Reid & Robie

Travel is never a matter of money, but of courage.

– Paulo Coelho

With our first full year of this roving retirement officially in the bag, Robie and I were curious where we spent our money. So we took a deep dive into last year’s finances and are sharing what we learned.

2025 Budget

We started the year with a spending goal of $52,000.

Backing out the $50 per person a month we set aside for healthcare, that left us with $50,800 to spend. This figure grew slightly after Robie received a $125 refund check from his colonoscopy in 2024, we were gifted $300 in birthday money from home and used $1,724.79 cash back on our credit card giving us a final spending total of $52,949.79.

That seemed like a lot after spending $10-12,000 a year while sailing around the Caribbean. But is it really? Compared to our expenses in Dallas, $53,000 is a little more than half (58%) of what we spent our last year in the U.S.

So how did we do?

We spent slightly more than our budget, finishing the year at $53,205.37 or $255.58 over budget.

We aren’t surprised by this and were actually pleased it wasn’t significantly more after Robie took a once-in-a-lifetime trip to St Andrews to play golf with friends and we traveled separately for seven weeks. While Reid made a bare-bones trip across northern Spain walking the Camino de Santiago, Robie gallivanted across northern Italy, Switzerland and Portugal. We also attended a family wedding in North Africa in June, went on a post-Camino vacation in southern Spain and took a tour to the Sahara Desert in December so the extra $255.58 could have been much worse. Because while we would have been under budget if we hadn’t gone on one of these adventures, we wouldn’t have missed them for the world.

Now let’s take a look at individual expense categories.

Rent $10,064.60 (18.71%)

This line item is for our long-term accommodations.

In 2025 that included Sarandё, Albania for 209 nights (January 14 to August 12) and Essaouira, Morocco for 58 nights (November 4 to December 31). Since we also spent the first eight days of the year in an apartment in Ikaria, Greece we spent 275 nights paying rent in 2025 averaging $36.60 a night. Not bad! 😉

But it didn’t include the 84 nights we spent traveling around Spain, Italy and Portugal so next year it will be higher and a greater percentage of our budget.

Travel $17,435.77 (32.41%) or $31,039.11 (57.70%)

The whole point of our roving retirement is to travel. It’s why we chose to move around rather than settle down in Spain, and we look at this budget two ways.

First, we classify travel as anything with short-term hotels or apartments (less than a month), long distance travel between points by air, boat, bus or rail and their associated fees (baggage and hotel tax). That’s where we got the $17,435.77 total for travel.

But while we’re away, we also spend money on things like dining out, sightseeing, local transportation, groceries and tours which get categorized differently. But adding those into the price of accommodations and transport gives us a much clearer picture of how much we spend traveling. In 2025 that was $31,039.11, or 57.81% of our total budget.

Diving deeper into that figure, we took 13 trips during the year spending 184 days traveling or 50.41% of the year which was heavily backloaded in the fall with Robie’s trips to Italy and Portugal and Reid’s Camino hike. Our most expensive trip was the 23 days we spent in Andalucía at the end of October coming in at $5,622.89. While we didn’t expect our time in southern Spain to be this expensive, there were mitigating circumstances.

First, when we arrived in Madrid to sweltering 100º F heat in mid-August, we missed out on exploring one of our favorite cities as we sat indoors trying not to melt. Then after walking an average of 12 miles a day for seven weeks on the Camino del Norte, Reid felt she’d earned a vacation and was ready to eat anything besides jamón bocadillos and Spanish potato and egg tortillas. This led to our binging free tapas in Granada and revenge sightseeing in Seville. Plus, after budgeting September as our most expensive month and ending up nearly $900 underbudget ($898.96), we moved those funds into October.

Based on an average daily rate (ADR), the most expensive trip was Robie’s jaunt to St. Andrews, Scotland coming in at a whopping $534.78 a night for six nights. Interestingly, the least expensive trips based on ADR was a toss-up between the Camino ($109.15 a night for 50 nights) and Robie’s excursions across Italy, Switzerland and Portugal ($109.06 a night for 47 nights).

In the Balkans, the five days we spent in Gjirokastër was the most cost-effective trip we took all year ($533.12) while the eight days we spent between Tirana, Albania and Kotor, Montenegro were the most expensive ($1,769.18). With Montenegro poised to be the next big destination in the region, prices are already on par with established tourist spots around Europe. In fact, we spent less for eight nights in Lecce, Italy ($1,537.07) than Kotor, Montenegro. But the rest of the Balkans continue to be a steal with our five nights each in Prizren, Kosovo totaling $802.52 and Ohrid, North Macedonia coming in at $995.97.

