Money Matters: Month Two and Three
I decided to combine these past two month's budget breakdown in one post to better compare notes and keep them close together for future reference. Let me first start by saying that we have spent far more than I originally hoped for from a "keep our costs as low as possible" perspective. Keep in mind this perspective was only to protect our savings nest egg throughout the year. It is incredibly hard to justify penny pinching when you have a once in a lifetime experience for your family sitting in front of you ready to be endulged. I would say doing that would be unfortunate and potentially regretful. We have created memories that you genuinely can't put a price tag on. This feels really good in retrospective to how spending money has often felt...it's not like we are blowing the money. Well, maybe a little gets blown but the majority is being thoughtfully spent. As the picture on our living area wall states," Travel is the only thing you buy that makes you richer"!
We have held very true to our position on spending money on stuff for the kids. They have been spending their $20 a week "paycheck" and that is all. It has been incredible to see them handle their finances. A few times they made it stretch for a few weeks to make a larger purchase. Ahhh...that felt good and made Erica and I both happy to see. Most weeks though the $20 is gone by the end of their "payday Friday". That is ok too since they learn how to do without for six long days! Boyd's been wanting hot wheels track and so he purchased it today as soon as he got the paycheck. Blythe is currently with Erica at Michael's buying yarn to learn knitting.
Now for the breakdown.
To keep up, month one had variable expenses of $9777.15. That will hopefully remain the high bar!
Month two, from July, 15th through August 14th was a much better month at $4,904.99. Month three from Aug. 15, through Sept 18th was a bit higher, even though it was spent mostly in U.S. dollar rich Canada, at $7596.54.
One area of focus that has helped greatly is actually keeping less cash to blow indiscriminately on impulse purchases at gas stations and RV park stores. We dropped to $390.00 total cash spent in month two and spiked a bit in Canada in month three due to carrying more cash for emergency at $520.64. This is down greatly from our first month of $944.72. (All other expenses were made on our primary credit card to make tracking easy and to simplify bill payment every month.)
We spent an incredible amount on gas in the last two months at $932.05 in month two and $1311.15 in month three. This was to be expected as we covered the cost from Montana to Nova Scotia during this time period. That's a lot of miles travelled. We also took the CRV on many side trips, ecspecially during our 15 days in Wisconsin. We drove the 150 mile round trip from our campsite in the Wisconsin Dells to my home town of Beloit at least a dozen times during those two weeks. We only stayed in the Dells so long because our 14 nights were free for us at a Thousand Trails property. It was a wash financially but did feel like excessive and unnecessary driving. Maybe money shouldn't have mattered in that decision, but...oh well.
Our biggest increase in cost despite our over all declines over month one came in our spending on activities. Month one was only $345.62 spent. Our activities in the Western U.S. were full of inexpensive trips to National Parks and beaches. As we moved further East and then up to Canada for nearly three weeks we did a lot more touristy things like Motown ($40) and The Henry Ford museum ($125) in Detroit. We also took a helicopter ride over Niagara Falls for $327. Our month two activity expenses stayed flat at $344.27 but our month three activity expenses jumped to $1122.74. We expect to continue to spend in this area as we have so many cool sites to see in the New England states this coming month.
Our spending on souvenirs dropped greatly from a high bar of $682.51 in month one. Month two was only $320.81 and month three has bottomed out at $302.61. This is helped by our resistence to acquire stuff and the fact that our kids don't get toys and trinkets at every stop along the way unless they have their own money to spend.
RV maintence hit us hard in month one with our tire fiasco leading to $1333.47 in expense. Month two was less of a headache cost-wise at only $185.35. It was not neccessarily better on our mental heath as we still had to stop twice for tire issues and the start of generator problems. The generator issue was resolved the first day of month three to the tune of $887.00. That hurt and it's not what you want to see on your expense sheet day one! Our total for month three was $1018.07. We continue to battle a leaky roof and mold that will need to be dealt with as soon as we can find a spot to lodge for an extended period while the service is completed. I'm thinking a few more things will need tuning at that time as well so we are preparing ourselves for that burden.
Food continues to be our single biggest expense just as it was in month one at $1402.31. It stayed high in month two at $1253.08 because we spent a bunch of time on the road away from the RV. This meant eating out more. Erica and I also had opportunities to break away and actually spend time doing one thing we love to do...date night! We celebrated our 19th wedding anniversary at a restaurant as well as a few other nights out. We also got to see family and friends over dinners out. All of it was worth it! Month three our food costs soared to $2,000.41. We ate nice dinners out in Canada and we also had fewer opportunities to shop at Costco which saves us big-time on our staple food supply like produce, nuts and peanut butter and jelly. Food costs are high every where. I can't believe it at times and worry that our fresh food diet will continue to be high. Only when we settle with a patch of land where Erica can dig her hands in some soil and plant our food will this go down.
Our consumable purchases remain almost flat from month one of $481.88. These are all store purchases that are non-food. The kids are growing like crazy and so new clothes and shoes are expected. Erica and I continue to shop thrift stores to keep our expenses here low. We had to spend $125 on a new larger mountain bike for Blythe in month three as well. Our month two expense was $445.39 and our month three spiked a bit to $555.38.
Our last major category is lodging, which jumped in month two to $1012.61 from our month one $839.97 expense. This jump was due to a prepayment for lodging in Florida for December of $420. Our month three expense dropped to $625.91.
We have yet, with the exception of our 14 nights in Wisconsin, to stay at any Thousand Trails properties and thus save. We have booked a few weeks in the coming month at their properties, so I look forward to cashing in on our investment from month one.
Our other expenses were less than $100 a month, like RV propane and foreign transaction fees. It's a pretty simple expense report.
We are learning as we go and we will continue to track so that we can better understand what it takes to mid-life retire for a full year. I hope to use this information to help our family do more travel in the future.
Peace and Love