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 and extensive care, we return to the US East Coast. Other health issues are resolved locally and out of pocket where needed.
In March, Mark, Maya, Thirsty Bella, and I left the Carretera Austral in Chile and explored the Lake Districts in that country and in Argentina.
We hopped back and forth between Argentina and Chile a couple of times.
Before I get into our expenditure details of last month, I want to say something about our income. Throughout my blog posts, I mention that we both work on the road. Yet, some of you are still surprised about us trying to make a living, not being retired (will we ever?), or the extra challenges that come with the need to earn money.
Mark and I have been nomads for 20+ years and we have had several jobs during that time. (I elaborate on those in my sailing memoir Plunge.) Otherwise, we couldn’t have traveled this long and this far. And, no, we don’t have rental income or a property anywhere. Our camper – and whatever it holds – is all we own, apart from a few boxes of memorabilia, stored with family in Belgium and the US.
At the moment, since my translation and proofreading jobs have dried up, Mark and I both work as freelancers, completing different tasks that aim to improve AI. While Mark’s work is straightforward, steady, and poorly paid, my projects are sporadic, specific, complicated, and with a higher hourly rate. Rarely, our monthly income covers our expenses. We still have to dig into savings to support ourselves. That’s the reason we need to spend less money. We always try…
Which brings me to our expenses of March, during which we did not succeed to live frugally. As a matter of fact, it was an expensive month. But if you look at the details, it is easy to understand why our total reached $2,000; many hundreds of dollars above our average.
As you’ve come to expect, the car category is the highest again. We actually left Chile to cover a substantial distance in Argentina, where the gasoline is cheaper, before returning to Chile. Still, we spent $419 on fuel. Since motor oil (as well as any imported products) are cheaper in Chile than in its neighbor, we bought enough for our next oil change (7 liters), at a price of $49. The rest of the “car money” went to tolls ($4) and a parking lot for a hike ($3).
Filling up with gasoline in Argentina
The extra category that made our total “jump” was an occurrence that we usually attend to in April or May: Mark’s annual summer visit to Massachusetts for health care and family reasons. He and I were loosely chatting about where in South America he should leave from in July, while Maya and I stay behind. I’m confident we will be in Brazil by then, so he looked into plane rides from São Paulo (more affordable than Rio de Janeiro), and, before I knew it, he had booked flights, because the price was right. Indeed, $435 for a return journey between São Paulo and Boston is a good deal!
Our grocery bill went up again, because we bought a few things in Chile that are not available, or twice the price, in Argentina. We do feel $400 a month for food shopping in third world countries is on the high side. To be honest, we can’t wait to reach cheaper countries again after more than a year of expensive shopping.
And, since we would leave Chile indefinitely in March, we stocked up on Maya’s dog food ($200) as well, for reasons mentioned above – it’s either not available or more expensive elsewhere in South America. Unless Brazil surprises us! Now, she can keep eating her high-end, salmon-based, chicken-less kibble for another six months or so. We needed a new international health permit for her to cross into Chile as well.
Mark and I went rafting in Chile, which you might have read about in my previous post. Yes, for the privilege of almost drowning, we paid $188. Other than that unfortunate glitch, it was a lot of fun. I’ll mention here that the US dollar kept devaluating against the Chilean peso. So, while a year ago 1,000 pesos amounted to one USD, this was not the case anymore in 2025. Another reason the scales are shifting towards Argentina again, where the US dollar is becoming stronger.
Mark celebrated his birthday on March 1st, so we could potentially have added all our activities for that event under the gift category, but we didn’t. The rafting trip is mentioned above and other related expenses below. Because we changed plans, we arrived in Futaleufú that day, allowing us to enjoy a fabulous, fancy dinner at an excellent restaurant. The cost was $80. The other $11 for “dining out” went to empanadas and a portion of French fries bought at street stands.
We only ate at a restaurant once in March and that was for a special occasion. All the other dinners were cooked and consumed at home.
A bottle of Bacardi rum and a myriad of Malbec, Carménère, and Chardonnay wines constituted our $56 bill for alcohol. Thanks to a donation from MD, this number wasn’t higher. 😊
Dinner al fresco
While we were heading north on the Carretera Austral in Chile (where no facility fills propane bottles), we were running low on propane gas, causing us to be super careful using the heater. We often felt cold inside the camper. This precaution allowed us to reach Argentina, where American tanks can be filled, either at depots or by the gravity-fill method. Unfortunately, the facility we planned to get our tank full again didn’t have crew on Saturday morning to help us out, despite the depot being open…
This meant we had to make it to a bigger town before noon (when businesses close for the weekend), namely Bariloche. Three attempts later, we found a man willing to sell us propane… at the crazy price of $5 per kilo (or $45 for a full tank). Since we were in a bind – our tank was utterly empty by then, because we had confidently run the heater in the morning, thinking we’d get propane an hour later – we had him fill half our tank. Only to repeat this cautious and stressful procedure a month later. Our next camper will NOT have a propane system.
