April 2014
One of the key things when looking at doing what we are is obviously the budget and a lot of people have expressed interest in what it will cost us to live. I did a great deal of research in the year before we left looking at what it would cost. After all it would have been pretty stupid to give up our jobs and then find we had run out of money in 5 years time, although to be fair it would be a pretty fun way to spend 5 years!! In addition I had kept all the receipts from our previous 2 trips and created a spreadsheet which gave me a rough guide. I read a lot of blogs, especially useful was the blog by the lovely Adam and Sophie, "Europe By Camper" in which they detailed their expenses over their year long tour of Europe. I found a brilliant app for my IPad called ExpenseNova which I find really easy to set up and use and it enables me to see at a glance what I have spent over different months and where I am in relation to my budget. I can set up recurring transactions, set up a budget for various categories, add categories that are relevant, view my expenditure in a bar graph or a pie chart. I think it is a brilliant tool that would benefit a lot of people in keeping on top of their finances ( oops I'm in danger here of slipping my old work hat on!!).
I have set a base line budget of £8400 with a (hopefully) top line of £10,000 per year. At the current exchange rate this equates to roughly €10,080 base line and €12,000 top line. I have set up the ExpenseNova App with a regular monthly income of €840 initially as this will show me where I am each month in relation to my base line. The nature of this type of travelling means that expenses are higher in the summer when you can't take advantage of ACSI discounted campsites and the Aires that are free out of the main season. For that reason it is better to have an annual budget rather than a monthly one as I anticipate we will be over budget in the summer months and under in the winter so it should all even out. The difficulty with this first year is that we are returning to the UK in October and after spending a month with family and friends we are heading off to Goa for 3 months. This obviously skews the budget for this year as although it is only going to cost us £350 per month for the apartment and about £10 per day for food and drink the big cost was the flights at £1,364.
I am currently keeping a book in which I log all my shopping so I can build a picture of which supermarkets are the best value. I have picked a short list of key things that I buy regularly and will post a chart of their costs at the 5 main supermarket chains once I have all the figures.
One of the key things when looking at doing what we are is obviously the budget and a lot of people have expressed interest in what it will cost us to live. I did a great deal of research in the year before we left looking at what it would cost. After all it would have been pretty stupid to give up our jobs and then find we had run out of money in 5 years time, although to be fair it would be a pretty fun way to spend 5 years!! In addition I had kept all the receipts from our previous 2 trips and created a spreadsheet which gave me a rough guide. I read a lot of blogs, especially useful was the blog by the lovely Adam and Sophie, "Europe By Camper" in which they detailed their expenses over their year long tour of Europe. I found a brilliant app for my IPad called ExpenseNova which I find really easy to set up and use and it enables me to see at a glance what I have spent over different months and where I am in relation to my budget. I can set up recurring transactions, set up a budget for various categories, add categories that are relevant, view my expenditure in a bar graph or a pie chart. I think it is a brilliant tool that would benefit a lot of people in keeping on top of their finances ( oops I'm in danger here of slipping my old work hat on!!).
I have set a base line budget of £8400 with a (hopefully) top line of £10,000 per year. At the current exchange rate this equates to roughly €10,080 base line and €12,000 top line. I have set up the ExpenseNova App with a regular monthly income of €840 initially as this will show me where I am each month in relation to my base line. The nature of this type of travelling means that expenses are higher in the summer when you can't take advantage of ACSI discounted campsites and the Aires that are free out of the main season. For that reason it is better to have an annual budget rather than a monthly one as I anticipate we will be over budget in the summer months and under in the winter so it should all even out. The difficulty with this first year is that we are returning to the UK in October and after spending a month with family and friends we are heading off to Goa for 3 months. This obviously skews the budget for this year as although it is only going to cost us £350 per month for the apartment and about £10 per day for food and drink the big cost was the flights at £1,364.
I am currently keeping a book in which I log all my shopping so I can build a picture of which supermarkets are the best value. I have picked a short list of key things that I buy regularly and will post a chart of their costs at the 5 main supermarket chains once I have all the figures.
