In a previous article, I talked about how traveling right now might be a good idea because of the strong US dollar. In this article, I'm going to talk about how to move to another country. It's not as crazy as you think!

Before reading this article, you should know about my history. I've been living abroad since January 2008, in Italy, Spain, Buenos Aires, and currently Brazil. Ever since moving to South America, my standard of living has shot up, and I have been able to afford things I never could before. Thanks to the awesomeness of currency conversion, you'll find that traveling can be surprisingly cheap if you do it the right way. However, you should also know that I am single, without any rent or mortgage to pay in the US.

But first, let's talk about what you shouldn't expect to do.

What not to do while traveling affordably

If you've ever traveled before, you probably think of it as a serious expenditure, with pricey hotels and expensive food. However, if you intend to travel for a longer period of time (say, for a month or so), you can make your money stretch a lot farther by acting more as a traveler and less like a tourist. Therefore:

• Don't expect to eat out for every meal
• Don't pay for hotels, as they are much too expensive
• Don't take taxis everywhere
• Don't buy expensive souvenirs

Acting as a tourist can be very expensive. If you plan ahead, however, you can save tons of cash.

How to travel cheaply

Choose your location wisely! Europe is pricey, northern Europe even more so. However, South America is very cheap right now, and you can generally get around with knowledge of English. Consider other locations as well, such as Iceland (very cheap right now), the Caribbean, or Australia.

Research your city well. Also, wikitravel.org has great guides to most cities, with information on prices and almost everything else you need to know.

Consider your lodging choices carefully. A hotel in Buenos Aires runs about $100/night. If you rent an apartment, however, the price can be less than $500 for an entire month! If you are traveling alone and are willing to live with roommates (which is excellent for meeting new people in the city), the price can be less than $300, even in the nicest areas. I lived in an excellent apartment with roommates in the nicest area of the city for $330 per month in Buenos Aires.

If you eat out at restaurants every night, the prices can add up---especially at fancy ones. But if you eat out once every few days, and cook for yourself for the majority of the time, you can save some serious cash.

Taxies can also be pricey (not in Buenos Aires though!), so look into public transportation.

By researching the city you are moving to, you can save tons of money. I found that I actually spend less, even after taking into account any bills I have to pay in the US while traveling, simply because the cost of living is so low! To live in San Francisco, I needed to spend almost $100/day, but in Buenos Aires, $30 is more than enough.

Would you consider traveling for an extended period of time? Where would you go?

One of the difficulties in reaching personal finance goals, particularly in a cashless society, is that goals tend to be abstract. As a result, connecting your actions to your goals can be a challenge. Avoiding a small expense may help you to get out of debt faster, but it’s hard to convince yourself that such a negligible amount is making any real difference. By creating visual reminders of your personal finance goals, those goals will become a more conscious part of your daily life.

Personal finance goals can usually be divided into three separate segments: the reason, the goal itself, and the implementation. The reason is why you want to reach the goal and it often has nothing to do with the goal itself. The goal is what you want to achieve. The implementation is how you expect to achieve the goal.

Consider the goal of sending your children to college. The reason would probably be a parental instinct to provide for your children. Perhaps you want to give more to your children than you yourself received. The implementation would be your regular contributions to a 529 plan or other savings vehicle during the children’s’ lifetime. The goal itself would be achieved when your children reach college age and you have sufficient money to cover those expenses.

Each of these segments could use visual reminders to help you achieve the goal. A picture of your children, another of a typical college, and a third of your (hopefully) increasing 529 balance would suffice. Keeping these reminders in your life would help you to meet your goal. For example, you might keep a copy of these pictures in the credit card holder of your wallet. That way, you’d be reminded of your goal each time you reached for a card to spend money. Even though you might still make a purchase, you’d have to consider how that purchase would affect your ability to reach your goal.

You could also keep the reminders in other places. Perhaps a copy on your nightstand, near your alarm clock, would help you to spring out of bed in the morning excited to get to work and earn money to better be able to meet your goal. Another copy taped to your computer monitor could help you get through the day or avoid unnecessary online purchases.

