Budgeting for Study Abroad in Seoul, South Korea

돈이 없어요?

No money?

Make a Budget! 

We all know traveling on its own to another city or state can become more expensive than we intend in just minutes. But to another country? Get ready to break the bank! 

For many college students preparing to set their foot in a foreign land for their study abroad journey, the idea of money is taboo. It is no secret that we college students struggle with saving money spending it wisely. However, knowing money doesn’t grow on trees, I created my own budget for South Korea. If you want to study abroad and still have money in the budget to go travel to places like the picture in this header, renowned theme park: Lotte World; it is essential to budget to enjoy the things you want to experience while simultaneously keeping your head above water and most importantly out of unnecessary debt.

But Where Do I Start?

First, I made an excel spreadsheet on a program called WPS. It is a free service that works the same as Microsoft Office but is more tech-savvy with a beautiful and consumer-friendly interface, and better yet – is FREE! 

Using this program, I made a sheet that contained all of my individual wants and estimated costs. For example, I knew beforehand that I wanted tattoos and had even chatted with artists during my time in America via Instagram to get estimated rates (more on this in another post later!). I also added the estimated costs to travel to other countries during my stay in South Korea.

This sheet, which I like to refer as my “Initial Summary Sheet” due to roughly estimating my travel and expected costs, is labeled on my workbook as “SK Budget”.

*For my own privacy, I changed the total savings amount on the top left. However, with the set-up I made, I tried to think of all the initial things I will spend money on and the overall picture of my trip. I even wondered if going to other countries bumped me too much out of my budget, so I created a column (in orange) without countries. All these numbers are even, as I rounded to the nearest 100.

Keep in mind that this is just my initial budget. All numbers are subject to change, further emphasized in my monthly budget pages. 

I even happened to make a budget for the ride to and from the airport, as can be seen in the diagram. Even though the Korean Visa was more so $60, I budgeted $100 initially because I didn’t know much about the process or what it would entail. This particular sheet I plan to not alter during my time in South Korea, as it will be what I initially budgeted versus what I actually spend as seen in my “Sum” worksheet.

What next?

Decide how much you want to spend a month. Take into consideration what you budgeted into your main budget, and plan accordingly. I enjoy eating, so I budgeted ₩500,000 a month for food. As seen on the budget, you can see where else I channeled my spending.

My Excel sheet for study abroad 2019 Fall Semester begins from August (when I arrive) to December (when I am due to leave South Korea). I budgeted about ₩1,000,000 (about $850 in 2019) a month. Each month varies due to any needs/wants I estimated, along with my month tattoos budgeted at about $100 a piece. My first month I budgeted ₩600,000 (about $510 in 2019) for five days.

While I admit that is a LOT to budget for my first few days in the country, I wrote as a side note to treat myself! The first month I want to feel like a tourist, and make sure I have the funds necessary. If I don’t use all of it, better for me!

Also, note how I exchanged the won to dollars ratio on the Excel spreadsheet since I wanted to make sure I knew how much I was spending in both currencies. I plan to pay the majority of my trip on my credit card (please invest in a 0% foreign transaction fee credit card at your bank!) and wanted to make sure what I saw spent in won correlated with my bank statements. Blame the accountant in me! But, I also found it as an opportunity to understand more about my spending habits in both American dollars and Korean won.

I also broke down my transportation costs on the ledger to see where I spent most of my money transportation wise and will add more modes of transportation once I am in Korea if I use any new forms of transportation. This is more hopeful for readers like you, wondering how much exactly you might spend traveling around South Korea.

Ending Summary Sheet

In order to keep in line with understanding how much I personally assumed I would spend in Korea, I made an ending summary sheet at the end to understand how much I over/under-budgeted for my trip abroad. When all the sheets from August to December are filled, it will compare the original summary sheet (first tab) with the actual expenses incurred during the past couple of months.

Credits and Documents

Budget Blog Post

Original Budget I altered to fit my needs.

I will be posting another post near the end of my study abroad trip with my personal expenses and what I spent specifically during my time in Korea, as well as tips and tricks. Stay tuned, and until then…