My john o'groats- lands end trip was probably as cheap as you can possibly get, done last October, It was less than £200 for 3 weeks. Roughly £5 a day was enough.
For the whole of the 1st week i got by on £2 a day.
I am certainly not mean with money, just skint at times.
I camped wild every night, spent money on food and little else.Train fares were incredibly low, booked in advance.
my train costs to inverness:
£ 4-50 Southampton-London [megatrain]
£14-70 London- edinburgh [advance fare]
£10-30 Edinburgh-Inverness [advance fare]
Most folk wouldn't want to do the things i did i suppose though.I dawdled along at times , i was in no great rush, no one sponsored me, i was doing it for my own achievement, and something to test the mind and body.I did 1200 miles by the end,the final few days i was up at near 100 miles a day, but i started off only doing 30 to 40.
My route was
inverness and then up to john o'groats
john o'groats
inverness
fort william
glasgow
carlisle
shap
wigan
shrewsbury
ludlow
monmouth
the old severn bridge [really enjoyable surprisingly]
bristol
tiverton
tavistock
st austell
camborne
penzance
lands end
I had one puncture during the whole 1200 miles, fitted a new back tyre before departing, i had quite a few broken spokes.
I was kitted out to repair them myself [my back wheel has been hopeless and i break spokes frequently].
Apart from that barely anything went wrong.
I should also add i carried 4 panniers, and the bike was far too heavy with that amount of gear.
I'm still building my trailer for future trips as i don't fancy hauling 4 panniers on the bike again.