I'm Charlotte and in today's video (like the title might have told you),

I want to address something that several people have asked me before

And that is: How do you survive abroad when you're on a tight budget?

Like you might have known (or not…) I started my travels and living abroad when I just graduated

I didn't have a large amount of money, but of course I had to save up for my flight ticket and have some savings

just to be safe, you know. If it wouldn't work out and I wouldn't find a job abroad.

But once being abroad, I found out that there are several ways that you could survive

while spending almost no money

And I'm going to tell you more in this video!

How to live abroad on a tight budget

The first thing on my list is the one that I experienced for myself

And that is: you can survive abroad while working in a hostel or guesthouse.

It's not really working for money, in my case at least

It was some kind of work exchange deal, where I would work for about 2 to 3 hours, 5 days a week

And in exchange I would get a bed in a 6-person room

I would also get some free rice and noodles every day

I thought it was a really good deal. Especially because I was young, I was a student…

I mean… not that I'm old now but… You know what I mean?

It was just such an amazing way when I did it in Seoul, to connect with people

I also had roommates, kind of in the same situation as me. They were also on a tight budget

We had great times together, going out in the middle of the night for karaoke or just having a nice meal

If you think about it, for only 2 to 3 hours of work a day, usually in the morning

The rest of the time you're completely free and you don't have to spend anything on accommodation

and if you have enough with rice and noodles, you're all set to go and to survive there as long as you want.

Another way for you to live abroad would be for you to look around for scholarships

Because I know that so many countries are eager to have foreign students studying at their universities

And they have so many programs set in place to offer a lot of benefits to international students

So it's really worth it. If you have a country in mind,

just check online if they have any interesting universities with scholarships

I know for Taiwan for example, I think they offer at least 2000 full scholarships every year.

It depends from country to country and university to university if they will also pay something for your accommodation

I went to Sweden for my Erasmus program. I remember they helped me out and gave me 300 euros every month to pay for my accommodation.

It was more expensive than that but still… that's a huge help every month

If you have a country in mind where you want to go for a few years and if you want to learn something at the same time,

and get a degree, I really recommend you to look into their scholarships

My third point is a little bit related to the first one, but while I was living in Taiwan,

there was a hostel that reached out to me and asked me if I wanted to manage their whole social media

and do the advertising. They were pretty new, and nobody heard about them,

and they wanted someone to make videos about their place and things like that

In exchange I would get a small single room in their big house.

That was definitely interesting. I didn't do it because I already found my two awesome roommates

and I didn't want to leave that place. But if you have any kind of skills,

if you're very good in communication or in advertising or videomaking, or anything that you think can help a hostel,

you can definitely try to approach them and ask them if they want to do an exchange:

your work for their accommodation.

These were three points that I had personal experience with, but I saw some other possibilities from friends around me

One of those is for example becoming a nanny somewhere. If you like working with children,

this is a good way to immediately integrate a family and learn a lot about the culture, the language, everything

It could be very good if you quickly want to become part of the country and integrate well

Because you will literally live in the house with that family and take care of the children

I have heard mixed stories about it though, there are people who absolutely love it and who really like their families

But it depends from person to person, if you like children or not, and also if you find the right family or not

If you are someone who likes children, I think becoming a nanny could definitely be a good option

to live in a country without any expenses.

Something that I really considered doing for a while was doing a work exchange in a temple

There are so many temples in Asia and sometimes they need volunteers, so you would basically help them clean,

help them prepare the food, do some gardening and all kind of tasks around the temple

You will also participate in meditation and things like that, and in exchange they will offer you a roof and food

I think that's an amazing deal, if you need a break for a while, for a few months

You're tired of your life and you need to find yourself again

I think, doing this kind of temple work can really be healthy for you

The last thing on my little list is: You could volunteer on a farm.

I have heard several people I know do this and usually it would only be for a few weeks or a few months

That you would live on that farm with those people and they will feed you, give you a bed

And in exchange you will help them with some seasonal work

I think that if you're not scared of getting your hands dirty and of doing some physical work,

Working on a farm can also be an amazing experience abroad while you don't need to spend any money.

That was my list for today. I hope I didn't forget anything.

If you have any other ideas or if you have a genius tip of how to live abroad on a very small budget,

Feel free to share it with everyone in the comments!

I also was thinking about maybe making a future video about jobs that I did in foreign countries

while not speaking the local language

So let me know if you would like to hear about that too

I hope you just have a great day and see you very soon.

Bye bye!