Things are about to change. After this one, the monthly cost posts are going to show our spend during four months of travel to Australia and Asia.
Like my early retirement so far, it's unlikely to be extreme, neither super cheap nor super expensive. I figure I'm a middle of the road kind of guy. I hope that isn't the same as boring!
I know, June finished a while ago, so I'm late with the June cost post. Our move away from Dubai disrupted my routines, including my weekly blog post.
Although it sounds boring, I believe routines can be helpful. I even wrote a post about routine a while back. I do wonder how I'll cope while travelling, when my routines will be hard to maintain. I'm going to have to make an effort to adapt to life with less structure - I'm intrigued how that's going to work out.
Back to the June costs. It's been a strange month because we were getting ready to leave Dubai, and moved from our apartment to a hotel for the last part of the month.
That meant we spent less on groceries but more on going out and casual dining. We ate out more because we weren't able to make home cooked meals when we were in the hotel. I got quite good at using vouchers! You do get fed up of eating out all the time though - hmm, we're going to need to find a solution to that for our travels.
The going out costs were also increased by having some leaving events. They made for some entertaining times, although we were sad to be leaving good friends.
So here are the costs in more detail - there is a table in USD and another table in GBP, so just click left or right to get to the currency you prefer.
I think I'm a bit weird about the tracking of my costs. I quite enjoy doing it (weird in itself!), but when I look at the numbers, I don't always know what to make of them.
I know that living in Dubai was expensive, particularly our going out and grocery costs, which we expect will reduce when we find our forever home. I envisage saving 20%+ on groceries and perhaps 30% or 40% on going out costs. Maybe we'll also save on coffee shop/casual dining costs, but I'm reserving judgement on that.
It's good that I look at the individual line items, but at the end of the day, as long as the overall result seems OK, then I'm happy. Our "normal" costs (before vacations/travel) average £2,524 ($3,573) per month for the first half of the year. Our monthly budget is £3,700 ($5,217), so that leaves a large amount of £1,176 ($1,644) per month for vacations/travel. I'm happy with that - I know we're spending much more than that so far this year but, for sure, this is an unusual travel year for us.
Talking of travel, I'm writing this post in Zurich, another expensive city, where we're visiting our daughter. Then it's back to UK to say hi to the family for a few days before we're back at the airport to start our trip.
First stop is Bali, before we head to Australia and then back to Asia. I'm still a bit nervous about it, but it's an adventure that is only happening because I retired early. I still have to pinch myself to remember how lucky I am!