Ok ok enough of the fluff with the Portugal itinerary from last post<\/a>, let’s dig into the fun stuff… the numbers! Ok maybe the numbers is just the fun part for me haha.<\/p>\n Before we dig in, I want to ask you readers to come up with a guess cost before reading this post and sharing your initial guess in the comments below. A family of 4 spending 2 months in Portugal – How much would a non-FIRE-optimizer spend on travelling 2 months abroad?\u00a0 And then, how much are we, ModernFImily, spending out of pocket?<\/p>\n Ok ready…. think about it….. write it down…. ok keep reading.<\/p>\n So we are in Portugal for exactly 2 months from the end of January to the end of March.\u00a0 This is not<\/strong> their peak season so if you’re looking to go over the summer, expect to pay much more.<\/p>\n This is actually one of the nice perks to living in Canada.\u00a0 I do love all seasons but I don’t need winter to be as long as it is.\u00a0 So whenever we’re looking to travel, it’s always going to be over our winters.\u00a0 And for most destinations, that means off\/shoulder season.\u00a0 Which means lower prices.\u00a0 \u00a0And fewer people.\u00a0 Two major wins in our books. (Whereas in our former Florida lives, we’d be looking to travel over the crazy hot and humid summers aka peak season for most places.)<\/p>\n Typically, we would travel hack<\/a> and pay for our flights with points and only pay the international taxes.\u00a0 (The points and travel game is always changing but typically a flight from North America to Europe costs ~60,000 points + international taxes ~$200 for a round trip ticket.) However, when I saw a flight sale pop up for $575 round trip direct flights including taxes from Calgary to Amsterdam, I jumped on it (via emails I get from YYC Deals<\/a> – they have other Canadian airports you can sign up for too).<\/p>\n Originally, we were not even planning to go to Europe but after seeing this we switched gears.\u00a0 (At the time, we were trying to decide between Mexico and Colombia.)<\/p>\n We also were thinking we’d go early-February to early-April but the last flight option for this pricing was to return at the end of March so we shifted the dates around.<\/p>\n (Notice how *flexibility* is the key here – thanks FIRE!)<\/p>\n For any Canadian reading, getting to skip a layover at the Toronto airport bumps the flight up to next level status.\u00a0 So getting to Europe without the hassle of a stop is amazing in itself.\u00a0 And then, as flight prices only seem to be soaring, this pricing comes up??\u00a0 It’s cheaper for us to fly to Amsterdam then to Denver, CO?! Yes please!<\/p>\n We did decide to pay upfront for seats together and for a checked bag each way (mostly as an insurance with the hopes that we could carry everything on but if not, pay a reduced fee now).<\/p>\n Then once we were in Europe we booked two intra-Europe flights. Although we do love Amsterdam, it’s cold there too and we were seeking something warm.\u00a0 We were trying to decide between Turkey, the Balkans, and Portugal.\u00a0 I *really* want to go the Balkans but we thought Portugal would be best with young kids. So we booked round trip flights from AMS-LIS (we’re staying in Amsterdam one night on either end).\u00a0 And then we are heading over to Madeira Island so booked round trip flights LIS-FNC for that.<\/p>\n Note that Parker is under 2 so we only had to pay for 3 passengers for this trip.\u00a0 However, in Europe there is a fee for an infant on lap (they seem to range between 15-25 Euros which is a bit wild as some adult flight tickets cost less than that!).<\/p>\n Flight Costs (for our family in CAD):<\/strong><\/p>\n Total Cost for Flights: $2,832<\/strong><\/p>\n P.S. – Nic still thinks it’s ridiculous we paid for flights when we have over 2,000,000 airline points.<\/p>\n Originally, we were planning to stay a month in one Airbnb location (Setubal, just south of Lisbon) and then 2 weeks on either end in 2 other towns (somewhere down in the Algarve and Aviero in the north) and just use public transit \/ walk everywhere.\u00a0 Our logic was that with Airbnb we should get a better rate when we stay somewhere for 28+ days.\u00a0 While this is true, we realized we didn’t need that fancy of a place. For the same cost, we could be in 4 different locations – still in 2 bedroom places but just not as fru-fru as the month long stay. Everywhere that we booked, we ensured the reservations were 100% refundable up until a day before check-in in case we wanted to make any adjustments.