One of the questions I get most often is how can I afford to just travel all the time? And I try to explain that it’s not as expensive as you might think. The person I’m talking to then usually nods and smiles… and completely doesn’t believe me. So to be fully transparent, I’m sharing my spending for my 1st quarter of nomad life.
I left the United States at the beginning of February 2022, and returned “home” for about 10 days at the beginning of May. During those first three months, I spent six weeks in Spain, five and a half weeks in Portugal, and four days in Memphis, Tennessee.
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Caveats and Addendums
A couple of caveats for how I am categorizing my spending:
- For housing, the amount is included in the month the housing was for, not when it was paid for, because I am booking my accommodations ahead of time.
- If an expense covers more than one month (housing/rent) it will go into the month when the spending starts.
- Spending at “home” (i.e. Maryland) is not included. This is relevant to February 2022.
- Spending not related to travel will not go into total monthly travel spending (such as bar membership dues, charitable giving, and a few subscriptions like Adobe Creative Cloud).
- I realize annually Q1 is January-March, not February-April. But I did not leave until February. So for now, my Q1 starts in February. When I get to one year, I’ll probably re-adjust back to a normal annual
Pretty Charts and Graphs
Quarter 1: February-April
Total Q1 Spending: $8,544.06
Avg. Monthly Spend: $2,848.02
| Category | Spending | Percentage |
|---|---|---|
| Housing | $4,537.15 | 53.10% |
| Travel/Transportation | $596.04 | 6.98% |
| ATM/Cash | $771.10 | 9.02% |
| Insurance | $477.76 | 5.59% |
| Restaurants | $754.83 | 8.83% |
| Education | $227.24 | 2.66% |
| Groceries | $414.04 | 4.85% |
| Streaming Services | $78.91 | 0.92% |
| Entertainment | $201.07 | 2.35% |
| Telephone | $274.34 | 3.21% |
| General Merchandise | $42.11 | 0.49% |
| Healthcare/Medical | $44.04 | 0.52% |
| Personal Care | $125.43 | 1.47% |
If you don’t think quarterly, here is the breakdown month-to-month:
February – Sevilla, Spain
Total Spending: $3,140.36
| Category | Spending | Percentage |
|---|---|---|
| Housing | $1,242.51 | 39.57% |
| Travel/Transportation | $277.75 | 8.84% |
| ATM/Cash | $522.23 | 16.63% |
| Insurance | $341.68 | 10.88% |
| Restaurants | $337.40 | 10.74% |
| Education | $227.24 | 7.24% |
| Groceries | $102.08 | 3.25% |
| Streaming Services | $28.96 | 0.92% |
| Entertainment | $25.15 | 0.80% |
| Telephone | $21.43 | 0.68% |
| General Merchandise | $13.93 | 0.44% |
| Healthcare/Medical | $0 | 0% |
| Personal Care | $0 | 0% |
Notes:
- I was in a Spanish Immersion course for most of February, and my housing was also arranged through this program. That cost was divided into the Housing and Education categories.
- Travel/Transportation includes my travel from Maryland to Sevilla at the start of my trip.
- Insurance includes my SafetyWing travel medical insurance, which renews monthly and covers my travel and health insurance needs abroad. For this first three months, I also carried another travel insurance policy, but realized it was redundant and I didn’t continued with it.
March – Ronda, Spain to Lisboa, Portugal
Total Spending: $3,305.86
| Category | Spending | Percentage |
|---|---|---|
| Housing | $2,140.34 | 64.74% |
| Travel/Transportation | $166.31 | 5.03% |
| ATM/Cash | $248.87 | 7.53% |
| Insurance | $68.04 | 2.06% |
| Restaurants | $230.68 | 6.98% |
| Education | $0 | 0% |
| Groceries | $225.91 | 6.83% |
| Streaming Services | $28.47 | 0.86% |
| Entertainment | $13.87 | 0.42% |
| Telephone | $98.51 | 2.98% |
| General Merchandise | $9.86 | 0.30% |
| Healthcare/Medical | $2.02 | .06% |
| Personal Care | $72.98 | 2.21% |
Notes:
- I had a two-week Airbnb in Ronda, Spain, and a one-month Airbnb in Lisbon, Portugal which were both included in this month’s spending. Since my mother came to visit me in Portugal I stayed in a two-bedroom for the month, which raised my housing spending a little.
- On the flip side, to pay me back for the Airbnb, mom paid for most of our meals during the five days she visited me in Lisbon. Thanks Mom!
April – Lisboa, Portugal to Porto, Portugal to Memphis, Tennessee, USA
Total Spending: $2,097.84
| Category | Spending | Percentage |
|---|---|---|
| Housing | $1,154.30 | 55.02% |
| Travel/Transportation | $151.98 | 7.24% |
| ATM/Cash | $0 | 0% |
| Insurance | $68.04 | 3.24% |
| Restaurants | $186.75 | 8.90% |
| Education | $0 | 0% |
| Groceries | $86.05 | 4.10% |
| Streaming Services | $21.48 | 1.02% |
| Entertainment | $162.05 | 7.72% |
| Telephone | $154.40 | 7.36% |
| General Merchandise | $18.32 | 0.87% |
| Healthcare/Medical | $42.02 | 2.00% |
| Personal Care | $52.45 | 2.50% |
Notes:
- This month’s housing included ten days in Porto, Portugal and five nights at a hotel in Memphis, TN.
- I took a wine tour day trip to the Douro Valley in Portugal, which was most of the spending in Entertainment.
- My phone bill includes my U.S. service and the eSIMs I purchase to access data overseas. My U.S. service provider is causing a lot of frustration and I will be switching soon. The eSIMs from Airalo.com I’ve been using have been excellent. If you’d like to try them out, you can use my referral code and we’ll each get $3.00 off: RACHEL6239.
Tracking Expenses Made Easy
If you are worried that I am spending too much time tracking every cent, don’t worry, I’m not doing anything! I use Personal Capital to track all my spending. If you are serious (or even just curious) about financial independence, you need to know where your money is, and where it is going every month. If you want to give Personal Capital a try, clicking the link here, signing up, and linking an account will get you a free $20 (and I’ll get $20 too). There are other applications like Mint or your bank or brokerage firm’s portfolio tracker, but this has become my preferred tracker in the last few months.
So What Does This Mean?
“Thanks for showing us all your spending Rachel, so, what does it all mean?” Fair question. So far, I’m well within my budget and on track for my annual FIRE spending. Hooray! Hopefully my spending in the next few months will be even lower because I will be traveling in South America for most of the next quarter. But it also means that my month-to-month spending is not as important as what it adds up to at the end of the year. Hopefully I will be able to keep my spending low over the next six months because I have a big, EXPENSIVE trip coming up in December. It’s a bucket list once-in-a-lifetime thing, so even if I go over my annual budget, that’s okay, I’m still going. My budget has some cushion, and I’ll make it up in the future.
This budget also only tracks my EXPENSES, it says nothing about income. In the first quarter of my nomad life, I also sold my possessions including my condo and my car, received some income from investment dividends and sold some of my photography in a gallery. I have yet to draw down anything from my FIRE nest egg.
So what it means is that full time travel is not as expensive as the nodders and smilers think it is, and here are my numbers to prove it!
This post contains affiliate links and referral codes. By clicking these links and signing up/ordering items I’ve linked to or recommended, I may receive a small commission, at no cost to you. If I have linked to a product/service, it is because I have used it, liked it, and would recommend it.
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