Here’s my expenses on the trip to Sweden for 4 nights and 5 days!
The budget was 1000 EUR, within which 350 EUR from “the Others” was converted to Swedish Kronor (SEK). Plus, I had some Swedish Kronor in cash so I added it too, and the total budget in Swedish Kronor is around 400 EUR.
Since I prepared the budget in Swedish Kronor, the expenses in Sweden were in Swedish Kronor.
The details are below:
Item
EUR
SEK
Budget
€1000
4,355.76 SEK
Transport
Flight
€181.83
Public transport
€40.25
490.00 SEK
Accommodation
€14.97
893.00 SEK
Food
€9.37
1,604.46 SEK
Leisure
Sightseeing
€0
515.00 SEK
Ohters
€0
159.00 SEK
Souvenirs
For myself
€0
85.90 SEK
Souvenirs
For others
€0
178.95 SEK
Travel insurance
€14.70
0 SEK
Others
€355.60
8.83 SEK
Sum
€616.72
3,935 SEK
Remainder
€383.28
420.62 SEK
★Attention!
Since I stayed in a hostel, if you stay in a hotel, it will be more expensive.
As I wanted to have some Asian cuisines and in fact ate ramen, Thai food and Nepalese food, if you have Swedish cuisine (such as Swedish meatballs or seafood), it will cost more.
Due to the fact that I visited Lund as well, I call the trip “Sweden trip”, but you shouldn’t compare it with Stockholm in my opinion.
This time I had travelled there for eight days – spending the first day and the last three days in Dublin and four days in Northern Ireland based in Belfast –. Northern Ireland is in the Irish island whilst the currency is British Sterling Pounds (GBP) as it’s a part of the UK. I wanted to use GBP in cash so I withdrew 100 GBP in cash, and used my Estonian bank card (EUR) simultaneously.
The budget of this whole trip was surprisingly 1,800 EUR. This was because I wanted to drive a car in Ireland, and yet since I changed my trip plan, I couldn’t get an Estonian driving licence by then. The 100 GBP withdrawn is part of this budget.
Let’s see the total expenses.
Destination
Dublin/NI
Budget (total)
1800
Transport
Flight
€97.05
Public
€41.04
Accommodation
€631.65
Food
€129.57
Leisure
Sightseeing
€61.72
Souvenirs
For myself
€54.20
Souvenirs
For others
€32.00
Insurance
€20.00
Others
€125.39
Sum
€1,192.62
As you can see above, I eventually used two-thirds of the entire budget… I travelled there by myself this time, and I could save some money because I could book flights, accommodations and museums anytime. Probably therefore, I could save some money even though I changed the travel plan in February, happening in March so suddenly.
Also, both in Belfast and Dublin, I didn’t use the public transport that much, and I walked a lot, due to which the average number of steps per day was 14,000 or something. What is more, in Belfast, tickets for doubledeckers called Metro were valid for 45 minutes, so (I don’t know if it’s really allowed but) I used one ticket to change the Metro.
As for the withdrawn 100 GBP, the details are below.
Transport
Public
3.9
Food
62.78
Leisure
Sightseeing
2
Souvenirs
For others
3
Others
10
Sum
£81.68
Around 20 GBP were left here as well. I don’t know when I will go to Northern Ireland or the UK per se, but I want to go to Northern Ireland and Scotland which I have visited before again, and want to visit Wales too, so it wouldn’t be too bad to hold some GBP.
Concerning the travel insurance, I bought a policy on ACS called Globe Traveller, which includes European countries including the UK for 15 days that include both trips to Ireland/the UK and the Netherlands because in Estonia we have to take at least one more than 14-day holiday per (calendar) year. Therefore, I divided the whole policy price into two: 20 EUR for the Ireland trip and 10 EUR for the Netherlands trip just for myself (my calculation). That’s why you can see 20 EUR there.
Also, as of March 2023, I didn’t make the whole holiday plan yet, I could use the leftover of 600 EUR for unplanned trips.
I didn’t mean to save money, but I didn’t buy that many souvenirs, and sometimes I cooked at the accommodations, buying foods at supermarkets for breakfast or dinner. However, if you eat out more often and purchase more souvenirs or more expensive souvenirs, then you might need more than what I spent.
Lastly, I felt the price in Belfast was cheaper than Dublin.
I finally summed up the expenses on the trip to Japan in 2022! Since Estonia and Japan surely use different currencies, some are calculated in EUR, others are in JPY.
There are 11 items.
Quite a lot!
To use this article as a reference for my next trip to Japan, I categorised them.
