Tales of Me and the Husband

Our trip! We’ve been home for two months and while away I had a lot of questions: how are you doing this? Kids’ school? Finances? What is happening?!? I promised to answer them and I finally am. Or, better yet, Steve is. He actually wrote this while we were abroad but I never got around to looking at it, publishing it, etc. (More answers to your questions forthcoming!)

100 Days in Europe:
“How Did You Budget and Save For This Adventure?”

We started saving for this trip almost the very day Bridget and I got home from Italy in the summer of 2010. While on that trip, we found ourselves saying again and again, “We need to bring the kids here!” Knowing that my Sabbatical would come around again in the fall of 2015, we started to make our plans then.

Buying the round-trip Airline ticket to Europe. Now that’s a commitment. It’s going to set you back. Even back in 2010, we were thinking it’s going to be about $1000/RT ticket. And that turned out to be just about right. (Anders wasn’t around then, but he’s free anyway—score!) We booked using Google Flights (I really like that site, as well as Kayak). Driving from Boston to JFK in NYC (to save money), we flew Emirates—the best flight ever—direct to Milan. We fly home on a budget carrier (Norwegian Airlines, probably strapped outside to the wing) direct from Gatwick, England to JFK. If all goes as planned, our car will be there waiting for us to drive back to Boston. (It was. Thank you, Dad!)

Expense #1: Four tickets (everyone but mine and Anders) to Europe and back, roughly $1000/ticket = $4,000. Cha-ching.

We thought about a 6 month trip, but in the end we figured that would be too much (in terms of time away for the kids and in terms of cash). So we cut the trip in half and ended up with, technically, 97 days in Europe. It was actually pretty arbitrary.

We knew we’d be staying in an apartment in Orvieto and in AirBnb’s that we rented (more on this below). With kitchens either way, we’d be buying our groceries and eating IN a lot. (While not very interesting, I’m eating a tuna-fish sandwich in our apartment as I write.) But, like most of you, we do that at home too. Given that you’re going to eat anyway, it’s kind of a wash. [POST-TRIP interjection: in the end, we actually saved money on food in Italy.] But we still had to think about it. Because we thought about it, we actually brought 5 jars of Trader Joe’s Peanut Butter in our suitcases to help out. But here’s what we came up with in terms of a budget:

Expense #2: Eating “In” (i.e., Groceries), we figured $30/day x 100 days = $3,000.

We’re in Italy for nearly three months. Are we going to eat “out”? YES, YES WE ARE! Cappuccinos and croissants for breakfast; Insalata Caprese and Margherita Pizzas for Lunch; and then, occasionally, a nice dinner out too. Wine is cheap. For this we also budgeted $30/day, knowing that most days we wouldn’t use it and then other days we could splurge. So far we’ve been really good about spending in this area–most meals out have been under 100 euro.

Expense #3: Eating “Out”, we figured $30/day x 100 days = $3,000.

Obviously, we’re not just going to sit in our Rentals. We’re here to see as much of Italy, Switzerland and England as we can, within reason. So we came up with a budget for FUN (i.e., entry fees to sights, museums, bus tours, etc.). This one was tough. Not knowing exactly what we want to see, much less the cost to see it, makes it really hard to budget. In the end, we said, let’s just see if we can stay at around $30/day. Some days we’re going to just walk—and that’s free just about everywhere still. On others, we’re going into the Vatican. In any case, at this point in the trip, I’m pleased to report that we’re way under budget. Orvieto is pretty easy on the wallet. 10 Euro for us to go to the bottom of St. Patrick’s Well. Twenty to tour the Orvieto Underground. Another ten to visit the Cathdedral, etc. Of course, once we get to Florence, Positano, Rome, and then London, we think we’ll end up blowing up that part of the budget for sure. Well, that’s what credit cards are for. [POST-TRIP interjection: yes, Positano, Zurich, London, etc., were much more expensive, but while in those places we focused more on what we could do for free, even if we did some big stuff too like renting a small private boat for the day to cruise the Amalfi coast.] So here’s what we’re saying for fun:

Expense #4: Fun, we figured $30/day x 100 days = $3,000.

