Vanlife is viewed as a fairly cheap way of living. And whilst it is certainly cheaper than some lifestyles it isn’t necessarily super cheap either. We’ve found that setting ourselves a budget and sticking to it (well, mostly sticking to it…) is the best way to keep vanlife cost effective and continue our travels on the road.We do work whilst we travel, which obviously helps to keep us going, but we like to squeeze as much out of our earnings as we can. Here are our top 10 vanlife money saving tips for life on the road. We even squeezed in a bonus tip in the conclusion because we want you to get the most out of this as well!
Be sure to check out our Instagram to find more things we do to save money!
Freedom Camp
I mean, it says free right in the name. There isn’t a lot we need to elaborate on here. When we freedom camp, we save ourselves at least $60 a night! Camping prices here are based on per person. When we stay at paid campsites, we are paying upwards of $30 per person per night. So freedom camping as much as you can is a no brainer.
We used to stay at a proper campsite about once a week to shower and charge our batteries. Now that we have better solar and have started utilising showers in swimming pools or just taking a dip in the ocean, we can make it weeks between paid camp sites. We went an entire month without paying for a campsite in summer and it made a huge difference to our budget.
Live Minimally
If you are embracing van life, you are probably doing this already, but it’s worth repeating. We often find ourselves ready to buy a cute souvenir before remembering that one, we don’t need it, and two, where would we even put it?! Same goes for clothes and other non-essential items. We try to op-shop (second hand shop) for items we need and we go without things as well.
For example, we love having dippy eggs for breakfast every now and then (although with the price of eggs currently, this doesn’t happen as much) but we don’t have any egg cups. Instead of spending money on egg cups, we just cut the egg carton up and use that to hold our eggs. So get crafty to save some money and space in your vanlife travels.
Make the Most of Discount Apps
Traveling around on a budget is hard when you want to do all the fun pricey attractions along the road. This is where discount apps come in. They are going to be your new best friend! They help us decide what activities we want to do too. If we can’t decide what things to do in a town, we’ll check out what’s discounted on the apps and let that make the choice for us!
Living in Aotearoa, the two main apps/websites we use are GrabOne and Bookme. Every country seems to have their own version, so have a look and see what you can find. We loved using Bookme in Taupō and Rotorua as the hot pools are more than half price when booked through the site! With freedom camps near both hot pools it’s a no brainer to pay for a hot pool instead of a campsite for the night.
There’s Nothing Like a Home Cooked Meal
Obviously eating out is more expensive than cooking for yourself, right? We were a little dubious on this front, to be perfectly honest. However, if you take a look at the breakdown of our spending for 2022 here you’ll see that eating out twice a day for two weeks when we had visitors made a HUGE impact on our budget for the month of September.
Our total food cost for the month of June (birthday month) was still $700 less than our food cost in September. In June, we go big for our birthdays. When we weren’t eating out for dinner we were cooking more expensive meals as we wanted fancy things to treat ourselves with! But two weeks of eating out had June beat.
So we are sold. It is way cheaper to cook for yourself, even if you are cooking slightly more extravagant meals now and then. Living in a van tends to lend itself to more simple budget friendly meals, anyway. You don’t have a big kitchen to cook in so lean into that a little too.
No Food Waste!
Throwing out food is like throwing away your hard earned money. Not only that, it’s a huge contributor to CO2 emissions and obviously bad for the environment. The easiest way to cut down on food waste is to shop with a shopping list and plan out your meals for the days you are shopping.
Don’t buy what you don’t need.
We like to shop only a few days ahead so that fruit and vegetables stay fresh as well. Another great tip is to keep your fridge clean. Don’t let condiments and half used jars stack up. This is easier to do in a van than in a house as there isn’t a lot of fridge space anyway, so half used items can’t hide too well.
Toilet Paper
This is a weird habit we have that sounds dodgy but isn’t. Ever noticed how when you get to a hotel there is always a new roll of toilet paper? When you leave, you might not have used the entire roll, so what is done with it? A lot of hotels will throw out the last small rolls of toilet paper. When we stay somewhere we notice this happening, we take the half used roll with us so it doesn’t get thrown out. This is a small cost saving act for us as it means we purchase less toilet paper, and a good environmental act too! We are saving the leftover toilet paper from going to waste.
