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| Chocolate euro money! |
The unexpected reality (surprising even to us!) is that our expenses for the past 12 months were lower than in a normal year. Crazy, I know. Probably the biggest factor in this was housing. We rented out our furnished Lancaster home for almost exactly the same price as we paid for our furnished French home. Right off the bat we experienced substantial savings, though, because all of our French utilities were paid by our landlord (telephone, internet, electricity, gas, TV, trash, water, sewer), whereas our US tenants paid most of their own utilities. As any homeowner can imagine, those monthly savings added up big time. Within a few months we saw even more savings as the euro unexpectedly began dropping in value relative to the dollar. Our French rent effectively fell by a few hundred dollars a month because although we kept paying the same euro amount, it required fewer US dollars than we’d expected out of our US bank account. Between these two unusual and fortunate factors (no utilities and an increasingly favorable exchange rate), we netted enough to cover, well, most of our food, discretionary, and travel expenses each month.
It didn’t hurt that our everyday spending was extremely low. We only ate out a handful of times the entire year, as is typical for us; we maintained our usual frugal habits (like cutting our own hair); and we bought most of the toys and household items we needed on the cheap at the local thrift store. Purchasing a car was a significant expense, but we were fortunate to find a used one that we then sold before leaving to recapture some of the original cost. And Jesse’s a tenacious genius at finding the most cost-effective ways to do things, whether that’s insuring a vehicle, arranging international money transfers, or getting to a destination. He’s got a hound’s nose for sneaky hidden fees, and far be it from him to pay even 1% more on a transaction than the rock-bottom possible price. He and I were made for each other. ☺
Let me see…other expenses…
Gas (or diesel, in our case): Due to the “walking lifestyle” I’ve written about before, we used the car relatively little. Indeed, in periods where we didn’t have any trips, we’d fill up our little Fiesta’s tank once every four to six weeks, so our gas costs were a fraction of what they are when Jesse and I are driving two cars to and fro each day.
Health insurance: We paid for a bare-bones international health insurance plan for the year through IMG—we chose the minimum coverage required to obtain our French visas—and it cost dramatically less than the withholdings would have been for our normal health coverage at home. Of course we were lucky that we didn’t have any big medical/dental problems. Our choice of insurance plan came with huge deductibles, so we gambled there.
Visas: We had visa fees both before leaving America and upon arriving in France, plus there were associated mailing costs and the expense of driving to the French embassy in Washington, DC a year ago. It turns out that our documentation was not checked even once (??) so it sort of felt like a waste of around $700, but of course we wouldn’t have gone in the country illegally!
Sightseeing and travel: We did many wonderful excursions and mini-trips this past year and never felt like we were operating on a shoestring budget. Yet when it came to travel and sightseeing, the reality is that we almost always chose destinations that were within driving distance and/or were inexpensive to visit. Having an entire year at our disposal meant we could travel in the off-season, which was great. Likewise, since everywhere was new to us, we didn’t really mind where we went and happily took advantage of whatever special offer was afoot. Plus France does such a wonderful job of arranging free events; there always seemed to be some festival or spectacle running somewhere nearby.
For trips requiring overnight accommodations, frequently we arranged our itinerary to enjoy visits with family or friends, which of course was a treat in itself. If we needed to book up housing for a few nights, then we’d go for economical, self-catering options. We’re not fussy about housing arrangements—beyond being basically clean and safe—so even renting a single bedroom in someone’s home suited us. Often we’d find that the amount we saved by avoiding hotel costs and cooking our own food more than covered all the rest of the costs of a trip. Those choices aren’t for everyone, I realize, but they suit us well. We felt like we got to see and enjoy all sorts of amazing places in Europe without going broke over it.
Transatlantic travel: Getting across the ocean last summer and back this summer was a biggie. We were fortunate to snag one-way tickets last year for less than $500 each. The trip was Philly to Boston to Reykjavic to London, so not exactly an easy itinerary with two young kids—and the airline lost our bags for days—but it was fine in the long run. In fact it was better than fine when, months later, the airline unexpectedly reached out and refunded us $400 because of our baggage woes! We weren’t as lucky with finding cheap airfare this summer so came up with an alternative plan…but that’s a post of its own later this week. And anyway, we save up for a trip to England every 2-3 years to visit my English family, so the international airfare was an expense we would have incurred no matter what.
Bottom line, we have wrapped up what feels like the most luxurious, adventurous, delightful year of our lives. We’ve seen another part of the world, we’ve spent all sorts of quality time together as a family, we’ve learned a ton, and we’ve made so many wonderful new friends. We saved up and went into it believing that such a year would be worth some expense, and we realize we were incredibly lucky that we had the resources to consider undertaking it in the first place. So now to be on the other side knowing we spent less than we would have at home in Lancaster for the year? We’re shaking our heads in amazement and thankfulness.
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