theboondork's RV blog

my expenses for January 2019

2/2/2019

My neighborhood at the Dateland Arizona RV Park.

Instead of posting my boring expenses for the month I was thinking of doing something fun instead, maybe going someplace and doing some tourist things, or treating myself to a restaurant meal, maybe even taking in some scenery. But then I remembered I'm in Dateland, there's no restaurants, there are no tourist, and I can see all the scenery there is out my windows.

So here's my expenses for the month of January.

CAMPING ---- $34 ---- all of that was for the last two days of the month, which is two days of the Dateland RV parks weekly rate. And that's a small price to pay for the thrill and excitement of having a freight train that goes through the RV Park every 30 minutes.

TRUCK ----0---- that's the kind of expenses I like to see.

FUEL ----$48---- I haven't driven very far this month I started the month at the Hi Jolly boondocking area in Quartzsite Arizona and ended it in Dateland Arizona, with a stop at Yuma in the middle.

TRAILER ----$38---- no repairs or anything like that this was just odds and ends mostly for my rearview camera installation.

GROCERIES ----$280---- I'm always amazed at how my grocery expense come out about the same every month, I don't try to do that, it just seems to happen on its own.

EAT OUT ---- $20---- that's more than I usually spend eating out. But that's what happens when I'm anywhere near a Chinese buffet.

UTILITIES ----$310---- WOW! In my wildest dreams I never would've imagined my utility bill would be my largest monthly expense. Some of it was beyond my control in that January was the coldest month I've ever seen in southern Arizona and I had three propane refills that month when normally I would have one, two at the most. But the biggest chunk of that is my phone and Internet. Even though I get all of my Internet now off of my Verizon Jetpack, I'm still maintaining my 20 gigs of expensive hotspot on my cell phone which one day I will get rid of.

PERSONAL ----0---- I stopped shaving and bathing. With a utility bill like that I had to save money somewhere. This not only saved money on soap and razor blades, it has the added benefit of keeping people from parking to close to me.

HOBBIES ----0---- because of my excessive utility bill I've had to modify some of my hobbies so they don't cost as much, so now I push my motorcycle around the desert.

MISCELLANEOUS ----0---- I stopped spending any money On miscellaneous items. I never knew what they were anyway so I don't miss them.

Total expenses for the month $780

I'm pretty happy with that, there's still money that could be saved, utilities for instance but overall that's not bad. But I'm afraid next month I will end up spending that much on Date milkshakes. Because drinking a Date Shake and waving at the engineer as the train flies by is about all there is to do in Dateland.

theboondork

Sunset palm tree.

6 Comments

Tim link

2/4/2019 07:01:25 am

Hi Tom,

Wow, that's amazing how inexpensively you lived last month, especially considering you had to fill up more on propane than usual. In fact, it was so low that I checked you math because I thought your number had to be higher. Actually, there is a mistake, but in the other direction - unless you forgot to add a category in (or I'm doing the math wrong, which is a distinct possibility), the total that I got with these numbers is $730. So, if that is the case, you lived on even less.

Either way, thank you for posting these numbers. It really helps someone like me planning for full-timing in the future.

Tom

2/4/2019 08:52:24 am

You caught me, I wrote down a wrong number when I brought it from my spreadsheet to my blog post. You have just pinpointed the reason I've always had to have a CPA to keep me out of federal prison.

Actually I could've knocked another $50 off if I simply lowered the amount of hotspot data I get on my cell phone, which I no longer use since I've got the unlimited hotspot jetpack. And if I had boondocked for another two days at the Yuma VFW which I easily could have I just didn't feel like it, that would've saved another $34. I could've had a month where I spent $650 to live.

I think that shows that if you make a conscious effort to live frugally it can be done. It's quite often the hobbies, luxuries and fuel costs when I'm traveling, that run up my monthly expenses.

And I really don't live on a budget. I just keep these numbers to see where the moneys going every month for my own personal edification. And before I figured out how to use a spreadsheet I never even added these totals up.

Tom

2/5/2019 06:49:31 am

Thanks again Tom. That is truly amazing how inexpensively you were able to live last month, especially if you were down to $650. Even if you added a few hundred more for extra fuel or hobbies, you'd still be below a $1,000, which is hard to beat. Truly impressive.

2/5/2019 10:15:21 am

And of course it will never be that low every month but the fact that sometimes it is tells me that I'm starting to break some of my old spending habits.

I used to spend money just to be spending it, because I thought buying things made me happy, and that's a very difficult habit to break. It's easy to talk about it, and it's easy to acknowledge it, but for some folks like me it's hard to actually do.

But I've been making a conscious effort to find joy and happiness in life without always having to buy something, or go someplace and do something. Being lazy is an excellent motivation towards that end,

but after a lifetime of always "doing something" I still have to sometimes force myself to just sit and relax and find peace and happiness in doing so. Because even as lazy as I am I still have a twinge of guilt sitting around doing nothing.

I think the most interesting thing to me about that low monthly expense is that I didn't realize I wasn't spending much of anything. I wasn't on a budget, I wasn't denying myself anything, and I was perfectly happy doing whatever I was doing. Because when it comes down to it spending money is a lot like freedom and happiness, it's mostly in your mind.

Tom

2/5/2019 11:23:11 am

I'm in the same mindset as far as buying things. My monthly recurring costs are the biggest factor right now, which many will cease when I live full-time in the RV.

When I had the house, I was constantly buying stuff. Now, I cringe whenever I buy anything. In fact, I have a bunch of gift cards I need to use and I can't even bring myself to use those.

It very much seems to be a mindset to me. What unnerves me is that it would be so easy to go back to a mindset of spending money. I have a friend that is in debt and will talk to me about how he's so worried about it and needs to dig himself out. Then the next week, he's jumped into some new hobby that costs him several thousand dollars (and in a few weeks, he'll drop that hobby and be on to something else). It's a vicious cycle and one that he can't seem to break.

2/5/2019 12:22:23 pm

When you go full time it will be a total and complete change of your life. It won't just be the thought that you can travel everywhere now, it changes EVERYTHING, at least if you're doing it right.

Not having a permanent home to go back to is something most people never experience in their life, and it can be a life-changing experience both good and bad.

Now the point of that is this new life is going to give you the opportunity to leave behind things that you no longer want or need, both physical and mental. So it's an excellent time to sit down and have a serious talk with yourself about what you need in your life, and what needs to be left behind, again, both physical and mental.

Most folks think of that in terms of the physical things they need to get rid of, uninteresting hobbies, a couple of tuxedos, or in my case 8 or 10 pairs of handmade cowboy boots. But the most important thing this life change will do for you, to use a term from the 60s is to "get your head straight".

I'm a different person than I was when the Arctic Fox and I hit the road almost 4 years ago. I guess you could say I'm more laid-back, another one of those 60s terms. Easy-going, unhurried, frugal, at least I'm working on it. And pretty much detached from what's going on in the rest of the world, if it doesn't affect me I don't care anymore.

So I don't think you need to be concerned about your life-changing in a detrimental way when you go full time, or becoming a spendthrift like your friend. You will have plenty of free time to think about the parts of your life you want to keep and the parts that need to be left behind.

So to make it easy I will share with you theboondork's secret recipe of how to be a happy camper. All you need to do is concentrate on the things in your life that bring you the most happiness, the most freedom, and the least stress, and leave everything else scattered across the country at all the places you've camped, and then don't worry, be happy. It's really as simple as that.

Tom

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my expenses for January 2019

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