I booked the flight tickets on Finnair for September and October, which had one transit and cost more than 700 EUR. Then I booked the flight tickets on JAL for the same travel period, which had two transits and cost around 680 EUR. Due to the timing of JAL’s cancellation, the flight tickets that I booked on Lufthansa were for November and December, which cost 851.40 EUR.
It was expensive, but acceptable.
All flights above were from Tallinn to Kansai airport.
2. Transports
Then I’m going to talk about the transport fees.
The coach from Tanabe to Namba Osaka cost 2,900 JPY. Since I bought a ticket for only one way, it should have been more expensive than one one-way ticket of the round-trip tickets.
Plus, I spend 9,925 JPY for other transports in Kansai.
On my trip, the trip starts from the day when I leave home until the day when I come home, so all the expenses during such a time are included in the trip expenses. Therefore, the taxi fees to and from the airport – 15.10 EUR – is also the transport fee here.
3. Food and drinks
This is about the food and drinks. I don’t included the expenses for lunches and dinners I had with my friends in Japan. They are socialisation expenses. In this item, the contents are snacks and sweets I bought for myself, and food and drink just for myself (wherever I had such as convenience stores, supermarkets, cafes, etc).
This cost 25,536 JPY. Before I left Tallinn, I was too hungry at the Tallinn airport, so the hotdog I had there was 3 EUR.
I think I could save more money if I stayed in a monthly flat in Japan.
4. Cosmetics
I spent a lot of money on them. Lol
I used 26,373 JPY for makeup cosmetics. lol
The total cost for the perfumes I bought was 11,731. Since I bought 8 bottles, it makes sense… (but I think this information isn’t so useful lol)
I spent 8,5151 JPY for basic cosmetics.
However, at some point I was too lazy to categorise everything, so I believe I spent more.
In addition, I purchased contacts for 90 days in Japan as they were slightly cheaper, which cost 5,596 JPY. (I bought them on Amazon.)
5. Socialisation
For the budget on socialisation, considering what to do in Japan, I made a plan to spend 4,000 JPY per meeting. I calculated separately when I needed tickets.
I used 30,639 JPY in total.
6. Amusement park tickets
As for the tickets at amusement parks, I spend 6,720 JPY which was cheaper than usual (by using the COVID travel campaign), Soraniwa onsesn cost 3,154 JPY (including the ice cream I had there), 3,500 JPY for buckwheat noodle making class, 1,600 JPY for illuminations, 1,440 JPY for atoa (aquarium) by using the discount.
7. Accommodation
On this trip to Japan in 2022, after staying at my parents’ place, I changed the hotel rooms. For this, I budgeted 70,000 JPY in total.
However, actually the total expense for the accommodations was 66,691. (Besides, I booked all of them on Booking.com, so sometimes I got 10% discounts and the total expense was below the budget!)
However, I still do prefer a monthly flat next time.
8. Souvenirs to myself
As for the souvenirs for myself, I used 68,091 JPY since I bought sloop-ons, a wallet, stationeries, Japanese foods, etc.
Strictly speaking, the cosmetics are for myself too, so I REALLY spent a lot for myself…
9. Souvenirs from Estonia
Regarding the souvenirs from Estonia to Japan, I bought sweets, bread and soaps. My selection was almost the same as what I bought for the trip in 2019. The difference I would say is that I chose the different band for the soaps or different tastes/flavours of chocolate.
The total expense was 56.16 EUR. (Is it too few?)
10. Souvenirs from Japan
There are no big differences between the souvenirs from Japan and those from Estonia. I spent 8,465 JPY.
11. Others
Let’s talk about miscellaneous stuff. As I have a chinchilla, I duplicated two sets of keys for my friends who took care of him while I was away. It cost 32 EUR.
Plus, I bought insurance for 33 EUR which helped me with the accident in the beginning of the trip.
What is more, what I needed while travelling in Japan was the internet. In my case, I had rented the mobile Wifi for one month, which cost 5,380 JPY.
Last but not least, I spent 9,215 JPY for the use of the internet cafe, watching and drying, renewal of the driving licence, etc.
★Total expenses
Items
JPY
EUR
Flight tickets
851.40
Transports
12,825
15.10
Food and drinks
25,536
3
Cosmetics
53,924
Socialisation
30,639
Amusement parks
16,414
Accommodation
66,691
Souvenirs for myself
68,091
Souvenirs from Estonia
56.16
Souvenirs from Japan
8,465
Others
20,380
68.56
Sum
302,965
994.22
To sum up all of these, I spent approximately 300,000 JPY in addition to 990 EUR. When calculating the total cost with the rate that 1 EUR equals to 140 JPY, it is around 440,000 JPY.
