Normally I go through and compare this years costs to our budget and previous years but that doesn’t make a lot of sense this year. Our budget at this point is to not spend more than we make and between Lee’s jobs and mine that was definitely the case. I will say that we were hit by rising food and fuel costs just like everyone else, but to be perfectly clear our $88K spend could absolutely be cut back. I’m not even sure at this point how helpful our budgets will be for the average person, but I’ll keep posting them just please realize your mileage will absolutely vary. Here’s this year’s annual:
I am not going into details on every line this year but I will make two comments. We were in areas where food was VERY expensive most of the year. Also we trying to eat more fresh food and that costs more. My second comment is the Lectric bike and all of their accessories/mounts are included in home New Equipment Optional. All in we spent around 6K. If you remove that home repairs are inline with previous years, although the expense is definitely trending up as the RV gets older and needs more work done. Same with the truck by the way , older truck equals more repairs.
Next we show broken down by month. The interesting thing about this view is you can see spikes based on where we were staying at the time and what Lee was doing for work. This year he had a work kamping job from May – September and worked a few freelance jobs as we traveled. The freelance jobs only impact our costs because I prefer to be on full hookups while he is gone and the food costs go down a little. Workamping has a bigger impact because we have no campground fees but also generally have higher fuel and grocery costs.
The most interesting graph I think is the one showing 8 year trends. As you can see costs have gone up in almost every category which I am sure is the same for most people. We also spent most of the year in high priced West Yellowstone and California, but even when we were in Nevada we didn’t see huge savings in food and fuel. I think looking at the trending and monthly averages can help give a better view than one year and I am happy to have eight years to share.
That is it for this year’s budget post. Sorry it was late and you can draw your own conclusions from the data. This year we are planning on staying in one area for a chunk of the year so I am not sure how much value the budget will provide next year either. I will no longer be providing monthly accounts but if it makes sense I will continue to provide an annual summary.
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