August 2022 | -$3,691.96

So why record our expenses?

We wrestled with the idea of spending all our money on experiences versus knuckling down at work in an attempt to set ourselves up for the future. Ultimately, we decided that houses can burn down, investments can be lost and money can be wasted but memories can never be taken from you. We wanted to solidify those memories by creating videos. But also wanted to show people a realistic view of what a full-time travel lifestyle would cost. When I went looking for something similar they were few and far between, so I wanted to do something for the next person who comes looking. And so, a terrible and laborious google sheet was born. It's since been updated many times and is much easier to manage. All of the data here is from that sheet.

Where did the money come from? When we tell people that we are travelling full-time, they tend to have the same few comments. We must have wealthy parents who are paying for everything, or that we have come into inheritance or a lottery win or something else crazy. While we both acknowledge we are very privileged to be able to earn an income (and both have jobs unaffected by the pandemic) - so all the money we have saved up has been solely from working at jobs that we held without any tertiary education.

I hope you enjoy reading this as much as I enjoyed putting it together!

What you came here for:

Breakdown of what's below:

• Expenses

• YouTube Analytics

• Summary

Expense Report

Expense by category

Catagory	Expense	Per day
Accomodation	$1856.07	$59.87
Food and Drink	$759.38	$24.49
Transport	$530.98	$17.12
​Tours booked	$829.27	$26.25
Miscellaneous	$141.26	$4.55
TOTAL	$4,116.96	$132.81

This is a quick reference category breakdown of our expenses. This month we decided to rent a car in Romania and we had seen another couple do it for less than $10 a day! so we paid for an international drivers permit. Then we realised that supply and demand exists and that the world just went through the worst pandemic for 100 years. The cheapest we could find a car was for $50 a day, but we now had a sunk cost in our IDP and wanted to go through with it! This, as well as an air bnb dispute that happened later were the biggest contributors to our mega overspend in August!

Accommodations Expenses

Location	Accomodation	Nights	Notes	Cost
Apuseni Mountains	Pensiunea Amalia	2	Private room	$72
Floresti	Air bnb	2	Entire Apartment	$186
Sighisoara	Air Bnb	2	Private room and bathroom	$120
Brasov	Air Bnb	4	Entire Apartment	$184
Trans-fagarasan	Albestii de Arges	1	Private room and bathroom	$69
Sibiiu	Air bnb	2	Entire Apartment	$90
??	Mongolian Yurt	1	Entire Yurt	$104
Timisoara	Airbnb	2	Entire Apartment	$90
Belgrade	Airbnb	2	Entire Apartment	$116
Belgrade	Airbnb	2	Entire Apartment	$98
Budva	Airbnb	3	Entire Apartment	$147
Kotor	Airbnb	3	Entire Apartment	$325.65
Dubrovnik	Airbnb	1	Entire Apartment	$101.42
​Mostar	Albestii de Arges	4	Entire Apartment	$149
TOTAL				$1,856.07

This is what happens when a trusted house sitters does not fit within our itinerary! Few big expenses to note: The apartment in Floresti was the last available in the area because there was a big festival in a neighbouring town. Our Kotor accommodation is actually supposed to be more, but because the original place we booked flat-out lied about it's location, air bnb gave us a little bit of a credit to rebook somewhere else. This was the cheapest place available and was still over $100 a night. (It was amazing though) and finally, Dubrovnik is expensive. We stayed a 45 minute walk from anything notable and it was still over $100 a night. okay i'll stop complaining now, Bosnia accommodation is much more affordable!

Transport Expenses

Route	Mode	Notes	Cost
Petrol for car hire	Car		$201
Timisoara - Belgrade	Train, car, train	Difficult day	$82.81
Belgrade - Bar	Overnight train	Serbian police bribe	$115.57
Bar - Budva	Bus		$17
Budva - Kotor	Bus		$18
Kotor - Dubrovnik	Bus		$63.20
Dubrovnik - Mostar	Bus		$73.47
TOTAL			$530.98

Things to note: The numbers are different to the 'Expenses by Category' Section. that's because in that section I use the Master sheet which includes small transports like Ubers, Grabs and Taxis which I thought wouldn't add value in this section! (I kept the total the same)

Not too bad of a month for transport expenses. We filled the car up 3 times while on the road. The short range busses were affordable enough and the only big expense was the first class overnight train from Belgrade to Bar. That is supposed to be one of the most scenic trains in Europe but we DID have to bribe a Serbian police officer. You can watch that video here.

Fixed Costs

Details	Notes	Cost
Insurance	SafetyWing	$123.50
Adobe Premier Pro		$29.00
Epidemic Sound	All our music!	​$22
TOTAL		$174.50

Insurance is expensive but worth it. Safety wing is our insurer of choice, they seemed to offer the most comprehensive cover especially when lots of countries needed specific types of insurance during the pandemic, they were great! Adobe is the software we used to edit our YouTube videos Epidemic sound is where we get all our music from, you can get a free trial with this link*: https://share.epidemicsound.com/i1nhpc

Income Report

Source	Notes	Amount
Youtube		$425
Amazon Affiliate		$0
Affiliate (other)		$0
TOTAL		$425

YouTube Analytics

It looks like we are starting to slowly get back on the horse in August. We had a video we loved creating (because it involves eating food) start to take off a little bit which was helping us stay afloat through the month. Watch it here! You can see that the views still pale in comparison to what we were experiencing in South East Asia but we certainly feel a sense of accomplishment being in an upward trend again!

Summary

Final balance at the end of June Expenses: -$4,116.96 Income: +$425.00 Change - $3,691.96

We did it again. We got sucked in to spending a lot in August and ended up renting a car for 2 weeks in Romania + over paying for accommodation by not booking them early enough! Overall the outlook of our Youtube channel has started to turn into a more positive light and we are still learning everyday what makes an entertaining video. I'm happy to report we also seem to have found a nice balance that allows us to create videos at a good pace but most importantly, really enjoy our travels everywhere we go!

Next month we are heading to the expensive Italy but we also have a pretty long house sitters lined up which should help with the costs too! Fingers crossed for the best month yet! (Please let it be so!)

Thank you so much if you have read this far!

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