We have concluded another budget month while slow traveling internationally on our family gap year. I’m excited to crunch the numbers and see how our projections are matching reality. It’s the chance to prove or disprove that this approach of slow travel is sustainable over the long haul. Either way it’s useful data.

The month of August started in Jaco Costa Rica and ended in Tokyo Japan. Costa Rica was becoming a known quantity by the time August rolled around, so Japan was the real variable. In our ten days or so in Tokyo, we have been pleasantly surprised by the affordability here. I fully expected to be shocked in the opposite direction. That might be because of the historical reputation of Japan I still had in my mind, which was probably formed in the 90’s.

The Raw Numbers

I’ll lay out the raw numbers of the budget and then provide commentary on the interesting pieces:

Accommodation

The accommodation cost is a prorated split of the days in Jaco and the days in Tokyo. It reflects exactly the cost of our housing for the days of August. Both places were affordable, with the Tokyo Airbnb being much more affordable than we originally planned. Here we rented a smaller place with a lesser kitchen to shift money toward eating out.

Groceries

Grocery costs were a mix of at home meals (Jaco) and not at home meals (Tokyo). This is the cost related part of Tokyo that is blowing me away in a good way. We budgeted $70 per day for our family of four to eat out exclusively, and we struggle to even spend that much. Most of our meals are from Lawson (a 7-Eleven like store), and we are eating at a restaurant on average once per day. That combo has us spending around $55/day. Because of that our groceries came in at a very normal $1K.

Discretionary

Our discretionary spending overran projections by about $80. Considering we bought a year subscription to Peleton for $129, we did pretty good on discretionary spending. Both Jaco and Tokyo are promoting low spending in this category. They both have so many fun free things to do that costly activities rarely make our radar.

Transportation

We overran projections in this category as well. This was mostly due to front-loading our Suica cards in Tokyo, and being forced into using Uber at Houston. Our flight to Houston was diverted for three hours, causing us to get in after the hotel shuttle stopped running.

Others

We screwed up with our phones, making international calls rather than using whatsapp.

Our virtual mailbox cost was higher as well due to a lot of mail pieces coming in that we had to open or shred. That has since slowed down.

Big Picture Analysis

With our income at $7,362.44 and expenses of $6,887.53, it puts the withdrawal rate on our investments at 3.5%. That’s a number I’m very happy with. This was primarily a Costa Rica month where we projected a 3.4% withdrawal rate. Combining that with ten days of Tokyo and still having a 3.5% withdrawal rate is a success. That brings the average withdrawal rate for the year (although only two months) to 3.87%.

In the September budget, fully in Japan, we expect to be closer to 6.5%. That will be balanced out by future cheaper months, at least if everything works as planned.