We are all after a bargain in life, we all want value for money with our spending, particularly in these challenging economic times. For us as an early retired couple, with no income until our pension kicks in, it is even more important to keep track of our expenses.
We want to share with you the cost of our first big road trip in our early retirement. What were the costs, where were the savings to be had and how we worked hard to make sure we got best value from our adventures.
For context, we headed off to the French Alps for a 22 night trip in our beloved VW T6 Campervan on 26 August 2022.
Ferry costs
One of the initial upfront costs for any trip to Europe has to be simply crossing the channel. We know that people generally fall into two cohorts- ferry advocates and tunnel advocates. There are obviously pros and cons to each method, but for us we prefer the cheaper costs of the ferry, we actually like the break in the journey to have a leg stretch and apart from in adverse weather conditions, the ferry is actually quite reliable…as long as you avoid the national strike season in France!
We opted for an early ferry on the way out- wild camping in Dover the night before and then arriving in France at 0600 for a full day of driving ahead. On the way back, we chose a slightly later ferry, taking advantage of the 1 hour time gain to get back into the UK about 1000.
Total ferry costs with P&O Ferries: £200
Tolls
Again you have to make a personal decision, weighing up the time/distance and cost pros and cons of tolls. We had a bit of a mixed approach this trip, as we weren’t unduly under any time constraints. We used the tolls to get down to the Alps as soon as possible, getting to Bourg en Bress comfortably within the first day. Thereafter, we avoided tolls as we were not covering massive distances until we looked to return North later in the trip. Discovering France via the D roads really does enhance the feeling of travel, but be warned, every community you pass through, the speed limit drops to 50km/h or less…this can get quite repetitive.
Our final leg of the trip from Epernay to Calais would have taken over 5 hours and a good hundred miles more if we did not use the tolls. By using the tolls, it cost us about €40, but saved 2 hours driving and the associated fuel. By that time in the trip, we knew we were heading home and just wanted to make the journey as simple and easy as possible.
Total Toll costs: £109
Diesel
Fuel is so much cheaper in France than in the UK. We were lucky enough to hit a period when an emergency tax break had been introduced that took 25c off the litre price- putting the normal price around the €1.70 mark, but we did find it as low as €1.60.
WARNING: most petrol stations are automated requiring card payments. A common issue- that happened to us twice on this trip is that the card machines take an initial security payment of €130 and then decline the use of the card. This means you have no petrol and a €130 payment pending with your bank that can take up to a week or longer to clear from the system.
Total petrol costs for 2100 miles: £478 (although we did still have half a tank of fuel left)
Campsites/Aires/wild camps
We think that we got the balance just right on this trip. Now that we have a limited budget, we needed to cut our costs accordingly. We always aimed for a couple of nights free/wild camping, followed by a night on a campsite to freshen up with hot showers and to top up our water tanks.
This pattern worked really well on this trip. We also took advantage of the ASCI card (https://www.campingcard.co.uk)- something we have never been able to use before as we were limited to travelling in peak, school holiday times. For about €30 a year with ASCI, you get access to discounted rates at over 9000 campsites during low season times. This meant that we never paid more than €20 per night for our campsite with EHU, and we did get it as low as €16 per night. The annual fee gets you the discount card, 2 guide books and access to the online app that has maps and listings for all sites in the scheme as well as a range of different Aires across Europe.
We found some cracking wild camping sites over the course of this trip, as well as some really lovely Aires for overnight stops. For these we used a combination of the Park for the night app and All the Aires books to make sure that we were only staying in places that were safe and highly rated by other visitors.
Total camping costs for 23 nights: £200 (12 nights in campsites)
Weekly food shops
During the course of our 3 week trip, we did 3 big food shops, making sure that we stuck to a well planned meal plan and ensuring that we kept food waste to an absolute minimum. In addition to this, we purchased fresh bread on a daily basis (well we were in France after all!) and topped up on fresh fruit and salad as required.
We did our first big shop at Aldi which was good, but had a much more limited range of products than in the UK. We then did our next shop at a Carefour hypermarket which had an amazing range, but boy was it expensive! Our final shop was at Lidl which was a happy compromise between the two- a good range of produce at very reasonable prices. We kept each shop under €80 which for us was a huge undertaking, as in previous trips we would have happily blown twice that amount on much more regular trips to the shops. None of that now as we are on a strict early retirement budget!
We kept our daily meals pretty standard- yogurt and cereal for breakfast to avoid the daily (and costly) temptation of pastries from the bakers; fresh bread, cheese, cured meats and salad for lunch and some sort of cooked meal for dinner. We kept our alcohol bill cheap by drinking the G&T that we brought with us, wine from 3L boxes and a blend of cheap beers for quenching thirst and Belgian beers for a treat!
Overall food shopping costs: £220
Daily expenses
We worked on a cash system, only taking out limited funds so that we weren’t tempted to go crazy. To be honest, when looking at the prices of bars and restaurants we were rarely tempted as they seemed so expensive.
France like the rest of the world is struggling with inflation and this really showed in hospitality. Small beers in bars started at €3.50, with larger beers being €5 and upwards. Main courses were generally around €20 for very modest dishes. Our budget couldn't run to justifying this expense so we catered for ourselves most of the time.
Some days our only expense was bread for lunch at €1.20, other days we spent considerably more, topping up on fresh food. We kept our entertainment purposely cost free, having a blast walking in the mountains, cycling and wild swimming. It’s not that we were being purposefully cheapskates, but that is what we enjoy doing with our time. Our philosophy is best summed up as- the less we spend, the longer we can stay out on our adventures doing those things that we love.
Additional daily spending: £230
Overall costs.
When we calculated the overall cost of the trip, we were quite surprised at the final amount. On reflection there are a number of considerations to think about:
We could deduct our normal weekly living expenses off the total as we would have incurred food and fuel costs if we were living in the UK during a normal week. For us this would be a considerable reduction in the overall additional cost of the trip.
The most expensive part of the trip was getting to and from the Alps. If we had chosen to stay for a longer period of time, the trip would have got more and more economical. When out in the Alps and on the ground, we tried to exist on about €100 a week.
Total cost of trip: £1438
We had a great trip and it felt like a proper extended of time away from home- it really did feel like a true adventure. If we are really honest, it was quite enjoyable to try and keep things to a tight budget- it felt very rewarding to be frugal. One of the principles that we have based our early retirement planing on is the concept of less is more. At the end of our working careers we became quite disillusioned with the meaningless expenses we were incurring that didn't really add any particular value to our lives. We know that we are now purposely living a simple life, for good reason, and that brings us joy.
In the future, we know that we can make trips of this type more economical by staying out in Europe for longer...oh the hardship! We sincerely hope that by sharing this information with you that it helps you when planning your next adventure.
Richard & Jackie
Comentários