(Not) Spending Money in France :D

I know I’ve said before that we were lucky, but hot damn, is this really my life??

Yes, that really is an authentic French bulldog

I'm in trouble...I can't remember the name of this place. Help!?

John’s German/French godparents happen to have two daughters who live in Paris. One of those daughters happens to be away housesitting. And guess who happens to be staying in her apartment while she’s away?

Did you guess…Justin Bieber? Betty White? Your fourth-grade teacher? All wrong.

If you guessed John and Meggan, you win! You win nothing! You’ve done it!

I would say you win my affection, but you already have that, you silly goose, you.

Did I mention we get to stay for an entire week? Obviously I could just scroll up and see that I didn’t mention that, but just play along, ok?

Was this picture photoshopped? Are we really in Paris?

Visiting the Sacre-Coeur Church in Montmartre

Paris. A 15 minute walk to the Eiffel Tower. An apartment to ourselves. A kitchen to ourselves.

I love museums, I love landmarks, but wow, I’ve really missed having my own kitchen.
And the other good news is that we’ve tallied our finances for the month of July. I’ll give you the total number of what John and I spent on mandatory expenses. Or relatively mandatory—i.e. things like transportation, food while in transit, contributions/gifts for awesome Couchsurfing hosts.

So. Drumroll please?

…..$87.

In case you have trouble with numerals, that is eighty-seven dollars. For an entire month. Even less in Euro talk. We traveled to five different places and spaned about 415 miles. And if we had hitchhiked from farm to farm or hadn’t stopped to stay with friends and hadn't bought fruit for ourselves, we very easily could have spent no money.

As it was, transportation boiled down to about $57, which was money we spent on the six hour bus ride from our fourth Wwoofing farm to Paris. We got rides from new-found friends for everything else (so that answers your question on whether or not the French are nice to foreigners).

Trying to keep some distance between the masses and ourselves at the Lourve courtyard

And I will clarify that we did spend more money on some other worldly pleasures. Four pounds of nutella for $5 to share with fellow volunteers at farm three? Yeah, that type of worldly pleasure. Or, for example, we spent at least $50 each at our first Euro music festival.

But I have omitted these expenses in the final number because if you want to travel the world and  spend no money, you won't be doing things like buying four pound of nutella, etc. If you've been following, you know that our primary weapon in saving money on room and board has been through Wwoofing, but Couchsurfing and Covoiturage.com (carpooling), have also been huge helpers. And when we do buy food, we make it last (think: big bags of homemade granola), we look for sales, and yes, we nonetheless end with happy tummies.

Soooo, why aren’t you packing?

With breakfasts like these prepared by my manservant, um, I mean boyfriend, we can just pretend we're spending lots of money ordering roomservice at a Parisian hotel! 

Paris, I suppose, will be a sort of vacation. No farmwork, lots of sightseeing, but still very little money to spend. Today we went out and spent $60 on groceries that will ideally get us through the week. (update: $60 bucks was easy!) With plans of going out to eat for at least two dinners, let’s see if we make it…!

Do you have any money-saving travel tips when you're in a huge city like this?

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