November Expenses

Here's our November expense report.

Considering we were the first two weeks of the month in expensive Barbados, I suppose it's not too bad. But it's still a little higher than we were planning for. It's easy to see where the problem is...we've spent money on things that we're not using yet! That, plus the Canadian dollar has dropped in value again, meaning that everything we buy in U.S, dollars is that much more expensive.

We spent a total of $2,873 CAD ($2,270 USD) for the month.

That's about $800 CAD higher than I had figured on, so maybe I'm just being too optimistic!

(The following figures are all in Canadian dollars. For U.S. dollar equivalent, you can subtract about 25%)

Here's how it all broke down...

Gasoline: We spent $500.59 on fuel. About $30 of that went into our daughter's car when we borrowed it while we were in Ottawa. And the balance went into Sherman. Spent a bit more than originally budgeted, but only because we ended up filling up just as we arrived in Lexington where it was only $2.09 a gallon. So we are essentially starting off December with a full tank.

Groceries: At $642, about $150 higher than we had planned. Of course Barbados was expensive for groceries, and then when we moved into Sherman two weeks ago, the shelves were bare! So we had some stocking up to do. Not really worried about it though because we've learned that when one month is abnormally high, there is sure to be another month that is abnormally low to average it out.

Alcohol: $170. About average.

Miscellaneous: This was the killer. We spent $535 in this department. $127 of that was miscellaneous Barbados stuff. But then we had ordered a bunch of different things from Amazon to pick up when we arrived in Pennsylvania. A new pair of Merrell hiking boots were on sale for me at $116, even though I probably won't use them until January. My old ones are just about done. And a few other things that I'm going to tell you about over the next few days. Anyhow, apparently it all adds up! Our Verizon cellular internet is in there for $71 too.

Entertainment: $385. Almost all of it while in Barbados in the first two weeks of the month.

Overnight: Total of $175. Not bad.

Motorhome: Total of  $288. That's $200 labor to build our new dinette table, and then a couple of underneath cabinets I'll tell you about another day. Plus the porch light I installed yesterday.

Travel: $127 to get us both back from Barbados to Ottawa.

That all comes to $2,873. Ouch! But, we've revised downwards our budget for December to $1,340. Check in again a month from now to see how we did!

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Cute little Christmas tree if you're spending any time in your RV this month...

Charlie Brown Christmas Tree

And in Canada...

iLIFE Robotic Vacuum