01/10/2026
September 2026 Budget Update
$2035 ($360 OVER) of $1675; (Two people: $55/day or $20,075/year)
We are hardly surprised to exceed our September budget, having spent most of the month (22 nights) in Norway—a country that is plainly difficult to manage cheaply. Alongside the expected financial and climatic pressures, the trip brought several unforeseen stresses, which we will detail in future posts, but begin to emerge here.
All this said, we feel pleased with the money-saving efforts we accomplished, despite the challenges faced.
The final eight nights were spent in Krakow, Poland followed by Eastern Slovakia, which is where we are currently.
Below are the breakdowns for the month.
All prices in USD and are rounded. As always, let us know if you have questions! 🙂
TRANSPORTATION: $878
$82: Buses and train from Moss to Notodden (4 hours)
$347: Rental Car, Hertz, for one week. Yes, $49/day is a great deal in Norway, which we booked in April. The catch was this rental price only came with an EV (electric vehicle). Since 98% of new cars sold are now electric in Norway, the country is set up for these, and we thought we’d save serious money on gas, we figured…why not?! Oh…you’ll be hearing why not soon enough….😅
$30: additional driver fee
$28: tolls and ferries (?)
$27: Parking fees (this is incredibly low and took a LOT of extra effort and car relocation!)
$185: Electric charging (370%, or 3.7 “tanks”)
$88: Shuttle Bus/Local Bus to Oslo Airport (yes, insane!)
$76: Flight from Oslo to Krakow (one flight, we used points for the other)
$15: Train & Uber combo to Krakow hotel
ACCOMMODATION: $533
Surprisingly, Norway does not offer a lot of the standard big-box hotels usually targeted by using hotel points, such as Hyatt, IHG, or Marriott. But what they do have are a splendid array of Choice Hotels, which became the biggest ace in our pocket for the country, and major cost savings for the month.
Choice Hotels, at least from our experience in the States, are middle-of-the-road hotel chains including Comfort, Quality and Days Inn. There you might get a “hot breakfast” which from what we last remember included DIY waffle iron goop, some rubberized scrambled eggs, and limp bacon. The situation in Norway is drastically different and a quite posh experience in every regard.
To achieve five free nights during our time, we opened two Choice Privilege cards in early 2026, which offered 60k points as a sign-up bonus (no annual fee) and planned our road trip around where we could arrange these free stays.
It broke down as follows:
(15) nights Notodden at housesit (FREE)
(1) night Drammen, Choice Hotel for 12k points (FREE), valued at $225/night
(1) night Beitostolen, Choice Hotel for 15k points (FREE), valued at $220/night
(2) nights Skjolden, Booking(com) apartment for $90/night
(2) nights Florø, Choice Hotel for 12k points (FREE), valued at $277/night
(1) night Garmo, Booking cottage for $96
(2) nights Krakow, Poland, Hyatt transferred from Chase, 5k points (FREE), valued at $130/night
(1) night camping Bžany, Slovakia $10
(1) night camping Polonia, $20
(2) nights camping Mala Bara, $34/night
(2) nights Airbnb house, Kolinovce, $52/night (split with friends)
In our accommodation budget, we also included the air mattress and blanket we had to buy for camping at $52.
GROCERIES: $532
As for food, we bought almost all our food for the month at supermarkets. We found Kiwi to be the cheapest option in Norway, and our usual go-to, Lidl in Slovakia. Also, we saved on food in a few major ways:
-We bought two Too Good to Go packages for about $5-6 each which were filled with fruit and vegetables, even including 6 avocados
-We bought a lot of discounted products
-We picked grapes and black currants from our backyard at the housesit
-We had 5 included hotel breakfasts so we stuffed ourselves on those mornings, did a sensible amount of squirreling, and only ate a light dinner
-Minus one b**r when Greg may have had a breakdown without it, we did not drink alcohol in Norway, which would have been a major budget buster.
GENERAL: $53
($26) Toiletries
($13) Laundry Krakow, Self-service (very high!)
($12) Tello payment for US phone numbers
($1) Apple photo storage
RESTAURANTS: $39
If you want to call it that, we ate out one meal this month other than a splurge below….at a Norway Circle K gas station on a Sunday when supermarkets were not open for $19 😬
Also…
$6 for one Circle K coffee (black)
$5 at the Oslo airport for our $50 Priority Pass overage
$8 for 4 desserts in Slovakia
Our “OTHER” Buckets
ANNUAL SPLURGE: ($1000/annually)
We spent $130 from our splurge bucket, all in Slovakia.
This included:
($57) Two w**e tastings and a bottle of w**e & ($11) Taxi to w**ery
($27) Castle entrance fee
($34) Nice meal out with friends (two entrees and two b**rs)
MEDICAL: $3000/annually
We spent $113 from our medical bucket.
