Making a Budget

Budget: a mathematical confirmation of your suspicions. ~A.A. Latimer

We leave for Spain in 5 days. I'm finalizing the budget and getting a bit nervous. We're attempting to spend 10 days in a gastronomic paradise and only spend $1800. Here's how that's going to break down.

Lodging
9 nights in hotels = just under 500 euros, which as of right now is coming out to about $700

Transportation and Sightseeing
We've already bought our bus tickets to get between major cities (for $200), but may buy a few more tickets for short jaunts and day trips. These should be under $20. Add another $30 for taxis and city transportation in Barcelona.
We're planning on about $50 in museum entry fees and wine tasting costs.
We have a cooking class scheduled which will cost about $200.

Food and Wine
This, of course, is where we spend the most of our money.

As luck would have it, unlike most of the hotels we try to stay in, our hotels in two of the three cities do not include breakfast. Since Dan isn't a big breakfast-eater anyways, to help save money I'm packing some power bars that I can munch for breakfast some days. We'll try and get by on about $20 (15 euros) for breakfast for the whole trip.

That leaves us just under $800 for food and drink for the 10 days, or about 550 euros.

We figure three of the days we'll want to do a nicer dinner (once in each town). On those days we'll need to balance that out with either a cheaper lunch, or compensate by eating more cheaply on another day. Luckily, it seems that for every amazing culinary temple, there are several options for cheap eats. We're looking forward to filling up on round after round of $3 cava and tapas.

We never figure shopping into our budget but are taking an extra $200 or so to hit Zara, my favorite discount retailer (which is based in Spain). Of course, the less money we spend on food, drink, and sightseeing, the more we have to shop!

We'll see how we did when we get back!