A Detailed Cost Breakdown of Our New York Vacation

by Matt Spillar · March 20, 2017

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Source: Unsplash

Last month one of our friends got married in New Jersey! Fitting in with our 2017 goals, we decided to turn it into a New York trip and do some sightseeing.

I had only been to New York as a kid, and my wife had never visited before, so it was a great chance to see some new sights and explore an exciting new place. Being that this is a financial blog, I of course tracked our spending from our trip. I wanted to break it down in a post to show that travel can be done for a reasonable amount of money, and everyone plans trips differently.

Hopefully you find this breakdown interesting and can learn from what we did well, or from where you think we could have improved. We only had a few days, so we tried to just hit the main sites in our limited time. We’re planning to go back at some point, because we definitely want to visit the stadiums of the Yankees and Mets plus other sites that we missed on this trip.

We set some money aside each month into a “Vacation Fund.” While certain areas of spending don’t matter as much to us, such as eating out, getting to take trips together is high on our priority list. That being said, the cost of the trip was spread out over the course of a few months because the flights were purchased in November and the Airbnb was booked in December. The rest of the expenses were covered by our “Vacation Fund.”

Times Square

A Detailed Cost Breakdown of Our New York Vacation

Total trip length: 4 days, 3 nights (flights were Friday morning and Monday night)

Flights: $256 each – I think we did a pretty good job of finding reasonably priced flights. Studies show that the best time to purchase tickets for a domestic flight is around 57 days before your trip. We followed this advice pretty closely, booking our flights about two and a half months before our trip.

Airbnb: $103 each – I am a huge fan of Airbnb! I’ll be writing a full article soon about the many reasons why you should use Airbnb when you travel. We were able to find a 2 bedroom apartment right near Central Park. It was small (it is New York after all) but by traveling in a group, the 5 of us only had to pay $103 each for the 3 night stay. Can’t beat $34 per night!

Uber/Metro $48.53 each – This cost includes our share of an Uber to and from the airport, and Metro passes for traveling around in the city.

Central Park

Rental Car/Gas $35.61 – This was our transportation to New Jersey for our friend’s wedding, we all chipped in to rent a car for the day because it was the simplest and most cost effective method.

Food/Drinks/Restaurants $94.19 – This covers bagels, coffee, New York style pizza, amazing burgers at an Irish pub, among others.

9/11 Memorial Museum $24 – The museum was a very powerful tribute to the victims of the terrorist attacks of 9/11.

Top of Rockefeller Center $34 – The view was incredible and this was one of the main sites we wanted to see.

Total: $595.33 each

My wife and I had an awesome trip to New York, got to see some really cool sites, eat at new restaurants, and spend time with friends without having to break the bank. We’ll definitely remember this trip for a long time, and we’re already looking forward to our next trip!

Have you been to New York, what was your favorite part? Where would you recommend for us to travel next?

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