Europe Tour Budget Extravaganza

[To the tune of ABBA’s ‘Money Money Money’] Budgets budgets budgets! Make me happy! In this crazy world!

My little accountant heart can’t function without a budget. I make budgets for fun. For events and projects that will never come to fruition. I have a very detailed plan for what to do when I win the lotto – naturally it’s in percentages because there’s no way to know how much I’ll win. So even though my two-ish month Europe tour has been a pretty spontanious decision, I still have a budget. Unlike the lotto budget, this one I have written down.

A couple of years ago I decided I was too old and rich to be staying in hostels anymore. i decided it would only be nice, cushy hotels for me going forward. But I haven’t spent a year planning and saving for this trip, therefore the budget is pretty tight. Which means hostels. On the bright side, it is a lot easier to meet people when you’ve sharing a room with nine strangers.

Luckily, I managed to convince my job to let me work remotely on a part time basis for a few months. This will fund my Great Tour of Europe while being the biggest limiting factor to the budget. I get paid fortnightly and in New Zealand Dollars. However, NZD isn’t helpful for budgeting in Europe, so I’m using an exchange rate of 0.56. I have the budget at both a fortnightly (pay cycle) and daily level.

Budget (€)

Details	Daily	Fortnightly
Income	77	1,078
Expenses
Accommodation	35	490
Food	20	280
Activities/Misc Spend	10	140
Transport	15	210
Total Expenses	80	1,120
Net Surplus/Deficit	-3	-42

Now, as with any budget, every line item must be justified.

Accomodation

The most expensive line item by far, I’m pretty confident with the €35 a night average. As long as I stay away from London as much as possible. It does mean staying in the biggest dorms at every hostel, but it’s a high enough budget that I don’t have to resort to staying at the absolute cheapest hostels.

Food

Obviously, €20 a day doesn’t leave any room for fine dining. Unless I can convince someone else to pay. Unfortunately, I’m not that charming. I’m not totally sure about how achievable this target is, and it may need adjusting as I go. At the moment, the plan is to live mostly off pasta cooked in hostel kitchens and supermarket meal deals. WIth a cafe or restaurant meal every two or three days – I don’t want to deny myself the local quisine!

Activities/Misc spend

I am a bad tourist. I have never been good at spending money on tourist traps. My habit is to wander around aimlessly until I stumble on a free museum (I can see the exhibitions, if not read the signs explaining what I’m looking at), cathedrals and parks. I like to look around all the souvenir shops but the most I usually to buy is one keyring from each city. Walking tours are always excellent, you get a lay of the land and a bit of history. Those tend to nominally free, but its standard practice to give the tour guide a tip at the end. I don’t have a lot put aside for touristy things, so no sky diving or hot air balloons for me!

The one exception to my bad tourist habits is the West End show I’ve already bought a ticket for…Hadestown!! A show I would be willing to break my other ankle to see. If the entire trip is a disaster and every single thing goes wrong but I get to go see Hadestown, it will be worth it.

Transport

Planes, trains and buses cost money. Public transport in Europe is cheaper than in New Zealand but its still not free! In this line item I have included the inter-city travel as well as localised transport for the bigger cities. In the smaller cities and towns, I’ll probably be fine just walking everywhere. This is a line item that will very much rely on the law of averages, becauase some days the travel could be a couple hundred euro, and on others it could be nothing.

Net…deficit?

You may have noticed I’m currently budgeting for a daily net deficit of €3. Obviously, this isn’t ideal. I’ve decided to forgo a balanced budget for the comfort of round numbers. Budgeting for €17 for food instead of €20 feels pedantic. Also, I’m hoping that I’ll be able to bring my nightly accommodation cost closer to €30 by spending making use of an overnight bus or two (a decision I always regret, but compromises must be made!).

Budget are, as the pirates say, more like guidelines than actual rules. It’s good to have a target. It’s good to know that spending €50 a night on accommodation is unsustainable, and that 4-star dining is not an option. But, at the end of the day, if it costs me €30 a day to eat then I can afford to dip my pinky toe into my savings – I can make up for it once I’m settled in Ireland.

The key, the satisfaction, the triumph comes from tracking actual spending against budget. To see where I’m winning and where I’m losing. There is something so fulfilling about coming in under budget – even if it is only on one line item.

Actuals – Daily average (€)

For the different line items, I’ve calculated the averages slightly differently.

Accommodation and Food: Total spend / no. of days spend applies to.

i.e. Total Accommodation spend / no. of nights booked

Activities and Transport: Total spend / total no. of tour days planned

i.e. Transport spend / 68 days

The reason for the differences is because there won’t be tranport costs every day, but there will be accommodation and food.

Commentary on actual spend…

Updated 18 August.

Accommodation in London wasn’t as expensive as I feared, so I’m still below my max per night amount, however as I’m not on mainlan Europe, I’m hoping to bring that average down closer to €30 a night so I can treat myself for my birthday.

For transport I’ve book my flights to Portugal and Dublin out of London so far, about €150 each which isn’t too bad. The average has increased a bit now that I’m travelling, because all those small underground/metro amounts do add up. Also, the train to Stanstead Airport was way higher than I expected at GBP 23.

So far I’m managing to stay under budget with food, and I’m not even going hungry! Although, jetlag does mess with my apetite so sticking to the budget might get harder.

I’ll keep updating this posts with my actual spend, so subscribe if you want to see how the spend lives up to the budget! Once I figure out how to make the email list work, I’ll make sure to let you know when I’ve updated this post.

Money is a big contributor to travel stress, and I find having a budget and tracking my spending helps mitigate that. Hopefully, seeing my spend will help you plan your own budget, if you’re thinking about a hopscotch around Europe.