Thank you, we have really been trying to lower our expenses + ecological footprint, but we’re still learning :).
3 Likes
@Timmy Wow, very impressive indeed! Especially the food!! It’s so expensive in Switzerland!!
Did you stay the entire year in Switzerland?
2 Likes
Thank you. 
Yes, we spent almost all the time in Switzerland. We shop at Aldi/Lidl or buy in bulk at Asian stores, don’t buy expensive items except the occasional ice cream and use TooGoodToGo.
4 Likes
It also applies to UK citizens we are allowed 6 months rolling in the US but only 183 days in any given year or we are liable for US taxes. And no one wants to be caught up in that!
2 Likes
Oh yes it does matter. Check it very carefully. We found out that we could be liable for paying tax in US if we spend more than 183 days there in any given year. We are retired and have pensions.
Yes, I think it applies to any non-American who spends more than 183 days in the US, regardless of where their income originates.
1 Like
Useful data, thank you.
1 Like
Hi there
We’ve been doing this full time since 2018. The pandemic caused a few bumps in the road. We rented for about 3 months in the first lock down and have had to cancel sits and get out of sits early. Other than that we have very few gaps. Most of our sits line up. We do like a break occasionally so we’ll go explore somewhere for a few days or a week from time to time. We use AirBNB in these circumstance. We sold or gave away all our possessions (apartment, car, clothes, books etc) and have one suitcase and a small backpack each. No storage.
If the sit does not offer a car and isn’t in a convenient city we don’t take it. In the first year we travelled all over the world. Then the pandemic hit so we’ve been in Australia ever since. But - yay! - we are heading out to the UK and Europe in October for six months - four months of house sitting and two months of travel. We spend about the same as we would at home and eat out regularly, replace electronics, take flights etc. Not running a house and car and not being able to buy too much stuff (we limit ourselves to what we can carry) brings our expenses down. We have found it is amazing how much stuff we had that we don’t need or use!
We estimated a saving of about $35,000 annually when we started this journey. We tend to spend that on other fun things while we travel.
Kirsty
11 Likes
What an incredible story, I would love to hear more about how you got started on this path. Thank you for sharing!
1 Like
Thank you! We do have a website which we (very sporadically I’m afraid) blog on. but always happy to answer any specific questions here too. We’re on FB and insta too.
It is certainly an interesting way of life!
Here’s a pic of Mac, our current love bug!
Admin Notice: Post Moderated
5 Likes
Hi @kirstycrtr & @savoryandrose the best way to continue your one to one conversation via the Direct Message system …
Just looked at my sit near Copenhagen. I was there 17 days and my food/travel/expenses came to £183. My return flight was £63. Cost to get to the airport (UK) and back was an additional £3.30. So my total costs were £249.30
I mixed things up the odd meal out with eating at the sit or buying toogoodtoogo.
My 6 day sit near Venice for 6 days came to £58 food/transport. Flights were an additional £46 return. Taxi to UK airport £61.20. Public transport back from airport was £23.20. Total costs were £188.40.
My recent 6 day stay in Oxford came to £53 including transport from London to Oxford.
4 Likes
Thanks Angela. Will check that out.
How much money do you feel you’re all saving by pet sitting?
I’d specifically love to hear from full time sitters who don’t maintain another residence.
Obviously you’re saving money on rent, but I wonder if travel expenses and renting places to stay between sits ends up making it all a wash.
I’d be curious to hear money saving thoughts from non-full time sitters too.
Thanks!
1 Like
Hello @joyoyo2820 I would like to extend a very warm welcome to the community forum.
Here you can connect with like-minded members and use the spyglass to search for many topics that can help answer your housesitting questions.
You can also add your THS sitters profile link to your forum profile so that other community members can give you feedback and tips.
Here is how:
https://forum.trustedhousesitters.com/t/how-to-add-a-listing-or-profile-link-to-your-forum-profile
Thank you for your contribution to this thread and there is also a thread on fully nomadic sitters that you might find interesting:
Best wishes Carla
1 Like
My partner and I have been full-time sitters since July 2020. We started off mainly in Spain, France and Portugal.
We are now in Thailand and heading to Singapore later.
Cost-wise it’s hard to predict. Definitely aim for longer sits. We had a 4 month sit in Andalucia, Spain, so no hotel/ transport costs except petrol. Flying to Thailand obviously took a big chunk out of the budget.
We sat in Switzerland for a month, which is expensive and we ate out once in the entire month. Here in Thailand we eat out twice a day 
Take the occasional hotel night into account between sits too.
On average I’d say we spent about 600£/month each, everything included (transport, groceries, meals/drinks/coffees out, visits, the occasional overnight…). We pay some attention to our budget, but we still do most things we want to.
So all in all, longer sits in “cheaper” countries is the way to go!
3 Likes
Last year we spent £11000 for two people on flights and accommodation petsitting and traveling. This was much higher because we took a few no-housesit vacations and we were housesitting in Australia and New Zealand.
But even with all that, we spent about £4000 less than what we would’ve shelled out for rent and utilities at our old flat.
This year we will likely spend much less, and we’ll both work at least some of the time, so plan to actually build our savings up a bit, rather than just stretch the money we already have.
5 Likes
We are full-time sitters, but also have nearly full-time jobs. I find, if you have a ‘tour-plan’, by that I mean a fixed route you need to maintain, then it ends up costing quite a bit more, because then it is likely harder to find housesits on your current route, for most countries, except maybe US and UK.
We do shell out quite a lot for accommodation. Our requirements are very specific in that we need a quiet place with enough space to set up 2 x 2-screen setups and we like our space and comfort and 2 beds, so we don’t want to feel like we’re squatting in our (sometimes lengthy) gaps. Each person/couple/family have their own standards they wish/need to maintain.
We do save a chunk each month. Could we save more? Absolutely. But we are also undertaking a very cool 2-year tour plan through Europe in a slow way, so we don’t feel the need to save more than we do currently. We’d rather enjoy our special time. But no way could we have done it in this same way without having jobs.
5 Likes