November $$

If you have been following our journey you already know that our goals are to:

• manage our household finances in a way we never have - being conscious and mindful of each dollar we spend, 
• follow a budget, 
• find ways to reduce our monthly expenses, 
• save money,  
• plan our twelve week cross-country trip, and ultimately hit the road!  

Because we are living on one, academic year income (9 months of pay), we have to spread out the money over the whole year to make this work.  Our budget, per month, is $2600; or $1300 every two weeks.  That comes out to $33,800 per year and we plan on taking a 12-week vacation on that budget from May to August.    As a family who previously lived large and wastefully on two incomes this is a huge change for us.  From time to time I want to update you (and document for myself) on how we are doing in our blissfully small, cheap, and simple life. 

Well the pennies have been counted and the final grocery/restaurant/household items budget for November was $850...$50 over the goal - but it's the closest we have ever come to our budget!

In other news we spent exactly $2563 during the month of November - $2600 is the maximum we have allotted for all of our monthly expenses.  If we spend less than $2600/month we will put the extra into savings.  When we sell off our personal property from our storage shed we put that money into savings.  Our budget is only based off of the portion of my income that we want to spend, I split my check - a portion to savings and $1300 to the checking every two weeks.  A year before we sold our house I hypothesized that we could live on $2000/month if we were in an RV.  The reality is slightly more expensive, but not by too much and there are still many ways we can reduce - we are still new at this!

Here is a breakdown of November's expenses:

• The food/household items costs ($850) above are included in that total 
• Monthly lot rent ($538)
• Cell phone/internet ($100) for our two smart phones with unlimited data from TMobile - and we use our phones as hotspots for our internet access/streaming media, etc
• Electricity bill for October ($88)
• Propane - after six months we refilled one of our tanks for the first time ($25)!  
• Brother's BD is in December and we decided to buy him a tablet ($135) (from China), and some comic books ($20)
• We spent roughly $25 on each kiddo for Christmas - we traditionally have only bought things that can fit into their stockings - ($47).  There have been many years we have strictly observed a Buy Nothing Christmas (before kids and while Brother was very young) but it is harder as the kids grow and are exposed to the barrage of nonsense at school at this time of year.  Thankfully Sister is largely blissfully unaware.  We felt a good compromise was a stocking with store-bought toys to compliment our presence, activities, and handmade items.  
• We had entertainment expenses for Netflix and a trip to the movie theater ($41) don't tell Senator Chuck Grassley!
• Gas and auto maintenance ($100)
• Storage unit rental for our 5x5 air-conditioned space ($60)
• We had some miscellaneous expenses including things like medical co-pays, prescriptions, gifts, packing materials for shipping out personal property that was sold on ebay, clothing, I needed a thermos for my coffee to take to work... ($139)
• As we have been in the Hideout for six months our insurance was due.  We pay every six months ($420) for full-time RV insurance and insurance for our two vehicles - a 2015 Toyota Tacoma and a 2009 Toyota Yaris.  Our insurance is through Geico.

Well, there it is.  I feel very happy with this month's spending.  I don't feel that we were lacking or wanting for anything.  We took a couple of free trips to the Tempe Town Lake for family time and I am on the lookout for other free or low cost activities.  I suppose our expenses likely look like most Americans' just on a smaller scale.  What sorts of things are included in your monthly expenses that I might not have discussed?  Also, let me know if you have questions that you would like me to address in a future post!