How to Stay Under Your Per Diem | brokeGIRLrich
One of the best ways to save money out on tour is to live on your per diem and the trick to that is keeping your necessary spending under that amount. The companies I’ve worked for have given me per diems in the $30-35 range, which seems to be pretty average for touring shows.
Here’s how I make the most of them so I can bank my whole paycheck.
Hit the Grocery Store
Spending money may seem like the opposite of saving it, but spending a little at the grocery store can go a long way. You want to find an inexpensive staple that you like a lot. Many of my cast and other crew members are macaroni and cheese fiends and can happily make a meal out of those $1.00 microwave single serve packets.
Personally, I think those are disgusting, but I can live off of the $1.50 tuna salad and crackers packets. Others really like the Chef Boyardee single serves. Some are really into Cup O’ Noodles. Whatever it is, you need to like it enough to know you’ll eat it and it needs to keep well in a suitcase.
Stock up and you’ll be able to skip several meals of eating out. $1.50 is a lot less than an entrée at Olive Garden or even a fast meal at Burger King. Even if you just replace one meal a day, you’d be saving at least $5 every day.
Take Advantage of Freebies
If you are out on tour, there are two main places to hit up for freebies. A lot of hotels have complimentary breakfast, which you should always take advantage of.
Additionally, most venues will provide you with at least snacks, if not an entire meal, when you’re performing there. If you’ve got multiple shows in a day, it’s likely they are contractually obligated to provide you with a meal. Even if it’s just a load in or a single show, there’s still probably a hospitality area with a few snacks. I often steal the granola bars for later. Which brings me to…
Pack Tupperware
Around hour 8,000 on a bus, you’ll be happy you have that Tupperware.
You have to be picky about what you bring with you on tour, since you have limited packing space, but a little Tupperware is worth finding space for.
You can make a sandwich for the road from the complimentary hotel breakfasts using bread or bagels and their jam spread. There’s almost always cream cheese and peanut butter as well.
You can take leftovers from the meals provided by hospitality at the venues.
You can also keep your leftovers from eating out longer. Sometimes the boxes that restaurants pack things up in don’t really hold up long enough to make it from the restaurant to a few more hours in a van into a hotel and possibly repeated the next day.
Use Coupons
Coupons still work on the road! Don’t forget to keep an eye out for them or make it a point to hoard some while you’re home between shows, especially for your favorite stops.
You can also plan ahead and buy discounted gift cards online. I know my Clifford cast loves Panera and we eat at Subway a lot too. Spending a little ahead of time to pick up discount gift cards at sites like Raise or Giftcard Granny
Ask for Gift Cards
If you regularly head out on tour, make asking for gift cards to places you know you stop regularly a part of your holiday or birthday requests. I worked with a girl once who had about $100 in Subway gift cards gifted to her by friends and family over the holidays before she left on tour, since she’d made it clear she’d love a little extra help paying for food out on the road.
And if you’ve got a lot of gift cards to somewhere, make sure the person in charge of where you eat knows. On smaller tours, there’s often a lot of leeway for the cast and crew to decide on their own where they eat, especially when travelling by car or van. The rest of the group probably won’t want Subway, or whatever gift cards you have, at every stop, but it can certainly be a regular stop often enough to use up your gift cards.
What tips do you have to maximize your per diem on the road?
This is also depends on appetite. I used to work for a company which would give you 80-100 Us per diem and it was not enough.
I also found that per diems made me save money. I would take advantage of the breakfast and sometimes lunch.
There is no real advice. Especially if you are on the road for the extended period of time. This is your health. You need to treat the temple, so it could perform.
You could save $10 a day for 200 days but it will ruin you in the longer term.
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That’s not true. There are plenty of ways to still eat healthy using those tips. Most hotels actually have very healthy foods in their breakfast spreads – eggs, oatmeal, fruits, etc. So do the venues – it’s usually required by the rider since lots of performers are on strict diets. I honestly think it would be really odd to not be able to stay within an $80-100 per diem.
Awesome tips! I buy giftcards to restaurants we frequent at the grocery store to earn more fuel points. Then I just use the giftcards like cash at the restaurant. It does save me money because of the 4X fuel points you get for gift card purchases.
Cat@BudgetBlonde recently posted…3 Lessons I’ve Learned as a Work From Home Mom
Don’t forget that, if you don’t get GCs from friends and family, you can stock up on discounted ones. If you frequent Subway, you might as well pay less than face value for a GC there. Especially if you can get an extra 1% or so off through cash back sites. The trick is to make sure you don’t spend there because you have the gift card. It can be tempting to think of it as free money.
And even as someone who isn’t touring, I’m a huge fan of hotels’ courtesy breakfasts. I try to only stay at places with those. It’s a $5-10 savings each day (more when you’re with a partner/spouse).
Abigail @ipickuppennies recently posted…A personal finance lesson from the plumber
I’m not sure if Canadian Equity has per diems or not. I certainly don’t have it as an Apprentice Stage Manager, but these are still great tips to use even with your own money.