My wife and I travel year round, living out of hotels. And in case you haven’t seen her site, we track and publish every penny we spend. This makes analyzing promotions and strategies really effective.
Here we’ll break down every dollar of the $24,000 we spent this year, talk about the miles we used, hotels we stayed in, and the strategies going forward.
49 Flight Segments
- Blue = flights with miles
- Red = flights with mistake fares
- Green = regular paid flights (non-mistake fares)
Total number of miles used (for both of us) =
- 240,000 AA Miles
- 51,000 Southwest Points
- 40,000 United Miles
- 34,000 Lufthansa Miles
Thankfully, not a ton of flying this year; we just took our time in each region. Also, the green flights are mostly discount airliners and within a region. The only paid international flights are mistake fares.
January and February of 2015 we’ll have almost as many international flights as 2014 alone though. We’re always trying different styles, paces, and strategies. Since we keep track of stats we’re [hopefully] able to see what works really well and what doesn’t.
Hotels
- 99 different hotels (not stays)
- 46 IHG
- 14 Club Carlson
- 10 Hyatt
- 5 SPG
- 3 Hilton
- 2 Marriott
- 19 non-chain
- 62% of our nights are award/free (and 38% paid)
- 30 hotels with breakfast
- 15 hotels with lounge access
- 909,500 hotel points redeemed
- $7,077.85 on hotels
There are a few things that really screw these stats. First is that we have spent the last two months loading up on hotel points and the benefit will be entirely in the next calendar year.
The other thing is that of the 38% of paid nights, many of them are with the Orbitz deal. The Orbitz deal allowed us to stay in many non-chain hotels. And the cost per night was between $5 and $40. So paid night, yes, but a seriously good deal.
The other thing that’s hard to calculate is some business travel we’ve been able to do with contracted work, and misc free stuff like different friends letting us use their timeshare or something.
While our average night is less than $30 which is kind of the goal nowadays, we did spend more time with family than any year before, by far.
Still, we paid well less than half of our rent when we used to have a home (in Charlottesville, VA) and we lived in 4 star hotels on average.
Total Expenses
Our goal was $20,000/year…
Our total was $24,074.38
- Food = $7,079.70
- Hotels = $7,077.85
- Land transit = $4,395.45
- Airfare = $3,368.72
- Misc = $2,152.66
An average of $66 a day for two people (or $33 a person, per day).
Food
Obviously, we could cut down on food. When I see that number I think, “how do we spend that much?”. But when you think about it per day, it’s like $20 a day, and that’s eating out all the time. In that respect, I don’t know how it’s so low… because we eat out every meal.
So the first thing we could do is grocery store it up. However, I don’t see us cutting down on this. Part of what I enjoy is trying new foods, and not doing dishes.
Land Transit
How the heck did we spend $4,400 on land transit?
This seriously doesn’t make sense to me. This combined with the next one.
Airfare
Spending $3,368 on discount airliners…. is too much.
Between airfare and land transit, that’s $7,764.17. I’m seriously shocked. If that number didn’t exist our budget would be under $17,000.
Going forward I’m going to really think about regional flights on miles. I’m going to replenish my British Airways Avios stash and think about other options. This is embarrassing, and I will do better next year.
I think it’s easy to say “10,000 AA miles is worth more than $100… so I’ll pay for the intra Europe flight.” And then the slippery slope. But I should make an attempt to cut down this number.
Hotels
$7,000+ on hotels is a heck of a lot better than rent. But I think we can cut down a little. Although, I think it will be lower next year based on the start and end of the year stocking up on miles. I’ll have 500,000 hotel points going into next year, which is half of what we spent this year. And with the exception of one Latin America trip, we didn’t really use many PointBreaks hotels, but in previous years we’ve stayed at many. We’ll see what 2015 brings us.
