In a surprise to no one more than me, I was under-budget this year 🙂 . I started my retirement in 2020 with the goal of spending $20,000 (which was 11% more than I spent living in Seattle) and I have increased that goal number each year based on inflation. Inflation these last few years has been high so my goal for 2024 was to spend $23,400. I ended up spending $21,499, which is 8% less than my goal.
However, I like to look at my entire retirement spending in context because some years I am under budget and some I’m a little over, so here’s what my retirement spending has looked like overall:
And here are the specific numbers from that chart:
- How I Lived On $23,290 As A Global Nomad In 2023
- How I Lived On $16,930 As A Global Nomad In 2022
- How I Lived On $20,415 As A US Nomad In 2021
- How I Lived On $15,886 In 2020
It looks like the pendulum has once again swung to the under-budget side of things. So let’s see how much I spent and get into it! Here’s every dollar I spent in 2024:
MONTHLY BILLS
42% Budget: $9,005.99 or $750.50/month
Rent & Utilities: $8,701.68 or $725.14/month – This includes all of my monthly living expenses, which are Airbnb payments that include utilities. The Airbnbs I choose have at least one bedroom with a washer/dryer in an apartment that’s walkable to downtown and ideally has outdoor space. I usually book these with my Partner who I split the cost with 50/50 when we’re traveling together. And here are the number of days I spent in Airbnbs, visiting family/friends and housesitting this year:
- Airbnbs: 255 days
- Visiting Family/Friends: 111 days
- Housesitting: 0 Days
Phone: $304.31 or $25.36/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 of 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.
19% Budget: $4,109.54 or $342.46/month
Groceries: $2,072.09 or $172.67/month – My grocery costs increased this year from the $125/month I usually spent in Seattle in 2019. This is not surprising to me since grocery costs have increased in general and because with the monthly moving we do, we’re not as efficient with our groceries as we used to be. I can’t buy chicken in bulk when it’s on sale and keep it in the freezer for 3 months for example. However, that lowered efficiency 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 🙂 .
Restaurants: $1,587.33 or $132.28/month – This amount of spending makes sense to me. I focused more on my health and cooking healthy meals at home this year so it’s less than I spent last year. However, I’m impressed with all the delicious food I was able to eat around the world on this amount 🙂 .
Alcohol: $450.12 or $37.51/month – As I mentioned in my 2024 accomplishments post, I drank less this year and that’s reflected in this number. It’s about 50% less than last year, but I was still able to enjoy beer flights at new-to-me breweries. Sweet!
RAINY DAYS
This section is named based on a principle in YNAB: saving a little for inevitable things that don’t happen monthly.
14% Budget: $2,987.95 or $249/month
Transit: $359.98 or $29.99/month – This includes all ride shares, metros and buses I took throughout the year. Once again, my main form of transportation around town was walking. I love taking a stroll and exploring a new city on foot.
Household Goods: $19.75 or $1.65/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: $176.91 or $14.74/month – This is other fun stuff like toothpaste, fluoride rinse, conditioner bars and hair ties. It’s wild over here!
Nails: $133.97 or $11.16/month – I love to get granular with some parts of my spending and I was curious if my new Dashing Diva obsession would save me money or not. It turns out that having beautiful nails for a whole year costs less than I expected and I couldn’t be happier about that. This obsession has my stamp of approval to continue in 2025!
Clothing: $56.21 or $4.68/month – I bought a few new items of clothing this year after I wore holes in my old ones. I sewed them up a few times, but I finally had to accept that they had lived a good, long life and needed to be replaced.
Laundry: $7.16 or $0.60/month – Our apartment in Costa Rica charged for laundry. It happened through a fancy app that tells you when a washer/dryer in the building is available and when your clothes are ready. The washer also filled itself with laundry detergent. Super fancy!
Running: $73.73 or $6.14/month – This is another example of my curiosity in certain areas of my budget. I was curious what this hobby is costing me. And it turns out that the answer is not much at all 🙂 .
