Summary
Welcome to our 2022 annual spending post! Our total spend for the year was £69,738. For context, this is for 2 adults plus a two-year-old, living in the Caribbean since March!
If you’ve been following our monthly spending posts, you’ll know how this goes. Since we moved to the Caribbean in March, our spending has been quite ridiculous! We always knew our costs would increase, but spending nearly £70k just seems crazy to us. It’s nearly 3x our spending when we lived in the UK!
Hopefully in 2023 we can reduce this number, as the main setting up costs (buying a car etc) are now out of the way.
Regardless, we’re comfortable with all of the decisions we’ve made. We bought a sensible small car to reduce our runnings costs, we’re always savvy with the food shopping and we don’t eat or drink out as much as most people.
We’ve also spent quite a lot on holidays/travel, but this will continue. The aim is to explore the Caribbean/wider area while we’re here, so we fully accept the extra spending in that department! For more detail on that, see Mr Way’s Annual Review Post.
See below for a more detailed breakdown of our 2022 spending.
We break our main expenses down into broad categories starting with the big 3; housing, food and transport. Everything else falls into the entertainment/misc category.
| Category | Amount |
|---|---|
| Housing | £30,972 |
| Food | £8,138 |
| Transport | £13,567 |
| Entertainment/misc | £17,061 |
| Total | £69,738 |
To illustrate just how ridiculous this year has been, we’ve created a comparison with the previous 2 years!
Housing
Our housing costs have rocketed due to the cost of living in our new home. Our rent here is more than our entire living costs were in the UK!
Food
Our food costs have also increased significantly due to our new location. With everything being imported, costs are 2-3x what we’re used to. We still try to be as savvy as possible though!
The ‘food’ category contains everything we spend in the supermarket, so it has some toiletries etc thrown in.
We always go to a ‘local’ supermarket to try and keep costs down, with anything else being bought at the bigger supermarket.
Transport
Our transport costs have been significantly distorted by purchasing a new car. We did sell our car in the UK, with the new Caribbean vehicle only costing slightly more, so it’s not as bad as it seems.
Aside from that, we actually keep our costs quite low. Mr Way cycles to work almost every day and we walk as much as possible. This is very unheard of on the island and we get lots of strange looks!
Entertainment/Misc
This category has been inflated by a big trip to New York in December, as well as lots of general sightseeing, activities and eating out in our new country. All well worth it!
That’s All for Now, Folks!
We’re hoping our costs will settle down a bit in 2023.
There will still be some significant spends on travel – we already booked a trip to Antigua! But fingers crossed we won’t need to buy another vehicle or anything like that! Fingers crossed our 2022 annual spending will be the highest for a long time!
Despite the drastic increase in our living costs, we’re still hoping we can save and invest some money towards our FIRE goals. This is very much helped by our tax free earnings!
Our FIRE Fund targets remain at £375,000, or £15,000 annual spending. While this seems low compared to our current costs, it’s still our aim to retire in the UK, or somewhere with similarly low expenses.
We hope 2023 brings you everything you hope for. Let us know how your annual spending looked and what you make of our new total!
If you want to see how our FIRE Funds are coming along, see our 2022 Financial Review. For a more personal take on how our 2022 went, see Mr Way’s 2022 Personal Review.
Wow! As a natural money optimizer, that jump must have been a bit jarring to see. However, I agree you’ve made the right choice to try and enjoy this experience and not just squirrel away every extra pound. I don’t recall you mentioning which island you’re on, but I imagine it’s one of the pricey ones like Bermuda, Cayman, Turks or maybe even somewhere like Mustique. If not, you probably could find a great place (even up to expat “standards”) for less than £31k per year. Sounds like you’re still managing to save a bit so, enjoy make those memories! What a great opportunity for you and your family to have a different life experience.
Yeah it’s definitely a shock, but we’re enjoying the experience so far! The tax free income also really helps, we could potentially end up saving more than in the UK due to that.
We’ve been trying not to say which island because it’s such a small place and would be too revealing, but it’s on your list! The rent is crazy but we’re in a place where we feel safe and only need 1 car (Mr Way can cycle to work and we walk to lots of places) so it’s all about finding the right balance.
Thanks for the comment 🙂