May Expenses

Not a bad month, all things considered. More than we'd like, but we had to get the little blue car registered in Saskatchewan, and with the rip off government mandated vehicle inspection it's not cheap to do that. But, we had no choice.

We spent a total of $1,143. (Note: These are all Canadian prices. Subtract 20% to get the approximate American equivalent.)

Fuel: We put $60 worth of gas in the little blue car. Gas is currently selling for around $1.02 per litre (about $3.00 per gallon USD), and that's about 30% cheaper than it was when we were here last year.

Groceries: We know that May is our heaviest month for groceries because we have to stock the shelves because we were away all winter. Still, arriving here with the motorhome helped because of course we were traveling with food. And, we stocked up on a few sale items that will last for a while. We spent $623 on groceries for the month. If the last two years are any indication, our costs should decline a little each month to average out at around $500 a month. Last year at this time we spent $764.

Miscellaneous: We know that we have two pretty much set expenses in this category for the summer. Internet, and car insurance. But in May, we had to get the car registered in Saskatchewan, and that added $285 to the tab. And then insurance and registration ($78 per month) on top of that. The internet bill wasn't very high because our May bill doesn't show up until sometime in June. So, a total of $461 for the month, but the next few months should be closer to $200 per month.

That's it. No booze, and no entertainment expenses.

Oh, I should mention that I'm changing the way we expense our airfare. Yes, we did buy two plane tickets this month, from Mexico City to Medellin, Colombia. Total of $550 return for the two of us. I used to expense plane tickets when we paid for them, but I think it's more helpful to include those costs in our expenses when we actually take the trip. So they'll show up in November and December.

When we were in Quartzsite,  we bought one of these folding handy mats to carry around in the motorhome. Really handy, and I've used it several times. A great picnic mat, or if you need to crawl underneath your motorhome for any reason it's a lot more comfortable to be on this than the ground...

Folding Handy Mat with Strap, on Amazon.com - USA

And on Amazon.ca, a great deal on a 64 GB flash drive. Anytime you can buy a flash memory  for under $0.50 per GB it's a good deal...

64GB USB 3.0 Flash Drive on Amazon.ca - Canada