More to follow.....
October 2014 - Update
Well I have finally found the time to look at what we spent over the 19 weeks we were away on our first big trip. The ExpenseNova app made it really easy as it produces custom reports which allow me to look at my expenditure in each category over any given period and I can also look at monthly reports for all expenditure. As you can see above I initially assumed an exchange rate of 1.2 giving me a base line budget of €10,080 however the exchange rate turned out much more favourable which boosted our baseline budget to €10,584 and our top-line to €12,600
October 2014 - Update
Well I have finally found the time to look at what we spent over the 19 weeks we were away on our first big trip. The ExpenseNova app made it really easy as it produces custom reports which allow me to look at my expenditure in each category over any given period and I can also look at monthly reports for all expenditure. As you can see above I initially assumed an exchange rate of 1.2 giving me a base line budget of €10,080 however the exchange rate turned out much more favourable which boosted our baseline budget to €10,584 and our top-line to €12,600
I record everything we spend in euros as this is the currency we deal with most. To convert the euros in to pounds I used a rate of 1.26 as this was a pretty good average of the exchange rates we were getting, both on our credit card and when we were using cashpoints. I then divided the figure by 19 to get our average weekly expenditure in each category. As expected our 3 main areas of regular expense are Aires/campsites, diesel and groceries.
| Category | Total | Weekly Amount |
| Aires/Campsites | £887.24 | £46.70 |
| Diesel | £714.39 | £37.60 |
| Groceries | £998.48 | £52.55 |
| Cafés/Bars | £319.32 | £16.81 |
| Herman Maintenance | £102.94 (£779.46) | £5.42 (£41.02) |
| LPG | £48.21 | £2.54 |
| Phone | £38.10 | £2.00 |
| Tolls | £13.17 | £0.69 |
| Transport | £107.78 | £5.67 |
| Totals | £3,903.15 | £169.98 |
The maintenance figures in brackets shows the actual amount we spent on repairs but as most of this was covered by the warranty I have only counted the actual amount we were liable for which was for the new exhaust that was fitted the day we drove in to Germany. The transport costs were for the coach in to Paris, the hop on/hop off bus, the cycle ferries and the Rhune train etc.
I will continue to record everything we spend even when we are at home as it has been useful in highlighting expenditure that can be reduced. We had the occasional coffee or ice-cream when out on a ride and I was stunned to see how much it totalled at the end of the month, for example €78.10 in August alone. The average ice-cream in France was around €3.50 so I will now buy a pack of ice-creams from Lidl and keep them in the freezer. A pack of 6 will probably cost less than it does for a single ice-cream. Over the year this represents a significant saving. If you look at the chart above you can see that our café/bar bill totalled £319.32 for the 19 weeks. This was partly owing to the World Cup and the Tour de France as we enjoyed a beer or two whilst sitting in bars watching the games/stages whereas normally we would enjoy a glass of wine or beer sitting outside the motorhome.
When I first said I was going to do a comparison of prices across 5 of the main supermarkets I had no idea what a tedious task it would become trying to gather all the information. I quickly realised that Aldi and Lidl were almost identical on pricing so I didn't bother to record Aldi's prices. The chart below is the result of the many miles I walked along supermarket aisles gathering prices. While Glynn was doing our shopping I would dash around the store with my little note book in hand. Many a time I realised I was being watched by store staff so I don't know what they thought I was up to. Perhaps they thought I was spying on their products for another store? The other difficulty was trying to make sure I picked comparable qualities as it wasn't always easy to tell. During our last week I realised there were still many prices I hadn't got from Super U (as we hadn't come across many of them on our travels) so I stepped up the pace. It was a bit like a trolley dash without the trolley!! Glynn refused to spend any of our last week running up and down supermarket aisles trying to find prices so he sat outside in the car park enjoying the sunshine (and who can blame him?). The purpose of the chart is just to give an idea of the average shopping trolley in France. Not all the sizes and qualities were the same and prices varied from week to week much as they do in the UK with different items on offer from one week to the next. The prices below are as they were on the day I noted them and not necessarily indicative of their normal prices. The other main store I did not record is E Leclerc as we didn't come across many of them until almost the end of our trip but as an example of some of the great offers that can be had they were selling gorgeous big vine tomatoes on offer at €0.99 per kg when I was there. The one thing that became clear is that Aldi and Lidl were the best value and this was where we did the bulk of our shopping.
