Every month, I post a report of our expenses to show that it is possible to live a comfortable, exciting, and adventurous life without breaking the bank. The less money you spend, the less you need to make. 🙂
This report includes ALL of our expenses, in US$, for two adults and one 60-pound dog (we adopted Maya on June 4th, 2019). Under groceries we incorporate food, produce, and non-alcoholic drinks predominantly bought in supermarkets. Toiletries belong in that category as well. Dining out means eating at a restaurant/event or purchasing take-out food. The health category covers non-prescription medicines and vitamins/supplements; medical contains prescription drugs and doctor’s visits. Because of our income level, Mark and I are eligible for free health care within the state of Massachusetts. For check-ups, we both return to the East Coast.
Mark, Maya, and I were supposed to spend the entire month of December at an RV park in Buckeye, Arizona. But, as with many of our 2021 goals and intentions, this didn’t happen. Mark was let go from his seasonal job at Macy’s warehouse two weeks prior than promised and expected. (There was not enough work anymore.) Despite having paid up throughout the month, we left the campground a week early after finishing several camper projects. We didn’t like it there.
The RV park was our highest expense in December. It was “part of the deal” and expected from the start. Most of the fuel cost went to Mark’s commute to and from Goodyear, where the warehouse is located. For anyone interested in trying the Get Upside app, which saves you money with every fill-up, follow this link. (Enter the code FE3MM7 when signing up to receive $2.22 back if you spend $10 by February 9th.)
The money going to camper and car projects (tire installation, spare water pump, hardware) could have been so much more, last month! First, we were sent a free solar panel and wiring by Bouge RV, which we installed at the campground. In return, we will compose and publish an extensive review, planned later this month. If anyone is interested in checking out Bouge RV’s website and gear, click on this link (which will bring you to their solar equipment). Use our coupon code ROAM12 for a 12% discount on any product.
Secondly, we bought four Pirelli tires through Amazon and Walmart over a period of multiple weeks, which cost us tremendous time, energy, and aggravation. Everything went wrong. What a nightmare that was!!! The positive outcome was that we only ended up paying a fraction of the price we had in mind, due to Amazon’s generosity with refunds. That made up some of the income missed out on by Mark. We also used Amazon gift certificates for a bunch of household goods. The credit you see in the camper category underneath is a refund from our US car insurance after we made changes to go to Mexico.
The grocery and dog categories are unusually high, because we kept stocking up on specialty items for us and dog food for Maya to consume on the Baja California peninsula this winter. Mark and I agreed to spoil ourselves with take-out once a week, while he worked the night shift. The second time this happened, our friend Greg paid us a quick visit in Phoenix. We only had a couple of hours to catch up, over a late lunch, but what a nice distraction this was. No more “dining out” afterwards, as Mark was not employed anymore. The second photo is of a cheap, healthy, vegetarian, easy, and tasty Mexican dinner: tostados with chopped vegetables and refried beans.
December is gift month, but we did pretty well here. I created, ordered, and shipped my annual calendars (with a photo of our little family in different locations for each month) to our loved ones in Belgium and the US. I still had the refund of my unusable Plunge banner from Vistaprint (see this writing update post) for the US versions of the calendar. And, for my birthday the end of November, I was promised a shopping spree at Trader Joe’s for goodies we never buy, namely unhealthy snacks! I spent half of my $50 allowance and am still enjoying the splurges now, after sharing the dessert items with friends earlier this month.
Our other expense categories were reasonable. Mark finally bought a drill, which has come in really handy. I found extra t-shirts at a thrift store and did a few laundry loads, we topped off our propane tanks, and Mark took Thirsty to a carwash.
On Christmas Day, we finally had a fun afternoon outing away from the RV park. Our trio went for a decent hike in White Tank Mountain Regional Park, where a trickle of a waterfall became our destination.
Like I mentioned before, I am now adding the credits from our Chase card (money earned back by using our Sapphire Preferred card) to our final total. If you’re looking for a new credit card that offers you 60,000 points (a value of $600).
Stay tuned for our annual 2021 expense report in a couple of weeks!
Find all our expense reports here. To learn what other full-time nomads spend each month, check out the blogs of our vanlife friends Duwan and Greg at Make Like An Ape Man.
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January 14, 2022 at 19:55
I’m curious about what life is like for Mark and you when you’re living a more traditional lifestyle such as when Mark was working out of the warehouse. Do you like or dislike it? Perhaps it’s more a feeling of relief that you have steady income coming in? It sounds like a mixed blessing because I’m sure it’s nice to have money, but the tradeoff was you weren’t thrilled about your living conditions.