- Celebrating 3 Years Of Running: My Progress and Revelations
- Trainer Armour: How I Prevent Running Shoe Toe Holes
Entertainment: $602.96 or $50.25/month – This includes our monthly Netflix subscription that we let a million people use for free, my fancy Spotify Premium subscription, my Kindle Unlimited subscription, books, video games, movie theater tickets, and travel excursions. Also apparently I spent $106.93 of this on these Sims 4 packs: Tiny Living, Get Famous, Growing Together, Eco Lifestyle, Parenthood, Book Nook and Discover University. These were all discounted 40-60%, but that’s still a good chunk of change. I guess it’s good that this game gives me so much enjoyment even though one of those packs were duds (I’m looking at you Eco Lifestyle). Anyway, overall it was a very entertaining year 🙂 .
Medical: $789.37 or $65.78/month – This includes travel insurance from World Nomads along with buying medication in Costa Rica. I recently changed my healthcare plan for next year, which I talked about in detail below:
Dental: $709.45 or $59.12/month – This includes getting a consultation, x-rays, a dental cleaning and two cavities filled at a fancy dental office in Bologna, Italy. I’ve been having a great time in retirement being a medical tourism explorer and seeing what care is like outside of the US. Spoiler: It’s usually way cheaper and way better.
Vitamins: $58.46 or $4.87/month – I started separating how much I spent on my vitamins last year out of curiosity. This included Vitamin D, Iron, Allergy pills and Melatonin for the year.
LONGTERM
11% Budget: $2,389.88 or $199.16/month
Subscriptions: $266.63 or $22.22/month – This includes my annual fee for my Chase Sapphire Preferred Card that pays for itself every year with its $500 Trip Delay Protection, Patreon subscriptions, my annual 1Password subscription and the annual fee for my budget software YNAB.
Giving: $1,197,76 or $99.81/month – This includes giving to charities, such as Wikipedia, as well as buying things for friends and family.
Blog: $700.56 or $58.38/month – This includes blog related expenses, such as website hosting.
Mail: $119.94 or $9.99/month – This includes my annual Traveling Mailbox subscription so I can get my mail wherever I go plus any additional costs to forward specific pieces of mail.
Electronics: $104.99 or $8.75/month – This includes a new, smaller Travel Adapter that I bought and love, as well as my new Soundcore Space One headphones.
TRAVEL
14% Budget: $2,956.52 or $246.38/month
Travel: $2,956.52 or $246.38/month – This includes all of the planes, trains and automobiles I took around the world this year! Booking in advance seemed to play a large part in this relatively small amount that I paid for travel. It’s also helpful that we can travel whenever tickets are cheaper instead of trying to fit everything into the (more expensive) weekends.
My 2025 Plan
In a surprise to no one, I’ve already started planning my next year. I can’t seem to help myself 🙂 . I get an idea, I get excited and suddenly I have a page of logistics ready to be executed. In 2025 I’m planning to live in Japan🇯🇵, New Zealand🇳🇿, The USA🇺🇸, Peru🇵🇪, The UK🇬🇧 (England🏴, Scotland🏴) and Iceland🇮🇸. I might add another few countries in there as well – TBD 🙂 .
Overall, based on the above charts, it seems like my spending is staying on track without me having to keep an eye on it. I buy whatever I want and check at the end of the year to see if I was over or under budget. Seeing that outcome without much oversight gives me confidence that I can continue doing whatever the fuck I want and just see what happens 😉 .
Conclusion
So there you have it, every dollar I spent this year! I aimed to spend $23,400 and ended up spending $21,499. Not bad for a year well lived 🙂 . In 2024 I lived in Costa Rica🇨🇷, Canada🇨🇦, Iceland🇮🇸, Switzerland🇨🇭, Italy🇮🇹, The Netherlands🇳🇱 and The USA🇺🇸. In 2025 I’m going to aim to spend $24,000 after accounting for 2024’s 2% inflation rate. We’ll see if I stick to it 😉 .