Two of the things we struggled to buy were brown sauce and pickles/chutneys but perhaps the most surprising item was brandy!! Apparently the good old French brandy that we buy in the supermarkets is produced for the UK market. We did eventually find some but it wasn't easy although there is an abundance of cognac available.
The French have no idea how to make baked beans to our standard and no amount of adding tomato purée or anything else made them edible, you can't beat a tin of Branston baked beans. Most supermarkets have an English aisle where you can buy a small bottle of HP sauce for about €4 and a tin of Heinz beans for about €1.60 but I would rather do without than pay that.
I like to try new foods so I don't expect to be eating all the same things however I can't imagine a cheese platter without chutneys and a lemonade without brandy. So far my “Don't Forget” list includes brown sauce, chutneys, lime pickle, Branston baked beans, gravy granules and Huggies Pure baby wipes which have a myriad uses. I will wait until I get to Spain to stock up on Soberano brandy at less than €10 a litre!
I will continue to record everything we spend even when we are at home as it has been useful in highlighting expenditure that can be reduced. We had the occasional coffee or ice-cream when out on a ride and I was stunned to see how much it totalled at the end of the month, for example €78.10 in August alone. The average ice-cream in France was around €3.50 so I will now buy a pack of ice-creams from Lidl and keep them in the freezer. A pack of 6 will probably cost less than it does for a single ice-cream. Over the year this represents a significant saving. If you look at the chart above you can see that our café/bar bill totalled £319.32 for the 19 weeks. This was partly owing to the World Cup and the Tour de France as we enjoyed a beer or two whilst sitting in bars watching the games/stages whereas normally we would enjoy a glass of wine or beer sitting outside the motorhome.
When I first said I was going to do a comparison of prices across 5 of the main supermarkets I had no idea what a tedious task it would become trying to gather all the information. I quickly realised that Aldi and Lidl were almost identical on pricing so I didn't bother to record Aldi's prices. The chart below is the result of the many miles I walked along supermarket aisles gathering prices. While Glynn was doing our shopping I would dash around the store with my little note book in hand. Many a time I realised I was being watched by store staff so I don't know what they thought I was up to. Perhaps they thought I was spying on their products for another store? The other difficulty was trying to make sure I picked comparable qualities as it wasn't always easy to tell. During our last week I realised there were still many prices I hadn't got from Super U (as we hadn't come across many of them on our travels) so I stepped up the pace. It was a bit like a trolley dash without the trolley!! Glynn refused to spend any of our last week running up and down supermarket aisles trying to find prices so he sat outside in the car park enjoying the sunshine (and who can blame him?). The purpose of the chart is just to give an idea of the average shopping trolley in France. Not all the sizes and qualities were the same and prices varied from week to week much as they do in the UK with different items on offer from one week to the next. The prices below are as they were on the day I noted them and not necessarily indicative of their normal prices. The other main store I did not record is E Leclerc as we didn't come across many of them until almost the end of our trip but as an example of some of the great offers that can be had they were selling gorgeous big vine tomatoes on offer at €0.99 per kg when I was there. The one thing that became clear is that Aldi and Lidl were the best value and this was where we did the bulk of our shopping.
