Our RV Travel Budget Results, August 2007

biodiesel cost in MichiganEven when a fulltimer hits the road, the drudgery of paying bills doesn’t stop. My paperwork got a lot lighter since we sold our business, but I still have to push some around. Especially when we receive a package of mail from Jim’s fabulous sister, who’s handling our PO Box for us.

I’m a fanatic about tracking every cent in Quickbooks Pro, for both our home and our business ventures, spending a couple of days a week keeping our file current. And while it’s not the most exciting way to spend my time, in the long run, it’s going to help us know how long we can afford to keep traveling. Keeping track of spending is critical for someone who wants to take an extended road trip sabbatical.

As CFO, I’m thrilled to report that we are once again under budget for the month of August, 2007, despite some extra expenses, like start up costs for our new StoryBook design and printing business venture .

Being under budget is a relief. Here are some ways we’ve been able to do it:

  1. make lunch on the road, instead of stopping at every cute diner
  2. when we do go out to eat, make it breakfast, or a late lunch instead of dinner
  3. skip bars, and have happy hour at the campground
  4. buy snacks in the grocery store instead of the c-store
  5. make a list and a meal plan before shopping for food
  6. don’t use the cell phone during peak minutes
  7. boondock in public campgrounds more often
  8. buy one all-purpose cleaner instead of many – Simple Green is great!
  9. stay a little longer in new spots we like
  10. avoid all campgrounds with the word “Resort” in the name

If you have any money-saving ideas, please post them here. Meanwhile, here are our two budget reports (also available on our Resources section), for July and August, 2007.

Live Work Dream Expenses August 2007
Live Work Dream Expenses July 2007

Also, here are some great resources with more full time RV budget tracking ideas:

9 thoughts on “Our RV Travel Budget Results, August 2007”

  1. Great article on cutting the cost of RVing. We are Fulltimers as well and feel the pinch of the budget quite often. We wrote alittle about Cutting the Cost of Rving on our website: http://www.fulltime-rving.com/rv-costs.html

    Boondocking is really our favorite way to save money though. We can stay in the most interesting places. We actually stayed (parked) at the back of an abandoned gas station for a month and loved every minute of it. I guess life is what you make of it.

    Cheers,
    Sharon

    Reply
  2. Barten, that income tax figure is what we pay out each month as part of our quarterly, estimated pre-paid self employment tax, which gets based on the previous year’s income. I pay quarterly as per the IRS requirement, but for the budget I divided it up into 12 payments.

    The bottom line figure of $5289 includes everything — income tax, storage fee, insurance, RV payment (but it’s paid off now, so we’re getting rid of that figure!). It’s definitely much cheaper than living in a home, when you figure that we aren’t going to Home Cheapo every other weekend and spending money on yard crap and repair thingies. It’s nice!

    Dont’ even get me started about Income Tax. We are getting REAMED next year when we pay the tax bill for the business. Over 30% of the profit will go to the government so they can buy more bombs and kill people overseas, instead of educating and caring for our own people. It’s disgusting.

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  3. If your not working whay are you paying $575.00 in income tax??? Sounds like you need a new tax guy…

    FYI IRS defines “Income” as money earned from the PROFIT of business, or investments, which means if you sold your business for a profit then yes maybe you need to pay BUT it also means the rest of the working world who gets “Income Tax” deductions are paying for no reason because LABOR is not Profit…

    So it costs 5K per month to live in a trailer?? dang I thought life was expensive…Here on the Good Ship Money Drop were leaking like a sieve and only the threat of the next job keeps the cards a standing….

    P.S. let me know if you are far liberal in politics and think we need a controll alt delete and rebuild of our system so I can vote for you next November…

    Reply
  4. just a quickie on the cel phone use..I have found that if I reduce my minutes plan (like from 450 to 300–How much do you really need/use? research your bills..), you can get a USA wide plan with no time of day constraints, for the same $’s as your previous , lots of minutes, plan… Might save a few dollars

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