Financial Friday 7

Another week has come and gone. Let’s see how I did.

Travel

Zero. I stayed in Θεσσαλονική (Thessaloniki) all week, and walked anywhere I needed to go.

Accommodation

Same hostel; different exchange rate. The cheapest way so far remains booking directly with the hostel, and using my ‘no foreign transaction fee’ credit card. The larger the block of time booked, the better rounding works out for you in the exchange rate.

Food

I did a pretty good job stuffing myself with the free breakfast at the hostel in the morning, and grabbing something cheap from a take-away place in town for most of the week. On Monday and Tuesday, I went out to ‘fancy’ restaurants with people I met in the hostel so…budget sort of busted? The food was amazing though. I don’t think I’ll ever tire of the delightful treats here.

Other

Travel insurance: $3.07 per day.

I went to the Λευκός Πύργος (White Tower) on Friday: $2.46. It was OK, and would have been excellent if there had been plaques in English. Why the ‘symbol of Thessaloniki’ only has signs in Greek I will never know.

Saturday was laundry day: $3.69. Speaking of laundry, the socks I bought last week had their first trip through a washing machine. They’re already showing signs of wear. While disappointing, at least they were cheap so I consider it more of a learning experience than a waste of money.

On Tuesday, I gave in and tried the ‘pirate cruise’. While technically free, I bought an orange juice for the compulsory drink: $6.15. It was touristy, but so worth it; especially before the ‘captain’ jumped on the bow with his bell and pirate flag.

Also on Tuesday, the data SIM I ordered was shipped from the US to my hostel in Greece: $14.00. I should see it in a couple weeks. If all goes well, the cheaper data rates will make up for the cost of sending it 1/4 of the way around the world.

On Wednesday, I sent some money to the cell (mobile if you’re from the UK) carrier I’ve been using: $12.41. It seems the services I pre-paid don’t roll over to subsequent months so I tried to purchase a roll-over option via credit card. Since credit card transactions don’t get to the merchant until a couple days later, the roll-over purchase failed, but the transaction is still pending. Live and learn right? Fortunately, they give out freebees for logging into your account once a week. So in a few weeks, I’ll be back to everything I had before…until the next month rolls around….

Summary

Even with the occasional set-backs, it’s still been the cheapest week yet! The financial story continues next Friday….