What’s next? (These damn teachers with all of their questions.)🤣 Perhaps you’re saving that for a future blog post.
January 15, 2022 at 22:07
Here’s the thing, Pete. For the last few years, I feel like all we have been doing is “living on the road.” What I mean by that is that we have been driving around from place to place, park for a few days in a row (unless trying to get somewhere fast, then it’s just one night at a time), and do our thing: camper projects, running errands, working on the computer for me, and walking Maya. Nothing exciting, nothing adventurous, nothing new.
Then, I compare myself to other nomads out here, friends of ours, who sightsee, hike, swim, snorkel, go to hot springs, visit national parks, and have a jolly good life. They do the things I’d like to do, spend money like there’s no tomorrow, and they blog and post about their activities – way more interesting stuff than what we’ve been doing.
A couple of times a year, we really try hard to finish things up and enjoy ourselves a bit – Baja California for a few weeks last spring, South Dakota for a couple of weeks this past fall. That’s why we live this lifestyle, right? And then it’s back to the grunt. Often, when we anticipate more fun times, an array of things goes wrong and we wonder if this is the right life for us. The balance between work/frustrations and fun is often not there.
I’m getting off track, though. Let me answer your question: I have lots of passions and there just isn’t time enough to fulfill even a fraction of them. So, when we sit still for a while (summer at the in-laws or that month in December), it gives me a chance to focus on my writing, personal projects, and book promo. I enjoy it, but from the moment I face a few weeks being stationary, I already crave getting on the road again. And, once on the road, I have zero time anymore for the writing projects, because we have other priorities (and Mark hates my “addiction” to the internet or computer.)
It’s hard to find a balance, but that’s what I want. A “normal life” would be interesting for us, if that means having more space. I’d be curious about how we would fare with that, as we’ve never done it. Each time we dedicate to non-stop work and projects, we knew there would be an end to it, so that makes it feasible.
And, yes, having a steady income for a while would make things easier, but it would take away from our freedom… 🙂
January 14, 2022 at 23:11
You guys had a crazy December. The Xmas sunset pic is spectacular. Those are the southwest sunsets I look forward to. So where are you now? <3
January 15, 2022 at 22:22
We finally made it to Baja California a few days ago – about halfway down the peninsula at the moment. When are you leaving for Mexico?
January 16, 2022 at 10:12
End of January. Crossing fingers. xx
January 16, 2022 at 15:13
Fingers crossed for you from here as well!! Xxx
January 15, 2022 at 06:43
Liesbet, you guys are amazing! You are such great models of frugal, happy living. I’m curious – how does your US car insurance change when you go to Mexico? ~Terri
January 15, 2022 at 22:35
Haha. Thanks, Terri. The happy living part could be a bit better…
So, in December when we knew we’d go to Mexico soon, we called our US insurance (which does not cover us in Mexico comprehensively – the one we had with Zesty did cover us south of the border) to see which items could be reduced. We just inquired and didn’t want to make any changes. We would actually make these changes in January once we arrived in Mexico. The employee scrutinized our policy and came up with a discount if we lowered certain items that didn’t matter, which we did. This resembled the insurance credit.
The main adjustment happened recently (and will be incorporated in our January expenses), which is what you might be more interested in. In Massachusetts you are required to have a minimum insurance policy, because without insurance you are not allowed to have a car, despite being abroad. So, we recently lowered the amount to its bare minimum and paused everything else. The refund for that amount will go (or went) towards the car insurance we bought in and for Mexico.
I hope this makes sense? This is Mark’s forte and this is how I understood it. 🙂
January 16, 2022 at 07:21
Thanks Liesbet, great explanation. So you get insurance in Mexico. Will you have to do that for every country you plan to visit? The reason I ask is that when we lived outside the US for many years, we had a tough time getting insurance when we returned. But by keeping the minimum required by Massachusetts, you’ll be just fine when you return. Smart thinking! ~Terri
January 16, 2022 at 15:12
Hi Terri,
Yes, we will need a new insurance policy in every country once we reach South America. When we return to the US in a couple of months, we will reinstate our “old” US policy. Mark made sure this was possible and took a screenshot to compare all the clauses and whatever we had checked before. He also learned that the insurance adjusters can access the previous versions of our policy and reinstate them. I think Mark can do this online himself as well.
