A Student Trip Budget in Two Currencies
Short answer
List lodging, local transport, food, and one museum in the destination currency, convert each line with a labeled sample rate, then add a buffer of 10 percent of the subtotal. The sample used here is 1 GBP = 1.15 EUR, chosen so the division is exact. It is practice arithmetic. Bank, card, and airport rates differ from a mid-market rate.
A short trip fits on one sheet if every cost has two labels: the currency of the place you are visiting, and the currency you use at home. This article builds that sheet as a student exercise. The prices are invented. The exchange rate is a labeled SAMPLE. The point is to practice conversion and a ten percent buffer. It is not a plan for how much anyone ought to save over a lifetime, and it is not a guess at what a real city will charge.
The home currency is the pound sterling, code GBP. The destination currency is the euro, code EUR. Those codes come from the ISO 4217 naming list. They are names, not prices. Write them at the top so a later line cannot switch units by accident.
Set the columns and the sample rate
Draw two money columns. The left column is the destination, in euros. The right column is home, in pounds. At the top, write the rate as a full sentence.
SAMPLE: 1 GBP = 1.15 EUR.
That sentence means one pound matches 1.15 euros in this exercise. It was chosen because 1.15 divides the practice prices evenly. It is not a live quote and not a reading from a central-bank page. Bank rates, card rates, and airport rates differ from a mid-market rate, and any of them can differ from this SAMPLE. Keep the word SAMPLE on the rate line whenever you copy the sheet.
Two operations follow. If you know pounds and want euros, multiply by 1.15. If you know euros and want pounds, divide by 1.15. The prices below are written in euros first, because a ticket window in the destination would show euros. The home column is therefore a division. Multiplying by 1.15 and then dividing by 1.15 returns the number you started with. If a line fails that round trip, the direction was reversed.
The <a href="/blog/how-to-read-an-exchange-rate/">exchange-rate guide</a> explains base and quote, including why a pair flips when you invert it. Here the useful sentence is "1.15 euros per 1 pound."
Name the trip before the prices
Call it a four-day practice visit to a euro-area city, with no real museum. A real booking page would replace the euro figures and might replace the rate. The sheet's structure can stay.
If a ticket says 10:00, attach a city to that clock with the <a href="/world-clock/">world clock</a>. The clock does not change the money columns.
The four spending lines
The sheet uses four categories and then stops: lodging, local transport, food, and one museum. Each category is one line.
Lodging is four nights at a SAMPLE price of 23 euros a night. 4 times 23 is 92 EUR.
Local transport is four days at a SAMPLE price of 4.60 euros a day, standing in for a day pass or a few short rides. 4 times 4.60 is 18.40 EUR.
Food is four days at a SAMPLE price of 11.50 euros a day. That is a classroom stand-in for simple meals, not a review of any cafe. 4 times 11.50 is 46 EUR.
The museum is one ticket at a SAMPLE price of 9.20 euros. One ticket is easy to remove later, which helps when you practice a free-entry day.
Add the euros before you rely on the home column.
92 plus 18.40 is 110.40. Add 46 and you have 156.40. Add 9.20 and the subtotal is 165.60 EUR. The buffer is not inside that figure yet.
Why these prices divide cleanly
The euro prices were chosen so each one divides by 1.15 into a whole number of pounds. A real ticket will not be that neat, so recompute when a price changes. The <a href="/currency-converter/">currency converter</a> can repeat a line if you would rather type than divide, as long as the rate stays marked SAMPLE.
Convert each line with the sample rate
Divide each euro line by 1.15.
- Lodging: 92 divided by 1.15 is 80 GBP. Check: 1.15 times 80 is 92.
- Transport: 18.40 divided by 1.15 is 16 GBP. Check: 1.15 times 16 is 18.40.
- Food: 46 divided by 1.15 is 40 GBP. Check: 1.15 times 40 is 46.
- Museum: 9.20 divided by 1.15 is 8 GBP. Check: 1.15 times 8 is 9.20.
Add the home column. 80 plus 16 is 96. Add 40 and you have 136. Add 8 and the four lines total 144 GBP.
Divide the euro subtotal once, as a check. 165.60 divided by 1.15 is 144. The other way: 1.15 times 144 is 165.60. One hundred times 1.15 is 115, and 44 times 1.15 is 50.60. Add those parts and you get 165.60. The columns agree. If they ever disagree, convert the lines again before you touch the buffer. A buffer on a wrong subtotal scales the mistake.
Pounds and euros both use two decimal places in ordinary writing. These SAMPLE lines already land on exact hundredths, so there is nothing to round. On a messier price, carry extra decimals through the division and round the final money amount to the nearest cent. Rounding every line early, then adding, can drift a cent away from dividing the total once.
Show the buffer maths
A buffer is a spare slice of the subtotal. On this worksheet it is ten percent. The idea is modest: a bottle of water, a bus you forgot, a ticket that costs a little more than the made-up line. The buffer is not a prediction that extra spending will happen. It reserves a number so the sheet has a place for a small surprise while you practice percent.
Ten percent is 10/100, which is 1/10. Dividing by 10 moves the decimal point one place left. Multiplying by 0.10 does the same thing.
Euro buffer: 165.60 divided by 10 is 16.56 EUR. The decimal moves from 165.60 to 16.560, which is 16.56 euros when you keep cents.
Pound buffer: 144 divided by 10 is 14.40 GBP.
The pound buffer should also equal the euro buffer divided by 1.15, because one SAMPLE rate covers the whole sheet. 16.56 divided by 1.15 is 14.40. And 1.15 times 14.40 is 16.56. The spare slice survives the round trip. A percent taken in one currency and a percent taken in the other must describe the same spare slice, or the columns have drifted.
