First let’s start with the elephant in the room. I went over budget this year. I know – sound the alarm and alert the media! Just kidding 🙂 . I spent $23,290.26 this year, which is 2.6% above my goal of $22,700.
I went over by $590.26, which wasn’t surprising to me given all the HCOL places I lived in this year. However, I’m not worried about going over budget – not at all actually. Context is key.
I was 20% under budget last year and also 20% under budget in 2020. So for now I’m going to call this a wash instead of an emerging trend 😉 .
However, I am swinging the pendulum in the opposite direction going forward to balance out all my HCOL shenanigans and living in LCOL places for the foreseeable future. It’s all about balance 🙂 .
So let’s see how much I spent and get into it! Here’s every dollar I spent in 2023:
MONTHLY BILLS
48% Budget: $11,170.79 or $930.90/month
Rent & Utilities: $10,795.47 or $899.62/month – This includes all of my monthly living expenses, which for most of this year were Airbnb payments, which include utilities. The Airbnbs we choose are at least one bedrooms with a washer/dryer that’s walkable to downtown and ideally has outdoor space.
Phone: $375.32 or $31.28/month – This is for my Google Fi service that works globally. I switched from Republic Wireless in 2021 and wrote about why here. I love stepping off a plane in a new country and having service without having to do anything at all. Laziness for the win 🙂 .
CHANGELINGS
I call this section “changelings” because they’re the items that change the most month to month.
25% Budget: $5,847.84 or $487.32/month
Groceries: $2,063.52 or $171.96/month – My grocery costs increased this year from the $125/month I usually spent in Seattle. This is not surprising to me since grocery costs have been increasing and because with the monthly moving we do, we’re not as efficient with our groceries as we used to be. However, that luckily hasn’t translated to more waste as I feared. If we have food left when leaving a location, we give it away to others or have found food pantries that will take our food and use it for good – win/win 🙂 .
Eating Out: $2,741.05 or $228.42/month – This amount of spending makes sense to me given that I’ve intentionally increased the amount I dine out to try the local cuisines in all the new places we’re living in! I suspected this cost would increase in retirement and I couldn’t be happier about it 🙂 .
Alcohol: $1,043.27 or $86.94/month – Not bad at all – I thought this would be higher since I was mostly buying flights at breweries to try lots of local beers instead of doing the more cost effective thing of buying some tipples at the grocery store, but this isn’t bad at all 🙂 .
RAINY DAYS
This section is named based on a principle in YNAB: saving a little for inevitable things that don’t happen monthly so when a rainy day hits you have the funds.
9.8% Budget: $2,286.86 or $190.57/month
Transit: $735.97 or $61.33/month – This includes all ride shares, metros and buses I took throughout the year.
Household Goods: $38.05 or $3.17/month – As always, this is the best part of the budget that covers things like toilet paper, sponges and items that keep a household running. Most of this stuff is already stocked in the Airbnbs we stay in so this number has plummeted from when I wasn’t a nomad.
Personal Products: $150.34 or $12.53/month – This is other fun stuff like toothpaste, fluoride rinse, conditioner and hair ties. It’s wild over here!
Clothing: $73 or $6.08/month – I bought a few new items of clothing this year after I wore holes in them.
Entertainment: $522.45 or $43.54/month – This includes our monthly Netflix subscription that we let a million people use for free, my fancy Spotify Premium subscription, my Hamilton tickets, books, video games, movie theater tickets, and general excursions. It was an entertaining year 🙂 .
Medical: $627.15 or $52.26/month – This is my travel insurance coverage from World Nomads along with some doctor’s visits and medication. I talk about my retirement health insurance plan here if you’re curious.
Dental: $38.78 or $3.23/month – This is from the wonderful dental cleaning I received in Puerto Vallarta México.
Vision: $56.80 or $4.73/month – These were my new prescription sunglasses from the fantastic Zenni Optical.
Vitamins: $44.32 or $3.69/month – I’ve started separating out how much I spend on my vitamins out of curiosity. This included Vitamin D, Iron, Allergy pills and Melatonin for the year.
LONGTERM
6.3% Budget: $1,474.92 or $122.91/month
Giving: $880.87 or $73.40/month – Giving has continued to be a big focus in my retirement. This includes giving to charities, such as the National Network Of Abortion Funds, Planned Parenthood, the ACLU, a Housing Stability charity, the Autism Spectrum Disorder Foundation, AO3 and Wikipedia as well as buying things for friends and family.
Subscriptions: $174.03 or $14.50/month – This includes my annual fee for the amazing Chase Sapphire Preferred Card that saves my ass on a regular basis with its trip delay protection, Patreon subscriptions, annual 1Password subscription so my shit is secure and the annual fee for my budget software YNAB.