Our other weird toilet paper thing is that we try to use the least amount of it as possible! I’m talking three squares or fewer. Who knows if this was born out of the toilet paper madness of COVID or our need to save the planet and out pocket one square at a time. Either way, we don’t have to spend a lot on toilet paper and that’s a win!!
Walk and Bike Where You Can
Save on fuel by walking, riding or even bussing when you can. We do this the most when parked up in towns and cities. Instead of driving into town, we’ll walk or ride. It’s greener, you don’t need to pack up the van in between trips and it saves you money. That’s a win in our books!
Buses are great for longer day trips where it doesn’t make sense to ride or walk. Just be aware that in some places they only take cash or the ‘bus card’ of that city. We got caught out with this in Queenstown when we wanted to catch a bus back to our van. Unfortunately, it left us having to catch an Uber as the next bus wouldn’t get us to the van in time to pick it up from the mechanics.
Get Outdoors
A lot of the activities we do in Aotearoa are free! Doesn’t get more budget friendly than that. We spend days wandering around towns and cities window shopping instead of spending money. We go for day hikes and short walks and half day hikes. The best way to see the beauty of Aotearoa is to get out in nature and hiking (or tramping as the Kiwi’s call it) is the perfect way to do it.
There is also an abundance of biking trails here to explore if you’d rather peddle than walk. Most cities and towns have free activities such as botanical gardens or museums as well. So do all the free things you can get your hands on! You’ll be surprised how much they fill up your time.
Shop the Sales!
Have you ever heard of the phrase “best before, doesn’t mean bad after”? Our friend, radio host and owner of “Michael’s Bargain bin” Facebook page, Michael Ross coined this phrase a few years ago. It means just because food is reaching its “best before” date, doesn’t mean you can’t still eat and enjoy it! We now shop by this saying now. You know the discount food you always see in shops? Well, if you don’t buy it, it’s going in the bin. Remember how we said food waste is a huge contributor to climate change? You can do your bit by the environment and save money at the same time!!
We often walk into the shops towards the end of the day when we are wondering what to have for dinner. We will walk all around the shop looking for the reduced stickers and see what meal we can make with the reduced food on offer. Sometimes there isn’t a lot and sometimes you hit the jackpot!! We once got an entire bag of bananas for $1 because their skins were a bit brown. Has no one heard of banana smoothies, or banana bread?!
As a side note you can find Michael’s radio show here if you are curious.
DIY Maintenance
This works well if you already have some knowledge in this area. Obviously, don’t go doing your own maintenance if you aren’t qualified as you’ll end up costing yourself more in the long run. But for small things like changing a headlight or tightening screws, Nathan does this himself to save us paying someone else to do it.
We are lucky Nathan is a qualified Carpenter and has worked a little in mechanics with his dad (a qualified mechanic) when he was younger. So things like changing tyres, topping up coolant, checking oil levels and changing light globes are easy for us to do ourselves. Anything that goes wrong with the internal van build is an easy fix for Nathan as well. If you don’t have any prior knowledge in these areas, try utilising DIY books and YouTube to teach yourself the simple basics.
We Hope These Vanlife Money Saving Tips Help You Out!
Hopefully, this list gave you a few extra tips for budget saving hacks you’ve not come across before! We do things a little differently here on The Road Less Written and like to think that applies to our money saving habits too. If you are still looking for ways to save money as a vanlifer, then consider throwing in the odd house sit here and there along your travels. Mostly these are unpaid but we have heard of some people who get paid to house sit too! We’ve done this a couple times and saved a lot of money because of it.
The main reason for this is we aren’t paying for showers, washing our clothes, or all our meals when house sitting. Obviously every house sit is different but so far we’ve been told to help ourselves to food in the house, and there is normally quite a bit that would go off before the owners returned, so we didn’t feel bad taking them up on this offer. Cuts our grocery bill down a lot too! Added bonus when you house sit for someone with chickens, you get free eggs as well. If you are a digital nomad, the free internet is another fantastic bonus.
Keen for more inspo? Be sure to check out:
- 6 Steps for Eco Conscious Travel
- Vanlife in New Zealand: How to Start and What it Costs
- 4 Freedom Camping Apps to Make New Zealand Travel Simple!
