March Budget Update – £5k Gap Year
Already a quarter of the way through 2023 😱 Where is the time going? Absolutely insane!! But the end of another month means only one thing in the finance space – it’s time to review and reflect on the month, so here is my March budget update 😄
March has been a kinda chilled one for me, well compared to my previous months that is 😂 My big 5 month trip came to an end and I started leg 3 of my gap year, which is only going to be 6 weeks. Mostly down to visa restrictions but also because the budget is starting to look a little tight!
New here? Let me give you a little context...
I graduated from uni this past summer and have chosen to take a gap year before deciding what to do next, career wise. My plan is to spend year travelling. I have set myself a strict £5k budget which needs to cover all costs! Seem a little tight? Check out this blog post on how I intend to stay in budget!
Before we get into exactly how much I spent and on what, let me first tell you where I was in March!
WHERE DID I SPEND MARCH?
Itinerary:
Heidelburg, Germany (1st-5th) – housesit
slept overnight at Frankfurt airport
Torrevieja, Spain (6th-9th) – stayed with a friend
Lancaster, UK (9th-13th) – stayed with a friend
Home (13th-24th)
St Albans, UK (24th-26th) – housesit
Leicester, UK (26th-28th) – stayed with a friend
London, UK (28th-2nd April) – housesit
Now you know where I spent the month let’s get into how much I spent…
DAILY SPENDS = £288.72
This is quite high considering I spent 10 days at home and haven’t included any of that spending in this roundup!
Let’s break it down…
Eating Out = £180.45
Over half of my daily spends this month was on eating out. This includes all food on the go as well so it wasn’t really a surprise that this came in so high. Plus I treated some friends to meals out as a thank you for having me to stay. So with that in mind £180 isn’t terrible!
Drinks = £31.86
Still in my coffee shop phase of life! I absolutely love setting up shop (ie. tinkering away on my laptop) in a cozy cafe with a nice oat hot choc 😍
Snacks = £26.50
I looove a good snack run!! Crisps and fizzy drinks are my kryptonite and I just don’t want to give them up 😅
Transport = £20
Pretty lean transport costs this month as most of the time I was within walking distance of all the things I needed! This includes return train tickets to Manchester, a few rides on the tube and a return bus ticket whilst in Lancaster.
Groceries = £16.17
Turns out I only went food shopping twice in the month of March 😱 Both of which were only little shops! Helps that I didn’t pay for food whilst I was staying at home.
Random = £13.75
This months random purchases were suncream, the hire fee for a camp bed and a locker at Alicante bus station.
Ok so as always when broken down it doesn’t seem that bad but I’m going to have to be a little bit stricter going forward if I want to stay within my £5k budget!
TRANSPORTATION = £277.22
I paid for a decent amount of transport costs in March, including a bunch of train and bus tickets for the last bit of my 5 month trip and then the first few train tickets for the next leg. My one big misstep from my gap year has been underestimating the cost of transport between destinations because oh my lord it has been expensive!!
ACCOMMODATION = £0
Another free accommodation month 🥳 Housesitting and staying with friends are two of my favourite hacks to get to see amazing places, hang out with your favourite people and still be on a budget!!
MISC. = £0
No random miscellaneous costs this month 🤩
TOTAL SPENT IN MARCH = £656.94
TOTAL SPENT OVERALL = £4445.86
BUDGET LEFT = £554.14
Ooooh it’s getting tighter and tighter!! Plus spoiler alert – on the first day of April I spent another £300 finalising the rest of my route so now I have just over £200 to last the remaining five weeks of this part of my gap year!! Can I do it? At this point, even I’m skeptical!
Enjoyed reading this breakdown? Why not check out the previous six instalments…
One Comment
Pingback: