Here is a breakdown of my expenses for September.
| Household | $77.55 |
| Mortgage | $355 |
| Entertainment | $6.99 |
| Transportation | $272.42 |
| Food | $329.29 |
| Phone | $31.20 |
| Health | $39.92 |
| Travel | $724.66 |
| Total | $1837.03 |
My September expenses were higher than normal. This was due to spending three weeks in Spain walking the Camino de Santiago. Considering I was out of the country for three weeks I think my expenses were very reasonable.
Entertainment expense was for two months digital subscription to the New York Times and one month of Peacock,
The mortgage payment was my regular mortgage payment.
Transportation was $272.42. I spent $235 for six months of car insurance. The remaining amount was spent on shuttles, local buses, and the Madrid Metro.
My food expense was way over budget. This isn’t surprising since I was eating out for almost every meal in Spain. Food in Europe generally costs more than in the U.S. Some of the small towns I stayed in the only food option was the 10-12 Euro dinner at the hostel. I think I did pretty well to keep the expense at this level.
My phone bill was $31.20. It will be a little higher this month since I used quite a bit of data while in Spain.
The household expense was for a pair of shower shoes, a rain poncho, shampoo, razors, laundry, and a charitable contribution. Everything but the charitable contribution was spent in Spain and wouldn’t have been occurred if I was at home. Perhaps, those expenses should be considered travel expenses, but I’m going to leave them as household expenses.
Health expense was for my monthly gym dues. I didn’t get much use out of the gym since I was gone most of the month. Walking 15-25 kilometers a day on the Camino was plenty of exercise for me.
Travel expense was my big expense for the month. Even keeping things frugal a three-week stay in Spain isn’t going to be cheap. This expense included $57.26 of airfare which was $23.46 for choosing my seat on the flight home from Spain and the taxes for a ticket from Tokyo to Bangkok in January 2022. The flight I booked the previous month was canceled. I booked a new ticket in Business Class rather than economy and the new ticket had lower taxes and fees although I did have to spend more miles. I’ll use the voucher from the canceled ticket to book my return flight from Bangkok to Tokyo.
Travel expense also included $137.06 for long distance buses and trains in Spain. Lastly, the travel expense included $530.34 for hotels and hostels. That was for about 20 nights and the cost of the hotel in Chicago before my flight to Spain and a hotel in Miami before my flight home the next day were almost half of the cost.
The Camino de Santiago trip lasted from September 7 through September 28. I flew in Iberia business class from Chicago to Spain using miles. That was my first time flying biz class on a transatlantic flight. It was more comfortable being able to lay my seat down and sleep for a few hours. I’d probably never pay the cash price for that experience though. I flew a budget airline Air Europa from Madrid to Miami. The cash price for this ticket was only $180. Since it was a daytime flight there was no need to sleep. They gave us a meal and there was seatback entertainment with enough choices to get me through the flight. The flight was comfortable enough and was a great value for the price. I don’t think I’d pay much more for more comfort.
Overall, my three weeks in Spain probably cost me about $1000 since some of the expenses were paid in previous months. I think that is a fantastic deal. I also really enjoyed walking the Camino. If I’m not too lazy I’ll post about the Camino later this month.
I’m going to have surgery on my ear next week and I had to pay almost $700 for my share of the cost. Due to that this month will likely be as expensive as last month if not more.
How was your month?