Five months of continuous international travel are now behind us, and boy did December throw us some curveballs! Political protests, big excursions, travel plan adjustments, unscheduled flight bookings, unplanned relocations…It seemed that the gods were conspiring against us to maintain our budget. But even if you ignored all of the unplanned things, we were expecting December to be a budget buster. Machu Picchu isn’t cheap! Nor are many of the other things you can do in Cusco, Peru.
So how did we do financially during the month of December?
Let’s hold our collective noses and take a look at our December 2022 budget report!
Accommodation: $570.03 USD
This is down considerably from last month, which was expected. This includes 22 nights at our Cusco Airbnb ($428.12 USD), 3 nights at our Medellin, Colombia Airbnb ($61.62 USD), and 5 nights at our Taganga, Colombia Airbnb ($78.27 USD). Our friends Krista and Rich were kind enough to spring for accommodation while we were in Aguas Calientes/Machu Picchu, so there is no accommodation expense there.
$18.38/day for accommodation during the month of December was extremely affordable, which was a good thing because we needed to make up for the expenses built up in other categories!
Looking forward over the next several months, this expense category will probably go down more as our Airbnb costs in Ecuador will be among the least expensive of our Year 1 travel plan.
Eating Out: $572.60 USD
Ouch.
This is over $200 more than last month, which stings. For sure some of this was due to us going to Machu Picchu and having to eat out for all meals in Aguas Calientes with our friends who came to visit.
Some of it was due to our being sick the first week, and grocery shopping and meal preparation not being realistic.
But honestly, the majority of this was due to us getting into the bad habit of eating out more often at restaurants that weren’t very economical. We even had a well-equipped kitchen in Cusco!
Sticker shock should help put us back on track though.
Groceries: $174.03 USD
Considerably lower than last month, which shouldn’t be a surprise based on our Eating Out expense data. Doubly problematic is that the expense increase in Eating Out is not equivalent to the expense decrease in Groceries, which means that we were especially bad when it came to food spending habits!
But now that we know the cost of our sins, we can recalibrate.
General Supplies: $66.43 USD
This expense went down considerably compared to last month. Aside from the normal expenses of outfitting and maintaining ourselves in our Airbnbs, we really didn’t have any out-of-the-ordinary purchases (like Amazon).
Transportation: $371.65 USD
Considering we were forced into an international relocation to Colombia, this expense could have been much, much worse. And it almost was!
The majority of this expense came from 2 events: our flights from Cusco to Lima, Peru ($179.24 USD) and our night bus tickets from Cusco to Arequipa, Peru, which we never took ($70.69 USD). We hope to get our money back from the Arequipa night bus company because of the circumstances involved, but we aren’t getting our hopes up.
The rest of this expense category is a combination of taxis, shuttles, buses, gondolas, and the like.
Bottom line, we were on the international move a lot, so our expenses reflect this. This is why slow travel is best!
We are still fortunate though. We also flew from Lima, Peru to Medellin, Colombia, and then from Medellin to Santa Marta, Colombia. These flights in total would have cost over $430 USD, but we used our Capital One Venture Rewards card points (affiliate link) to pay for them.
So we dodged a bullet there.
If you are interested in the Capital One Venture Rewards card and want to simultaneously support Two Travel Turtles, it would be great if you used the affiliate link above to apply! Two Travel Turtles get a handful of travel points as a kickback, at no cost to you, which helps support our travels. Much appreciated!
Activities: $570.03 USD
Yep, we knew that this would be a big expense.
The combined total from our Machu Picchu/Aguas Calientes sightseeing activities cost a whopping $455.01 USD! This included: (1) tickets on Peru Rail to/from Aguas Calientes, (2) Machu Picchu park tickets, (3) bus transportation from Aguas Calientes to/from Machu Picchu, (4) a dip in the thermal springs near our hotel, (5) and a visit at the Mandor ecopark.
In addition to our Machu Picchu expenses, $67.24 USD was spent on two 10-day Cusco Tourist Tickets which allowed us entry into the best sites in the Cusco, Peru region. Too bad that protests, road blockages, and national strikes caused us to waste at least 4 of our allotted 10 days with those tickets. 🙁
The remainder of this expense category is made up of entrance fees to smaller museums and exhibits, none of which individually were more than $3.50 USD.
Alcohol: $57.12 USD
Our alcohol expenses went up from last month. But at least half of that is from us taking advantage of sunset happy hours on the beach in Taganga, Colombia!
We dare you not to do the same! 😉
Utilities/Upkeep: $16.04 USD
Very low this month.
This cost includes a couple of paid public bathroom visits, as well as our 30-day Claro LTE data plan (7 GB limit + SIM card) for Colombia.
Medical: $224.67 USD
This includes our fixed travel insurance cost for the month ($171.01 USD), Yellow Fever Vaccine Immunization Cards, and a bunch of different OTC medicine purchases while we weren’t feeling well. Nothing really controversial here.
Miscellaneous: $50.50 USD
This expense includes a souvenir bracelet for Rhonda, a gift for one of our Airbnb hosts, small gratuities for various services, as well as bribes to get local panhandlers off our backs.
We weren’t as frugal compared to recent months, mainly because of Activity, Eating Out, and Transportation expenses. But honestly, I expected much worse based on our original travel plans in Cusco, Peru. Health issues and national strife slowed our pace!
Here is a pretty graph that summarizes our December 2022 budget report.
And for those keeping score, our current monthly spending average is now $2,300.14 USD. This number increased a bit over last month but thankfully is still below our monthly expense goal.
We’ll see how January 2023 plays out. Aquatic and forest excursion opportunities abound in Taganga, Colombia…so we’ll see if we are able to keep our expenses under control! Fingers crossed.
We hope you found our December 2022 budget report useful.
Until next time…
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