Welcome to our September spending post! Our total spend for the month was £5,455 or $6,273.
We’re generally expecting to be closer to $5,000 in a ‘typical’ month, so this was a bit above our expectations. This is mostly due to booking a trip to New York!
Continue reading “Monthly Spending – September 2022 “Welcome to our August spending post! Our total spend for the month was £4,383 or $5,259.
With our UK visit over, August was about settling back into our new routine in the Caribbean. Spending wise, we had a fairly consistent month and would be happy if we could stick around this level for the next few months!
Continue reading “Monthly Spending – August 2022 “Welcome to our July spending post! Our total spend for the month was £5,042 or $6,049.
Our July spending was quite high across the board. This is because we spent most of the month back in the UK! Mr Way was back for 2 weeks, with Mrs Way and Baby Way staying for 4. It was great to see family and friends and experience some of the hottest UK weather ever!
With everything being so expensive in the Caribbean, we took the opportunity to fill our suitcases with cheaper clothes, food, toys etc. It made July very expensive, but will save us a fortune over the next few months!
Continue reading “Monthly Spending – July 2022 “Welcome to our June spending post! Our total spend for the month was £3,601 or $4,321.
Our June spending was much lower than the previous two months. We’re finally settling into life in the Caribbean and most of the large start-up costs are now out of the way.
It’s still significantly higher than our living costs in the UK, but we would be very happy if we could consistently spend under $4,500.
Continue reading “Monthly Spending – June 2022 “Welcome to our May spending post! Our total spend for the month was £14,948 or $18,835.
Once again, our spending has been massively impacted by large set-up costs. This month we bought a car for $11,000. We also had the associated costs to pay – insurance, license transfers from UK to local, as well as vehicle registration etc.
As we mentioned last month with our up-front rent payments, we are lucky to have been offered an interest free loan for the car, from Mr Way’s company. We now owe the company nearly $20,000 which is quite scary, but it’s interest free and was a huge, huge help with finding our feet in such an expensive country.
We also made 1.5 rent payments this month, so that will also decrease going forward!
Thankfully we managed to reduce our spending on food this month. We really enjoy trying to create cheap but interesting meals so this is an easy win for us. Even despite our frugal tendencies, the cost of living here has us shocked every time we pay for something!
We also had family visiting during May. While great to see them and spend time together, it did have a large impact on our spending! We spent much more than average eating out, as well as on activities like kayaking and boat trips. It was all very much worth it though!!
Continue reading “Monthly Spending – May 2022”Welcome to our April spending post! Our total spend for the month was £10,415 or $12,811.
Our first full month of living in the Caribbean!
The budget was totally blown this month because of our large up-front rent payment. Luckily this is on an interest free loan, but we still wanted to include it now to give an honest account of our set-up costs. As you can see on the chart below, this totally dwarfs the previous 12 months! We obviously knew this was coming with moving to a new, high cost of living country – but it’s still painful to look at!
We’re slowly getting to grips with the higher cost of living, as well as using $ for everything! Hopefully once the first few months are out of the way we can settle into a ‘steadier’ spending pattern.
Next month will be another large total because we’ll be buying a car! Thankfully it’s on an interest free loan again which is a huge help. Anyway, back to our April spending.
Continue reading “Monthly Spending – April 2022”Welcome to our March spending post! Our total spend for the month was £3,231 or $3,974.
This is where things start to get interesting! Half way through March we moved to the Caribbean. The majority of our spending from that point on will be in $US. Because we’re a UK blog and we still think in £, we’ve decided to report our spending in both currencies. This also means it’s easier to compare to previous months.
On that note, we’re in for a rough ride. Our expenses are going to be significantly higher than they were in the UK. The country we’re living in is very expensive, but there’s also no income tax which helps! There’s 350 days of sunshine too…..
Continue reading “Monthly Spending – March 2022”Welcome to our February spending post! Our total spend for the month was £2,370.
Continue reading “Monthly Spending – February 2022”Welcome to our January spending post! Our total spend for the month was £1,907.
Starting 2022 in positive fashion, with a return to our sub-£2,000 months. We’re aiming to move to the Caribbean in March, so our spending will be changing dramatically soon. For our last month or so in the UK, we’re aiming to spend as little as possible in preparation!
Continue reading “Monthly Spending – January 2022”Welcome to our December spending post! Our total spend for the month was £3,756.
Ouch!
This month was significantly above average, but not without good reason.
First and foremost, we’ve been spending more in preparation for our big move to the Caribbean. We’ve both bought new clothes – out with the winter gear and in with shorts and t-shirts! Both of our laptops were also very old so we decided to get one between both of us. We didn’t scrimp for a change and spent £800 to get a higher spec – fingers crossed it was worthwhile! Other electrical items also needed renewing, such as Mrs Way’s straighteners, Mr Way’s electric razor etc. This is a combination of replacing old items and also the voltage being different in the Caribbean so some things won’t work there.
Once we arrive, buying these things would be much more expensive, so it makes much more sense to sort it all out now, even though it means such a painful total for our last month in 2021!
As well as that, we’ve paid a car insurance renewal this month. As we’re moving very soon, we’ll get a rebate on most of this though.
Anyway, on to the December spending post where you can see more detail on all of this and more.
Continue reading “Monthly Spending – December 2021”