August 2024 Budget Report (Belgrade, Serbia)
Now that we are settled into our new digs in Sarajevo, Bosnia & Herzegovina, let’s take a look back at how pricey Belgrade, Serbia was in our August 2024 budget report.
Short answer: affordable.
Read on to see what we mean.
Technically, the first 24 days of August were spent in Belgrade, Serbia, with the remainder in Sarajevo, Bosnia & Herzegovina.
But still, we can get a good sense of Serbian regional affordability based on our boots-on-the-ground experiences.
Accommodation: $626.78 USD
Overall, we had reasonable accommodation costs for August 2024. It wasn’t our cheapest month, but not anywhere close to our most expensive.
Basically when we spend less than $700 USD/month for accommodation we are happy campers.
From this total, we spent $409.86 USD for 23 nights in Belgrade and $188.32 USD for 8 nights in Sarajevo. We also spent $28.60 USD for 1 night in Golubac, Serbia when we decided to get out of town for my birthday.
Activities: $206.17 USD
This total includes Belgrade boat tour tickets ($54.95 USD total), Golubac boat tour tickets ($34.37 USD total), Golubac Fortress tickets ($31.88 USD total for Zone IV), Belgrade rakija tasting event ($28.08 USD total), Nikolai Tesla museum tickets ($14.93 USD total), Belgrade Walking Tour tip ($18.45 USD), and Belgrade Zoo tickets ($12.29 USD total).
The remainder was for trivial entrance fees for other areas we visited, like the Belgrade Botanical Garden and Gardos Tower.
The total was a little more expensive than the previous month, but nothing crazy. Fewer activities we did in Belgrade were free or extremely cheap, but honestly, it was still quite affordable considering everything we did.
Alcohol: $86.30 USD
Nothing too crazy considering this region has a tradition for strong spiced liquors.
The majority of this total was from experimenting with a couple of bottles of rakija, local liqueurs, plus a few supermarket beers.
For our palates, the cherry liqueurs were the best!
Eating Out: $251.20 USD
A very low total by our standards.
This is mainly due to our deciding to eat in more often to avoid language-related issues. But it was also to minimize the caloric damage from eating fattening meat and bread-based meals that are impossible to avoid at restaurants.
Groceries: $512.90 USD
The flip side to eating out less often was that we needed to buy more groceries!
But still, our grocery bill isn’t much higher than many other places we have been. This isn’t due to groceries being more expensive though.
Like Spain, grocery costs were significantly cheaper than many places we have been, at least on average. So the higher-than-average total here comes from the larger number of regional meats, baked goods, snacks, and sweet treats we purchased.
Bad for our waistlines, but we had fun trying many different types of foods!
Miscellaneous: $2.63 USD
Nothing crazy here. Just a few photocopies and a super glue purchase.
Supplies: $56.24 USD
No unusual purchases here. Just all the different kinds of things you need to keep an apartment functional.
Transportation: $168.47 USD
Most of this total came from our 2 Belgrade 30-day metro passes ($40.79 USD total), 2 round-trip train tickets to Novi Sad ($17.95 USD), and 2 round-trip tickets to Golubac ($32.04 USD).
The remainder is for Sarajevo metro tickets ($1.80 BAM/$1.02 USD each) and luggage transportation fees (~$2 USD each).
Utilities/Upkeep: $59.51 USD
This expense category total is from our MyRVmail monthly fee ($20.75 USD), multivitamins, and Bosnia eSIM purchases for 30 days of LTE data ($8.55 USD for 3 GB).
Total Expenses for August 2024 = $1,970.02 USD
Here is a nice summary graph of our first month of expenses for fiscal year #3:
It’s nice that the first month of our new fiscal year is in the black.
Well below our $2,500 USD average monthly spend goal. Hopefully, we can keep it up while in the Balkans!
Unlike past years, we don’t expect our current year of travel to have any really expensive months.
We’re aren’t staying in any really expensive cities, nor do we have any big-ticket purchases planned. So with luck, our third year of full-time travel will be just as affordable as ever.
But you never know! In our experience, just when we have everything figured out the rules of the game always seem to change.
We’ll see!
Until next time…
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