September ‘26 Slow Travel Budget
Ee-gads! It’s already time for a September 2026 budget breakdown. I’m all a-flutter.
Like I said in July’s budget post, this is the type of budget breakdown I was searching for whilst planning our slow travels, so I knew I wanted it to be a regular part of this blog.
So let’s get into it!
Lake Willoughby, Vermont in all of its autumnal glory!
How This Works
A few things on the data you see below:
The accommodations budget reflects what we spent this month, not how much our current accommodations cost. This was our cheapest month so far as we only paid for our current stay in Maine via Furnished Finder AND got a $500 security deposit returned from our stay in New Hampshire.
All numbers are in dollar amounts. I’ve begged Canva to let me put dollar signs in my data set for the pie chart, but so far they don’t allow it. Boo.
The tiny pink sliver without a label at the top is our miscellaneous and clothing budget, and was $86 in September. I have my eye on some new clothes though so I’d expect that will climb quite a bit in coming months.
“Health” includes insurance and any other medical expenses. Ryan’s health insurance is covered by his former employer.
Groceries almost took first place!
At first glance it would appear that we ate ourselves silly and were really enjoying our almost daily trips to the local Hannaford’s. Not so! Our grocery bill was quite a bit higher than normal this month because we had the loveliest visitors!
My parents came up for an amazing week of early fall colors and perfect weather, and Ryan’s friend Tim came up the following week for some not-so-amazing weather but really beautiful foliage! It was the absolute best having them all with us and I feel so grateful that they came. But yeah, it meant the grocery bill was a bit higher.
Life!
We also went out A LOT more than we normally do, but our discretionary budget isn’t through the roof because we were treated to delish beers and meals by our visitors.
Also, our subscriptions bill was a bit higher this month because our Mint Mobile 3-month bill hit. I believe Mint is still the best deal in the biz but haven’t checked in a while. If you’re interested in a lower phone bill, check them out!
Thinking Ahead
We are starting to think about things that we might need now that we’ve decided to pivot away from full time travel. One of the bigger items is a second car.
Are you selling one and near Chattanooga? Let’s talk!
But seriously- we are looking for something under $10k and under 125k miles- we don’t even want to put collision on this puppy, just liability. I dream of another used Prius but for our price range that may be wild thinking.
On a semi but not really-related note, we decided to cancel our Amazon Prime subscription when we started slow traveling in July to see if we would miss it. It was an added bonus that we were no longer supporting le Bez-ós as well.
We talked recently about whether the experiment had worked- and it has!
There have only been one or two times where I’ve thought, “man, I’ll just order that on Amazon and it’ll be here in five minutes!” and then realized that wasn’t an option. For me, these moments have always been knitting related and were easily solved by a trip to my local yarn store (absolutely ABUNDANT in New England, shocking) and each time I got to speak and learn from the owner of the store who was a knitting genius.
Glorious.
This stunning success has me wondering what other subscriptions we think are necessary but might not be. I’m looking at you, Boldin. And this isn’t necessarily a frugality play, but a let’s-make-life-simpler play. Every time I pull that lever things feel a bit lighter. Perhaps something to move toward, no?
Questions?
As I said at the beginning of this post- this is exactly the kind of information I was looking for when I was dreaming of our early retirement travels.
If you are now in that boat too, please drop your questions about our budget below, or feel free to send me an email. And if you feel that I left anything out, please let me know that too.
I’m so happy to chat with fellow FI folks and future slow travelers! Have a great week, everyone- and thanks for being here.