Daily Budget Breakdown
Some folks have talked to me about wanting to see a regular post on what my budget and expenses are in Europe. The "here is my budget for X town", and "here is what cheese costs, and grapes, and the taxi across town, and how much I spent on beer tonight". That sort of thing. Good idea, thanks Chris Albon and Claudia.
So I will do just that, at least for every town and city I am in, to give a better general idea of what a day actually costs rather than what a guidebook says it should.
The categories are the useful part and they have not changed. Bed, food, transport, entry fees, drink, and the miscellaneous column where the money actually goes.
Roughly what those categories cost now
Indicative ranges rather than promises, and the spread between western and eastern Europe is the biggest single factor:
- Hostel dorm bed. Around 25 to 45 euro a night in western Europe and the Nordics, 12 to 25 in the east and much of the Balkans. Cities in high summer sit at the top of both.
- Supermarket lunch. Bread, cheese, fruit, something to drink: 5 to 9 euro, and this is where a long trip is won or lost.
- A sit-down meal. 15 to 30 euro west, 8 to 18 east.
- Coffee. 1.50 to 4 euro, standing at the bar in Italy being the cheap end and a terrace in Paris the other.
- Beer. 3 to 8 euro west, 2 to 4 in Czechia and Poland.
- Museum or gallery entry. 10 to 25 euro, and this adds up faster than anything else. Many have a free evening or a free first Sunday, which is worth planning a city around.
- City transport day ticket. 5 to 10 euro.
- Seat reservation on a fast train. 10 euro and up in France, Spain and Italy, on top of your pass. Budget it as a daily cost, not an occasional one.
Add it up and a careful hostel-and-supermarket day runs somewhere around 50 to 80 euro in the west and 30 to 50 in the east, before you have gone anywhere or seen anything.
Where the budget actually goes
Not on the big items. You book the bed and the train and feel organised, then the money leaves through coffees, bottles of water, left-luggage lockers, the euro to use a station toilet, and a taxi you took because you were tired.
Two habits fix most of it. Carry a water bottle and fill it, because tap water is safe nearly everywhere in Europe and bottled water is a slow tax on being lazy. And do the supermarket shop for the train before you get to the station, where the same bread costs twice as much.
Track it for a week, then stop
Write down everything for the first week. Not forever, just long enough to learn where your money actually goes, which is never where you assumed. After that you can stop counting and simply avoid the two or three things that turned out to be eating the budget.
Posted 14 July 2003 by Ant in Eurail Planning · updated by Chris