Budget Reports for December and November

Below are the budget reports for December and November. Sorry for the delay in posting November’s report, but I thought it would be important to include with the December one.

- Joshua

December Monthly Budget Report

December was an interesting month for many reasons, but mainly because we spent 23.4% on meals out (much higher than any other month on the trip). I think this was because we didn’t spend many nights in the RV and we have a tendency to eat out more whenever we’re in a hotel or staying with friends and family.

Gas came in second with 22.8% which was pretty unsurprising, because we didn’t travel as much during the month of December as we had in previous months.

In 3rd place came transportation with 13.7% of our monthly budget. This was mainly because of a rental car in Hood River, OR. But also includes a few taxis, a rental car in San Francisco and the ferry from Seattle onto the Olympic Peninsula..

Currently, for the entire trip, we are over budget by 1.7%, to get back on budget we will have to decrease our daily spending by 7.7% for the month of January, which I think is achievable.

Below are the graphs showing spending by category for the trip-to-date and month of December, followed by the November report.






Monthly Budget Report for November

November, the month of Thanksgiving, Eating, sitting around and getting fat. And boy, do our numbers reflect that.

For example, Gas. In October we spent 34.6% of our budget on fuel for the big pig, In November that went down to 11.7% this is because.
A) We weren’t driving as much.
B) We were in Canada for October, and their gas prices were really expensive.

Lodging, the main reasons why lodging fell from 13.2% in October to 8.8% in November are because:
A) We stayed in a lot of friend’s houses.
B) In October we stayed at a few hotels.
C) We got a great deal on a Hood River Vacation rental from www.hrvacations.com please rent from them if you’re ever in the ‘hood.

Also Groceries more than doubled from a small 9.6% all the way to 20.2% in November. I think this was because:
A) We ate more.
B) We had a real kitchen in all of the houses.

Restaurant Meals increased too, by 3.6 percentage points. My ideas as to why this happened:
A) We actually spent more money on restaurant meals in the month of October, but since we spent much more overall in October, meals out was a smaller percentage.

Below is a graph showing spending by category for November