Travels
Bold = new countries
- Italy
- Switzerland
- Hong Kong
- Indonesia
- Malaysia
- Singapore
- India
- Thailand
- Panama
- Colombia
- Costa Rica
- Guatemala
- Mexico
- Slovenia
- Belgium
- Netherlands
- Czech Republic
- Poland
- Austria
- Hungary
20 countries, and 10 of them were new. A bit less than the previous years in how aggressive we were about seeing new “countries”, although we spent a bit over a month in India exploring different regions. I think I’ll post more about the travel part of travel later though.
Status
Airlines
- We started the year off with AA Exec Plat due to the challenge at the end of 2013.
- We status matched to Alaska MVP Gold 75k
Hotels
- IHG downgraded me from Royal Ambassador to Platinum Ambassador (this is before they added “award nights don’t count towards RA” in the terms and conditions, and I had 100+ nights, thus proving you needed to have 60 paid stays in your Ambassador timeframe).
- Club Carlson Gold from credit card or status match.
- Hilton Gold from credit card or status match.
- We briefly had Hyatt Diamond during the trial.
Otherwise I seriously don’t care about status and think it gets in the way of actual value.
2015 Goals
After looking at the goal of $20,000 and missing it by $4,000+… I’m a little disappointed. Although, by the time I realized how frugal we needed to be in the last quarter, I was totally abandoning that goal when I saw the Into The Nights promotion.
So we’ve got to hit the $20,000 goal in 2015.
Partly because I’ve honestly learned a lot from keeping track of stats. I’ve realized how much $100 flights and $50 train rides add up.
Also, I’ve learned a lot by doing this miles and points thing full time for 3 years now. Now I’ve been able to dedicate more time to the blog and figure out some cool tricks for my own travels.
Essentially my most earnest goal is to be under $20,000 for 2015. That being said, $24,000 is not a ton considering that only about $10,000 went towards airline and hotels. And considering we paid half of our rent in 4 star hotels.
Thanks to you and your wife for keeping this going all year. Love the analysis.
Thanks Matt!
Happy new year.
Pretty incredible. Thanks for the insight into how you much it costs to sustain your lifestyle.
Thank you for reading, Abhishek.
Drew
Drew
Wish you and Carrie a very happy new year. 2014 was great as i learnt a lot from this site. Please continue to provide best content as much as possible in the years to come.
Thanks Kumar. A very Happy New Year to you, and I’m very grateful to have you reading and commenting this last year.
Drew
Considering around half your travel was in Europe, I think you guys have done amazingly well!
Thanks, yea, both this year and last year had a lot of Europe. Not sure why, just in the mood I guess.
What’s funny is that most of the year was in “expensive” countries, but India ended up being more expensive than many countries… I guess because of how poorly it was planned and plane tickets.
I’ve found sometimes traveling in “cheap” developing countries can cost more for various reasons (visas, lodging is more expensive if you’re looking for more upscale places, etc).
Great info to share, Drew. Long time reader of your blog, but rarely do I comment. Love to see the transparency of you and your wife’s travels…amazing stuff! Wishing you guys the best in 2015 and excited for all the new content you’ll be putting out. By far the best blog out there on the web.
Thanks Quincy, very glad to hear from you, and much thanks for reading. Hey, we enjoy it, as showing what we spend teaches us a lot, and certainly inspires me to be frugal.
Thank again,
Drew
Pretty “freakin” awesome…just wow! And approx 200+ days (very rough quick estimate from stats on other site) spent internationally in Europe, Central America, and SE Asia in 2014. Very nice…am guessing 10 years from now you’ll remember all the international trips (and occasional adventures) MUCH more than the “extra” $4k you feel you spent in 2014. For how many countries you visited, and the number of 4-5 star hotels you enjoyed, your 2014 expense totals were still very impressive. Well done!
Yea, I guess it’s also about goal keeping. I also just want to be frugal so I can use my money for better things… I suppose. And I genuinely feel like I learned enough that I’ll shave off $4k next year.
