February Expenses

Well, February was another expensive month, but we knew that it would be. And, it's all related to our Kilimanjaro climb at the beginning of the month. Otherwise, it was actually not bad!

Ruth's "bucket list item" has now been completed, and until we go see the polar bears in Churchill, Manitoba (one of my bucket list items) we are done with that kind of extravagant discretionary spending. 

We spent a total of $6,817 CAD ($5,350 USD) for the month. But $5,400 was directly related to the Kilimanjaro hike.

Here's how it all broke down. Note, the following prices are all Canadian dollars...

Groceries: Our lowest monthly grocery bill since we started keeping track! We only spent $101 for the two of us. Now, of course it was a short month and the first full week we were on the mountain. And, we made lunch our biggest meal of the day, and ate it in a restaurant. 

Meals Out: Even though we ate a lot of meals out, we limited the price and ate at a lot of local restaurants. We spent a total of $137.

Alcohol: We didn't drink at all for the week on the mountain, and otherwise have limited ourselves. Also, beer is cheap in Tanzania! We spent a total of $68... one of our lowest months other than when we were working at the campground during the summer.

Miscellaneous: We spent $327 in this category. Mostly for our travel medical insurance at $255 and a Tanzanian SIM card for the phone with some internet time, and a few other negligible things.

Entertainment: It is not cheap to climb Mount Kilimanjaro. We thought we were doing it as inexpensively as possible, but everything adds up. The base cost of the trip for the two of us was $4,117, the gear rental was $700, tips for the guides and porters was $590, and beers for the guides and porters was $30. Total of $5,437 for the two of us. We had been thinking about doing a safari on top of that, but just couldn't justify the price. It is EXPENSIVE to play tourist in Tanzania.

Overnight: We kind of splurged on our accommodation here in Lushoto. Including the 5 days we had in Arusha, the total came to $718. 

Travel: $23 for the two of us to take the bus from Arusha to Lushoto.

So, that's three expensive months in a row. Fortunately, we have reasonably priced accommodation for our upcoming week in Tanga, and then we will find something cheap in the big city of Dar es Salaam. We have our flight to Albania that will add to March expenses, but once we get to Albania things will be a lot cheaper. March has a budget of $3,000, and if we spend the entire month of April in Albania (likely, at this point) it should come in around $2,200.

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