Add the buffer to each subtotal.
165.60 plus 16.56 is 182.16 EUR.
144.00 plus 14.40 is 158.40 GBP.
Final check: 182.16 divided by 1.15 is 158.40. Multiply back if you prefer. 1.15 times 158 is 181.70, and 1.15 times 0.40 is 0.46. Add those and you get 182.16. With the buffer included, the practice trip is 182.16 euros or 158.40 pounds at this SAMPLE.
The <a href="/percentage-calculator/">percentage calculator</a> helps when the subtotal is less friendly than 165.60. Enter the subtotal as the base and 10 as the percent. For this particular ten percent, dividing by 10 is enough. The calculator is a second opinion, not a new kind of maths.
What changes if one line changes
Remove the museum for a free-entry day. Subtract 9.20 euros and 8 pounds.
165.60 minus 9.20 is 156.40 EUR. 144 minus 8 is 136 GBP.
Recompute the buffer from the new subtotal. Do not keep the old buffer and guess.
156.40 divided by 10 is 15.64 EUR. 136 divided by 10 is 13.60 GBP.
New totals: 156.40 plus 15.64 is 172.04 EUR, and 136 plus 13.60 is 149.60 GBP. Check that 172.04 divided by 1.15 is 149.60. Dropping the ticket also drops ten percent of the ticket, which is 0.92 euro and 0.80 pound. Students often delete the line and forget to shrink the buffer. The sheet makes that habit visible.
Cash and card as two ways to pay
The worksheet records amounts. It does not choose how you pay them. Cash and cards are both common, and each can involve a fee. That fee is why a receipt can disagree with a mid-market SAMPLE even when your arithmetic is correct.
A card payment can stay in pounds on a statement, or a terminal can offer a converted total. The bank that issued the card may add a fee. The fee might be a percent, a flat amount, or both. The conversion rate on the slip may differ from the mid-market SAMPLE on your worksheet. None of those details is universal. They live in the terms for that card. Check your bank for the fee list that applies to your card. That means read the document the bank already published.
Write a note that a receipt rate may differ from the SAMPLE. Add a fee line only after you read a number from your own bank. Until then, leave the fee off. For practice, keep one SAMPLE on every line. A classroom SAMPLE, a card slip, and an airport board are allowed to be three different numbers. This page does not rank cash against cards.
Keep the sheet honest
Keep the rate sentence at the top, dated as a school lesson on 14 October 2026, not as a claim about a market. Mark every price as made up until you replace it with a real quote and, if needed, a different rate label. Take ten percent of the subtotal before you add the buffer. Ten percent of 165.60 is a different number from ten percent of 182.16. Round-trip both columns. The sheet is one short trip. It is not a plan for long-term saving. A distance belongs on the <a href="/unit-converter/">unit converter</a>, not in the euro total. More percent lessons sit on the <a href="/blog/topic/finance/">money and finance</a> topic.
Try it with a sample number
Stay with the SAMPLE rate 1 GBP = 1.15 EUR and with made-up prices. Bank, card, and airport rates differ from a mid-market rate, and they differ from this SAMPLE.
Start from 165.60 EUR, which is 144 GBP. Add one extra food day at the SAMPLE price of 11.50 EUR, or 10 GBP. The new subtotal is 177.10 EUR and 154 GBP, because 1.15 times 154 is 177.10.
Buffer: 177.10 divided by 10 is 17.71 EUR, and 154 divided by 10 is 15.40 GBP. Totals: 194.81 EUR and 169.40 GBP. Check that 194.81 divided by 1.15 is 169.40.
Change one line, rebuild both columns, rebuild ten percent, and round-trip. The <a href="/percentage-calculator/">percentage calculator</a> and the <a href="/currency-converter/">currency converter</a> can repeat those two steps. Keep the rate labeled SAMPLE. A bank screen, a card slip, and an airport board can each show a different number, and your bank's fee list is where a real fee is written.
Frequently asked questions
What sample rate does this worksheet use?
The worksheet uses one labeled SAMPLE rate, 1 GBP = 1.15 EUR. Pounds are the home currency and euros are the destination currency. Multiply pounds by 1.15 to get euros. Divide euros by 1.15 to get pounds. The number was chosen so the lines divide evenly. It is not a live quote. A bank, a card, and an airport desk can each show a different rate.
Which spending lines are on the sheet?
There are four made-up lines, plus a buffer. The lines are lodging, local transport, food, and one museum ticket. Prices are invented for a four-day practice trip. They are not quotes from a city, a hotel, or a museum. After the four lines, the sheet adds ten percent of the subtotal so a small forgotten cost has a place in the arithmetic.
How do you calculate the ten percent buffer?
Ten percent means 10 out of 100, which is the same as dividing by 10. On this SAMPLE the euro subtotal is 165.60, and 165.60 divided by 10 is 16.56 euros. The pound subtotal is 144, and 144 divided by 10 is 14.40 pounds. Add each buffer to its own subtotal. You can also multiply by 0.10. Both routes match on this sheet.
Does the sheet say whether to carry cash or use a card?
It explains the two ideas and stops there. Cash can be exchanged at a desk that posts its own rate. A card payment can include a fee set by the bank or the card network. Those rates can differ from each other and from a mid-market rate. Check your bank for the fee list that applies to your card. The worksheet does not choose a way to pay.
Is this a plan for how much to save?
The page is a school exercise in two-currency arithmetic for one short trip with invented prices. It does not estimate the cost of a real holiday, and it does not say how much money a person ought to save over months or years. Change any line and the subtotal and the buffer both change. That is the skill the sheet is built to practice.
