I’ve been on the road for well over one year now! The first half of this year was more of a sprint than a marathon so in this quarter I was happy to slow things down. Slow travel tends to be cheaper than fast travel, as any long-time nomad can attest. How much cheaper? Take a look here at my Year 2, Q3 (Y2Q3) spending and find out!
Where we last left off in June I had spent about six weeks in the United States in May and June visiting friends and family, and I had just arrived in Romania for a nice long visit. I spent all of Y2Q3 in Romania and Bulgaria. This quarter I spent time in Brasov, Sibiu, Sighisoara, and Bucharest, Romania, and then moved on to visit Veliko Tarnovo, Plovdiv, and Bansko, Bulgaria. It has been great to be able to settle in more into each city and town, make some friends, and live like a local. And, traveling this way definitely costs less than moving quickly through each place and just hitting the tourist hotspots.
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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.
- I switched to a T-Mobile phone plan before I left in February 2022 because I thought it would be better for international travel than the Verizon plan I had had for so long. But I had nothing but issues with T-Mobile and in July 2022 I switched to MintMobile just so I’d have some coverage in the U.S. and to keep my U.S. phone number. I use Airalo eSIMs for data in each country or region I visit.
- 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 in the U.S.
- I found Romania and Bulgaria to be more cash-heavy than some other European countries, which means more ATM withdrawals and a little less clarity on where that cash is spent. The total spending is accurate, but I don’t break down the cash spending into categories.
- 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 and Smugmug).
Pretty Charts and Graphs
Y2Q3: July-September
Total Y2Q3 Spending: $7,241.41
Avg. Monthly Spending: $2,413.80
| Category | Spending | Percentage |
|---|---|---|
| Housing | $3,299.79 | 45.57% |
| Travel/Transportation | $433.75 | 5.99% |
| ATM/Cash | $851.20 | 11.75% |
| Insurance | $235.86 | 3.26% |
| Restaurants | $672.96 | 9.29% |
| Education | $0 | 0% |
| Groceries | $957.84 | 13.23% |
| Streaming Services | $143.26 | 1.98% |
| Entertainment | $56.33 | 0.78% |
| Telephone | $205.73 | 2.84% |
| General Merchandise | $191.30 | 2.64% |
| Healthcare/Medical | $64.38 | 0.89% |
| Personal Care | $129.01 | 1.78% |
| Clothing/Shoes | $0 | 0% |
If you don’t think quarterly, here is the breakdown month-to-month:
July – Brasov to Sibiu to Sighisoara, Romania
Total Spending: $1,629.66
| Category | Spending | Percentage |
|---|---|---|
| Housing | $864.55 | 53.05% |
| Travel/Transportation | $23.85 | 1.46% |
| ATM/Cash | $49.09 | 3.01% |
| Insurance | $78.62 | 4.82% |
| Restaurants | $268.98 | 16.51% |
| Education | $0 | 0% |
| Groceries | $238.42 | 14.63% |
| Streaming Services | $21.48 | 1.32% |
| Entertainment | $0 | 0% |
| Telephone | $0 | 0% |
| General Merchandise | $84.67 | 5.20% |
| Healthcare/Medical | $0 | 0% |
| Personal Care | $0 | 0% |
| Clothing/Shoes | $0 | 0% |
Notes:
- After so much moving around recently, especially while visiting friends and family in the United States, I was super boring this month, and I loved it. None of my spending categories are that impressive, with most of my spending going, predictably, to housing and food. I spent most of the month just catching up on sleep, researching future travel, wandering around Brasov, Sibiu, and Sighisoara on free walking tours or by myself, and meeting up with other nomads passing through for lunch or coffee.
- July was my lowest spending month of the year so far. My low spending this month helps balance out some higher spending earlier in the year (March). This is part of my ongoing travel strategy– to not be too focused on day-to-day spending but to alternate between more expensive and less expensive destinations as a way to stay within my yearly spending goals.
- Since I’m spending four months in two neighboring countries my Travel/Transportation spending is notably low. This month’s spending was on train tickets between Brasov and Sibiu, and Sibiu and Sighisoara. Whenever possible I prefer to take trains or buses than to fly.
August – Sighisoara to Brasov to Bucharest, Romania to Veliko Tarnovo to Plovdiv, Bulgaria.
Total Spending: $3,249.63
| Category | Spending | Percentage |
|---|---|---|
| Housing | $1,791.50 | 55.13% |
| Travel/Transportation | $328.97 | 10.82% |
| ATM/Cash | $251.08 | 7.73% |
| Insurance | $78.62 | 2.42% |
| Restaurants | $208.40 | 6.41% |
| Education | $0 | 0% |
| Groceries | $324.63 | 9.99% |
| Streaming Services | $99.30 | 3.06% |
| Entertainment | $0 | 0% |
| Telephone | $0 | 0% |
| General Merchandise | $106.39 | 3.28% |
| Healthcare/Medical | $27.00 | 0.83% |
| Personal Care | $33.50 | 1.03% |
| Clothing/Shoes | $0 | 0% |
Notes:
- I like taking advantage of heavy discounts on month-long stays whenever possible because staying for shorter periods means paying more per day for a bed. There has been a noticeable increase over the last couple years in the prices of accommodations, especially on Airbnb. Originally I had planned to spend just two weeks in Plovdiv, but when searching for accommodations I wouldn’t be able to stay in the area I wanted to be in and stay within my budget. So I decided to stay for a month instead, which meant the monthly price for the location I wanted was more palatable. This month’s Housing spending includes 10 days in Brasov, one week in Veliko Tarnovo, and then a full month in Plovdiv. So while this month’s Housing expense is higher than normal, next month’s is lower.