| Carrefour | Intermarche | Lidl | SuperU | |
| Apricots (per kg) | €2.95 | €2.99 | €2.49 | |
| Bananas (per kg) | €1.09 | €1.85 | €1.39 | €1.99 |
| Baguette | €0.42 | €0.38 | €0.35 | €0.70 |
| Butter | €1.31 | €1.18 | €1.15 | €1.34 |
| Carrots (per kg) | €0.85 | €1.79 | €0.99 | €1.70 |
| Chicken Thighs (per kg) | €3.57 | €7.50 | €3.49 | €3.99 |
| Cling Film | €2.95 (30m) | €1.85 (20m) | €1.19 (60m) | €0.99 (20m) |
| Crisps (200g) | €0.95 | €2.09 | €0.55 | €0.55 |
| Courgettes (kg) | €1.25 | €2.07 | €0.89 | €1.29 |
| Cauliflour (large) | €2.93 | €0.99 | €2.70 | |
| Cucumber | €0.70 | €0.75 | €0.39 | €0.99 |
| Cereal (muesli type) | €1.95 | €2.18 | €1.35 | €2.55 |
| Couscous (1 kg) | €1.11 | €1.99 | €0.99 | €2.09 |
| CHEESE | ||||
| Brie | €2.90 | €1.71 | €2.85 (lg) | €1.38 |
| Camembert | €0.96 | €1.58 | €1.49 | €1.38 |
| Roquefort | €2.01 | €1.81 | €1.75 | €1.63 |
| Parmigiana (per kg) | €17.90 | €16.40 | €19.99 | €26.50 |
| Mozzarella | €0.50 | €1.02 | €0.55 | €0.83 |
| Chorizo Sauasage (250g) | €1.58 | €1.55 | €1.95 | |
| Eggs (per egg) | €0.10 | €0.09 | €0.11 | €0.18 |
| Foil | €5.25 (30m) | €2.30 (10m) | €1.75 (30m) | €1.09 (30m) |
| Ham (200g) | €1.41 | €2.54 (250g) | €1.39 | €1.89 |
| Jam | €1.06 | €1.32 | €0.99 | €1.13 |
| Kitchen Roll (4 pack) | €2.00 | €2.01 | €1.49 | €1.99 (2) |
| Lettuce (Iceberg) | €0.99 | €0.99 | €0.79 | |
| Milk (1L UHT) | €0.78 | €0.75 | €0.69 | €0.76 |
| Minced Beef (500g) | €3.45 (650g) | €4.80 (600g) | €3.29 | €5.10 |
| Mushrooms (250g) | €0.99 | €0.99 | €0.99 | €0.99 |
| Mouthwash | €2.21 | €4.46 | €1.59 | €1.98 |
| Oil (1L) | €1.45 | €2.70 | €1.19 | €2.30 |
| Onions | €2.10 | €1.29 | €0.99 | €1.10 |
| Passatta | €0.52 | €0.57 | €0.35 | €0.30 |
| PASTA | ||||
| Spaghetti (500g) | €0.39 | €0.75 | €0.37 | €0.77 |
| Fusili (1kg) | €0.79 | €0.67 | €0.37 (500g) | €1.20 (500g) |
| Peppers (1 capsicum) | €0.74 | €1.19 (3pack) | €0.87 | |
| Potatoes (2.5kg) | €1.50 | €2.99 | €1.99 | €2.99 |
| Rice (Basmati) | €2.96 | €2.25 | €1.67 | €1.93 |
| Sausages (6 Merguez) | €2.00 | €2.65 | €1.66 | €3.76 |
| Shower Gel (250ml) | €1.20 | €1.91 | €0.99 (300ml) | €1.20 |
| Tomatoes (per kg) | €1.55 | €1.29 | €1.79 | €1.82 |
| Tomato Purée | €0.58 | €0.42 | €0.27 (tin) | €0.42 |
| Toilet Roll | €2.16 (6) | €3.60 (12) | €1.99 (8) | €1.59 (6) |
| Tea (25 fruit/green) | €1.69 | €1.20 | €0.89 | €1.59 |
| Tuna (tinned in brine) | €1.37 | €1.20 | €1.09 | €0.90 |
| Water (per 2L) | €0.17 | €0.17 (1.5L) | €0.17 | €0.18 (1.5L) |
| Washing Up Liquid | €0.99 | €1.29 | €0.99 | €1.35 (750ml) |
| Washing liquid (1L) | €4.73 | €6.54 (1750ml) | €2.59 |
Two of the things we struggled to buy were brown sauce and pickles/chutneys but perhaps the most surprising item was brandy!! Apparently the good old French brandy that we buy in the supermarkets is produced for the UK market. We did eventually find some but it wasn't easy although there is an abundance of cognac available.
