Prediction

Today I found my estimate for our Europe budget. Before we left Australia, we were trying to get an idea of how much $$ we would need for 3 months of travel in Europe. In Australian dollars, we had estimated this:

• $5000 for flights
• $4000 for car rental
• $1500 for diesel
• $9000 for accommodation ($100/night * 90 nights)
• $4500 for food ($50/day * 90 days)
• $1000 for rail passes
• $1500 for ferries and misc. transport
• $5000 miscellaneous
• =AUD$32,500 total (for both of us)
  

Using the exchange rate that we got when we bought our Travel Credit Card from Australia (AUD$1 = €0.55), we budgeted €17,875 for 90 days of travel. In reality (refer previous post), we spent €16,362 for 106 days of travel. Granted, we were trying to be conservative in our estimates, but kudos to us for actually being conservative and not spending more that we thought we would. And yes, my arm is hurting from patting myself on the back so hard.

Additionally, I'd like to point out how close we came on some of those figures. Here's a list of how much we budgeted (first in AUD, then in Euros), and how much we spent.

• Flights: Guessed $5000 = €2750, Spent €1880
• Transportation: Guessed $6500 = €3575, Spent €3560 (!) (including car rental, parking, EU rail passes, ferries, all subways/trams/etc)
  
• Diesel: Guessed $1500 = €825, Spent €600
• Accommodation: Guessed $9000 = €4950, Spent €4965 (!)
• Food: Guessed $4500 = €2475, Spent €3070 (oops)
• Misc: Guessed $5000 = €2750, Spent €2285 (including activities, other, and stuff)

And, mind you, we were estimating for 90 days and we actually traveled for 106 days. Booya. We win!