Money Matters

When Mark first broached the subject of travelling for a year it sounded like a never-to-be-attained luxury. After all, that was what the fictional Fleur Forsyth did with her millionaire father. How were we ever to afford it?

We made a decision to see if we could live on £3000 a month.

How are we doing?

Looking at the first four weeks of our trip, when we were travelling round Sicily (I know it’s not quite a month) we spent £3140.81.

A breakdown of the figures:

Accommodation £1069.60
Entrances (museums etc) £ 453.21
Groceries £ 298.18
Meals out (includes coffee, drinks & ice-cream) £ 650.18
Travel (includes car hire & train to Naples) £ 507.71
Other £ 11.93
UK expenses (storage, mobile phones, Microsoft, vpn) £ 150.00

We thought that Sicily would come out on the high side due to the fact that we stayed in six different locations and therefore could not take advantage of long-stay discounts. We hired a car for eleven days in Sicily, which we are not likely to do again, and ate out fairly frequently, as short stays made it more difficult to organise meals.

The accommodation varied enormously in value. Our fabulous accommodation in Palermo (two bedrooms, two bathrooms) was not the most expensive. Our accommodation in Trapani was the cheapest, but also the least pleasant (only one window which looked out into a dark courtyard). (Incidentally, we found this place on Bookings.com, rather than Airbnb, but we can’t complain. It never made itself out to be anything that it wasn’t). The most expensive apartment we had was our second least favoured. Again, it was described accurately.

We have learned that it is not always easy to judge accommodation from its write-up. We now look more carefully at the photographs to judge how light an apartment is. Where are the windows, and what do they overlook. We also read the reviews carefully. Any mention of soft beds, noisy neighbours, dirt or non-communicative landlords and the apartment is rejected.

Each month will be different, we know. Naples is looking cheaper, but more of this when we have actually left. Some places will come out as being more expensive due to where they are, and the time of year.

We will see how we get on. If we can live within our budget and still have a good time, we may never come home. If the budgeting works out badly, Mark and I may have to come up with a two-person routine and busk on the streets of London!