The French have no idea how to make baked beans to our standard and no amount of adding tomato purée or anything else made them edible, you can't beat a tin of Branston baked beans. Most supermarkets have an English aisle where you can buy a small bottle of HP sauce for about €4 and a tin of Heinz beans for about €1.60 but I would rather do without than pay that.
I like to try new foods so I don't expect to be eating all the same things however I can't imagine a cheese platter without chutneys and a lemonade without brandy. So far my “Don't Forget” list includes brown sauce, chutneys, lime pickle, Branston baked beans, gravy granules and Huggies Pure baby wipes which have a myriad uses. I will wait until I get to Spain to stock up on Soberano brandy at less than €10 a litre!
Aires,
Stellplatz and Campsites.
My
original thought was that we would go over budget in the summer
months because it would be out of season for the ACSI discount card
and Aires tend to be dearer and I thought we would be under budget in
winter months. Well it just goes to show that you can do all the
research you like but there is nothing like actually doing it to see
what the true cost is. I know we haven't been away through the winter
yet but our costs in August were the cheapest month we had.
| Month | Total Cost | Average Nightly Cost |
| May (22 nights) | £160.95 | £7.32 |
| June | £272.20 | £9.07 |
| July | £217.35 | £7.01 |
| August | £97.14 | £3.13 |
| September (19 nights) | £107.14 | £5.64 |
I
believe the reason for this is that during August we were travelling
up the Eastern side of France to Germany. This meant we were well
away from the coast where Aires tend to be dearer. In the first 14
days we only paid for 3 nights as the rest of the Aires were free and
our total cost for the first 18 days up to when we entered Germany
was only £29.76. This shows that anyone wishing to travel France can
really reduce their overheads if they seek out the free and cheap
Aires. It's not to say that all Aires near the coast are expensive as
that is not the case. We stayed on a delightful Aire at Gastes in
June, next to a lake and marina and cycling distance to the beach and
it was only €4.50 a night (£3.57 approx). The other thing to be
aware of is that it is not always cheaper to go for an Aire rather
than a campsite. The Aire at Vieux-Boucau-les-Bains is €12 a night
and was in a great location however we opted to stay at a lovely
little ACSI site just 3kms away which was also €12 a night but we
had the added bonus of a lovely shower block and free wifi. When we
stayed in St Jean de Luz we again opted for a campsite as it had a
beautiful heated pool, free wifi, a large pitch and excellent
facilities all for €16 a night but if you stayed for 14 nights you
only paid for 10 bringing the cost down to €11.43 a night. The
nearby Aire at Biarritz was €12 and the vehicles were packed in
like sardines so it was a no-brainer for us.
In
addition to Aires and campsites are the France Passion stopovers
which are always free. We love them and have had nothing but good
experiences although some people say they feel obliged to buy
something from the farm/vineyard. I don't feel obliged but I am happy
to purchase a nice bottle of wine for €7 after being invited for
wine tasting as I feel it's like paying €7 for an Aire and being
given a free bottle of wine. Result!!
The Route
Our total distance travelled was 6363kms (3954mls). We spent €900.13 on diesel which is approximately £714 so based on these figures it cost us approximately £18 per 100 miles travelled. This will help with future planning when we are trying to cost a route.
