Spending summary for 2019

I know that many people are thinking about jumping into digital nomad lifestyle and they often have a lot of questions. One of those is what is the cost of living in such and such country. I have been a bit obsessed with noting every single transaction for years, so obviously I continue doing that during our travels. It’s also a good way to compare our previous spending when we lived in UK and now while travelling.

I try to break down our spending into categories to give them more context. Keep in mind I am not very strict with it and if I buy some groceries and for example a shampoo in a mall I don’t split that receipt into two separate categories. I’m just too lazy for that. Also, it’s not always easy to do that because of native languages often used on those receipts. When you buy a lot of stuff in one place it’s not so easy to find which one was that shampoo.

Everyone will have slightly different expenses obviously. We tend to look for a comfortable place with good wifi and laptop-friendly spaces. Trying to get it as cheap as possible, though we’re not afraid to pay a little extra for extra comfort like a separate bedroom for example instead of a studio. We often eat in small restaurants or order food online, but we also don’t mind to cook meals at home. Also, we often use Taxi/Grab/Uber instead of local city transport. We know we could save quite a lot of money by doing so but we’re simply not brave enough for that yet. Maybe one day.

Spending summary by country

Country	Place	Start date	End Date	No. of days	Total spending	Daily average
Thailand		19/01/19	15/2/19	27	3266.98	125.65
	Bangkok	19/1/19	1/2/19	14	2055.71	146.83
	Koh Samui	1/2/19	14/2/19	13	1,211.27	93.17
Malaysia	Kuala Lumpur	16/2/19	13/4/19	57	3645.03	63.94
Indonesia	Bali	14/4/19	8/5/19	25	1474.10	58.96
Vietnam	Saigon	8/6/19	5/7/19	28	993.91	35.49
Malaysia		5/7/19	4/10/19	92	4175.25	45.38
	Kuala Lumpur	13/7/19	10/8/19	29	1418.82	48.92
	Malacca	10/8/19	7/9/19	29	1299.83	44.82
	Johor Bahru	7/9/19	5/10/19	29	1,456.6	50.22
Indonesia	Jakarta	5/10/19	29/10/19	25	1978.16	79.12
Thailand		30/10/19	11/11/19	13	2483.67	191.05
	Pattaya	1/11/19	5/11/19	5	584.42‬	116.88
	Bangkok	5/11/19	11/11/19	7	1,899.25	271.32
Sri Lanka	Colombo	11/11/19	11/12/19	31	1251.58	40.37
Malaysia	Kuala Lumpur	11/12/19	11/1/20	30	1510.81	50.36
Summary		20/1/19	11/1/20	327	20,779.19	62.40

Spending summary by category

Category	Total USD
Transportation (Plane/Bus/Ferry)	2403.86
Taxi	926.58
Accommodation	6,426.55
Sim/internet	170.32
Clothing	796.77
Groceries	3558.99
Restaurants	2196.52
Toiletries	342.49
Medical (medicine + insurance)	760.24
Souvenirs/Gifts including post fees	205.55
Sightseeing (tickets etc)	472.22
Cigarettes	1377.31
Misc	1345.44

Note:

First two months we were still learning how to deal with different currencies and what application to use for tracking our expenses so there might be some discrepancies but definitely not huge. Also, we had to buy quite a lot of items that we didn’t think of when leaving our home. We basically left with two quite small backpacks and very soon discovered we didn’t think about some items that we might need. We also decided to buy some electronic devices because it was simply cheaper than back home. Those expenses are added to misc.

Two weeks in November were for my family meetup where I paid for accommodation for all of us (total 7 people) and some attractions. So those numbers are very high but I thought I’d include it here just for nice year totals.