August Expenses

Yeehaw! It's September, and that means we can say "We're outta here this month!" Not sure when, exactly. We were told at the beginning of the season that it would be between the 15th and the 30th. We're hoping it will be around the 20th.

August expenses came in exactly where we thought they would. A month ago, I had posted our July expenses at $1,052 and I predicted our August expenses would be about the same. August came in at $1,078.

Gasoline: We put $20.00 worth of fuel in the little blue car. Gas prices have come down a little bit here, currently paying $1.219 per litre (about U.S. $4.50 per gallon).

Groceries: We spent $473 on groceries in August. We're now at a 4 month average of $511 per month for our time here in central Saskatchewan. September should be quite a bit lower as we use up goods that we've got in the freezer.

Alcohol: Nope, no booze again in August. We're still boycotting the ridiculously high alcohol prices here in Canada. September will show some expense here as we will be traveling through the U.S. for a few days. Looking forward to buying a $17 five litre box of wine!

Miscellaneous: At $581, our highest this category has been for a while. That's because we paid for the $352 camera we bought in July. Also includes our $115 monthly internet bill and our $75 car insurance payment.

Some of you have questioned why our internet cost is so high. We only have one choice for internet and that is to connect via the nearby cell tower. So, we're on a cellular plan for our internet access. That plan is "stepped" whereby your monthly charge goes up depending on how much you use. And of course there are two of us using it because we each have a laptop. We don't limit ourselves, and have even downloaded the "Amazing Race" travel TV series that we like. We use between 12-15 GB per month, and with taxes that bill comes to $115.50 per month. It is our one "luxury" during our time here.

Entertainment: You could argue that our internet bill should go under this category. But historically, we have put any meals out, and any discretionary tours or things like going to a baseball game or a museum under this heading. So we'll keep it that way. Spent $3.78 on another half sub at Subway for a snack when I went into town one day.

Travel: We've been buying some airline tickets, and we expensed $314 in this category in July for our flight from Ottawa to Halifax in October. In August, we bought our tickets from New York City to Cancun, and Cancun to Guadalajara. But we don't pay for them until September, so that cost will be in September's travel column.

So, a total of $1,078 which is pretty much what we expected. September will be higher because of the airline tickets and we'll probably spend $250 or so in gasoline getting ourselves to Ottawa. Our budget shows around $1,300 for the month of September.