You're probably thinking that I'm full of crap, and you're right. But for the wrong reasons.
I AM full of crap, but that's because traveling will sometimes do that to you, mkay??
Travel constipation is real. It's like you go on vacation, but so does your rebellious anal sphincter...
...but it somehow manages to stay type A and uptight despite its newfound vacation status.
It's a thing. Google it.
So I may literally be full of crap, but metaphorically, I'm not 💩'n ya.
I legit really did live on just 400 Euros per month. And I'll tell you how.
It all started when a girl I met was telling me all about her experience as an Au Pair (basically a nanny who lives with a family) in Italy.
Of course, me, having no filter to stop my mouth from spewing out whatever moronic thoughts are in my brain, I said "But I thought you could only be an Au Pair in France. Isn't that a French thing?"
That's when she said the most beautiful words my non-filtered pea brain could ever hear:
😮 😃
"You can do it in almost any country you want!"
ANY COUNTRY?!? My heart started to race with excitement as hundreds of travel possibilities danced before me in my imagination.
Then she told me about this website, which changed everything for me:
--> aupairworld.com
Here's why it's so great.
As an Aupair, you typically go to another country to help out with kids, and in exchange, you get to live with the family rent-free and eat all of their food.
You can even sneak some Nutella out of their Nutella jars at 2 am and blame it on the kids.
It really is a great deal!
And this website is user-friendly and has a huge database of strangers just waiting to lure you into their home to do all of their dirty work.
So of course, I ran home to start planning where I would go.
I found out quickly that most jobs don't pay very well. It's not like being a nanny.
But the live-in thing could be worth it.
Being in Europe could be worth it.
I talked to families from Turkey. From Italy. From France. From Spain. From Croatia. From Morocco, even!
It was all just so tempting.
Within just a few days, I had several job offers.
I ultimately narrowed it down to Spain so I could improve my Spanish (hint: DON'T go to Barcelona if Spanish is your goal).
I ended up picking a family outside of Barcelona who lived by the beach and had adorable kids.
The family mainly just wanted me to speak English to them and teach them piano. They were at school all day and after school, I would just walk them to their activities and then their mom would pick them up.
I had a lot of free time.
The job paid 400 Euros a month which was okay with me at the time.
My housing was free. Food was free. They even paid for half of my plane ticket over there because they had lots of travel points!!
Bonus: I randomly got upgraded to first class! Maybe because they thought I'd be SUPER classy?!?
Makin' friends and keepin' it classy on first class.
At that point, it was pretty easy for me to live on just a little bit of money. Taking the train and bus for transportation was pretty cheap, and I had a prepaid cell phone that was cost only a few dollars.
I took flamenco dance classes once a week and still managed to save 200 Euros per month.
Even on the cheap I managed to have lots of fun, but also did a lot of free or cheap things like hiking with my friends. Playing "super uno" outside on the street or volleyball on the beach or late nights on the beach with the occasional cheap box of $2 sangria.
Every weekend, I went into Barcelona and stayed the night with my friend Elisabeth and we would explore streets like "Las Ramblas" or look at unique architecture by Gaudi:
Sometimes, we would just stand against the wall and throw spaghetti at each other to see if it would stick and make a spaghetti-outline of our body:
(Have you ever heard that when spaghetti is fully cooked and ready to eat, you can test it by throwing it at a wall? My mom was NOT happy when someone told me that when I was in high school 😁)
The family sometimes took me to go do things, too.
We went to Tibidabo (family paid for it), an amusement park on top of a mountain that overlooks all of Barca!
I like pics like this, 'cause they're just so real and in the moment capturing LEGIT happiness.
The kid's mom is over there laughing with her friend, and then Pau and I are pretending to be monkeys.
But sometimes when we went out in public, I got THIS look from Pau because I acted too crazy apparently:
Me: Do you think I'm crazy?
Pau: Small yes. (I think he meant to say "a little bit" haha)
And of course, for some cheap fun you can always count on the beach! If you're not buried in the sand and clearly unhappy about it, that is. Ahem.
If you want to go be an Au Pair, do it. You can travel and live on $400 a month easily. I promise.
Typically they look for people only until the age of 30, though. I don't know why. But if there's still time for you - try it out!
I had a great experience! I got really close with the family and made tons of amazing friends in Barcelona!