But I really appreciate your support/encouragement. Thanks for taking the time to read and comment!
Drew
Way to make everyone else feel crappy about how much their 2014 sucked compared to yours!
Haha. Just kidding, brother. You guys did awesome with the budget considering all of the US and EU traveling.
You mentioned you’re going into 2015 with 500k hotel points – what did you begin 2014 with (approximately)? Were you able to gain enough points through promos to pay for all of your award stays last year and still bank an extra half-million, or did you begin 2014 with a pretty decent stockpile? Also kinda curious of around how many airline miles you earned in 2014 but are carrying over into 2015 from things like CC’s and all of the mistake fares you two got in on. I’m guessing that would put your budget overrun in perspective and make it much less disappointing.
😀
Actually, I’m not too sure of the number of hotel points but it was probably 250k. This year I’ll have 500k+ easy and a number of free night certs.
With miles. We probably have like 300k at this point, but we have mistake fares booked for the first two months, and one in April. We count the numbers on the day of the flight though, just because of how often we change plans. So those flights ($200+ pp/each) will go toward next year. But still will give miles for next year too.
But I think mistake fares are always good for budget just cuz it’s basically the fee you’d be paying with miles anyways. $206 is what I’d pay for that trip with miles. So now I save miles and earn miles.
So I think 2015 will be off to a good start.
Real quick semi-related question about IHG Into the Nights free night certs. Are they treated just like credit card certs, or do they have their own separate availability calendar? Need to make the decision whenever (if) the ITN dashboard updates. Would get a ton more stays out of 50k points, but the nights are a little tempting if they have regular availability.
Yep, so I was told by IHG. However, I STILL haven’t gotten any of mine. Luckily I got to decide between 40k+10k or 40k+2 nights on my personal account. So I’ll get some stays in.
Just for comparison, about 25 years ago my wife and I spent 19 months traveling and recorded every expense in a log (which we still have, although I don’t have access to it right at the moment).
Our trip was different than your year in travel — 5 months camping (and staying with friends) across the US, 2 weeks in Japan, 7 months in Southeast Asia, 3 months in Australia, 3.5 months in New Zealand, and 1 month in Fiji. We didn’t use points or anything, so we paid for all hotel nights and transportation, staying in with friends (US and Japan), cheap hotels (Asia), hostels (Oz and NZ) and camping (US, Oz, NZ). We traveled overland as much as possible, but had car expenses for 8 months (our own car for the US and a car we bought and resold in Oz). In NZ we hitchhiked the entire country — also in Japan from Tokyo to Kyoto and back.
We also had some larger expenses, mostly related to learning to dive in Thailand and then pursuing the hobby further in Indonesia and Australia.
Our total bill was a little over $20K (I’ll try to remember to check tonight and post a follow-up).
Interestingly enough, friends of ours did a very, very similar trip about a year later but over the course of 9 months instead of 19 and when they added up their expenses they were almost exactly the same as our longer trip. Proving (at least to me) that slow and steady is the way to go.
That’s interesting that you would 1) also keep track, and 2) still have it. Your trip was longer than our calendar year way of doing it. But then again, inflation would double or triple price. But it doesn’t sound like you were on an all points concept. :-p
Actually, we’ve talked about buying and selling a car in OZ. Definitely seems a little more of hassle and a risk than I would like though. But we also wouldn’t be there 8 months.
I almost want to try a “rapid travel” version for a year and the compare. It would come with more planning, and more flights… but I think some aspects could be cheaper. However, I need a slower pace just for sanity. Even 10 days here in Budapest will fly by for us, I guarantee.
We were 3 months in Oz. Bought the car for A$ 2100 in Darwin, drove it to Sydney, and sold it for A$ 2100. The people we bought it from had paid the same amount for it in Sydney, before driving it to Darwin. We did have some repair costs (knocked it up a bit on the Plenty of Nothing Highway). Certainly made for some cheap days camping by the side of the road and cooking on a propane stove. We generally had other backpackers along to share the gas costs. But, there is always a risk that the car will be a total write-off at the end.
