Our 2017 Expense Sheet

[GR "Scott" Cundiff]

Here's our 2017 Fulltime Expense sheet.  In spite of the ins and outs of unexpected expenses and surprise savings, we came in almost exactly on our projected budget - within $30 on the entire year.  I chalk that up to pure luck rather than any budgeting discipline or skill on my part!  Anyway, here's the link to my 2017 entry: 2017 End of Year Expense Report

[FULLTIMEWANABE]

Scott once again a huge thanks for sharing as you do each year     Happy New Year and hope 2018 is a great one for you.

[Cementmaker]

This is very good information, as we will begin our travels on April 1st.  Just one question, how many miles do you travel and how long do you generally stay in one location?

 

Happy new year.

 

[GR "Scott" Cundiff]

1 hour ago, Cementmaker said:

This is very good information, as we will begin our travels on April 1st.  Just one question, how many miles do you travel and how long do you generally stay in one location?

 

Happy new year.

 

We did just under 5000 miles towing in 2017.  A rule of thumb for us is that we do equal to that in sightseeing, just living, etc. so you can put us down for 10,000 miles on the year.  We did about 4 months volunteering and then two one month stays.  The rest of the time we moved around once a week.  

When you are working with other people's expense lists it is wise to do exactly what you are doing here - drill down so you can use the portions of information that will apply to you.  

Also, I will mention that most people, when they first start out, are in "vacation mode" that includes lots of shorter stops and longer days of driving. Once you get past that period you will likely slow down.

We did a couple of 1 month stops this year and decided that we really don't like them very much.  It does save some money but we get hitch itch and are ready to travel again.  In the future we may do just 1 one month stay early in the year but I doubt we will want to do back to back stops that long again.

Also, in addition to our regular 3 month winter volunteering-for-campsite gig I agreed to an additional 1 month fill in job.  We were glad to help out, but, really, that's too much sitting around.

Good luck on your planning.  I hope you enjoy it as much as we do.

Edited January 1, 2018 by GR "Scott" Cundiff

[GR "Scott" Cundiff]

Update: I got ambitious tonight and created a spreadsheet that includes 2013-2017 using annual figures.  The information is actually the same as you would find in the year end reports, but it is presented in spreadsheet format and gives annual amounts rather than monthly averages.  It might help some folks doing research to see all the information in this way.  Annual Expenses 2013-2017

[GR "Scott" Cundiff]

50 minutes ago, rm.w/aview said:

Record keeping to the penny Tedious, impressive, and much appreciated work, thanks for sharing!

Ha - might just be a symptom of being a tightwad.  

I have a expense app on my phone - anytime we spend money I enter the amount in the phone.  If it is cash, I may be a bit less accurate on things like eating out.  If it is a credit card charge or bank charge, I have to get it right or I can't balance the statement.  It has become almost second nature to enter expenditures in the phone.

[GR "Scott" Cundiff]

I'm using the paid version of this Android app - there's a bit of a learning curve, but it makes record keeping pretty easy.

[Jesse A]

Thanks for the info! Defiantly helps with our own fiances. We noticed that campsites was a very large cost along with diesel, we try to boondock as much as possible.

[GR "Scott" Cundiff]

12 hours ago, Jesse A said:

Thanks for the info! Defiantly helps with our own fiances. We noticed that campsites was a very large cost along with diesel, we try to boondock as much as possible.

Thanks - glad it helps.  A lot of people love boondocking and I know it saves a lot of money too.

[Jesse A]

11 hours ago, GR "Scott" Cundiff said:

Thanks - glad it helps.  A lot of people love boondocking and I know it saves a lot of money too.

Yes it does I think we definitely underestimated our diesel cost, we are also new so we love to see new things, typically moving once a week.