Having fewer house sits and, especially, choosing to spend Christmas in an expensive area really killed my budget this month, but hey, you have to treat yourself sometimes, right? My expenses for Christmas were @ $525, so I’d have been much closer to my budget if I’d stayed in Turkey or gone somewhere cheap.
This summary covers travel related expenses for 1-31 December 2015.
Location(s) Visited This Month
- Alanya, Turkey
- Salzburg, Austria
- Dusseldorf, Germany
Transportation – $189.35
- This includes all transportation between cities as well as public transport within cities.
- Lots of moving this month. Trains in Europe are, unfortunately, expensive.
Lodging – $758.37
- Most of this month I didn’t have house sits so my Lodging costs are higher than normal. What really pushed them up though was deciding to spend Christmas in Salzburg. My 4 nights in a hotel there cost the same as a month in an apartment in Turkey. 🙂
Food & Entertainment – $589.84
- Most of my Entertainment consisted of going out to dinner with friends so I’ve combined these activities this month rather than separate them out. My food expenses are a lot higher than normal because I didn’t have access to a kitchen for several days and I was in an expensive, touristy city.
Miscellaneous – $16.40
- This includes expenses for a mobile phone plan
Monthly Total: $1553.96
Average monthly spend: $1285.25 ($285.25)*
I’m less than thrilled with my budget for this month, but I can only blame myself. Had I not chosen to go to Salzburg for Christmas, I’d have been pretty close to budget. But I enjoyed the trip and the food so it’s all good.
* My average monthly spending target is $1k/mo. This number is the average for the months I’ve been working remotely so far. The amount in parentheses is the amount I’m over or under my goal.