<\/p>\n Nic was the mastermind behind finding all our Airbnb stays.\u00a0 One of the tips is to look early.\u00a0 And again, travel during the off-season.\u00a0 Be flexible with your location and explore places outside large tourist destinations.\u00a0 Nic also really understands the filters within the Airbnb platform which made narrowing down options quite easy.\u00a0 READ THE REVIEWS!\u00a0 Sometimes a new place will be at a lower-than-normal pricing to try to get people in.\u00a0 For some people, they jump on this and it all works out great.\u00a0 However, we avoided all of these as we highly respect reviews that prior guests leave.\u00a0 You also can always message the host to see if they will offer a discount.\u00a0 (We opted not to as we thought everything was already reasonably priced.)<\/p>\n In addition to the Airbnb’s, we decided to use some IHG hotel points for our stays in Lisbon.\u00a0 IHG offers a 4th free night promo to certain credit card holders.\u00a0 So we decided to split Lisbon up into three separate 4 night stays. Meaning we are staying in Lisbon for a total of 12 nights and paying in points for 9 of those nights and the other 3 are free.<\/p>\n For whatever reason, IHG’s system was not registering that we should receive the 4th night free. This ended up being\u00a0much<\/strong> more of a pain than it should have.\u00a0 I should have logged how many hours and phone calls I had to make to get this all sorted out.\u00a0 Easily 20 hours.\u00a0 Man oh man, IHG, get it together!<\/p>\n It felt like we were changing our itinerary\u00a0daily<\/em> for the first few weeks but we finally settled on the itinerary we shared in our last post<\/a>.\u00a0 Here’s the costs for our stays (in CAD):<\/p>\n Hotels:<\/p>\n Total cost for accommodations (in CAD): $2,752\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n This comes out to $1,376 CAD per month.\u00a0 Considering all utilities are included, this seems like a pretty reasonable rate to us (but not \u201ccrazy affordable\u201d like most people shout Portugal is).<\/p>\n Of course, our monthly average would be higher if we were not using points for the 12 nights in Lisbon.<\/p>\n Here’s a bit of a crazy comp.\u00a0 If we wanted to stay at our hotel in Lisbon exclusively and pay in cash, this same $2,752 CAD ($1,897 Euros) would get us 17 nights there (it averages $110 Euros\/night while we are there – then $200 Euros over the summer so even fewer then).\u00a0 Instead, we’re in Europe for 58 nights.\u00a0 Wild hey!<\/p>\n One of the pros to deciding on Europe is because of it’s extensive public transit system and thus eliminating the need of a rental car and lugging along our car seats for the kids.<\/p>\n However as we were digging in, we learned that public transit isn’t as widely used outside Lisbon and Porto.\u00a0 We also learned that car rentals are quite affordable in Portugal\u00a0 The key is that your reservation should be under ~3 weeks.\u00a0 If you make it for a longer duration, the price shoots up big time. This knowledge influenced our itinerary a bit in that we wanted to ensure we would be in Lisbon at multiple points for car rental timeline purposes.<\/p>\n Our ah-ha moment was when we realized that the cost of a roundtrip train for the 4 of us to get from Lisbon to the Algarve area in the south would be the same cost as having a car rental down there for 2 weeks! \u00a0For those curious, we used Discover Cars<\/a>\u00a0(search engine type website) to book our car rentals. \u00a0So, car rentals it is…!<\/p>\n We have 3 car rental reservations:<\/p>\n Our credit cards provide rental car insurance so no need for us to purchase that.\u00a0 We will be using public transit while in Amsterdam and Lisbon so there will be some added transit costs in addition to car rentals.\u00a0 I’d guess we will spend another ~$100 Euros ($145 CAD) on public transit.\u00a0 And of course, gas too.\u00a0 But we figure we’d be paying for gas either in Portugal or Canada during this time frame.<\/span><\/p>\n As for carseats, we have the 4-in-1 car seats that are super heavy and not travel friendly. 24 pounds per car seat.\u00a0 No thanks!!\u00a0 Thankfully, we found a 9 lb travel car seat that expires at the end of March on our Buy Nothing Group and Nic’s sister has a 8 lb lightweight car seat she no longer uses that she’s letting us borrow.\u00a0 Phew! Thank goodness!