And we paid the usual monthly subscription to Starlink for our satellite internet ($36). Our business takes care of the other half. A better exchange rate in Argentina saw a slight drop in this fee.
Mark never wants anything for his birthday, so we went rafting and I bought him some goodies – Belgian-style beer and homemade jelly – in a small grocery store. This year, I didn’t even have access to a Western-style supermarket to spoil him.
On his birthday, we also went out for a drink at a brewery in Futaleufú, something we rarely do. It was nice to just listen to music and relax on a patio with Maya. Until it got too chilly.
Anyone who follows us on Facebook might have seen multiple series of photos of us doing laundry in the icy Patagonian rivers. We continued that tradition in March, since laundromats are, really, very expensive.
One shop charged $1 per piece of clothing; sheets, sweaters, towels, and jeans didn’t count. Well, those are the exact items that are difficult to hand wash! Luckily, lake water is warmer than river water! We eventually found a shop where we dropped off our sheets and bigger items for a total of $10.
The last two categories were peanuts. We bought more painkillers, since the container of Tylenol we brought back from the US is going fast, due to my frequent headaches and migraines. And, we needed a new spray bottle for a bleach solution to attack the mold created by condensation and frigid weather.
Every night in March, we camped for free. We enjoyed most of these quiet places in nature.
In April 2025, we will still be driving a lot – this continent is big – but we will do our best to stay within our budget.
(It might be easier to read the table when turning your device in the horizontal position.)
Find all our expense reports here. To learn what other full-time nomads spend, check out the blogs of our nomad friends Duwan and Greg at Make Like An Ape Man.
Next up: The Life of a Prehistoric Nomad – a guest post by author and blogger Jacqui Murray
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April 7, 2025 at 11:53
Your food always looks so good.
April 8, 2025 at 09:17
Haha, thanks, Jacqui. We like to eat well and healthy.
April 7, 2025 at 12:45
We just paid $5.79 per gallon for gas in California last week and half of that today in South Dakota.
April 8, 2025 at 09:18
Wow, Pete. Such a difference. I wish you could stock up on your fuel in the Dakotas! California is so darn expensive!
April 7, 2025 at 14:56
It’s nice to hear that you’ve found some peaceful places to camp lately. Your bigger expenditures this month might have felt uncomfortable, but next month will likely be back to your usual lower totals since you’ve finished “stocking up” for a while. Besides, an excellent meal in an higher-end restaurant is an important reward for all your previous frugality! 🙂 (A belated happy birthday to Mark.)
April 8, 2025 at 09:22
Hi Diane,
I hope you’re right about more average spending this month. We are still driving a lot, which seems to be the case every month on this big continent, but we do plan to take it a bit easier, hanging out with two sets of friends in April and another one in May. Which brings other expenses. 🙂
And, yes, no complaints about our recent camping spots. We are utterly trying to avoid being stuck overnight in cities and that has worked well, lately. Now, we are heading to Mendoza in Argentina and we will have to spend a few nights in the center of town for shopping and errands, but we know what we’re getting into as we’ve been there before.
April 7, 2025 at 17:10
Hopefully you can get away from the countries with more expensive items. And yes, the food looks awesome.
April 8, 2025 at 09:23
Thanks, Alex. Mark is a good cook. We still have to cover a lot of ground in Argentina, but we hope Paraguay will bring better prices – and roads. 🙂
April 7, 2025 at 18:18
I think it is hilarious that you have ‘rafting’ designated under “Entertainment” instead of under “Holy Terror.” Just saying.
April 8, 2025 at 09:27
Hi Jim,
You have a really good point. And you made me smile. I guess we need a Terror or Horror category, but I doubt it will be frequented a lot. Hopefully. Who wants to pay for such a thing? 🙂 Well, the rafting was supposed to be entertainment… And 3/4 of it was. Maybe a split category?
(I deleted your other comment as it seemed you entered it twice – or even three times. I kept the one from the email account or sign-in widget you usually use. Sorry for the inconvenience.)
April 8, 2025 at 10:19
My computer hiccuped when I was entering my comment. Thanks for deleting the duplicates.