Simply amazing. Wonder how you guys made that $24K spending while traveling full time, was it all from your blog and affiliate links?
I actually would do a post on the details of that but the one time I did… I found out that I wasn’t allowed and had to take it down. But I can say that we made a little more than that from the blog this year, which I’m very happy with. We have had a little more from side projects and stuff on the side, but the blog is the majority of my work hours.
I’ve wondered about the income side of the equation as well. I take it the cc companies don’t want you disclosing affiliate referral fees, etc.? Could you at least do it at a high level — “Affiliate links, $10k; Advertising, $10k;” etc.? I ask because, obviously, it doesn’t matter how high or low your expenses are if you don’t have the income to cover. On the one hand my rent is much more than $7k a year… but on the other hand I have a job, which I’d have to quit if I was traveling year-round!
I admire that you guys have very high expectations of yourselves. If you were to live a “normal” lifestyle in many parts of the US, it would be very difficult to even come close to $24,000. This shows that as long as you can find a way to earn income while abroad, it is far cheaper than living in an American city.
Well, we lived in Charlottesville, VA (which is an expensive University town) and it was roughly the same as we spend now. But we didn’t own a car and we walked to work or took the bus. And since we’ve been married we’ve never had a phone plan for either or us. To say the least, we’ve always been frugal. But our money is “going further” now, in a few ways I guess.
Hey Drew.
Any chance you’ve looked at the Ritz Carlton Card promotion for 140,000 bonus points? I know the annual fee ($395) is substantial, but with all the extras you get with it, it looks like a pretty good deal. Your thoughts??
He posted his thoughts on it a couple of weeks ago: http://travelisfree.com/2014/12/22/which-credit-cards-we-did-not-get-this-year/
Thanks. I read thru that posting, but didn’t read far enough to see the RC card post.
Yea, I’m not a fan, but someone is telling me they bought gift cards with the fee reimbursement. If I could get IHG cards, then it would be cash to me. Otherwise, it’s a waste.
Hey Drew,
I am a reader of your blog. Based on my travel experiences, I realized that when I change from one place to another increases a lot my travel experiences (4 weeks in Bali is cheaper than 2 weeks in Bali + 2 weeks in Phuket).
Maybe to bring your expenses down you could try to stay longer in some places. I also took advantage of the Millenium Resort mistake rate, so in this case you could have booked for maybe a month or so.
What is your main goal: go to more places or have your expenses below 20k?
Congrats for your blog! The IHG on Steroids is on my bookmark! 😉
Greetings from Sao Paulo!
Thanks Adriano.
Well, we get kind of bored, so despite it being cheaper I have to see more places. So our goal is to have it both ways, as they say. We want to see way more places this year and keep it below 20k.
However, I think you’re right about milking really good deals. Like the lack of PointBreaks this year. Milking those longer are great.
The problem is that I’m picky. I would have gladly booked a month at the millennium if it were in Phi Phi, but I didn’t enjoy Patong. So I just wouldn’t do it, despite how cheap it would be.
I’m very specific about where I want to go, partly because my goal is to go to every country in the world. So I don’t want to keep going back to Bangkok solely because it’s cheap.
We’ll see how it goes I guess…
New reader. Love the site and love the stats you post.
Hey Dave, very glad you found the site and that you’re enjoying it! If there’s ever anything you need, please let me know.
Drew
Love your blog, absolutely one of the best out there. My husband and I are full-time nomads too and love the freedom this lifestyle brings. As a thought for cutting down on your food expenses…I know you said you didn’t want to do grocery stores and hate doing dishes, but, especially in Europe, they have so many hot options usually you can choose from, that you can have a hot meal and not have to spend the euros that a restaurant would cost. We usually get a roasted chicken, some rolls, a bottle of wine, and some fresh fruit/vegies. If it’s a nice evening we’ll go al fresco and find a park. If it’s cold, we eat in our hotel room, and enjoy any view we might have. No dishes needed, except hotel glasses for the wine. Frugal and delicious.
