The end of this year brings me to almost two full years as a nomad! It does mark the two year anniversary of quitting my job to travel. I’ll do a separate post as a wrap up for the entire year, but for now I’ll say, this quarter saw me visiting three different continents, celebrating a wedding, Thanksgiving, Hannukah, Christmas, and New Years, cruising, and catching up with friends and family literally all over the world. And yet my average monthly spending was under $3,000. Still so much less expensive than if I had spent the same time living in the States. How much less? Take a look here at my Year 2, Q4 (Y2Q4) spending and find out!
I started the quarter where I finished Y2Q3: Bansko, Bulgaria. I then spent a couple weeks in Sofia, Bulgaria before flying to London, then taking the train to Salisbury, UK. I stayed with a friend I’d made on the Camino earlier this year and finally visited Stonehenge before getting on a cruise from Southhampton, UK to Lisbon, Portugal. For me, the draw of this cruise was the group of people with whom I was able to travel. I’ve done cruises and I’d been to most of the ports of call, but as a solo traveler, I’m always interested in opportunities to meet and socialize with others. This particular cruise group was organized by a friend of mine who run a large, active, Facebook Group for nomads, house sitters, and people interested in this type of lifestyle. I’ve met up with others from this group all over the world, but this was the first organized, large-scale “meetup” the group has done. There were 31 of us total. The cruise itself was lackluster (which I think is generous of me to say), but it was worth it for the great people I met and had a chance to get to know.
After the cruise ended in Lisbon I flew back to Maryland for my brother’s wedding and festivities. I had my own surprise upon arriving back in the U.S.: I had COVID! So I unfortunately had to miss out on the bachelorette party. But I was all better by the rehearsal dinner! I spent most of November in Maryland for the wedding, Thanksgiving, and visiting friends. Then at the end of November I took off for Southeast Asia. I spent a few days in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (KL), and then flew over to Hoi An, Vietnam for the rest of the month. In KL I visited with one of my childhood friends, and I also participated in some medical tourism at one of the international medical centers there. In Hoi An, I met up with some new friends from the cruise in October as well as some other folks from that Facebook group. My friend from KL visited me for New Years and another friend who lives in Bangkok, Thailand came to visit as well. I probably went out and spent more money on organized tours and activities than I usually would because of all these visitors, yet because of the low cost of living my spending was still way below average in December.
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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.
- When I participate in something all-inclusive (for example a cruise), in that it includes spending in more than one category, I’ll just include the full price in one category rather than try to divide it up. I’ll try to note when this happens.
- 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
Y2Q4: October-December
Total Y2Q4 Spending: $8,551.27
Avg. Monthly Spending: $2,850.42
| Category | Spending | Percentage |
|---|---|---|
| Housing | $877.59 | 10.26% |
| Travel/Transportation | $3,200.03 | 37.42% |
| ATM/Cash | $265.03 | 3.10% |
| Insurance | $266.89 | 3.12% |
| Restaurants | $814.18 | 9.52% |
| Education | $0 | 0% |
| Groceries | $291.68 | 3.41% |
| Streaming Services | $82.28 | 0.96% |
| Entertainment | $307.64 | 3.60% |
| Telephone | $89.00 | 1.04% |
| General Merchandise | $530.75 | 6.21% |
| Healthcare/Medical | $1,453.15 | 16.99% |
| Personal Care | $33.50 | 0.39% |
| Clothing/Shoes | $339.55 | 3.97% |
If you don’t think quarterly, here is the breakdown month-to-month:
October – Bansko to Sofia, Bulgaria to Salisbury to Southhampton, United Kingdom to Cruise to Lisbon
Total Spending: $3,239.6
| Category | Spending | Percentage |
|---|---|---|
| Housing | $227.59 | 7.03% |
| Travel/Transportation | $1,544.02 | 47.66% |
| ATM/Cash | $54.88 | 1.69% |
| Insurance | $78.62 | 2.43% |
| Restaurants | $420.56 | 12.98% |
| Education | $0 | 0% |
| Groceries | $169.71 | 5.24% |
| Streaming Services | $37.32 | 1.15% |
| Entertainment | $269.78 | 8.33% |
| Telephone | $89.00 | 2.75% |
| General Merchandise | $311.04 | 9.60% |
| Healthcare/Medical | $36.84 | 1.14% |
| Personal Care | $0 | 0% |
| Clothing/Shoes | $0 | 0% |
Notes:
- This month’s big expense is in the Travel category and my Housing expense is oddly low. This is because I put the entire cost of the cruise in the Travel category. The Housing is only my accommodation in Sofia; I’d already paid for my apartment in Bansko and included it in last quarter’s spending. The cruise covered travel, housing and most of my dining for the 9 days I was on the ship.
