Oh, so that's why I'm broke

I sat down today with a glass of sparkling rose wine and a piece of chocolate cake to make the process of going through my finances easier.

And I discovered why I'm in around -70 euro in debt on my French bank account and why I'm around 450 in debt on my Canadian bank card.

Two nouns.

London. Paris.



I spent waaaaaaayyyyyyy more money then I had planned to.

The biggest purchases on that trip was all the train rides, with me taking the wrong train and everything. In total I payed 215.58 CDN and 78.20 EU for transportation. That's a lot, and next time can be avoided by booking early, not travelling during peak periods, not getting lost, (being less careless is something I have to work on in general!!) and booking trains only with my French account--> which I didn't have a choice of because at the time my debit card hadn't activated.

I spent around 100 Euro on food and beer, which can easily be avoided by NOT EATING OUT!!! Sometime it is very tempting, but I have to learn to control myself. I think next time I can get this number down by half, which will still allow me to eat out a few meals.

I have 50 euros, 150 USD and probably 20 pounds in cash unaccounted for so I have no idea where that money went! Probably ice cream knowing me...

I can't stress how important it is to write down what you spend, either when you are spending it or at the end of the month. For me, it opened my eyes on where I can easily save and where I am overspending. And it only took about 20 min, so its pretty painless. I was kind of in denial before, but now I see how careless I can be. I know what mistakes I won't make again like.....

1. using my Canadian cards
where the exchange rate makes everything 1.5 times more expensive. To my credit, this couldn't be helped because my French card randomly stopped working for a few days in London.

2. Bank fees.
I spent a total of 17.7 on bank fees. Every time you purchase something in a non-Euro zone my French bank charges me 1 euro. It would have been better had I taken out a wad of cash, for which they would have only charged me 3 euro. Of course, knowing me I would have lost all the cash so thinking about it, I would rather spend money on bank fees!


Things I did good

1. Tourist Sites
I only spent 16.07 on tourist site, and that was for ONE entrance fee to the Tower of London. All other touristy things I did for free including walking tours, museums, and markets. This just takes some research time on the internet.

2. Hostels
I spent 40.68 on accomodation. it would have been only 20.65 had I not taken the wrong train and had to pay for a hostel in Nantes.

Now I can budget for future trips with a better estimate of how much I really need and not a fairy-tale version.