I failed… My £5k Budget is Gone
After 200 days of full time travel, my £5k gap year budget is all gone! I have spent every single penny having an absolutely wonderful time.
Ok, so technically I failed. When I initially set this budget I wanted to make it last the entire year, including all the costs associated with my summer job as a camp counsellor. But it soon became apparent that this just wasn’t going to happen. Transportation costs between destinations were way higher than I thought they would be. I actually ended up spending nearly double the amount I’d originally allocated to this cost.
I also got carried away a couple of times (especially when staying with friends 🫣) and spent a little more than I would have liked. But it was so worth it for the memories. Plus I even got a permanent souvenir out of one of my stops 😅
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Let’s start with a little context…
Towards the end of my third year of uni, when everyone around me was frantically applying to grad schemes and “proper adult jobs”, I was umming and ahhing about what I wanted to do. The smart decision would have been to follow suit and try and land an infamous grad scheme. But there was a little voice in my head shouting “let’s go see the world”!!
After over two years of travel restrictions, now finally felt like the right time to just do it. Take a portion of the money I’d squirrelled away whilst at uni and splash it making some memories. So I did.
I practically plucked £5k out of thin air (I always seem to come back to £5k as a nice rounded number) and allocated that sum to having a wonderful gap year.
Now you might have read that figure and immediately thought “no chance will she do it with that little”, well August 2022 Jess had all the right intentions and a big detailed plan on exactly how she would stick it to (read here). But in the moment “fuck it” Jess, kinda got in the way.
So here we are, seven and a half months after this crazy journey began and it’s all gone! But where did it go? I hear you asking. Keep reading to find out exactly how I spent £5,000 travelling full time for 200 days.
First, let me summarise where in the world I went…
WHERE DID I GO?
In the past seven and a half months, I have travelled to 9 different countries and stayed in 33 different places. Writing that down blows my little mind!! I have dreamed of travelling for so long and it still doesn’t seem real that this is my life now.
To summarise my intiniery looked a little like this..
September till mid-November – UK
mid-November till February – USA
first two weeks of February – UK
mid-February – mid-March – mainland Europe (The Netherlands, Germany, Hungary, Spain)
mid-March – April – UK
April – mainland Europe (Switzerland, Czechia, Austria, Denmark, Belgium)
I know, I know not your typical gap year route but no one can ever accuse me of being typical 😂 I like to do things my own way and this is simply how the chips fell when I decided to base my route off the housesits I landed.
Now you have a rough idea of where I travelled to, let’s get into the spending…
WHERE DID THE £5K GO?
I have broken my spending down into 4 major categories; daily spends, transportation (between destinations), accommodation and miscellaneous. Transportation between destinations was the cost that most shocked me. I’d naively thought that a thousand pounds would be more than enough but because I chose long haul destinations, this just wasn’t possible.
DAILY SPENDS = £2399.60
TRANSPORTATION = £1890.79
ACCOMMODATION = £479.23
MISC. = £230.38
LET’S BREAK THE £5K BUDGET DOWN FURTHER
You didn’t think I would stop there did you? As a massive finance nerd of course I tracked it further than just those 4 major categories. I can break it down into 31 categories to be precise 🙂
Eating Out = £791
Slightly surprised that the eating out category is sooo high, as one of my biggest money saving hacks is to not eat out a lot. Kinda proves my point 😂 But I did treat friends to meals/drinks as a thank you for letting me crash with them so that makes up a big chunk of the total.
Train tickets = £695.29
Almost 50% of this was on ONE TICKET, nope I will not let it go because I still can’t believe procrastinating cost me £150 😫 I did take the train between destinations quite a lot in the first couple of months so it’s not surprising that this was my second largest spending category.
Coach tickets = £546.57
If the train wasn’t a viable option (e.g. crazy expensive) I would opt to take a coach. This was predominately how I travelled between destinations on mainland Europe, including to and from the continent from London. I’ve gotten a little too use to spending the night on a Flixbus these past few months.
Flights = £497.75
I took two trans-atlantic flights and three flights within Europe totalling just under £500. Not bad at all 🤩
Accommodation = £479.23
Under £500 for 200 nights of accommodation, thank you housesitting!
