For the last two weeks, we’ve been boondocking at Slab City near the stinky Salton Sea. With the free rent, warm weather and good peeps of Slab City, it’s tempting to ride out the rest of winter here.
But, we’re sticking to the plan, and will start moving to Texas, New Mexico and Colorado to keep looking for Jerry’s land.
Our new year is starting out with a low cost of living. Some highlights:
- Freeloading off relatives and friends in January helped us save on rent. Thanks, everyone!
- I want to reduce the $403 we spend on insurance every month, while still covering our butts. Any ideas on how to do this?
- Last November, we stopped contributing to a mutual fund, when I got tired of watching the value drop. But then I read Suze Orman’s latest book, her 2009 Action Plan, and she slapped me around, reminding me about dollar cost averaging, even during bad times. We are now contributing $100 a month and keeping the faith in the system.
- Each year I try to read at least a couple of finance books. I just started The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World, and it’s far more interesting than I expected, expanding my financial literacy by leaps and bounds. I highly recommend this book, along with the Suze Orman book, to help survive and thrive in this awful economy.
- When Jim and I are landowners again, we can live even more cheaply, once we nix the cost of rent, fuel, storage fees and California’s ridiculous insurance costs and income taxes from our expenditures.
Now, onto the business of the day. Here’s a PDF of our January 2009 Expense Report, as part of our continuing efforts to inform and help full-time RVers everywhere!
Hi Rene,
Just wanted to let you know that I just called our health insurance company and removed a bunch of policies and now we only pay $197/month for health insurance. That is $3500 deductible, Vision coverage, and very basic health insurance plan!!! Yay… we also up our deductible on Auto and RV insurance from $500 to $1000 and saved a little. We are finding ways to reduce costs too! Hope you guys are having fun at the Rally.
Thank you so much for sharing this information, it’s extremely helpful to us!!
Wow. You are doing real good. We only have the truck insurance ($82), rig insurance ($94) and health insurance ($322). Since we got rid of everything that doesn’t fit in the RV, we don’t have a storage, so no renters insurance. Our total comes to $498/month. 😉
However, we are looking to switch health insurance company. Right now we are with MEGA. We heard Assurance is much better and cheaper than MEGA, so we will be looking into that something this year.
Wow Jacq, that health insurance is spendy. You two are younger than us I believe, how come it’s so much? It must be really good coverage?
Our health insurance is pretty weak; we have to meet a $7500 deductible before they pay for anything at all.
well, we don’t really have a good coverage… but deductible is $5000, oh, we just got a letter from them that they are increasing the premium to $340/month starting April. We are definitely going to shop for a new insurance company.
$400 for everything is pretty good! We pay $130 for our 2 cars and our renters insurance, and another couple hundred for health. I would stick with the $400!
Hey thanks for the reality check, that’s good to know. But I’m going to bet you have better health insurance than we do.
most important things in life ! salud,amor,pesetas y tiempo para gosarlos !!!
Holy cow…$403? We paid a little less than $100 a month for really good coverage on the road. Who are you insured with? Try Progressive’s full time RV’er policy.
Hey Sara, thanks for checking in! Oh gosh, that’s not just the rig, that’s for everything, including health insurance, business coverage, umbrella policy, the rig and our renter’s policy for our personal stuff in storage and in the rig. Thanks for the tip though!