September Budget: Cost for a Month in Bali for a Family of Four
We’ve definitely felt this “longest, shortest time” phenomenon even more profoundly during the first month of our year-long world travel adventure in Bali. Our long, slow days have quietly sped by as we’ve enjoyed spending time wandering the island with our two kids, with what we thought was ample time on our side. Now, with only two more full days left on the island, we’re starting to think back on our time here. We can’t believe that we are already 1/12 of the way through our gap year.
To help others who are thinking about planning a similar adventure, we thought it might be a useful exercise to provide a breakdown of our spending during the 4 weeks we have been in Bali, which you can see in the chart provided below.
As you will appreciate, our biggest expenditure by far has been on restaurants. Eating out so frequently has been a conscious decision on our parts, facilitated by the low restaurant prices and necessitated by the fairly basic kitchen in our rental villa. The total food spending provided below (just shy of 900 USD) combines both in-restaurant dining, which we tend to do for lunches, and our Grab orders in the evenings. We usually eat at mid-range restaurants with at least a few western options, which tend to be a bit more expensive than local warungs but still very reasonable, with main dishes generally ranging from 50 to 100k per person. Our average spend on restaurants has typically been 30 USD per day, with some days skewing higher and others skewing lower.
With most of our food coming from restaurants, our spend on groceries has been fairly minimal, averaging out to about 6 USD per day. We have typically only purchased breakfast staples, fruits and vegetables, and snacks from the local grocery store just up the street from our villa.
The other primary spending category for us was the cost of exploring the island, which included the hiring of private drivers for day trips to Uluwatu, Nusa Dua, and Tanah Lot, transportation to Ubud, where we stayed overnight at the Gantari Hotel, and our ordinary day-to-day Grab and taxi usage. In total, this averaged out to around 8 USD per day.
Overall, we have spent approximately 1500 USD in 4 weeks in Bali (not including accommodation costs of 1832.90 USD), which has allowed us to enjoy good local restaurants daily and to visit the touristic sites that were of interest to our family. While it is certainly possible to spend much more, a family could also stay here for much less by simply cooking more of their own meals or eating local food at smaller warungs, which tend to be more budget-conscious. However, this is the balance that worked for us.
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.
September Spending Breakdown
Total Spend Over 28 Days: 1478.76 USD