Then there’s Morocco which remains an affordable destination. On a five-night trip to Agadir we spent just $1,097.77 with half of that ($542.50) coming from a two-day tour to the Sahara to spend the night in a Berber camp.

Transport $1,307.59 (2.43%)

Transport includes any local transportation costs like taxis or metros.

While we never used public transportation in Ikaria or Sarandё, when we started this roving retirement in Liverpool in August 2024 the local buses allowed us to explore the city while taxis in Essaouira are essential for weekly trips to the grocery store. And since it cost only $0.87 it’s worth it.

Groceries $6,576.89 (12.22%)

We gotta eat, and one of our favorite ways to save money is to cook at home. In 2025, Robie and I spent an average of $542.76 each month stocking up on pantry items and buying fresh meats, wine, spices, fruits and vegetables at our local markets.

But $135.69 a week seemed excessive until I remembered that we also lump under groceries things like trash bags, aluminum foil, cling wrap, a new cutting board, tissues, shampoo, conditioner, lotion, toothpaste, Tupperware, dish towels, a new strainer, toilet paper, paper towels and more kitchen items some of which we take when we leave and some we donate to our hosts. Because not all rental apartments come equally equipped.

Entertainment $12,281.17 (22.71%)

Entertainment covers everything from evening strolls along the promenade for an ice cream in the summer to sipping coffee at a café with friends. It includes eating anchovies and burrata in Italy, the entry fee to a Cold War museum in Gjirokastёr and enjoying chocolate con churros in Spain. This combination of dining out and entry tickets for sightseeing makes entertainment our second largest expenditure. And deservedly so.

Miscellaneous $3,032.79 (5.64%)

As the name implies, this is for every expense that doesn’t fit anywhere else.

While it covers things like our Microsoft and WordPress subscriptions, books bought on Kindle and accountant fees, in 2025 it also included new socks in Agadir, a grill and fishing pole in Sarandё, access to a pay toilet in Italy, an electric toothbrush brought from home, a Morocco national soccer jersey to cheer the home team in the Africa Cup of Nations and 62 days for a storage unit in Madrid so we could leave our things while traveling as well as new luggage to allows us to be more mobile.

Cell phones $1,333.56 (2.48%)

Keeping up with friends and family back home is important so we use T-Mobile’s Go5G Plus 55 plan costing $110 a month ($1,320 a year) for two lines with unlimited data.

In 2025 the extra $13.56 comes from the few times we forgot to put our phones on airplane mode and took a call from home getting charged $0.25 a minute. But it was worth it.

Storage $1,236 (2.3%)

While we wish we didn’t have to incur this expense, it’s worth knowing our keepsakes will be available once we’ve finished traveling and are ready to settle down again. And since the business model for storage facilities is offering low introductory rates and increasing the price each year, we only expect this line item to go up.

Healthcare $599.48 (1.11%)

As we explained in a post about essential financial strategies to make a roving retirement a reality, we set aside $50 a month per person toward healthcare and let the funds accumulate rolling over leftover money.

We ended 2024 with $250 in our healthcare account. After adding into it each month, we spent $599.48 for the year primarily on inexpensive prescriptions for Robie ($151.85), two teeth cleanings each at a dentist in Sarandё ($123.57), various vitamins, lozenges, pain medication and gels ($150.64), a post-Camino massage ($69.90) and a medical boot for Reid ($103.52) to assist in recovery after she strained her Achilles on the Camino del Norte.

That leaves us $850.52 in our healthcare account to begin 2026.

Conclusion

So there you have it! Every dollar we spent this year.

While we didn’t keep to our budget, spending an extra $255.58 doesn’t seem so bad considering we stayed long-term in Albania and Morocco while traveling to Italy, Montenegro, Kosovo, Tunisia, Scotland, North Macedonia, Spain, Switzerland and Portugal.

In 2026 our spending goal is $58,000 while staying in Morocco, Sicily, Istanbul, Scotland and (hopefully) France. Plus, we’re already eyeing trips to Malta and Cappadocia as well as a spending a few weeks Stateside to see friends and family.

Let’s see if we can stick to it!