Ready to peek into my finances and have a little nosey?

Chiang Mai Budget: Cheap Tuesday #3

Welcome to this week’s budget.

Three weeks in, and life just keeps getting better! I’m settling in nicely with a wonderful group of people, I’m finding my feet and my way around, I’ve been able to get out and see some of Thailand this weekened… and perhaps the best news of all, I have some steady freelance work.

A few bits, actually. Wowsers.

Looks like I can officially say

I’m a freelance travel writer living Thailand

and even

Im self-employed

Those are some big claims for me! When I have a bad day (it does happen) I just tell myself those things, and then I remember how wonderfully privileged I am.

Check back with me in a year, when hopefully I’ll have this site monetised, and maybe then I can even call myself an ‘entrepreneur’. Ha. The very notion makes me giggle, in my mind I’m still just this little girl who can’t quite believe she is ACTUALLY an adult. But here I am, 4 years, 6 continents and 41 countries into an alternative patchwork life on all over the planet.

Anyway, I’m late for three different midweek drinks (welcome to Chiang Mai), so I’ll stop digressing and keep it brief… this week I survived on £36 (AUD $73 / USD $56).

Please note this does not include rent or bills- these I pay monthly so check back for next weeks budget when they WILL be included. I will also do daily and weekly averages based on my first month here.

So below is exactly what I have spent in the last 7 days, baht for baht.

Where did my clams go?

What’s new this week?

Well, I read the above and you could conclude that I don’t actually eat. Its a little embarrassing. But I really do! Portions are just big enough for me here that I tend to eat two meals a day, and the weather is hot which always kills appetite. Also I scored a couple of freebie meals last week at various events, as luck would have it.

This week I decided not to do a grocery shop and to turn my fridge off, mainly because I’m out all the time anyway and there is just so much incredible and cheap food knocking around! So my spending went up by £10.

I have been leading a very active social life this past week- lots of nights out and lots of gatherings! Many wonderful meals at the side of the street with many wonderful people. I found some new hangouts and some great new eats, and long may this continue.

Don’t be fooled though, I’m doing it all sober. Well, last week I had three beers courtesy of a friend, after a few weeks tee-total, and ACTUALLY vomited. I’m deadly serious.

I was hungover the entire next day. THREE BEERS. VOMIT. I can’t even.

Obviously my body is just saying a big fat NO to that right now.

I also got out into a bit of the surrounding area to frolick in a waterfall. If there’s anything a girl like me needs, its frolicking in a waterfall.

Proper blog post on all this coming very soon!!

Just like many adventures this past year, moving here is such a big deal to me that I struggle to even begin penning my motivations and sentiments.

How to improve?

It has become more apparent than ever that I need a bicycle or a scooter- I do try to walk when I can, but its not so great arriving everywhere late and dripping in sweat. So I’m hoping to make those taxi journeys a thing of the past and spend some clams on a set of wheels.

I have also found a much cheaper apartment- a crazy 3000bht (£60) per month. It’s in roughly the same location, but has no pool and is not nearly as nice. But… I am toying with it because that saving would enable me to get a gym membership (with pool, as it happens) and perhaps a scooter.

In other news, I’ll soon be able to add another facet to this budget- INCOME. Yes. I’m serious. She is actually making money writing travel articles. Don’t get excited, its tiny tiny tiny money. But it is money.

On that note, I’ll end with the words of someone way more wise than I…

‘You don’t have to be great to start, but you do have to start to be great’

 

PS… It’s my birthday this week! 27… ahhhh!