November Expenses

We'll do another update mid December after our Colombia trip is over to be able to show you what it cost in total for the entire six week trip. In the meantime, we'll continue with our standard monthly report, detailing what we spent during November.

We spent a total of $2,175. All figures are in Canadian dollars. (For USD perspective, you can take about 25% off!)

We arrived in Colombia October 31st, however I expensed the incoming flight during the month of November to make things appear more accurate. Also, we had no gasoline or motorhome expenses, although our storage costs for parking Sherman will appear in December since we don't yet know the charges.

So, here's the breakdown for the month...

Groceries: Eating out is so cheap in Colombia. So we've been doing a lot of that here. I think if we had stayed at more AirBnb type and couchsurfing accommodation then we would have done more of our own cooking. But at hostels it is not always convenient to cook your own meals, and the cooking equipment is often not up to standards. We spent a total of $159.93 for groceries during the month. But we ate out a lot and that is reflected in our entertainment costs being higher than normal below.

Alcohol: Beer is quite cheap here. Wine is expensive though. So we haven't been drinking any wine, other than an apple wine that Ruth found refreshing and at about $5 a bottle. We've had a couple of small bottles of aguardiente, the local popular liquor. It's not bad, but not really that cheap either. In total, we spent $122.31. Not bad.

Miscellaneous: We were doing really good in this category up until that doctors visit yesterday! A total of $253 for the month. More than half of that was for medical expenses for my rash and Ruth's kidney infection. Haven't spent that much money on drugs for many, many years...if ever! Fortunately, we will get some of that back from our Saskatchewan Provincial health care plan, but that will show as a credit when it arrives next May! The balance of the expenses in this category were for local taxis, buses, laundry, and internet.

Entertainment: We expense meals out in this category because typically for us it's a discretionary expense. We never eat out at home or in the states because we simply don't see the value. However in some countries...we do see the value! And that's the way it has been in Colombia. We spent a total of $450 in this category, and that includes the different sightseeing tours that we've done. Not bad!

Overnight: This has been higher than expected. We were hoping to do more couchsurfing, but it's not been easy in Colombia. Most of the listed hosts are younger people, and we didn't get a lot of success from our requests, other than the people we stayed with in Medellin the first few nights (Thanks Andrea and Herber!). We're going back to stay with them towards the middle of December. Anyhow, the balance of our stays have been at hostels. Always renting a private room, and sometimes with a shared bathroom. Total spent was $723 for the month.

Travel: This includes airfare, and any expenses for long distance transportation between cities. So, our one way airfare from Mexico City to Medellin was $277 and we spent $190 on bus transportation to get us around Colombia. So, a total of $467. Overall, about what we expected.

December should be a little cheaper as we're not planning on doing much but relaxing for the last two weeks of the month once we get back to the motorhome!

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