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.
In October, Mark, Maya, and I lived in our room above the garage for the first two weeks and back on the road, in our camper van Zesty, the rest of the month. The expense report is a tad messy, because of stipends and reimbursements of Mark’s employer, the US Census. These are incorporated in our expenses (*), which is the reason why the dining out category shows $0 (Mark received a stipend of $70 a day while “on location” for ten days in September; he didn’t need it all, so we’re still using some of that money now) and why the camper category is lower than it should be (Mark received a per mile reimbursement that was more generous than what his fuel cost during his two-month Census job). I did not attribute the $60 we used in credit card points (instead of cash). Confused yet?
As you can see, I’m still spending a lot of money on my writing career. I owed my copy-editor another $528, we bought a pack of ISBN-numbers (these are exorbitantly-priced identification numbers) for current and future books (I needed three for Plunge – paperback, Kindle, ePub), I paid my cover artist for the eBook cover, and we needed to buy the title font of my memoir, so we could utilize it inside the book. One day, I should calculate how many books I actually have to sell to get all these investments back! 🙂 Camping still remained free.
Groceries and alcohol are a bit high, which has to do with us visiting a few sets of friends in October. Same reason for the gift items. And then there is the clothes category. Here’s that story…
The three of us had just left in our camper, destination Annapolis, Maryland. A couple of hours north of town, we stopped to eat lunch in Zesty. We don’t usually wear our shoes inside, so Mark had left his outside. After our meal, he needed to call a friend. There was a lot of noise, because someone decided to drag race his dilapidated car in front of the gas station we were parked at. I shut the door to keep the ruckus out as Mark talked. Two hours later, we arrived at the home of our Annapolis friend. Before Mark got out of the car, he asked: “Where are my shoes?”
His go-to brand has been discontinued, so for the next ten days he researched and eventually bought another pair of shoes, slightly used. We had them shipped to the post office in Hot Springs, Arkansas, and, since they were not brand new, he obtained them for half price. After two weeks of only wearing flip flops in fall, he was delighted to own a pair of hiking shoes again!
To learn what other full-time nomads spend each month, check out the expense blogs of our vanlife friends Duwan and Greg at Make Like An Ape Man.