While all roads lead to Rome, we ain’t walking there. So we had to figure transportation from place to place. Once we figured out our inter-European flights (Rome-Zurich and then Zurich-London; total: roughly $1000; not too bad, considering we need to buy 5 tickets every time we turn around) all we really needed to figure was trains (we didn’t worry about the occasional bus or cab). So here’s what we’re doing in terms train travel: Milan to Como; Como to Orvieto; Orvieto to Positano (and return); Orvieto to Sienna (and return) [POST-TRIP interjection: we never took a train to Sienna, but instead rented a car to Assisi! I don’t remember quite what that was. $100 for the day?]; Oriveto to Florence; Florence to Rome; Zurich to Wengen (and return). Believe it or not, all of that comes in under $1,000.

To sum up:

Expense #5: Inter-European travel = $2,000.

What about those weeks in Florence and Positano, Rome and Zurich? “What about your lodging?” you ask. Good questions.

We knew that we’d be able to stay for free in Orvieto, since my college has a faculty apartment in the town. So we tried to maximize our time there, using the city as a point of departure for our journeys and day trips. All told, we’re staying almost 6 weeks there. Obviously, that helps a lot.

But, as I said, we still rented AirBnb’s. We rented at Lake Como, Positano, Florence, Rome, Wengen, Switzerland, and in the Peak District in England. We’re splitting the cost of a couple of these with Bridget’s parents who are coming soon. But in any case, we basically tried to keep all those weeks under $1000 each. Some were a little more, some a lot less.

Expense #6: Lodging for 97 days = roughly $6,000.

Total of Expenses 1-6 = $21,000!!! Yikes!! “Seriously, how did you pay for it?” you say. Again, great question. I’m a professor at a small school. I make peanuts. Bridget does some photography and the blog. She makes just a little bit less than peanuts. So here’s how we did it.

(1) The first thing we did back when we hatched this plan in 2010 was sign up for a Capital One Venture card (you know, the “What’s in your Wallet” people). They gave us 30,000 points to sign up (or roughly $300), and 2 points for every dollar spent thereafter. With that, we started saving (yeah, by spending?!). Virtually every purchase from the fall of 2010 to the spring of 2015 went on that card. In the end, we had enough saved there to purchase most of our round trip tickets to Europe (and remember, Anders travels for free everywhere we go).

(2) Right around then we also started sticking roughly $100-$250/month into a savings account called “Parker” at our bank (he had just been conceived when we hatched this plan!). I say roughly because some months we forgot entirely and then others we put in even more. Anyway, 5 years at even $100 a month and you’ve got $6,000. (Yes, all you savvy investors, we should have been putting that money in the market. We are not savvy investors.)

(3) Over the last few years, I’ve had the opportunity to teach several overload courses at the college for a flat rate (I think I’ve done 6 or 7). Most of that money went into the savings account for this trip. I distinctly remember on a number of occasions being swamped with papers to grade and thinking “OK, I’m doing this for Italy 4 years from now!”

(4) In addition, as faithful readers you may be surprised to learn that Bridget has knocked off a number of liquor stores over the last few years. She’s been really good about saving that money, instead of, for example, blowing it on shoes.

(5) Even though I’m on sabbatical, I’m still getting paid. And since my work here in Italy involves some research (I’m here to research a course called “Early Christianity in Rome”), I was able to apply for some external grant money. I did and was awarded one, and for a few thousand dollars! We banked it in “Parker”.

(6) Finally, since we knew we’d be away from our own home for 3 months, we worked really hard (especially getting it ready) to rent it out while we were gone. To that end, we were successful. Not having to carry that mortgage while away was really, really helpful.

In the end (although we’re not done spending yet!) I’m pleased to report that our savings/earnings for this 100 day adventure exceeds what we expect from our expenses. [POST TRIP interjection: we’re delighted to report that we actually came in quite a bit under our estimate of expenses.] If we can do it, you can do it too. (Well, you might need to get a PhD, get an academic post, and earn a Sabbatical to get the time off, but you know what I mean.) You just need to dream about it and then plan for it and then make it happen. Dream big. Oh, and can I add here that we drive a 2003 Honda Odyssey with 240,000 miles on it. You can put your finger through the tail gate rust.

Any questions?