Blog: $296.94 or $24.75/month – This includes related expenses I’m filing so I can keep track of them, such as blog hosting.
Mail: $112.91 or $9.41/month – This includes my annual Traveling Mailbox subscription so I can get my mail wherever I go and any additional costs to forward specific pieces of mail.
Electronics: $10.26 or $0.85/month – This was just a long HDMI cable that allowed me to play Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom on the TV in our Airbnb 🙂 .
Travel
Travel: $2,509.85 or $209.15/month – I should probably re-name this in my budget since every day is a vacation 😉 . This includes all the planes, trains and automobiles I took around the world this year!
Booking in advance seemed to play a large part in this being low, along with the fact that we can travel whenever tickets are cheaper instead of trying to fit everything into the (more expensive) weekends. Travel hacking also helped for my longer luxury flights, which I talked about in detail below.
- Review: Singapore Air First Class Suites – A $4,280 Apartment In The Sky For $26
- Review: Singapore Air First Class (JFK to FRA) – A $15,000 Flight For $27 [Part 1]
- Review: Singapore Air First Class (FRA to SIN) – A $15,000 Flight For $27 [Part 2]
I actually still have a bunch of travel hacking posts to write for this year so stay tuned for that in 2024 😉 .
Conclusion
So there you have it, every dollar I spent this year! I aimed to spend $22,700 and ended up spending $23,290.26. Not bad for a year well lived 🙂 . In 2024 I’m going to aim to spend $23,400 after accounting for 2023’s 3% inflation rate. On that amount I’ll be living in Costa Rica🇨🇷, Canada🇨🇦, Iceland🇮🇸, Switzerland🇨🇭, Italy🇮🇹, the Netherlands🇳🇱 and the USA🇺🇸. Let’s see what 2024 brings!
How was your spending this year?
happy 2024!
What a year was 2023 for you!
When travel to the Netherlands, if you want to meet an admirer and avid reader(me) , just write :).
Happy 2024! And sounds good – I’ll reach out to the email you entered for this comment to set up a coffee meet up!
Im interested in how your spending compares to your partner’s spending! Do they also track as much as you?
Wonderful post, as always, and I hope to see you again when youre in Canada!
Yeah – we both use YNAB so we know exactly what we spend. He only spent a few thousand more than me and it was basically all food 🙂 . He’s bigger than me so that wasn’t a surprise lol. And thank you! I’ll definitely reach out via email before we’re there in the summer so we can meet up again.
Thanks for posting Purple!
Thanks for reading 🙂 !
Happy 2024!
Here’s to another year of travel adventures and Tuesday posts!
Looking forward to learn more about your travels to Italy and Switzerland (which cities /which parts of the countries) to be more precice with reccomendations 🙂
Happy New Year! And I’ll cheers to that haha 🙂 .
I’m planning to hit up at least the below cities in Italy and Switzerland and am open to all suggestions!
Switzerland: Zurich, Zermatt
Italy: Milan, Venice, Florence, Bologna
You picked some great spots!
I am sure it will be a fun adventure.
Depending on your schedule maybe we can even go for a run, an aperitivo or a coffee as I am neither too far from Zurich nor Venice.
Depending on how long you stay in Venice, Trieste might be worth a daytrip – it combines the best of Italian and Habsburg culture… think Vienna-style Cafés and such… Probably best to chose a day with no cruise ship in the harbour.
Miramare Castle and its gardens are quite nice – a little out of Trieste though. Even a little bit further is Duino Castle and Sentiero di Rilke (Rilke Trail), dedicated to poet Rainer Maria Rilke.
Just read your newest post.
October seems like it will be quite a packed month!
Trieste hosts a huge sailing regatta called Barcolana from Oct 12th – 19th. It might still be the greatest sailing race worldwide like it was pre-Covid. So some might find that event exciting and others might find the number of people exhausting 😉
Awesome! And good to know about Trieste. Thank you for the suggestions! I’ll reach out about a meet up most likely in Zurich in the fall.
I remember one year when you spent an unbelievably low amount on rent and you noted all the days where you paid for Airbnbs vs days when you stayed for free with friends & family. I’d be curious to see that breakdown again this year – since, unlike most people, when you stay for free with friends and family you’re not paying for your rent or mortgage at the same time!
Spending only $500 on all entertainment for the whole year is wild. I think I spent more than that just on dance classes! but those were fun and a great way to both move my body and make friends.