How was your spending this year?
I’m planning to live in Japan🇯🇵, New Zealand🇳🇿, The USA🇺🇸, Peru🇵🇪, The UK🇬🇧 (England🏴, Scotland🏴) and Iceland🇮🇸. I might add another few countries in there as well – TBD 🙂 .
^^ thanks for posting as always purple! Excited to read about your journeys and travels in 2025!
Thank you for reading! I’m excited too haha.
Great that you managed to stay under budget without even trying!
I was wondering if expenses such as transit, household and personal care would be more logical under changelings instead of rainy days, since you basically need them every month for daily living. At least this is how I classify them in my budget, but of course to each their own. 😊
I have lived one year in Tokyo during university, in 1998 (gosh I’m old!). I majored in Japanese language and culture, and I’m still working for a Japanese company (in Rome, Italy) 25 years later. The latest I have travelled to Japan has been 2013 so not very recently, anyway if you need any advice or information about Japan or Japanese culture feel free to ask! I love Japan! 🇯🇵❤️
Yeah it’s been nice. Fair enough on the budget categories – I’ve had them like this so long it’s just default for me. I can see transit being part of changelings, but I don’t buy household and personal stuff every month so I might keep those in rainy days. TBD! And thank you for the offer! I’ve never been to Japan before and am excited.
Roughly $300 a month on food. Do you pack a lunch everywhere you go? $10 a day seems a little extreme.
Lol – no.
I went back to read about the toe patches and heel patches and am excited to try them for my Hokas which have not been cheap. I have worn the heels down to the plastic on the old ones and the replacement pair are on their way too. Thanks!
I don’t remember seeing much about your clothing/shoe situation. You buy so little, which is so impressive. I’m curious what your capsule wardrobe must look like? If you’ve shared before, please let me know. If not, would you consider sharing? Serious goals there. Also, were you always that minimalist with clothing and shoes? I’ve been reading since well before your retirement so maybe a reminder? Thanks for sharing as always – you’re an inspiration!
Awesome – feel free to let me know how that goes. I haven’t used the heel ones before – just the toe ones. I hope they help!
Thank you – and you’re in luck. I was folding my clothes today and felt motivated enough to write it down for you 🙂 . So see that list below. I shared everything that was in my bag the first year of retirement, but have been putting off a full post about it because there are a million of those posts on the internet and people have requested photos and video of everything and I’ve been too lazy to do that so far 🙂 .
CLOTHING: 2 pairs of pants, 2 pairs of shorts, 5 shirts, 2 long sleeve shirts, 1 hoodie, 1 puffer jacket (it folds up to the size of my fists 🙂 ), 1 pair of running leggings, 3 running shirts, 2 dresses, 3 lounge wear/pj dresses, 2 bikinis, 1 scarf, Bombas slippers…also socks, bras and underwear 😉 .
As for my previous habits, I was absolutely not a minimalist with clothes when I was working. I did shop at thrift stores fairly often, but I had A LOT of clothes. Like more than a closet just for me so paring it down was a process with a lot of trial and error. I got rid of a lot of clothes that first year after realizing I didn’t wear them. Finally on Year 5 of retirement I think I have it down 🙂 .
Thank you for reading!
Out of curiosity, what would be your annual budget if you were single? And, are you limiting time in high cost of living countries to keep under budget? Thank you! I love reading about your retired life as I hope to follow in your footsteps.
It would be the same. We stay in more HCOL countries than I originally planned because my Partner needs to be near the time zone of his job. If I didn’t have that limitation (and was single) I would stay in more LCOL places and even without another person to split housing with my estimation based on research before retirement is that my overall budget would be the same.
And yep – I try to rotate between HCOL and LCOL places (within and outside the US) to keep within my spending goals for each year. Since rent is my biggest expense making sure that’s on track lets me not really pay attention to the smaller parts of my budget and just buy whatever. Surprisingly I only spend a little more while traveling than I did while living in Seattle.
Thank you for reading!