We still have to research everything regarding South America. Maybe there’s a company that covers multiple countries…
January 15, 2022 at 10:51
I second Gallivance’s vote. You guys are truly amazing. I am always inspired by your Monthly Expense Reports.
January 15, 2022 at 22:36
Thanks, Donna. We seem to be doing a bit better these weeks. 🙂
January 15, 2022 at 12:47
You know how to do Christmas cheap. It’s amazing how you live. I know I couldn’t do it.
January 15, 2022 at 22:36
Hi Alex! Sometimes we wish we could spend some more money to ease our uptightness! 🙂
January 15, 2022 at 15:36
You had some setbacks, but you did have a nice Christmas–and Maya is happy. I admire the $84.00 credit.
Smoother sailing this month.
P.S. The only time we lived on $1200/month was probably in the 1980s or 1990s – ha!
January 15, 2022 at 22:40
Hi Marian!
Were those cheaper years for you and Cliff while you lived on the road? Of course, you had children as well… If we were to live in a house, we would undoubtedly spend more money. Just the rent/mortgage, utilities, extra household items, furniture, clothes, and house maintenance would “kill” us!
I’m curious about our annual expense report, which we will compose one of these weeks. Mark recently told me we only spent a combined $60 on clothing and footwear in 2021, haha. The other categories were much higher!
January 16, 2022 at 16:27
Another successful budgeting month despite all your challenges! You must be looking forward to Mexico. Will you stay in one place there for a while?
January 20, 2022 at 09:47
Hi Diane!
We arrived in Mexico a week ago and the plan was to slowly explore the Baja peninsula. But, another (family) complication arose, so we had to rush to the Loreto area about 2/3 down Baja California. At the moment, we are dealing with the logistics for me to stay in one place for two weeks, before we can finally head to more exciting locales. It’s so much busier here than last year.
January 17, 2022 at 05:52
Hi Liesbet, I’m amazed that there wasn’t enough work at the Macy’s warehouse to keep Mark on. Given it was December and coming up to Christmas, I can only guess that people were cutting back on gifts, etc. Come to think of it, we did cut back and agreed to stop buying some gifts.
Sorry the campground wasn’t very nice. I’m curious as to why, and I’m sure you’ll let us know. And I’ve never heard of Amazon being so generous in giving credit or refunds. I find it almost impossible to get to speak with a human at Amazon and usually end up selling things on.
January 20, 2022 at 16:01
Hi Hugh,
Unlike Amazon, Macy’s is more an in-person department store than an online shop. It’s famous for their exquisite Christmas parade, I believe. I think they hired extra people, because last season – due to Covid – everyone ordered online. Not so much this past holiday season…
One of the advantages for us regarding ordering pretty much everything we own and need on Amazon is their easy return policy. It must be different in the UK.
And, you’re right, I did share why we didn’t like this particular campground where we stayed most of December. The sentence “We didn’t like it there.” has a link incorporated, which brings you to that post. Or, you can click here or go to the following as well: https://www.roamingabout.com/what-we-dislike-about-western-phoenix-arizona/
January 21, 2022 at 09:37
Thanks, Liesbet. That post was published while I was on my recent blogging break, hence why I never saw it.
And yes, returning goods to Amazon in the UK is not an easy option (unless you join their clothes programme where you get to try things on for 7 days and anything you don’t return by then gets charged to you). In the past, I’ve tended to sell things on if I haven’t liked them, but I don’t tend to order anything over £20. I tend to stick to small inexpensive items and (I’m pleased to say) seldom come unstuck.
January 24, 2022 at 14:35
I guess there are some things that are easier (and cheaper) in the US! Hurray for Amazon. Most of the time… 🙂 I’m glad to read that you have principles – and stick to them, Hugh!
January 17, 2022 at 16:43
Despite Mark losing his job it seems like you had a good December. New tires! Free solar panel! Treats from Trader Joe’s! Visit from Greg! Even Maya got a new toy.
That tostada looks tasty. Oh and I’m buying new tires too. But I’m spending quite a bit more than you intended to on yours. Hopefully these new ones will last awhile and be good for the rough roads in Baja.
January 20, 2022 at 16:06
Hi Duwan,
Yes, December was more like it, expense-wise. But, we “made” some of the money back in pleasant and unexpected ways. January was going to be much better… Yet, another unexpected change of plans and cost have to be incorporated.
I hope and assume you have your new tires when you read this!? And, we will have to make tostadas whenever we hook up again… 🙂