£5k Budget Update – November 2022
November has been an absolute whirlwind of a month! I surprised my parents, saw my first West End show (by myself 😱), slept in an airport, spent two crazy days in NYC, took a 48hr train cross country just to name a few things 😂
But how has this craziness affected my £5k budget, let’s break it down and see!
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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 and last the entire year! 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 November.
WHERE DID I SPEND NOVEMBER?
Itinerary:
Home (31st Oct – 2nd) – Surprised my parents for a few nights! I was meant to stay with my sister but she had to work nights so this worked out best for everyone.
Cambridge (2nd-11th) – housesit
Heathrow Airport (11th-12th) – slept on a bench
NYC (12th-14th) – hostel in the Upper West Side
Lakeshore Limited (14th-15th) – overnight train from NYC (slept in a coach seat)
Chicago (15th-23rd) – housesit
Empire Builder (23rd-25th) – 48hr train crosscountry (again slept in a coach seat)
Portland (25th-30th) – housesit + one night in a hostel
I find all my housesits through the site Trusted Housesitters which is a great site for people who love both pets and travel! Fancy giving it a go yourself? Sign up using my link to get 20% off 🙂
DAILY SPENDS = £343.12
My daily spends budget for November was actually £410. A combination of my regular £10 per day allowance and £110 that I’ve saved from the previous two months for NYC. So overall, I’m very happy with this total and still have a decent balance built up in my spending account. However, this glee may be short lived. As I think I’ll need to incorporate transportation costs into my daily spends budget as the £1k I’d set aside for this is very nearly gone. Keep reading to find out the culprit for this!
But for now let’s break down how I spent £343.12 in the month of November.
Daily Spending Breakdown:
Eating Out ~ £170.99
This category includes all the meals I had out but also any drinks (I’m in a massive hot chocolate phase at the moment), snacks on the go and the bits I bought for both overnight train journeys I took. So all in all not that bad considering I spent £100 eating out in New York alone.
Transportation ~ £63.12
This looks like a lot but when you break it down it’s not that bad. I spent £4.20 on a bus ticket into Cambridge city centre so I could explore. All New York subway rides I took came to £26.70. I got a 7-day Ventra pass for the week I spent in Chicago which was £21.81. And the remaining £10.41 was spent on various bus rides whilst in Portland.
Groceries ~ £54.39
I was not expecting groceries in America to be as expensive as they are – how do you guys afford to eat?!? The £54.39 spent this month breaks down to £19.87 spent in Cambridge (this includes two trips which were just for snacks and pop 😂), £23.72 spent in Chicago (thank the gods for Aldi!!) and then £10.80 spent in Portland (this was for like 5 things 🤯).
Entertainment ~ £33.67
During one of my crazy travel days, I had the chance to go and see SiX the musical on the West End. Best £25 I’ve ever spent! It was incredible and I highly highly recommend!! The other £8.67 was the $10 tip I gave my walking tour guide in Chicago.
Personal ~ £19.17
I needed hand cream and a moisturiser so these were unavoidable purchases. Although I definitely could have gotten them cheaper if I’d shopped around a little. Oh well, you live and you learn, right!
Gifts ~ £1.78
Overall, very happy with my daily spending habits this month!
TRANSPORTATION = £315.06
Okay I can explain, my stupid tendency to procrastinate everything has finally caught up with me and cost me over £160. Amazing!!! When I first discovered the 48hr train from Chicago to Portland it was far cheaper than flying + 2 nights accommodation as tickets were around £130. I re-checked the price a few weeks later and it was staying strong at the £130. So I thought I would be fine to book at any time. Left it a few more weeks and finally went to buy the ticket, low and behold it was now £292.07. The £130 tickets were no where to be seen 😭.
This left me in a bind as the train was meant to be the cost effective way to get to Portland. Now it was far more expensive that flying. I panic compared all alternative options but in the end the train was just so much more convenient. All affordable flights either landed in the middle of the night (a solo-female travellers nightmare) or had stupid layovers which made it pointless to try and visit another city.
So £315.06 might seem like a ridiculous amount to spend on transportation in a month (AND IT IS, especially when you consider that this doesn’t include day-to-day transport) but it’s only because of the inflated train ticket price. The other two transportation costs I paid for this month we’re an absolute steal.
I only paid £5 in tube charges on my evening in London even though I took 4 different tubes and went from zones 1-5. The barriers were down at the station in zone 1 so I never tapped in and when I explained this to the guy at Heathrow, he just let me through. So I didn’t pay a penny for that journey. TFL only clocked me travelling in zone 1 and charged me £5. Budget win!
The third transportation cost was a bus ticket from Portland to my next housesit. This came to £17.99, not bad at all!
ACCOMMODATION = £183.74
It happened!! After two months of paying zero pounds for accommodation, I finally had to tap into my accommodation budget. Not really a shock as I specifically made room in my itinerary to visit NYC and knew I’d be on my own in terms of accommodation. I booked a dorm bed at a basic but lovely hostel in the Upper West Side which was around £52 per night. Not bad at all compared to hotel prices in Manhattan. Plus it was only a block from a subway station so perfect in terms of location!
Then, due to a date change for one of my housesits ended up with a two night gap at the end of November so I looked into all the possible ways to fill the gap. In the end, I settled on getting a hostel in downtown Portland as flights to another city were just ridiculous. Again, I booked through booking .com so I could pay on arrival. The total for two nights came to £79.69 which for the standard of the hostel I was happy with.
MISC. = £171.90
After much deliberation, I finally took the plunge and upgraded to the Trusted Housesitters premium membership (£70). The one and only reason I did this was so I would get cancellation insurance. Meaning that if any of my sits get cancelled last minute I can claim up to $150 per night in alternative accommodation. This has really put my mind at ease as being 4700 miles away from my parents, I can’t just go home for a few nights.
But major bonus of being a premium member on Trusted Housesitters is that I get 2 airport lounge passes per year. I put that to use immediately at Heathrow 🙌🏻
Then I also had to be a responsible adult and get travel insurance (£101.90) especially travelling to a country where a broken arm could bankrupt you. So I essentially shelled out £171.90 on insurance that I never hope to use 😅
I did however remember to buy my insurance through TopCashback so I will get around 20% of this back!
TOTAL SPENT IN NOVEMBER = £1013.82
TOTAL SPENT OVERALL = £2234.52
BUDGET LEFT = £2765.48
Aghhh nearly 50% of my budget spent and I’m only on month three 😱. I’m starting to get a little worried for the rest of the year. May need to adapt my plan slightly. I’ll keep you updated!
Enjoyed reading this breakdown? Why not check out the previous two instalments…
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