12 tips on how to spend 6 months in france without going broke

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12 Tips on How to Spend 6 Months in France without Going Broke

From the start, the math didn't add up. My wife, Kathy, and I were headed to France for a half year. I'd be on a paid sabbatical, but Kathy was retiring, and we weren't ready to tap her Social Security. Even with our house rented at a discount, complete with our golden retriever, the basic addition looked daunting: Overall income: Down 40 percent.Basic expenses: Up at least $1,000 a month.Outlook: A bit scary.


So if daddy didn't leave you a trust fund, you itch to see the world and you favor long-haul travel with a dash of comfort, here are a dozen ways to make it happen: 1. Establish a base: Travel costs increase in direct proportion to the speed at which one moves. Gas alone in France, for example, costs nearly $9 a gallon. Trains are pricey, too. We chose to live in one place, Aix-en-Provence, a city of about 140,000 in the South of France, for five of our six months here, settling for occasional day trips out of town. 2. Rent with care: It's one thing to weather a bad night on the road. It's quite another to hate coming home for months at a time. I began scouring rentals on sites such as homeaway.com, vrbo.com, airbnb and sabbaticalhomes.com a year before we left. We wanted someplace in easy walking distance of the old city, with an extra room for guests and work, and an outdoor patio.


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3. Avoid big cities:Everyone loves Paris. We're no exception. But we chose Aix for its slower pace and more reasonable costs. 4. Cancel everything you can before you leave home: We shut down our phones, parked our cars, cancelled Netflix, a French-language TV station, my school parking space and newspapers. It adds up. 5. Get credit and debit cards that don't charge a fee: Most cards tack on a three percent overseas transaction fee. Not Capitol One. 6. Keep track of daily expenditures: This allows us to both check ourselves and reward ourselves. It takes little effort. I keep a running tally in a notebook I keep in my back pocket.


7. Eat out at lunch, not dinner: One of the pleasures of life in France is the food. So although Kathy cooks most of our meals with the riches of the daily marketplace, we treat ourselves to a couple of meals out each week. 8. Look for little local places, too: At Le Brun'ch, on Rue Portalis, the food is fresh and the language of choice French. A slice of quiche -- spinach, mushroom or the special of the day -- costs $3.20 and makes a lovely light lunch 9. Leave the driving to others: Being car-free makes us carefree. We have no parking costs. Pay no insurance or tolls. Buy no gas. We've already taken bus trips with our language school to Nice and the Luberon mountain towns of Provence


10. Shut down your smart phone:

We call the States by Facetime or Skype. Email to email calls are free. For a pittance, you can buy a Skype "phone number" that allows friends and family at home to dial a local number to call overseas.

11. Trade off with friends who visit:

We have a simple rule for visitors. We'll house you and feed you if you rent a car. This gives us the chance to see more places off the beaten track when friends come to town.

12. Don't fritter; do reward yourself:

It's the little things that burn a hole in your wallet: We walked to the park where Paul Cezanne painted "Mont St. Victoire" for nothing.

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12 tips on how to spend 6 months in france without going broke

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