I did something similar for New Zealand and again for Ireland. It starts with a spreadsheet breaking down the itinerary. For NZ and Ireland, this goes down to the day, but for the Grand Tour it's a bit broader.
Then it's just a case of looking at the costs of major things: hostels, activities and transport. For the Grand Tour I've also included food. Looks a bit like this:
For hostel costs, I use Hostelworld.com which, if you search for an entire country, will give you the average prices for the most popular cities.
For food costs, there's a whole assortment of sites you can use. Numbeo and Eardex have some useful info on cost of living which I used for some places. Lonely Planet's online destination guides can also give you an idea of how much it could cost depending on your budget plans. Again, I use averages.
The reason for the averages in both the hostel and food cost columns is to push the estimate up slightly. I'm pretty certain I can get reasonable hostels and decent food for cheaper than my budget suggests but I'd rather overestimate and have money to spare than underestimate and have to dig my way out of a financial hole. Also, remember to account for the number of days/weeks you're expecting on being places.
For flights, I've been using Skyscanner. For some stopping points, it's worth searching for flights from or to the entire country, especially if it's easy enough to get around internally since you might be able to find cheaper flights at airports outside of the main hubs.
I wouldn't usually include an "other transport" column, but given that for the Grand Tour I'm going to have quite a lot of internal connections, I figured it was a good idea. Nothing too difficult, just consider whereabouts you want to go and how you're going to get there - trains, buses and internal flights probably need to be included if they're going to be anything more than a few pounds because all that transit soon adds up.
Finally, activities. No need to include everything - there's bound to be things that you only discover when you reach your destination. But given how expensive some things can be... yeah, if you know there's something you really want to do, best to include it. So things like the trips I want to do to Kakadu National Park and the Red Centre in Australia which go into the hundreds of pounds.
Once everything's in, the rest is simple. How much does it come to? Can you afford it right now?
If yes, hurray for you. If not, do not despair. Now, do you definitely want to do everything that's in your budget? If you want to go right now, it might be necessary to take some things out or consider opting for lower budget accomodation - swap the hotel for a B&B or hostel, maybe. Find cheaper options for activities - is there a shorter trip available? Can you do things cheaper by cutting out the tour operators?
If you're not wanting to go right now, even better! You've got time to build up your cash reserves. Get yourself a savings account with a reasonable rate of interest and work for a bit longer. That's what I'm doing - I've switched my savings account to one with a better interest rate and I'm sticking out my job until next summer. To be honest, I probably could leave right now, but I'd rather have more in the bank. Probably comes from my dad being an accountant and my parents both being sensible with money.
There's plenty of little ways to save money too. Take your own lunch to work instead of buying it from the canteen. All that small change that accumulates in your purse or wallet? Stick it in a jar so you don't get the urge to spend it. Do you really need to buy that album, that book or that DVD? Or are you just buying it because it's on sale? I've removed my card details from Amazon so I can't just buy music on a whim, knowing that aside from my rent that was my only other major outgoing.
What tips do you have for travel budgetting? Do you have any other tips for saving those pennies?
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