- While I spent less than two weeks in Western Europe, my expenses in those three days demonstrate why I alternate between higher and lower cost of living areas. When I stayed with my friend in Salisbury I took him out to dinner a couple times to say thanks for giving me a free place to stay. And I visited Stonehenge and Salisbury Cathedral; the costs of both visits are in my Entertainment category. And during one of our port stops on the cruise a few of my group split the cost to hire a private tour guide to take us to Normandy for the day. None of these expenses are out of the norm, but after three months in Romania and Bulgaria, I definitely had a little sticker shock!
- I bought a new year-long global eSIM from Airalo since I knew I was going to be moving quickly through countries on the cruise, and in anticipation of my upcoming travel over the next year. If it is slightly more expensive than buying the country-specific eSIMs, it makes up for that in the convenience of just having a working phone all the time.
- Since I knew I was heading back to the U.S. shortly I ordered some refills of supplies I’d need when I headed back overseas. So most of my General Merchandise spending is on Amazon, things like allergy and electrolytes pills. On our cruise our group of experienced travelers had a “show’n’tell” of our favorite gadgets we travel with and I took some notes and ordered some things for my future travels. Some have been amazing and I don’t know how I traveled without them! And I did some holiday shopping for my family. Since my orders were a mix of all these things, I didn’t parse out the presents and just included them in this category. So if you want to be really literal, but travel spending was a bit lower than is shown here. But I think the difference is negligible.
November – Galena, Maryland to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Total Spending: $3,334.32
| Category | Spending | Percentage |
|---|---|---|
| Housing | $0 | 0% |
| Travel/Transportation | $1,420.29 | 42.60% |
| ATM/Cash | $0 | 0% |
| Insurance | $109.65 | 3.29% |
| Restaurants | $187.73 | 5.63% |
| Education | $0 | 0% |
| Groceries | $42.82 | 1.28% |
| Streaming Services | $22.48 | 0.67% |
| Entertainment | $0 | 0% |
| Telephone | $0 | 0% |
| General Merchandise | $219.71 | 6.59% |
| Healthcare/Medical | $1,087.20 | 32.61% |
| Personal Care | $33.50 | 1.00% |
| Clothing/Shoes | $210.94 | 6.33% |
Notes:
- Of note this month is that I spent $0 on Housing! I’m lucky to have a place to stay for free when I’m visiting the United States. I arrived on November 2 and left on November 29, but with the time difference I didn’t arrive in Kuala Lumpur until December 1. I spent one night, November 1, in a hotel at in Boston en route to Maryland, but I paid for it with points. As a rule, I don’t count the points value in my spending. So I spent nothing on Housing this month.
- However, I did spend a lot on Travel/Transportation. Most of this is my rental car for the month I was in the U.S. I realized when I started traveling that I would have to rent a car anytime I came back to the U.S., and it’s just an expense I’ve accepted. It’s balanced out by not having to pay for housing. I also paid for my flight from Portugal to the U.S., and the fees on my flight from the U.S. to Kuala Lumpur. The balance of that flight was paid with points, but I still pay cash for the taxes and fees.
- My other big spending category this month is in Health/Medical. I have one prescription that I have to refill about once a year, in the U.S.– I haven’t actually found it outside the U.S. That one prescription costs me about $1,000 for each annual refill. My current insurance doesn’t cover it, but it’s cheaper to pay for it out of pocket than to switch to a health insurance plan that does cover it but has higher monthly premiums. The second thing in this category was a visit to a dentist. I’ve been having an issue with a tooth all year and I’ve visited dentists in four different countries about it now. I had a root canal in Bulgaria. But the problem wasn’t resolved so I went to a dentist in the U.S. I’d made an appointment in September for when I was back in November. Of course, two days before the appointment the dentist called me and cancelled. So I had to scramble to find another dentist, who took my dental insurance, and who could see me around Thanksgiving. As you can guess, it wasn’t easy. I finally found someone who could see me two days before I flew out for Kuala Lumpur. When I had the appointment, the dentist said I basically needed the root canal re-done, but he couldn’t do it, could I come back next week? Nope. The office was actually very helpful calling every dentist within about 100 miles over three states to see if someone could squeeze me in in the next day. But no one could. So I left still having this outstanding issue with my tooth. I am staying in Chiang Mai for most of January, so I’ll hopefully be able to get it taken care of there.
December – Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia to Hoi An, Vietnam
Total Spending: $1,977.59
| Category | Spending | Percentage |
|---|---|---|
| Housing | $650.00 | 32.87% |
| Travel/Transportation | $235.72 | 11.92% |
| ATM/Cash | $210.15 | 10.63% |
| Insurance | $78.62 | 3.98% |
| Restaurants | $205.89 | 10.41% |
| Education | $0 | 0% |
| Groceries | $79.15 | 4.00% |
| Streaming Services | $22.48 | 1.14% |
| Entertainment | $37.86 | 1.91% |
| Telephone | $0 | 0% |
| General Merchandise | $0 | 0% |
| Healthcare/Medical | $329.11 | 16.64% |
| Personal Care | $0 | 0% |
| Clothing/Shoes | $128.61 | 6.50% |
Notes:
- December saw the beginning of my four months in Southeast Asia. I’ve traveled in this region twice before, but I am really happy to have more time than just my vacations from work to explore and stay longer in each place I visit. And the cost of living in this part of the world is significantly lower than in the U.S. or Europe, and strongly contributed to my being under budget this quarter.
- Eating out is so cheap in this part of the world that I realized I wouldn’t need a kitchen in most places. Therefore I stayed in hotels for this whole month. My hotel in Kuala Lumpur was just convenient to what I needed to do in KL. In Hoi An I stayed at a small boutique hotel for four weeks, with breakfast included. It actually wasn’t a great experience, the location wasn’t great, there were some issues with the room, and the hotel management provided a unique challenge. I didn’t actually realize how much it was stressing me out until I left but in retrospect, I probably should have just moved somewhere else. Given the low cost, I could have just eaten the loss on part of the stay. It honestly didn’t occur to me to do that.
- Travel included my flight from KL to Hoi An, and then a lot of ride share rides around Hoi An. Each ride is cheap but it does add up, but because of where my hotel was it was my best option for getting around.
- Even with eating out for almost every meal (or ordering delivery) I still spent less than $300 on food.
- For the second month in a row, my Health/Medical spending is a bit of a stand out. This was a planned expense though. The main reason I spent a few days in Kuala Lumpur was for medial tourism. KL, many other cities in Southeast Asia, has become something of a destination for expats to have their medical checkups and procedures at really affordable prices especially compared to in the U.S. I spent a day at a private hospital having every test you’ve ever had when you went to the doctor, and them some. They do this all the time and everything flows steadily from one office and test to the next. And all for about $300 (there’s a few different menus of tests depending on age and gender, so the price varies slightly). I’m happy to say I had a clean bill of health.
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 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. This December for the first time I sold some stock from my FIRE nest egg. As mentioned above I use the ACA for health care in the U.S. and every year I have to re-enroll. This year when re-enrollment began, I received a letter saying that based on my low income, I only qualified for medicaid. So I sold some stock before the end of the year in order to increase my income to put me out of the medicaid range.
I chose to head to Southeast Asia in December because a) I wanted to visit; Vietnam and Thailand have long been on my bucket list, but I never wanted to go when I only had two weeks of vacation, I wanted more time to explore than that, b) the time of year was important to me since I don’t like the heat and I knew I was going to get it no matter what, I wanted to at least get the lowest temperatures I could I, and c) cost of living is low and would help me balance out some more expensive months earlier this year, and some plans for next year. I was able to come in under budget every month this quarter, and significantly so in December.
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 Y2Q4 I hiked in the mountains of Bulgaria, visited Stonehenge and climbed through the roof of a cathedral, cruised to Amsterdam, Brugge, Bilbao, and Normandy, celebrated my brother’s wedding, had a medical tune-up, did multiple food tours, had tailored clothes handmade, saw many many monkeys, and met up with dozens of other nomads crossing my path on their own adventures. I’m not sitting at home trying to spend as little as possible. I’m enjoying every place I visit both on my own and with others, and I have no plans to stop anytime soon!
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.