Expense Report: August

Some of you showed some interest in how much it costs to live traveling around the country, so we’re going to write a monthly recap of how much we spent and provide a little bit of info on how we feel we did in terms of spending. These will include things like how many times we payed for a campsite, if we had any unnecessarily spendy meals, etc. We are trying to find a good balance of living cheaply while still doing a some fun things because this is our honeymoon. We’ve broken it down into a few major categories. 

The RV and upgrades - since this is the first expense report, we’ll include the cost of the RV and some early maintenance we had to do. 

We bought our 21 foot RV used from an individual, not a dealer. We found it through Craigslist while shopping around almost a year ago. After that we needed to do a few modernization upgrades.

Cost of RV: $14,000

Solar panels: $340

Stereo $438

Insurance - We got comprehensive coverage on the RV through National General, as well as a Full-Timer coverage which is like a homeowner's insurance for non-motor accidents. We also opted for a GoodSam membership, as well as a roadside assistance plan from them. The membership itself will save us money on gas and propane at Flying Js and on merchandise from Camping World. The roadside assistance will give us some peace of mind (that we already needed for the tire!) if something happens on the road. The reason we chose GoodSam over AAA is that they are very much an RV club. They tow unlimited miles if something happens and include things like medical airlift if we get hurt while out exploring nature (how neat is that?).

Insurance: $348 for a 1 year policy. RV insurance is surprisingly cheap!

GoodSam: $50 for 2 years.

Roadside: $379 for 2 years. 

Maintenance - We’ve had some bad luck on this early part of the trip, but we also put a ton of miles on the RV. We blew a tire, had some work on the steering, and had to replace a pulley, fan clutch and a different pulley bracket in the engine. We really hope this month won’t be representative of what’s to come. A lot of the problems seem to be an age of the engine problem. With over 200,000 miles on the RV, it’s bound to have some aging problems. Considering that a brand new RV about this size would have cost us over $30,000, we’re still doing quite well. 

Home Depot Spending: $135

Fan pulley bracket: $850

2 new tires: $180

Steering / alignment: $217

Fan clutch and crank pulley : $675

Transmission + steering fluid flushes: $305

Wipers: $30

All totaled, our RV + bigger maintenance has cost us $17,694

We have also done 2 High Milage oil changes: $170.

Our trip really started on the 12th of August, so for the remaining expenses we will just summing up since then. 

Fuel - This is going to be our biggest expense when driving a lot (like to Alaska). We’re keeping a Fuel log in a google sheet that we’ll have viewable to anyone. It has locations and gas prices as well so if you’re curious what gas costs in different places definitely check it out: Fuel Log. We converted the Canadian gas prices to their rough USD/gallon equivalent.

This month we drove 3174 miles and used 257.9 gallons of gas, for a fuel economy of 12.3 MPG. 

Gas: $911 - A lot of driving.

Propane: $7 - We only filled up once on propane in Bellingham (on the 12th) and as of writing this we are sitting just under 1/4 tank. We’re only using propane for cooking and the refrigerator. We haven’t needed the hot water heater (bucket showers / laundromats) and we tried turning on the furnace once but it made a scary wailing sound. Looks like we’ll be bundling up if it gets really cold. So far 4 bodies have kept the RV relatively comfortable, even through the Alaskan summer nights

Food: $405 - We did really well not eating out in the first part of our trip. We went to a few coffee shops and only ate out 2 to 3 times. The rest of it is groceries.

Pets: $95  - We had to refill pet food containers and get Aiden a new rabies shot to get through Canada. Both kids are up to date on their vaccinations.

Lodging: $20 - We only paid for a place to stay once since the 12th. That was at Chena Hot Springs

Entertainment: $115.50 - $85.50 of this came from our Denali bus trip into the park, the rest was Chena Hot Springs. 

Overall we think August and September will be two of our more expensive months, mostly because we are driving a lot, but also because all of the national parks here and harder to get into. But we are pretty pleased with how we have been doing so far.