel, etc. – in order to establish an predictable and ongoing inflow of money which extends your travel budget.

What I didn’t sacrifice

I want to be clear about this because budget travel writing often celebrates austerity. Over the three months I:

Spent 4 days taking a cooking course on a farm in the village of Sidemen. I hired a local guide and spent two days touring around the northern villages on a motorbike. I also hired a local driver for a temple trip where he took me to 3 temples that I never would have seen otherwise. Ate dinner at the same warung 40 nights in a row. Became close to the owner and her family. Was even able to attend the first birthday party of the owner’s daughter. I also spent a few hundred dollars on three bits of art and had them all posted back home. Two weekend trips, one to Nusa Lembongan and the other to Munduk.

None of the above experiences cost anything extra as they were funded by the basic budgeted expenses for food, accommodation, and transport. So in reality I hadn’t ‘sacrificed’ anything – the discretionary expenses were simply being funded from the cost of basic travel.

It was only by asking a local guide how much things actually cost that I got figures anywhere near those in every guidebook I read.

The decisions I’d make differently next time

I would have rented the studio a week earlier. The six nights spent in various guesthouses at the start of the trip were unnecessary. I could have found a studio with a monthly rate sight-unseen and saved myself the hassle of checking out and in every few days.

Lastly, I should have invested in a good quality helmet at the start. I used a hire helmet that never fitted properly. Here in Bali helmets cost $25. Not a price to be trying to save money on.

I would have liked to stay longer at the cooking course to learn more about Indonesian cuisine. The 4 day course was by far the highlight of my 3 month trip and I would have liked to join a 2 week long course instead of having to look for other things to do after it.

The math is the simple part

Of course the biggest mistake that most people make with regards to budget travel is in misunderstanding the dynamics of cost, failing to note that in the vast majority of cases, cost and time are inversely proportional. Put another way, that which costs most on a per night basis, invariably reduces in cost on a per month basis, while the real expense, of opening up a place and gaining insight in to the local rhythm and associated ways of being, remains largely constant. In other words, the budget for a month of travel to Bali on the ‘tourist’ rate (dare one even refer to it as such?) would, in all likelihood, yield roughly the same total, when spread across a three month period on local terms.

So, if you have thought about a long-trip and it seems to cost too much – just do the math for a monthly rate instead of daily rate. It usually works out.