By evaluating the reason, the goal itself, and the implementation to reach a personal finance goal, you can get a much better understanding of that goal. Adding visual reminders of each segment will provide motivation to reach the goal as quickly as possible. While the above example was for sending your children to college, nearly any personal finance goal -- such as getting out of debt or retiring early -- can be aided by this analysis and visualization process.

What are your reasons and implementation strategies to achieve your own top personal finance goals?

I recently described how Google was helping to raise customer awareness of energy use. While Google’s program allows you to see summarized data of all energy use, you can also use a standalone energy monitor to measure individual electronic devices.

Energy monitors are plugged into a standard outlet and then measure the energy used by the device plugged into the monitor. Less expensive models report the kilowatt-hours used by the device; you can multiply the kilowatt-hours by the cost per KWh reported in your electric bill to determine the cost of powering that device. More expensive models let you enter your cost per KWh and then report the cost directly.

In its March issue, Consumer Reports reviewed two energy monitors: the Kill A Watt P4400 and Watts Up. Both were found to be accurate, and the Kill A Watt P4400 sells for about $22 on Amazon. You’ll have to calculate costs yourself with the Kill A Watt P4400, but it costs significantly less than the Watts Up, which automatically calculates your cost.

Using an energy monitor, you can measure related electronics, such as your computer, monitor, and speakers by plugging them all into a power strip and then plugging the strip into the energy monitor. You may decide to monitor both the active cost of a device as well as the cost when that device is placed into standby mode.

Knowing how different devices in your home contribute to your energy costs will help you make smarter decisions about device use. You may decide to unplug many devices when not in use rather than leave them in standby mode. Awareness of the energy cost of using a device will also allow you to adjust your use, either by using the device less or trying to use it when peak demand from other customers is at a lower level.

Have you tried using an energy monitor?

We all know that doing work ourselves is less expensive than paying someone else to do it. But our time is also valuable, so we must often consider more than just the actual dollars saved. From the list of 50 Nifty Tricks for Big DIY Savings, I took the ones that cost nothing and require very little time on your part. Just implementing the few tips here could save you over $900 within the first year:

You would expect the widespread availability of cell phones and variety of providers competing for our business to drive down the cost of service. That’s why I was so surprised to learn that the average cell phone customer ends up paying more than $3 per minute of talk time.

Those results come from a report by the Utility Consumers’ Action Network and were covered in the LA Times. The per-minute cost tends to be so high because most people use less than their full allocation of included minutes. The average cost is raised by some people paying much higher per-minute amounts, but the majority of us still pay between 50 cents and one dollar per minute. The report also found that the average customer uses only about a third of anytime minutes allowed by most wireless plans.

One of the reasons we don’t even think to calculate our per-minute costs is that cell phones seem so inexpensive compared to the traditional alternatives. Paying $50 (or more) a month doesn’t seem like a big deal when local telephone service used to cost that much and long distance calling added even more to the bill. Replacing a traditional phone with a cell phone might save you money, but that says more about how expensive your old phone was than how inexpensive your new one is. Also, with the incredibly low prices of home phone service from Skype and Vonage, the old comparisons are no longer valid.

If you tend to use less than your full allotment of anytime minutes, consider downgrading your plan. Paying less on a regular basis will probably cost less overall, even if you have an occasional month where you exceed your limit and have to pay more. If you’re like me and already have the smallest calling plan but still use only a fraction of your minutes, then a prepaid phone may be a less expensive alternative. I’ve noticed that the smallest plans have, in recent years, been creeping upwards both in terms of minutes allowed and cost. That’s fine for people who use most of their minutes, but it means that the per-minute cost continues to rise for people like me. To calculate your per-minute cost, simply divide your monthly bill by the number of minutes you used.

My most recent month cost me about 12 cents per minute. What was your latest per-minute cost?