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Groceries = £310.43
This averages out to £40 per month which is mental considering the places I was “living”. Very surprised I managed to keep up my uni budget of £10 per week on food shopping! Helped that there was often food at my housesits I could help myself to.
Activities = £287.44
3 West End shows, a play, a trip to the zoo, a live book event, seeing Lizzo live, puppy yoga, countless walking tours… I did a lot of BIG things these past 7 and 1/2 months 🙌🏻
Coffee Shops = £204.70
I’m a little obsessed with cute, instagrammable coffee shops. Love finding one, grabbing an oat hot chocolate and sitting there watching the world go by for a couple of hours.
Travel Insurance = £140.64
Had to be an adult and get travel insurance, especially when travelling in the states. One little fall and I could’ve lost everything 😅 But I did remember to go through TopCashback so I will get some of this back.
Snacks = £128.68
I genuinely thought this would be higher 😂 I do love a snack run, probably why my grocery bill is so low!
Bus tickets = £117.01
Buses are expensive nowadays – bloody hell I’m sounding old 😂 But it cost almost a tenner to visit a stately home from my housesit in Oxford which is absolutely insane!
Subway = £110.81
This category covers all underground public transportation systems outside of London.
Alcohol = £92.06
Kinda expected this to be a little higher considering how much I drank when I was staying with friends. I don’t really drink solo, maybe the occasional glass of vino, but you’ll definitely catch me suggesting cocktails when with friends.
Car insurance = £71
I had my sisters car for a few weeks in October and took out temporary insurance which came to £71.
Trusted Housesitters = £70
I upgraded my Trusted Housesitters membership to their premium version so I would be covered by cancellation insurance incase anything went wrong.
Tattoo = £67.15
Now this was a proper fuck it moment! Whilst visiting my two oldest friends we decided on a whim to get matching tattoos.
Wellbeing = £52.41
This covers all the toiletries I had to replace whilst on the road and all other health and wellbeing bits and bobs.
TFL = £44.40
Nearly £45 spent just using the tube in London. Seems like a lot but in reality this was only a couple of full days bobbing around the city and a few small journeys when crossing through the city.
Drinks = £40.93
This is solely drinks on the go/bottles of pop I’ve picked up and taken home. I’m very partial to a fizzy drinks so I’m not surprised this is a solid category.
Meal Deals = £38.05
I love a good meal deal!! Made it its own category because it doesn’t quite feel like eating out but also doesn’t feel like a grocery spend.
Parking = £33.36
All while I had the car for those few weeks back in October. Parking fees are reason number 5001 why I don’t have my own car!
Gifts = £31.99
Includes a couple of postcards, the stamps and a few gifts I picked up for people along the way.
Takeaway = £32.35
I only paid for two takeaways in the entire 7 and 1/2 months which is pretty normal for me as I’m not really a “takeaway solo” person.
Ice Cream = £23.08
Yes ice cream is important enough to be its own category! Same as with the meal deals, it doesn’t feel like eating out but feels more than groceries so here we are, over £20 spent on ice cream whilst travelling in winter 😂
Petrol = £20
Very low for the milage I did, simply because the car had been filled up before I got into it so I only had to do one little top up.
Visa = £19.74
This was the fee to get the US tourist visa waiver.
Train = £19.65
I paid for a few train tickets to explore the areas I was staying in. Kept this separate from the train tickets between destinations because this came out of the daily spends bucket.
Random = £17.98
I’ve clubbed together a few of the random one off purchases into this category because I didn’t know where else to put them. This includes locker rentals in Copenhagen and Alicante, a bed hire fee when staying with my bestie in her halls and a key deposit in Vienna.
Replaced Items = £16.30
I’m a very clumsy person!
Bike Rentals = £3.74
I rented a bike a couple of times whilst in Copenhagen and it was soooo much fun! I used an app called Donkey Republic which are all over the city.
Toilets = £0.62
Absolutely HATE paying to use the toilet but got caught out once whilst in Amsterdam and had to pay 🙄
TOTAL = £5006.84
So there you go, a complete breakdown of where every single penny of my £5k budget went. Although the money didn’t last as long as I was hoping it would last, I think I managed to stretch it pretty far. Plus I don’t think I would change a thing – well maybe that train ticket 😂
Enjoyed reading this breakdown? Why not check out the monthly instalments in this series…
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