Working at Summer Camp in the USA: Spending Diary

I just spent 10 weeks working at summer camp in the USA and here’s a breakdown of every penny I spent whilst out there.

Housing

Housing is included in my contract so I spent a grand total of £0 on rent & bills during my 10 weeks working at summer camp. The free accommodation is one of the best parts about working seasonal gigs!

Not having to pay for accommodation for a big bulk of the year is one of the reasons I’m able to travel so much and still save a healthy percent of my income.

Accommodation = £0

Read next: 5 Ways to Land a Summer Camp Counselor Job

Food & Drink

On top of housing, my contract includes three meals a day and snacks galore. And the food just keeps getting better! So £0 spent over the 10 weeks on groceries.

Although I do get all my meals for free at camp, I did eat out a couple of times over the 10 weeks. One of my favourite restaurants in the world is located about 30 minutes from camp – I no joke think about their queso at least once a week. Across the 10 weeks, I spent £25.98 eating out.

So I didn’t eat out a lot but I did grab coffee almost every time I left camp to run errands. My go to order was a medium cold brew with cold foam and caramel from Dunkin – delish. I spent a grand total of £35.88 on coffee whilst working at camp.

Food & Drink = £61.86

Read next: AmeriCamp Discount – Get £30 off the fees!

Shopping

Walmart is considered a night out when you work at camp and I could honestly spend so long in there! But I resisted and only spent what I deemed necessary meaning a few things slipped through but I was mostly good. Across the 10 weeks I spent £152.22 in Walmart, making it necessary to give it it’s own category.

Like with most of my trips, I travelled carry-on only to camp and pre-planned to buy my toiletries when I got out there. I spent £82.59 on toiletries during the few months at camp. Which in hindsight is a lot so maybe next year I’ll reevaluate my carry-on only plan as it might work out more budget friendly.

I’ve clubbed together all my other shopping into one category coming to £57.94 total. Most of this was spent in family dollar.

Shopping = £292.75

Extras

This season I flew into Orlando and road tripped to camp. We drove the almost 1000 miles over 2 days and made a couple of pit stops along the way. Over the two days, I spent £97.49 with the majority of these on our first meal which I treated the group to as a thank you.

Whilst I was at camp, I tried to streamline my regular, at home spend as much as I could. This left me with just three subscriptions – Spotify, my UK sim card and the dreaded icloud storage fee. Across the three months I paid £86.80 for these.

Read next: 13 Day USA Roadtrip – How Much I Spent!

Although I kept up my UK sim, I needed a way to use my phone in the US. I compared the prices before committing as I spent way too much the year before and needed a more budget friendly option. I ended up going for an Airalo global eSim which was £68 for 20gb of data plus 100 minutes and texts. The sim was valid for a whole year but it was the perfect amount of data for my trip.

Need an eSim too? Use code JESS6479 to get £2.50 off!

Extras = £252.29

Total

So my grand total spending from 10 weeks of working at summer camp in the USA was £606.90. Working out to £60.69 per week, what an affordable way to spend my summer!

Now I’m happy that my spending was super low over the summer BUT the upfront costs of working at summer camp as an international staff member are pretty high. If you’re looking to work at summer camp make sure you use the code JESSP30 to get £30 off your AmeriCamp agency fees!