I’m not sure if this was a low or high cost anymore…
However, I am pretty sure that I spent lots of money on the makeup cosmetics, so next time I believe I can save more (or I don’t have to spend that much). But if I eat out more often, the total expense will perhaps be the same.
Maybe this is a normal value.
By the way, the daily cost is around 15,700 JPY. It sounds like one stay in a posh hotel.
You may wonder about expenses before moving to another country or studying abroad, but this should not mean that we can ignore how much it costs for one trip in a country that you want to visit. There may also be some people who want to go to a fascinating country that is expensive, but still care about their finances.
I always search budgets before deciding a destination or before going to travel there. Then decide how much I save for that trip per month from the point that I searched until the point I travel, depending on how many months are left. I always use a website called ”Budget Your Trip”. They show budgets not only in the destination country’s currency but also in the currency that I use (i.e. in my case euro). (If you use an ad-block add-on on your browser you always see some pop up like I see, so I use this website on the browser that I don’t have the ad-block- add-on.)
In the case of Ireland, the budget trip costs 44 EUR per day and 309 EUR per week, per person, and the mid-range trip costs 109 EUR per day and 766 EUR per week, per person. However, in my case, I decided to save 1300 EUR which was my budget.
First of all, let’s talk about our flight tickets. We bought flight tickets on Ryanair. This expense is marked in the tab called ”Travel fees” in the spreadsheet that I share every month on Twitter. The flight tickets for two people cost 281.79 EUR. My boyfriend paid 140 EUR and I paid 141.79 as he was going to drive a car almost a whole week, and splitting 1.79 EUR seemed to be very stingy.
Perhaps because of the season, the flight tickets weren’t cheap.
2. Transport in Dublin
Next, here is about transport in Dublin. I bought a 24-hour Leap card which cost 8 EUR. My boyfriend didn’t bring sufficient coins, so I gave him one ride on a Dublin bus from the airport to the city centre, which cost 2.60 EUR. Also on the first day, a taxi drive to my friend A’s place cost 10.20 EUR. Moreover, we took another taxi from the accommodation on the last day to the airport and paid 24.60 EUR.
3. Car rental
In terms of car rental, renting a car cost 936.42 EUR, and charging the fuel (diesel) twice cost 144.65 EUR, in total of which it was 1,081.07 EUR. However, since my boyfriend paid for all of these, we decided that I would pay for accommodations. But still there were some differences of 350 EUR. He didn’t care, and yet I paid him back 174 EUR because I even couldn’t help him drive, I wanted to pay him back.
4. Accommodations
This is about the expenses on accommodations. I’m pretty sure that it wouldn’t have cost that much if I travel by myself or my Japanese friend S who has travelled with me before. Even if I had chosen private rooms, I’m sure we wouldn’t have had to pay that much. 😂 Since we booked the accommodations right before heading to the destinations, it cost a lot…
Two nights in Galway required 238.56 EUR, another two nights in Mayo was 180 EUR, and two nights in Dublin cost 314.64 EUR, so in total the expenses were 238.56 EUR. I paid for all of these.
In addition, it cost 248.35 EUR for the hostel in Dublin, where we were supposed to stay. This was also supposed to be two nights. If you read the article about the accommodations in Dublin, you will see the details…
Adding all of these, the expense is almost the same as the car rental fees and fuel fees, but I didn’t want to include the hostel cost for the first day in Dublin personally, I deal with it as my own expense.
I will triple check whatever it is from next time when travelling with whoever they will be. 😂
5. Food expenses
When it comes to food, we always paid for two of one by taking turns. This rule? culture? was created because I stopped him paying for both of us at restaurants twice in a row. 😂 By taking turns to pay for food, I paid 179.90 EUR in total. However, this includes a few cups of coffee for him while he was driving.
6. Travel insurance
When you travel abroad, you should have travel insurance. If we have a Japanese credit card, it often has travel insurance too whilst Estonian debit cards don’t. For this reason, I always purchase travel insurances on Swisscare. If a Japanese person who travels to Ireland from Estonia for eight days, it cost 14.70 EUR.
7. Others
Other than the above, I paid for Harry Styles’s concert which was 104.65 EUR as well as the goods which was 35 EUR, for parking and highways which were 10.30 EUR in total, and for souvenirs which totally cost 7.88 EUR.
zooks.ee 