Very glad to have a fellow nomad here. Maybe our paths will cross sometime?
Hmm. Would be interesting to try to get a list of foods you can eat without cooking from a grocery store.
We do actually get all our drinks from grocery stores. Oddly enough I’ve been bringing a bottle of water from the grocery store into restaurants. Actually saves a lot of money.
We actually do the exact same thing sometimes. We tend to grab sandwiches from grocery stores when wanting to be cheap. Even in paris actually the sandwiches at deli like places can be cheap. In amsterdam they had premade salads I really like.
However, I just get really tired of the same three things after a few days. Unless it’s really fresh tasting, like I salad, I tend to be back in the restaurants real quick. But I suppose if I was even just a little more intentional about making it good, like it sounds like you guys are, it could go a long way.
Anyways, let me know if we cross paths. Where are you now?
@travelisfree on twitter
Can you give a step by step on how you earned the 500,000 hotel points? Since I am a single and not a couple would this only allow me to earn 250,000 IHG points instead?
Sure, that’s probably true. You have to understand that we weren’t really big on the last IHG promotions. Read between the lines here:
http://travelisfree.com/2014/09/05/i-promise-to-rock-the-best-hotel-promotion-ever/
So that one thing alone is pushing us to big numbers. So that promotion as well as the new one, and Club Carlson promotions in the past have been good. That’s about it really.
Check out this post, and see if you can make the math worth it.
http://travelisfree.com/2014/12/15/new-ihg-promo-for-2015-qa/
I wish I pick up more skills on hotels from you guys.
I am a big mileage runner and I flew over 320K in 2014, with UA 1k and Delta diamond. because i fly so much, airport is pretty much my second home and i spend an upward of 50 nights at airport. I do think u pay for taxi to airport? I always do public transportation whenever possible. As I am single, the hotel would cost the same for 1 person or 3 people, so I do mostly hostel when I am solo or when there is hotel deals. some part of my travel are with my parents (when I am redeeming miles) and we stay in good hotels, (12 nights in Norway and Sweden using choice points), clubcarlson in russian, intercontinentl, marriot and hyatt etc. and i certainly need more skills in hacking IHG. (i finished the intothe nights and on track to finish set your sights for less than 200 usd (4 nights).
i spend less than 1k per month before i start travel hacking. (been to around 90 countries and counting.)
i plan to quit my job to travel full time but i dont have plan to do a blog because i have enough saving to support myself as i have been frugal for long timr!
Really informative post.
I do have an addiction of numbers and keep all this info for myself as well, although I dont travel full-time yet.
I summarized all my flights to find some ‘hidden stories’
http://krisprovoost.com/2014/11/i-flew-200-flights-in-the-last-24-years/
Have a look if you have time!
Do you and your wife each open up the same credit cards to double up on the bonuses?
Hi Drew, first of all – LOVE your blog and the ton of very useful info here. I have a couple of questions; please feel free to reply via e-mail if you prefer. First is I see “MS” mentioned in a lot of posts, but can’t figure out what that stands for. Could you please clarify?
Second is that you spend around $20k/year (give or take), however you earned around 1M points/miles on credit cards. Considering that’s probably around 15 cards per year, and that required spend for each would be around $3k on average, that’s $45K in yearly spend. I must be missing something basic here. Could you please help?
Thanks in advance!
Manufactured spend.
Buying gift cards -> liquidating those gift cards.
frequentmiler.boardingarea.com has some guides about it. we have an infographic on Redbird, please check it out.
http://travelisfree.com/2014/10/26/steps-of-the-target-redbird-infographic/