April 13, 2025 at 11:31
You’re welcome, Jim. Don’t you love modern technology? 🙂
April 7, 2025 at 22:10
Happy belated birthday to Mark. As others have mentioned your food pics always look delicious — and I know first hand what great cooks both of you are! <3
April 8, 2025 at 09:29
Hi Donna,
That would be Mark being a great cook. But I’m a great assistant and dish cleaner! 🙂 I ought to stop taking photos of our meals, though, as it drives him crazy. But, I need some footage for the expense reports, haha.
April 8, 2025 at 04:20
It looks like you are still rocking it! Well done. The rafting looks fun!
April 8, 2025 at 09:30
Hi Amanda,
Welcome back! Oh yeah, we are still rocking it, haha. The lifestyle anyway; the budget a tad less. But, the world is becoming an expensive place everywhere.
The rafting was fun until it wasn’t anymore and we almost died…
April 8, 2025 at 13:32
Hey, thanks for posting this. I’m seriously embarrassed to say what we spent in Scottsdale in March and that’s with staying in a friends house for free. The US is super expensive and won’t be getting cheaper anytime soon if ever. We leave for SE Asia in June and it couldn’t come anytime sooner.
Say hello to the Gublers when you see them.
Safe travels. Should have never left…..
April 13, 2025 at 11:36
Well, hello, Rodney! Thanks for swinging by and leaving a comment.
I can only imagine how prices are soaring in the US as well. I’m glad you managed to do Argentina before the “big rise” as, honestly, the inflation is out of control. When we arrived a year ago, prices had doubled or tripled since our friends (including you) were here. Now, a year later, they’ve doubled again. Luckily, the exchange rate has gotten better. We need to head north to cheaper countries now.
We handed out “hellos” and hugs at the Gublers place. And they were well and happily received. I’ll send you some photos of their property soon.
Enjoy SE Asia. It will be super different than here, but a nice break for the wallet. Well, after you leave Japan. 🙂
April 8, 2025 at 19:04
Even though you spent more than you’d like, I think you two do a great job reining in the expenses. I’d love to know a little more about your work with AI… it sounds interesting (maybe not the work, but the concept). Beautiful camping spot near the waterfall! I hope you were able to stay there for a bit.
April 13, 2025 at 11:46
Hi Janis,
We feel like we are constantly reining in our expenses. But now we are wondering why, since all our savings are crashing thanks to the Mr. Idiot in charge. So, we are blowing our budget of April on purpose, to splurge and have a good time with friends. Better to spend it than loose it.
We only stayed one night by the waterfall. It is freezing at night in the mountains, so we had to deal with all those circumstances in our little-insulated camper.
Regarding AI. Mark has been working around that for two years, performing different tasks. The bottom line is that he has to rate Google results against parameters, so AI learns which results are better than others. And, he is doing related work to that as well, basically “grading” answers and data.
I had a temporary job where I was asked to create “prompts” in Flemish to train those data models in that language. I had to follow strict guidelines when creating actions for AI to follow my requests. It’s tricky to explain.
For example, I was given instructions like maximum or minimum word count, kind of task, category, structured or not structured (JSON-format), etc. in order to create a prompt for or demand from AI. Then, a reviewer would go through my prompts and either accept or reject them. All this to train AI about giving correct answers to users, based on their inquiries. I hope that makes sense.
April 11, 2025 at 17:03
Good job on getting a good price on the flight.
Your sour dough looks sooo good! We found some good sour dough bread at a bakery here in Cusco, but every time we go they are out. We are back to our good store-bought bread – which luckily we can find here because there are major grocery stores!
It looks like you spent extra this past month on a few nice (and death-defying) indulgences. I’m glad you got to treat yourself.
All the food looks great – and the settings wonderful.
I think Paraguay will be a lot cheaper!
April 13, 2025 at 11:49
Hi Duwan,
Yeah, Cusco is a good city for food and shopping. I’ll see if I can find the bakery we used to go to and really liked and send it to you.
Yeah, when Mark found a flight to Boston for that price, he snatched it up. Usually, they cost closer to $800. We are looking forward to Paraguay and its lower prices! And to seeing you two!
April 15, 2025 at 17:15
Hi Liesbet, I’m always amazed at your expenses posts. I’m always curious to see how much things cost in the various parts of the world. Considering how crazy the world is becoming with price increases, I think you’re doing a great job. I hope next month is easier on you. Hugs <3
April 16, 2025 at 07:52
Hi Debby,
As a whole, we are a bit disappointed about the relatively high prices and cost of living in South America. We thought we could live on much less in these countries. Colombia and Ecuador were affordable, but all the other ones so far have been quite expensive to us. We hear Paraguay and Brazil are more manageable. We shall see! 🙂