APRIL BUDGET: COST FOR A MONTH IN FRANCE, PORTUGAL, AND SPAIN FOR A FAMILY OF FOUR
Now, on to our costs breakdown:
MEALS, GOODS, AND SERVICES COSTS
Our expenses for meals, goods, and services in April decreased from our comparable expenses in March, to 1185 USD. This figure includes expenses for a week in Paris with extended family who flew out to visit us, which had us eating out a lot more than usual. Otherwise, the vast majority of our meals were prepared at home, with our family becoming big fans of grocery stores Pingo Doce in Portugal and Mercadona in Spain. This expense is in line with what we would expect spend on groceries back home in Toronto, Canada. We did purchase whatever we wanted at the grocery stores and enjoyed many European baked goods and bottles of wine, so you could certainly feed your family for less. While we did not visit a many paid tourist attractions in April, our costs do include visits for four persons to Musée de l’Orangerie and Musée d’Orsay in Paris as well as the Château de Versailles.
ACCOMMODATION COSTS
This month, we moved around a fair bit, with Airbnbs booked in Paris, Porto, Lisbon, Lagos, and Nerja. While the transfers were mostly fairly short, and so not quite as exhausting, moving around so much meant that we did not enjoy monthly discounts with our accommodations this month, which increased the costs. As always, all of our accommodations were at least 2 bedrooms and were very comfortable and highly rated Airbnbs (but not luxury accommodations), with some including pools, most having spectacular views, and most having outdoor space to enjoy the gorgeous spring weather. Overall, we spent 4,236 USD on accommodation, which is comparable to our housing costs back home and fairly reasonable considering our shorter stays.
TRANSPORTATION COSTS
Our spending in this category fell back down to earth this month, with only one flight within Europe and ground transportation for the remainder of our transfers. We did keep rental vehicles for much of this month, however the prices were reasonable so our costs in this category remained quite reasonable. Keep in mind the best prices on rental vehicles require at least one driver to be comfortable driving a manual transmission and that the best flight prices are typically via discount carriers like Ryanair, so expect some discomfort and to pay for any luggage overages up front. Overall, we spent 1,556 USD on transportation, which includes a flight from Paris to Porto, a train from Porto to Lisbon, and a one-way rental car from Lisbon to Faro airport.
SUMMARY
Overall, we spent a total of 6,978 USD in April of 2024, which is just under half of what we spent in March. This is very much in line with our normal expenses back home in Toronto, Canada. Our only ongoing fixed expense back home is for storage, which costs us 140 USD per month and is excluded from our total costs. We also maintain a Netflix subscription, which costs us around 18 USD per month.
If you’re interested in seeing how this month’s spending compares to that of previous months, you can check out all of our monthly budgets here.
So far, our expenses for our travels as a family of four since the start of September have been approximately 46,
APRIL SPENDING BREAKDOWN
TOTAL SPEND OVER 30 DAYS: 6,978 USD