October 2015 - Update
Well what a difference a year makes!! The Pound has been much stronger against the Euro this year and after a starting rate of 1.36 when we left in March it continued to strengthen and remained above 1.40 for many weeks peaking at almost 1.44 on our credit card transactions. This obviously had a huge impact on our budget. When we left in April 2014 the rate was a averaging at around 1.2 giving us an annual baseline budget of €10,080. In reality we achieved on average 1.26 which meant our budget grew to €10,584. Assuming an average rate of 1.40 this year our baseline budget grew to €11,760 giving us an extra €1,176 compared with last year. Ironically just as we cut our trip short at the end of August to return and deal with the sale of our house the pound weakened against the Euro and the rate is now hovering around 1.36 again. We were away for 158 days, just over 22 weeks
The Route
Our total distance travelled was 6363kms (3954mls). We spent €900.13 on diesel which is approximately £714 so based on these figures it cost us approximately £18 per 100 miles travelled. This will help with future planning when we are trying to cost a route.
October 2015 - Update
Well what a difference a year makes!! The Pound has been much stronger against the Euro this year and after a starting rate of 1.36 when we left in March it continued to strengthen and remained above 1.40 for many weeks peaking at almost 1.44 on our credit card transactions. This obviously had a huge impact on our budget. When we left in April 2014 the rate was a averaging at around 1.2 giving us an annual baseline budget of €10,080. In reality we achieved on average 1.26 which meant our budget grew to €10,584. Assuming an average rate of 1.40 this year our baseline budget grew to €11,760 giving us an extra €1,176 compared with last year. Ironically just as we cut our trip short at the end of August to return and deal with the sale of our house the pound weakened against the Euro and the rate is now hovering around 1.36 again. We were away for 158 days, just over 22 weeks
On the face of it Spain appeared much cheaper than France with groceries, fuel and eating/drinking out being cheaper on the whole although this was offset by the slightly more expensive camper parks. As an example we regularly paid only €1 or €1.20 for a small beer in Spain and it was often accompanied by free tapas which varied from olives to chorizo topped crusty bread. In France we were charged €2.70 for a small beer with no tapas!! In my opinion the camper parks in Spain are a cross between French Aires and campsites. Many of them are gated making them feel very secure and usually have shower and laundry facilities. They often include free or cheap wifi too. We were paying around €9-€11 per night in low season and €14 per night high season. This is slightly more than we were paying in France but was offset by the cheaper food, drink and fuel.
If we hadn't cut our trip short our average weekly cost on Aires/campsites would have been less as we were about to travel up the east side of France where many Aires are free. Based on our actual expenditure our average weekly cost was £156.35 compared with £169.98 last year.
| Category | Total | Weekly Amount 2015 | Weekly Amount 2014 |
| Aires/Campsites | £1,140.37 | £50.54 | £46.70 |
| Diesel | £494.56 | £21.91 | £37.60 |
| Groceries | £988.78 | £43.81 | £52.55 |
| Cafés/Bars | £230.16 | £10.20 | £16.81 |
| Herman Maintenance | £502.09 | £22.24 | £5.42 |
| LPG | £44.54 | £1.97 | £2.54 |
| Phone | £40.00 | £1.77 | £2.00 |
| Tolls | £2.50 | £0.11 | £0.69 |
| Transport | £86.07 | £3.81 | £5.67 |
| Totals | £3,529.07 | £156.35 | £169.98 |
Clearly the exchange rate has had a bearing on these figures so if we look at them in Euros it shows a different picture with last year's weekly total coming in at €214.17 while this year's total came in at €218.74. On the whole I think the figures for the 2 countries have pretty much balanced out for us however there are big savings to be made if you choose to opt for cheap or free Aires/camperparks and buy your beer from a supermarket rather than from a bar if your in France!! We monitor the exchange rate on our XE app on a daily basis. If the current rate is higher than the Euros we purchased we pay on our credit card and if not we pay in Euros. Our Halifax Clarity credit card makes no charge for using the card abroad nor does our Norwich & Peterborough Gold Account charge us for withdrawing cash.
Things are a bit hectic with the impending house move but I will try and find time to plot our route on a map and work out whether this years mileage and fuel economy bettered last year's. Bearing in mind the better exchange rate as well as the drop in fuel prices I would anticipate a saving in this area too.
Good to have friends that are careful like us Yorkshire folk love Irvine & Julia xx
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