February 2, 2023 marked the one-year anniversary of when I left the United States to start my indefinite travel journey. If you’ve been following my spending reports, you’ve noticed that my “quarters” are a month off the calendar year, because I started in February. From here on out I’m going to shift back to a calendar year. So my first year spending report only goes from February to December.

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Total Year 1 Spending: $39,324.86

Avg. Monthly Spending: $3,574.99

Total Year 1 Spending: $39,324.86, Avg. Monthly Spending: $3,574.99
CategorySpendingPercentage
Housing$10,640.8627.06%
Travel/Transportation$14,203.8336.12%
ATM/Cash$4,817.8312.25%
Insurance$1,341.023.41%
Restaurants$1,919.964.88%
Education$667.241.70%
Groceries$950.062.42%
Streaming Services$417.521.06%
Entertainment$451.981.15%
Telephone$1,629.364.14%
General Merchandise$1,015.242.58%
Healthcare/Medical$933.212.37%
Personal Care$190.430.48%
Clothing/Shoes$146.320.37%

Notes:

  • About half of my spending for the year falls into my Housing and Travel/Transportation categories. This includes all accommodations as well as flights, trains, busses, etc. AND my big trip to Antarctica. Overall, I paid much less for housing than I would have if I had kept paying my mortgage all year. I also used points and miles to pay for a lot of my travel between cities and countries, which definitely saved me a significant amount over the course of the year.
  • My ATM/Cash withdrawals are much higher than they were when I lived in the U.S. I used to pay for almost everything by credit card; for the past few years I withdrew from an ATM maybe once a year. But I have been traveling in some countries where they either don’t really use credit cards, or where it’s advantageous to pay with cash. This increase just means I’ve used more cash and less credit card; it doesn’t increase my total spending. But it does hurt to not get all of the reward points and miles from my credit cards.
  • I have subscriptions to a number of streaming services. Sometimes I think I’m spending too much on these services since I cannot watch all of them at once. But I do use them all and I like having access to the shows and movies I want to watch as I move around. Seeing the total for the year, I feel less guilty about keeping all of these subscriptions as this is still a fraction of what I used to pay for cable in the U.S.
  • Insurance includes my SafetyWing travel medical insurance, which renews monthly and covers my travel and health insurance needs abroad. I rely on my SafetyWing abroad and my ACA coverage for in the U.S. So far this setup is working for me, so I am continuing to use the same model. The overall cost seems reasonable and manageable and worth it for the peace of mind it gives me.
  • I have previously mentioned the challenges I’ve had with my phone service. T-Mobile did not work out for me and drove up my monthly phone expenses for about half the year. When I finally found an alternative I had to pay off my new phone in one fell swoop, which is reflected in the number above. Hopefully going forward I am spending much less on phone service.

Did I Stay on Budget?

I think when I stated my annual spending goal initially a couple years before I left my job, I said my goal was to spend $30,000 per year. At the time of that post, I had not yet reached a FI number that could support that goal, but I had a couple years left to get there. But, the stock market did very well over those next couple years, and I blew my goal FI number out of the water. When that happened, I gave myself some more leeway in terms of spending. I upped my annual spending goal significantly, and even with my new goal, I left plenty of room to take advantage of opportunities that arose. And that’s exactly what I did this year. Antarctica was definitely over my planned budget, but my cushion allowed me to take the trip.

Spending By Month

State of the Market

And then the stock market dropped. A lot. We’re probably entering a recession. I. Don’t. Care.

Let me rephrase: of course I care. I care that inflation is making things more expensive. I care that people are worried about their investments. But recessions are a natural part of the market cycle. In fact, they are a great time to increase investing. The money invested is NOT lost unless and until you sell the stocks and pull the money out of the market at a loss. I have not sold any of my investments in the last year, so I have not lost any money. In fact, I have continued to invest as the market has dropped, with the money I made from selling my condo and my car. When the recession ends and the market increases again, I’ll recover from any losses and then some, since I’ve continued to buy index funds.

So the drop in the stock market has not effected me whatsoever. I have confidence the market will recover and if it doesn’t…we have bigger problems, and I’ll be forming my zombie apocalypse team.

Outlook: Good

I’m now one month into “Year 2” (since I’m switching to calendar years and counting January as part of Year 2 now). So far I’m over budget :-D. When I decided to spend the first quarter of 2023 in Patagonia, I knew it was going to be the more expensive part of my year. Coming right on the heels of Antarctica, I do feel like I’m spending a lot of money. But it’s just because my big spend in 2022 was at the end of the year, and the big spend in 2023 is at the beginning of the year. As you can see from my monthly spending above, for most of the year I spent less than or just around $3,000 per month. I have no reason to expect 2023 to be different, except for these first few months in Patagonia. So I should be on track for about the same spending this year as last year; even with one additional month factored in. My plans after Patagonia are still a work in progress, but I will go back to traveling slowly in June, spending at least a month in each location…wherever I end up. I will also spend some more time in the U.S. this year for family obligations. I anticipate both of these things will effect my spending. In a year, we’ll see how.

4 thoughts on “Spending Report For My First Year of Travel

  1. Which phone service did you switch to? I recently traveled to New Zealand for a month, then Australia for a month, and T Mobile really fell down on the job, reduced my data stream so much that I couldn’t even open Google Maps for navigating. I’m so over T-Mobile. Who is better for international? Thx

    1. Lisa, I switched to MintMobile for coverage in the U.S. and to keep my phone number for 2FA, and I use eSIMs everywhere else. It’s been working well for me. I have referral links for both if you’re interested.

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