- The Travel/Transportation category is a little misleading here. I had planned to fly back to the United States from Romania for a couple weeks mid-August for some family stuff, and then fly back to Bulgaria at the end of the month. After I made all of the travel arrangements the family stuff changed and I no longer had any reason to go back home at this time. So I cancelled my flight back to the United States. While I got a lot of points refunded, I also had to pay some cancellation and change fees. So while I actually only traveled by train and bus this month, those airline fees got looped into this category.
- I also renewed my annual HBO Max streaming subscription this month, which increased my spending on streaming services above normal. I pay for this annually to take advantage of a rebate offer through one of my credit cards which gives me $25 back on an order of $99 or more, effectively making this subscription about $6.15 per month. Well worth it to me!
- Finally, I forgot to cancel some Amazon Subscribe & Save orders, which sent to my address in Maryland automatically this month, which is the spending int he General Merchandise category. It’s fine because they are things I’ll need when I return to the United States in November, but I’ve now gone in to make sure those subscriptions are cancelled.
September –Plovdiv to Bansko, Bulgaria
Total Spending: $2,362.12
| Category | Spending | Percentage |
|---|---|---|
| Housing | $643.74 | 27.25% |
| Travel/Transportation | $80.93 | 3.43% |
| ATM/Cash | $551.03 | 23.33% |
| Insurance | $78.62 | 3.33% |
| Restaurants | $195.58 | 8.28% |
| Education | $0 | 0% |
| Groceries | $394.79 | 16.71% |
| Streaming Services | $22.48 | 0.95% |
| Entertainment | $56.33 | 2.38% |
| Telephone | $205.73 | 8.71% |
| General Merchandise | $0 | 0% |
| Healthcare/Medical | $37.38 | 1.58% |
| Personal Care | $95.51 | 4.04% |
| Clothing/Shoes | $0 | 0% |
Notes:
- As mentioned above, my month-long stay in Plovdiv was from mid-August to mid-September, so that spending fell within August. September’s housing expense covers my stay in Bansko. So even though housing costs have gone up all over, it’s still possible to find locations that are affordable, especially for longer stays.
- I had to go to a dentist in Plovdiv and he only took cash, so the spending for that went into my ATM/Cash category instead of Healthcare/Medical. Not all of my cash spending this month was for the dentist, but a large portion definitely was. It was still a lot cheaper than what the appointment would have been in the United States. And since Plovdiv is home to one of the best dental schools in the world, it was quality treatment at a fraction of the cost in the United States.
- I think my Groceries and Restaurant spending in Bulgaria have to be lumped together into just spending on food. Because Bulgaria uses the Cyrillic alphabet, when charges are translated to my credit card they just show up as a jumble of letters. I’ve been having to guess based on date and amount what the charges were for, and I’m sure sometimes I’m getting it wrong. But since most of the times I’ve pulled out my credit card here have been to pay for food, it’s safe to assume those charges are EITHER groceries or restaurants. I made a group of friends in Plovdiv and we would meet up for dinner or drinks 3-4 times a week, so my spending on food is a little outsized.
- My MintMobile phone plan renewed for another year this month, so this is the highest spending in the Telephone category I expect to have all year.
- To get from Plovdiv to Bansko I had planned to take the bus, but I had some trouble figuring out when and where to catch the bus. In the end it didn’t matter. One of my new friends from Plovdiv wanted to visit Bansko for the weekend to see the town she’d heard so much about, and we decided to rent a car in Plovdiv and drive to Bansko, and she’d drive back at the end of the weekend. This had the added benefit of giving us more mobility in Bansko, and we took advantage of that to drive up to Rila National Park and take an all-day hike to the Rila Lakes– an adventure I wouldn’t have been able to do without a car or paying a tour company more than the car rental cost. It was so successful that later in September I rented a car again in Bansko with some friends there to take another day-long road trip. The cost of renting the cars, especially when shared, was much lower than paying a driver or tour company.
Tracking Spending 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 Empower (formerly called Personal Capital) to track all my spending. Which is also why my cash spending may be slightly off. 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 Empower 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.
So What Does This Mean?
“Thanks for showing us all your spending Rachel, so, what does it all mean?” Fair question. And while some people may subscribe to the belief that FIRE means living on rice and beans and never spending money (I met someone a few months ago who mansplained to a group that that’s what I was doing when I said I had FIREd), I am not in that camp. I would not have quit my job to travel if it meant I could never enjoy the places I go. And sometimes, it costs a little more. 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. Since February 2022, I also sold my possessions including my condo and my car, received 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.
I chose to head to Romania in June because a) I wanted to visit; I’d heard it was beautiful and had lots of charming medieval towns/villages, b) I thought the lower temperature in the mountains of Transylvania would be a good place to ride out the height of summer, c) Dracula, and d) cost of living was reasonable and would help me balance out some more expensive months earlier in the year. I wanted to visit Bulgaria again for cost of living and because I’d heard about a great mountain town that was off the beaten path but had good infrastructure, where I could do some hiking and relax after so much faster travel earlier this year. I was right about the lower cost of living– in Y2Q3 I made up for some of my higher spending in the first half of this year by coming in under budget every month.
So what it means is that despite worldwide concerns about inflation and recession, I am able to travel and enjoy my time exploring new countries without breaking the bank. In Y2Q3 I explored medieval towns in Romania, Roman ruins in Bulgaria, hiked to lakes, canyons, waterfalls, and city overlooks, went ziplining, roadtripped (multiple) monasteries, and met up with about two dozen other nomads crossing my path on their own adventures. I’m not sitting at home trying to spend as little as possible. 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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