The B Word

Too many people spend money they earned... to buy things they don't want..to impress people that they don't like.
​-Will Rogers

One of the most commonly asked questions we get as we chat with people about what we're doing is about money. "How are you paying for this" or some various of that. It's a question typically asked in a nervous voice with a fearful look as to say, "I hope this doesn't offend you, but I really want to know." ​Guess what - it doesn't offend. So, here it is. This is a break down of our cost for the months of November and December. We'll post these cost break down after each month.

Before we dive in to it, a few clarifications on related questions we frequently get asked:

Are we independently wealthy and traveling with that money?
Unfortunately, no.

Are we living off saving or the sale of a house?
No.

Do you still work?
Yes. Both of us, everyday.

In planning to do this, our goal was to stay as close to normal monthly spending as we could. We started that by figuring out how much we spend every month on average. You can read a little more about that HERE. 

First of all, please understand we are not those people who budget very well - or at all really.  We talk about it from time to time and have tried spreadsheets, keeping receipts and all the other penny watching techniques over the years. Most of the time as part of new resolutions. And like most new years resolutions we typically abandoned our budgeting before February started.

In order to see how much this whole adventure is actually costing us, we are working a bit more diligently to ensure we track what's happening.

I can safely say I've always hated budgeting. So, I knew if this was going to work we had to figure something out that was easy. Here's what we did:

To start - a plan. We determined we did not want to have a bazillion spending categories to track. We'd have 4.

They are:

• All Life (anything from gas to t-shirts to amusement park tickets - it's all here)
• All Food (fast food, grocery food and everything else we ate)
• Rent (rent, internet, utilities, etc.) 
• Health (insurance, doctor, etc.)

We then set a goal for what we wanted to spend in each category per month.  

• All Life - $800
• All Food - $800
• Rent - $2000
• Health - $750
• Total - $4350

These were our starting spending goals. 

We then needed a way to track everything. We ended up using Mint.com. Set ups our budget categories and categorized everything into one of the 4 as we spent.

The budget represents  everything we spent outside of saving money. Health insurance, car insurance,  rent, utilities, clothes, etc., etc. All included. 

Could be have spend less? Probably. There are things we certainly could have cut out or spend less on. Could we have spend more? Easily. We have tried to find a balance of comfort and experience on a budget we think works well for us. 


NOVEMBER 
Not so good...

Rent - Nailed it!
1 month stay at 3 bedroom condo in New Baunfels, TX. All utilities and internet included in cost.
$1846

Health - Boo yeah!

​All Food - :(
no go

All Life - :(
as you can see from our mint.com screen shot, we did NOT make this goal. ​

November summary:
Rent: $1846
Health: $600
Food: $935
Life: $2774
Total: $6155

$1805 over our spending goal

Our first month was quite a bit more expensive than anticipated. A look back at the month to see where that money went and we see a few big things. We traveled inside Texas quite a bit. Lots of gas money. We also decided this month to sell our large and bulky Wii U and get personal game systems (Switch) that would be more suitable for travel. We did get $250 for the for Wii U on ebay - so technically we could take that $250 off the $2774 - still a more expensive month that we had planned for. 


​DECEMBER 
Closer to target spending - sort of...

To start this month we adjusted our spending goals for December to the following:

• All Life - $1000
• All Food - $1000
• Rent - $2000
• Health - $750
• Total - $4750

We knew December would be a little different for two reasons.
First - We booked a cruise for the second week of the month. Because this was book and paid for well before we set out on this journey that cost is NOT include into the budget. 

Second - Christmas. We are limited on what we can have due to our space constraints, but Christmas is not a cheap time of year. Our thought was maybe  the two event would balance out our spending for the month.

​Here's the damage:

Rent - Yup!
$487 - 1 week (first week of the month) in near Beaumont, TX
$160 - 2 night in a hotel in New Orleans, LA
$850 - 2 weeks in 3 bed, 2 bath 18th story beach front Panama City Beach, FL Beach.
We rented 4 week here for the total cost of $1700 (last 2 weeks of Dec and first 2 weeks of Jan.) - this might be the best deal of our trip. Amazing location at a stupid low price. 

Total $1497


Health - Got it
This included a trip to a doctor and cortisone shot to Shanae's knee - not what she wanted for Christmas.

All Food - Nope

All Life - No

November summary:
Rent: $1497
Health: $718
Food: $1256
Life: $1188
Total: $4659

$91 under 

These first two months have been a learning experience for us in so many ways. Through the highs and lows of trying to figure it all out our spending and budgeting has been at the heart of much of that learning. For example - buying groceries. Grocery shopping and eating at home is cheaper than eating out right? Not to mention healthier. But, how do you buy groceries when you don't have items that you reuse in a pantry. And what if you don't have the space to pack up a pantry of goods and transport them from place to place? One of the areas we're trying to figure out how to best spend money with effectively.

​We'll continue to report our spending each month through the end of this journey. Hopefully getting better at sticking to our target spending.