Welcome to our financial review for 2023! Below, we’ll detail how we each got on this year, including progress towards our FIRE goals.
We’ll also be posting a more personal review from Mr Way, as well as our annual spending summary for 2023, so keep an eye out for those!
Continue reading “2023 Financial Review”Welcome to our December spending post! Our total spend for the month was £2,945.
We bought lots of furniture and general bits for the house this month. Hopefully the total will be much lower next month!
Continue reading “Monthly Spending – December 2023 “Welcome to our November spending post! Our total spend for the month was £1,432.
This is a bit misleading as it was actually a very expensive month. We moved into our new home!!
However, a large rent refund cancelled out a large amount of our spending. See below for more details.
We managed to purchase our house mortgage free, so we’re excited to see how low we can keep our expenses going forward.
Continue reading “Monthly Spending – November 2023”Welcome to our October spending post! Our total spend for the month was £1,290.
Having paid our rent up front, we’re now seeing the rewards for an expensive September!
We just moved in so we haven’t started paying any bills just yet.
Continue reading “Monthly Spending – October 2023”Welcome to our September spending post! Our total spend for the month was £9,697.
Ouch!!
It’s a huge month, as we continue to get set back up in England. We’ve paid 6 months’ rent up front, while we wait for our house purchase to go through. We also purchased various things for the flat/house, including a good quality, non-toxic mattress for Baby Way.
Continue reading “Monthly Spending – September 2023”Welcome to our August spending post! Our total spend for the month was £5,987 or $7,425.
It’s all change this month! During August we moved back to the UK, meaning from next month we can finally stop having split currencies in the spending posts!
We’ll provide a full update soon, but we’re currently temporarily renting an apartment while purchasing a property in England.
Mr Way will be working part time, as will Mrs Way, with the little one (now 3 years old!) making the most of the free childcare hours.
There’s lots to catch up on, but we’ll leave the summary there for the sake of this post and get straight to the spending.
The biggest item this month was a car purchase in the UK! We sold our car in the Caribbean, so we’ve reduced the cost by the sale amount.
Continue reading “Monthly Spending – August 2023 “We’ve been living in the Caribbean for over a year now. Time flies! We wanted to provide a summary of our first year of Turks and Caicos living costs. This includes all setup costs like a new car, housing deposits etc.
Our first year abroad also included a couple of expensive trips away which don’t help the total here! We really wanted to make the most of our time here because we aren’t certain how long this adventure will last.
We break our main expenses down into broad categories starting with the big 3; housing, food and transport. Everything else falls into the entertainment/misc category.
| Category | Amount (£) | Amount ($) | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Housing | £36,178 | $43,414 | See below |
| Food | £8,739 | $10,487 | See below |
| Transport | £14,348 | $17,217 | See below |
| Entertainment/misc | £17,573 | $21,087 | See below |
| Total ($) | $92,205 | ||
| Total (£) | £76,838 | ||
Our housing costs have rocketed due to the cost of living in Turks and Caicos. Our rent here is more than our entire living costs were in the UK!
When we moved, there were very few options available for long term rental. Most landlords in Turks and Caicos have gone to short term rentals to maximise profits.
We ended up in a very nice place, but it really hurt us financially. We’re spending $2,850 per month for a 2 bedroom, before any bills.
Luckily we keep our bills very low by refusing to use the air conditioning! This gets much harder in the sweaty summer months…..
We could have gone for somewhere cheaper for rent, but we would have probably ended up needing a second car, so the costs would have distributed elsewhere. It also feels incredibly safe where we are and we can walk to one of the best beaches in the world!
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, which is typical of the cost of living generally in Turks and Caicos. 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/bulk’ supermarket to try and keep costs down, with anything else being bought at the bigger supermarket.
Our transport spending has been significantly distorted by the cost of purchasing a new car after moving to Turks and Caicos. 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.
We wanted to include this in the total spending for the year because it’s an essential for getting set up in a new country. Especially one with no public transport!
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!
This is one of our biggest gripes about living here. Nothing has been planned logically, so most places are not walkable and in fact many areas don’t even have a footpath.
It’s unfortunate to see such a beautiful place not being planned properly for pedestrian use – unfortunately car usage here is very high and most vehicles are huge American trucks! Don’t get me started on the driving – most people are on their phone every time they drive and drink-driving is worryingly common!
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!
We also had a trip to Antigua, which was very expensive.
All in all, a very fun and very expensive year.
In theory, the living costs would settle down somewhat after the initial year in Turks and Caicos. Big purchases like the car are out of the way, and we’ve started to settle into more of a routine here.
Unfortunately, we’re about to flip that on it’s head!
We’re moving country again this summer for Mr Way’s job.
We’ll still be in the Caribbean but will now be exploring a new country. We’re hoping we will be able to find somewhere cheaper to live, so that will be a significant help on the accommodation expenses.
However, Mrs Way won’t be working as she was unable to find a job. This means we lose her income which will have a significant impact on our overall financial picture. If we spend the same as we have this year, we’ll be in trouble! Time to go back to our frugal ways and see how low we can push our living costs for the coming year.
This year, despite our huge spending total, we’ve still managed to contribute some funds to our FIRE Fund. This totals approximately $30k and is possible due to both of us working. As mentioned above, this won’t be the case soon, so we’ll have to see how the coming year progresses.
Even if we can’t contribute to our FIRE Funds in the next 12 months, we’re still keen to go on this new journey and explore a new country within the Caribbean. We’re enjoying the adventure as a family and that’s what it’s all about for us.
Our FIRE Fund targets remain at £375,000, or £15,000 annual spending each. 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’ll continue to post our spending every month, and we also do a more in-depth review of our spending at the end of the calendar year.
Welcome to our July spending post! Our total spend for the month was £4,042 or $5,115.
Time for a big announcement. We’re leaving the Caribbean!
We were supposed to be moving country for Mr Way’s job, but this has fallen through and we will now be returning to the UK. This is equal parts relief and disappointment for us. We’ve thoroughly enjoyed our time here, but we weren’t willing to move again for a company who weren’t treating us well.
Because of this, we have a few differences in our spending this month. We paid our last rent instalment because the last month was paid for on moving in. We’ve also increased our spending in a few areas as we look to make the most of the last few weeks here. Anyway, on to the spending!
Continue reading “Monthly Spending – July 2023 “Welcome to our June spending post! Our total spend for the month was £4,483 or $5,379.
This was one of our best months since our move to the Caribbean. We had no large expenses and generally kept our spending to a minimum. In theory we should be pleased, but the fact our minimum spending is over $5k is still quite shocking to us!!
Continue reading “Monthly Spending – June 2023”Welcome to our May spending post! Our total spend for the month was £4,972 or $5,968.
All in all, this was a fairly typical month for us. We had a few large car expenses, with the insurance and tax being due. Otherwise, everything went fairly smoothly!
Continue reading “Monthly Spending – May 2023”