Burning Man budget

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Burning Man is not about the money. Well, partially. While there, I hardly touched any. You can’t buy much there. It’s about gifting, giving and getting… a different kind of exchanges. The only thing you can actually buy there with your Dollars is coffee at the Center Camp, and ice blocks or cubes at the […] Read More

Pricey Seattle

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Seattle was pricey. I already realized that during my airbnb hunt. And Capitol Hill especially was expensive. I could have paid 25$ a night for a sleeping bag (though I am not sure if that was a joke, but there were three on offer…) So accommodation was a big part and would gobble up more […] Read More

Montréal pas cher

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Here are the figures for my Montréal spending. In total, the city was way cheaper than expected, mostly due to low rental prices. An apartment in Montréal is not expensive. I think the price for my apartment was cheaper than my first small place in Brussels, rented 12 years ago. Just to put it in […] Read More

Expensive Tel Aviv

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Tel Aviv was on the expensive side. I would have spent much more if I had not paid a lot of attention to my spending… I really had to reign in the brakes at one point and deliberately stopped going out, eat out or spend anything except for the parasol and sun chair at the beach… Accommodation […] Read More

Istanbul spending

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And here are the final figures of my budget in Istanbul. It was much cheaper than expected, even with the hick-up of the cancellation and rental of a new place after the little incident. Truth be told, the visit of my sister also contributed a lot to it, she not only paid a part of […] Read More

Japan budget

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Japan is expensive, that’s what you hear. Well, not that much, actually. Twenty years of deflation have left a mark in their price levels. As did the recent depreciation of the Yen against the Euro, losing 40% within a couple of months. If you have visited London, New York or San Francisco, you won’t find […] Read More

Auckland budget

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New Zealand money is pretty similar to the Australian dollar. Maybe it comes from both being made of polymere… same feel. The 10$ note depicts Kate Sheppard, suffragette, who won her country over to give women the vote already in 1893. Those Kiwis are progressive. Speaking of which, of course the Kiwi is on the […] Read More

Aussie spending

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Aussie money is colorful, by the way. And made out of plastic, with a see-through security window. I liked the feel of it. It’s pretty nice to handle. You have to get used to the coins though, some comedian had the brilliant idea to make them smaller the bigger the value… Australia has been expensive. […] Read More

Santiago budget

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I’ve spent 21 days in Santiago. As usual, accommodation comes in first. But I also paid the side trip to Valparaíso and paid double for those days. Santiago was a bit more expensive than expected, for going out, especially. And I ate out more, I did not use my kitchen as often as in Buenos […] Read More

Buenos Aires Spending

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I’ve spent 34 days in Buenos Aires – not counting the trip to Montevideo, so this is the biggest budget so far. I am pretty sure though that I forgot some stuff. I tried to keep track of it all, but it’s impossible to be totally accurate… and I have a little discrepancy to even […] Read More

Montevideo Budget

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I’m sick in bed with a sore throat, despite the heat outside. So I might as well work on a few things on my PC, as calculating my budget…. I liked the colorful Uruguayan money. Though it was difficult to grasp the value… dividing by 28 to arrive at a Euro value isn’t my strong point. […] Read More

Inflation and fake money

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Inflation – the theme pops up in nearly every conversations I have with Argentinian friends. Rising prices are a real problem for most of them. It hits the poor most. The government has been criticized by the IWF for not keeping proper data on inflation. My friends tell me that every week prices go up, […] Read More