South Africa Expat Family Budget
We really enjoyed our time in South Africa, and I was excited to crunch the numbers to see what it would take to live there long term as a FIRE’d expat. In this post I will break down the cost for an expat family budget based on our actual spending. I will be covering scenarios…
South Africa Travel Reflections
South Africa is a location that we nearly scratched from our itinerary. This wasn’t due to a lack of interest, but because of the daunting travel and cost involved to get there. In these reflections I ultimately feel that had we skipped South Africa, there would have been something missing from our year of travel.…
Travel From South Africa To Portugal
This week was all about getting from South Africa to Portugal. It was a long series of flights and layovers that totaled 38 hours from leaving our Knysna South Africa condo to entering our Lisbon Portugal condo. Shortly after arriving in Portugal JC and I got sick which made for a few boring days. Travel…
March International Travel FIRE Budget
The beginning of March was the tail end of our tough stay in Sri Lanka before moving on to South Africa. The majority of spending in our March international travel FIRE budget is comprised of South Africa costs. In the upcoming expat cost of living series post on South Africa, I will extract the South…
Sri Lanka Expat Family Budget
⚠️ Limited Data: This cost breakdown is based on only two weeks in Sri Lanka, a much shorter stay than our typical destinations. Use these numbers as a rough guide rather than a comprehensive analysis. Sri Lanka turned into a tough stay for us. Given the short time we stayed in Sri Lanka, I debated…
Thailand Expat Family Budget
Thailand is my favorite place so far on our international gap year. I have already covered in depth the reasons why it is my favorite place, and I will now turn to the financial side of things. In this Thailand expat family budget, I will show the cost of living full time in Chiang Mai…
February International Travel FIRE Budget
Our February international travel FIRE budget includes the cost for time spent between Chiang Mai Thailand and Colombo Sri Lanka. More of the days were spent in Thailand, but the costs were pretty similar between the two locations. However, these two locations could not have been more different outside of the cost. Thailand blew us…
January International Travel FIRE Budget
The month of January was split between Ho Chi Minh City Vietnam (22 days) and Chiang Mai Thailand (9 days). This was anticipated to be one of the cheapest stretches of the year with these locations known for their lower cost of living, and no long flights to travel between them. However, we managed to…
Manila Philippines Expat Family Budget
After living in Manila for about a month, we have real world numbers showing the cost to live there full time. This Manila Philippines expat family budget is based on our family of four, and I will cover both renting and buying scenarios. In some past posts in this series I have avoided the buy…
December International Travel FIRE Budget
The month of December saw us staying largely in Manila Philippines. This location was shaping up to be a massive cost savings in our international travel FIRE budget. It really had everything going for it; extremely cheap lodging, transportation, and food. When we tallied the final numbers however, the savings were meager and the discomfort…
Traveling Toward Fire
A Premature FI Experiment