Regarding where you’re going in 2024 – those all seem like HCOL places to me! At least compared to Mexico and Thailand. As always, I extend an invite to visit Philly and bird together 😁🦅
Good point! Yeah – this year we visited people way less often than last year (when I spent $16K, which I think is the year you’re referring to). In 2023 we visited family/friends for 70 days and additionally housesat for a friend for 24 days.
Haha fair point on the COL. Europe is definitely more HCOL. The LCOL place I was referencing is Costa Rica, which we’re going to for 2 months. And thank you so much again for the invite! If we feel the need to cull our spending for some reason traveling less and staying around the US while birding is definitely high on my list of ways to do that 🙂 .
Interesting, I was considering Costa Rica to be more on the HCOL side – but I realized that’s just in relation to other countries in Central America, not too the world at large (ie when my partner and I were first looking into Spanish classes before deciding on México, Costa Rica was way more expensive than other locations!).
Those all sound like amazing places! Enjoy!
That’s interesting. It is indeed more expensive than other countries in Central America, but in my mind it’s LCOL globally. Our Airbnbs there are fancy and underbudget 🙂 . Thank you!
How was your medical so low? Your healthcare post in March about said World Nomads came to ~$1,100 a year. Cheaper countries or was the timing off so you only had to pay once in 2023 for 6 months of coverage?
World Nomad costs depend on the countries you’re living in so it’s not a set cost each year. The coverage in 2023 was cheaper than the previous year based on where I went. The March post was a recap of my 2022 costs.
It’s impressive how low you’ve gotten your housing costs, even taking into account that you split Airbnbs with your partner. I’m interested to see how you’re going to keep up that streak this year, especially in HCOL places like Iceland!
Thanks! And lol yeah – we’ll see 🙂 .
Sounds like you had an awesome year! I spent $22,375 this year (including a trip to Portland, Maine) and saved $58,424, finishing the year right at 18x my goal annual living expenses (which I adjust each year for inflation) in investments. Hoping I can shoot over 20x by the end of 2024.
That’s amazing!! Congratulations. You’ve got this!
It’s always so interesting to see your yearly breakdown! Re 2024: I live in the French-speaking part of Switzerland (in the south west of Switzerland), I’d be super happy to show you around the Lausanne/ Montreux area if you decide to travel in that region. Feel free to reach out by email 🙂
I’m glad it’s interesting. And that’s so kind of you! I just looked up that area on a map and the closest we’re getting to you is Zermatt unfortunately, but thank you so much for the offer! I’ll keep that in mind when we inevitably return in case the offer still stands 🙂 .
Hey Purple, thanks for looking it up. Aww that’s a shame, I look however forward to reading about your Swiss adventures! And happy to help in case you have any general questions on travelling in Switzerland (two things come to mind: you can get anywhere in public transport and the electricity outlets are different than in the rest of Europe)
Thank you! I’ll definitely let you know. Those are very helpful tips. I love booking in advance and hilariously the Swiss train websites were telling me I was too early to do so. It looks like there are a lot of trains though so I’m not super worried about it.
Love your blog and posts, so inspiring! If you are ever in Dubai, and want to meet another fan and tour guide, let me know!
Thank you! Will do 🙂 .
What a great post! I really enjoyed reading it. Let me know if you visit NYC. Would be happy to meet up for a drink or a snack 🙂
Thank you! I’ll keep that in mind 🙂 .
That is pretty darn amazing, almost hard to believe, but I do believe 🙂
Do you ever think you can give up tracking?
Is it hard?
I mean it is great for us but seems like it interrupt your time to keep track of everything.
Ray
Lol. I enjoy tracking things and have done it my whole life. Even if I stop writing on this blog I suspect I’ll continue tracking things in my life. I love it.
Hi, are these numbers for a single person to cover all expenses? Or are these split with a partner? Trying to gauge what the cost might be for a single person. Thanks!
Hi – These numbers are just for me. I do have a partner that I often travel with so these rent costs are my half. The rest is just my expenses (we don’t buy groceries together for example). I’ve estimated my costs for if I become single and they would be about the same. I’d get smaller places and go abroad more instead of staying in the US for my partner’s job and getting intentionally large places so he has a quiet workspace.
Thanks for the response! Makes sense. You do an amazing job of keeping expenses super low while living richly.
Thank you 🙂 .
Hi it’s not clear to me if you are paying all housing/AirBNB fees for both of you. If some of these costs are shared can you give an approximation of what it would have cost you if you had done this same 2023 itinerary solo? Thanks.
When I travel with my Partner we split Airbnb costs 50/50. My half is shown here. However, I don’t always travel with him. When I travel alone I pick smaller places for just me (which are also less expensive) so doubling the costs here wouldn’t give an accurate view of what this itinerary would be like for me solo, but it’s an ok place to start.