MAY BUDGET: COST FOR A MONTH IN FRANCE, PORTUGAL, AND SPAIN FOR A FAMILY OF FOUR

In May, given the short distances between our destinations, we were largely able to leverage rental vehicles to move from destination to destination, with only one flight — from Faro to Marseille — during this month.

We started the month in Nerja, Spain, and later drove to Faro, Portugal, for a quick stopover before our flight to Marseille en route to Bellegarde, France. The short distances between our destinations combined with our use of rental vehicles instead of flights served to bring down our transport costs significantly this month.

Moreover, because we spent most of the month in Spain and Portugal, which tend to be much more affordable than most other places in Western Europe, we were able to keep food and accommodation costs fairly low.

Now, on to our costs breakdown:

 

MEALS, GOODS, AND SERVICES COSTS

In May, we once again did quite well with cooking most of our meals at home, which helped keep our food expenses at a reasonable level. Our total expenses of 1,142 USD for meals, goods, and services in May were very comparable to our expenses for April. While this cost does include a number of meals out, such as when we were stuck at an airport hotel in Marseille for a few days (not by design — thanks for nothing, Ryanair!) or when we were out exploring various villages or towns, this cost is mostly what we spent at grocery stores (and our favourite patisserie in Nerja, Panderia Confiteria Salvador). We should also note that this figure includes many bottles of incredibly inexpensive Spanish and Portuguese wines…

While in Spain, we really liked the supermarket Mercadona for all of our grocery needs — it is actually a lot of fun trying out local products — and we found it to be quite inexpensive. We did tend to buy whatever we wanted from the supermarkets, so it would certainly be possible to spend less here, but we’re generally comfortable with this level of spending for the month.

 

ACCOMMODATION COSTS

This month, we stayed at three different Airbnbs (Nerja, Faro, and Bellegarde) and at one hotel near the Marseille airport for two nights (which alone represents approximately $400 USD of our cost). Overall, we did quite well on accommodations this month, spending only 2,670 USD in total, thanks in a large part to relatively inexpensive Airbnbs at all locations.

Notably, we rented both the Nerja and Bellegarde Airbnbs for at least four weeks each, so we did receive a monthly discount on both Airbnbs, which brought down our costs significantly.

As usual, our accommodations all had at least two bedrooms and were very comfortable and highly rated Airbnbs, and we enjoyed amenities like having a modern loft-like space, dishwasher, swimming pools, outdoor spaces, and even glorious ocean views. As always, comparing this spending to our expenses back home in grey Toronto (where our house currently rents at $4,000 USD per month), this last month represents a significant cost savings over our ordinary expenses back home.

 

TRANSPORTATION COSTS

Spending in this category continued to be very reasonable this month (especially when compared with March), with only one short-haul flight within Europe and rental cars for the remainder of our movement. We had a rental car on hand for essentially the whole month to allow us to explore the local areas around our Airbnbs, so this did increase our costs somewhat, but overall the cost of the rental was quite affordable.

While renting manual-transmission rental cars is definitely the way to go to get the best price in Europe, upon arrival in France a very kind agent at Sixt car rentals hooked us up with an automatic at no extra charge. (I can drive manual, but not having to focus on gearing while driving down tight European city streets honestly felt like such a luxury to me after spending the previous month driving standard cars up and down literal mountains.)

Overall, we spent $886 USD on transportation in May, which included rental cars, highway tolls, one flight, and some parking charges. This also includes the speeding ticket we received on our first day in France. (Photo radar will nail you if you’re 5% over the speed limit in France. You’ve been warned.)

 

SUMMARY

Overall, we spent a total of 4,698 USD in April of 2024, which is significantly less than we spent in May. This is also less than our normal monthly expenses back home in Toronto, Canada. Our only ongoing fixed expense back home is for storage of our things, 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 total expenses for our travels as a family of four since the start of September have been approximately 54,163 USD.

 

 

MAY SPENDING BREAKDOWN

TOTAL SPEND OVER 30 DAYS: 4,698 USD