Monthly Archives: July 2017

Luxuriously Thrifty Vienna

Posted on by Standard 1

I rarely take more than a few days off at a time so when I travel for longer than a long weekend I like to maximise my time away. When I started planning my trip to Budapest, I had a look at the most interesting and easily accessible cities to it and settled on Vienna. It also happened to be on my must-see list so I was happy! Now you might recall that I splurged a little in Budapest so I needed to keep Vienna as frugal as possible. I had no idea where to start but got a good idea of prices and an itinerary from On the Luce’s “Visiting Vienna on a budget” article.

Alfresco dining
Burggarten
Random graffiti

Continue reading

5 frugal things about my trip to Budapest

Posted on by Standard 3

I’ve been buzzing this week about my 8 day long holiday – the longest time off I’ve had since last November – which I started in Budapest last weekend. I have no idea what I was expecting of Budapest but I didn’t expect it to be quite so modern, western European, I don’t know. It seemed rather London-y. Maybe all of Europe is similar. It’s a city that’s been on my must-see list for years but I never quite got round to it until now and boy, was it worth the wait?!

FullSizeRender 10

Stunning Vajdahunyad castle within the City park

Continue reading

Frugal half year review | Need to step on the gas

Posted on by Standard 5

I know I only just reviewed June but while I was at it, I remembered that reviewing June meant that I was halfway through 2017. At the start of the year, I wrote down several goals (2017: The year of the saver) that can be summarised within 4 categories

  1. Financial – including things like maxing out my baby emergency fund, supporting family and being able to invest properly in the stock markets by the end of the year
  2. Health – Change lifestyle gradually and permanently so that I never have to make another weight-related New Year’s resolution. Sleep more.
  3. Professional – make money using 9-5 skills, learn new skill, become go-to person at work for something.
  4. De-clutter – Intentional ownership. Sell, donate, or throw away stuff that doesn’t provide joy

Continue reading

June spending update | 50%+ savings rate with a caveat!

Posted on by Standard Reply

I know, I know. We’re nearly a third of the way through July and I’ve only just got round to figuring out how much I spent in June. This should have been a half-year review too but I’m doing this at an airport because I was too cheap to pay for a night at an Airbnb following a post-midnight arrival. I don’t know how terrible this decision will prove to be but although sleeping on airport benches is proving not to be my thing, it turns out that early morning calculation isn’t either!

Screen Shot 2017-07-09 at 04.25.26
Continue reading