<\/p>\n So yep, we are now travelling with a double stroller and 2 car seats. Triple ugh. Wish us luck!<\/p>\n Total cost for car rentals + public transit (in CAD): $821<\/strong><\/p>\n Total One-Off Costs (in CAD): $94<\/strong><\/p>\n And now, of course, to help offset all the above costs, we decided to rent our house out while we are gone.\u00a0 We found a family who is moving from Vancouver to Cochrane (surprise, surprise, isn’t everyone these days?!) to rent our house out for 2 months while they look for a home in our town.\u00a0 (The majority of people who contacted us about a short term rental were people from out of town looking to move to our town.)<\/p>\n We are renting our house out for $2,700\/month with $500 of utilities included (should cover all utilities as long as our renters are mindful of their usage). So let’s wipe off $500\/month to go towards utilities (although in reality if we didn’t rent it out we’d still have ~$300 in fixed utility costs per month just to have the house sit idle but we will ignore that for this exercise).<\/p>\n Total Rental Income – Utilities (in CAD): $4,400<\/strong><\/p>\n Ok, so what does all this mean when we put it together?<\/p>\n Total Costs: $6,499<\/p>\n Then throwing in the rental income of $4,400 into the mix, we get a total out of pocket costs of:<\/p>\n $2,099<\/p>\n Boom!\u00a0 2 months in Portugal for just over $2,000.<\/p>\n When we were calculating our FIRE number, we used $5,000 as our annual travel related costs (we figured some years would be higher, some lower, but $5,000 on average).\u00a0 To most people this sounds super low for a family of 4.\u00a0 Now you see how it can totally be possible to explore the world without breaking the bank.<\/p>\n Of course, there will be other travel related costs.\u00a0 Bakeries, eating out, groceries, exploring things off the beaten path, entrance fees, etc.\u00a0 But we also aren’t hermits at home and have various costs for our every day sending.\u00a0 So we will be shifting over some of our “everyday living expenses” to “travel expenses”.\u00a0 For example, we canceled our sports centre membership while travelling which frees up $200 over the course of 2 months to shift to a \u201ctravel entertainment bucket\u201d. Then of course, we will be eating\/driving for 2 months whether we are in Canada or Portugal. Yes, we expect these two categories to be higher while in Portugal while trying out new meals and exploring new areas but overall we\u2019re not looking at nothing vs something. I\u2019d guess we spend an extra $600 CAD over the course of 2 months for these two categories.<\/p>\n This is the power of FIRE. We can be flexible with our travel locations and dates.\u00a0 We can utilize our home to offset travel costs.\u00a0 We can avoid peak seasons and holiday vacations.\u00a0 We don’t fee like we need to cram cram cram everything in a 10 day trip.\u00a0 We can take things slow without breaking the bank.<\/p>\n What was your initial guess for how much our trip would end up costing us? Was it anywhere close to where we ended up? Any take-aways from todays post?\u00a0 Cheers!<\/p>\n If you liked this article and want more content like this, please support this blog by sharing it.\u00a0 Not only does it help spread the FIRE, but it lets me know what content you find beneficial.\u00a0 Writing is NOT my strong suit and it honestly takes me hours to write each post so the more encouragement the better!\u00a0 Engaging in the comments below keeps me motivated.\u00a0 You can also support this blog by subscribing to receive emails anytime a new post is published.\u00a0 Thank you FImily!<\/p>\n We believe in stacking up life hacks to keep your enjoyment levels to the max without depleting your bank account.\u00a0 Here are some ways to further educate yourself and save thousands of dollars over your lifetime by making some simple adjustments:<\/p>\n Ok ok enough of the fluff with the Portugal itinerary from last post, let’s dig into the fun stuff… the numbers! Ok maybe the numbers …<\/p>\nFlights<\/h2>\n
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Accommodations<\/h2>\n
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Transit<\/h2>\n
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Additional Costs<\/h2>\n
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Rental Income<\/h2>\n
Grand Finale<\/h2>\n
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Support This Blog<\/b><\/h2>\n
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