Sunday, May 11, 2014

Winter Reflections. What It Cost!

Well, here is what the winter cost us. It is quite a bit considering the lousy weather we had. In retrospect, we probably should have stayed put in the west, basking in the sun either in Palm Springs or Phoenix area. It would have cost a lot less but on the other hand, we would have missed all that Cajun Cooking!

When the exceptionally high vehicle repair and maintenance costs (see bottom of post) are added to this, it stretched the budget a little more than I am comfortable with and we had to dig into the Rainy Day Fund a couple of times and will be doing it again as the final Visa Card payment has to be made at the end of May.

Next year we will once again think about finding a place in the sun and parking for a few months. It would be easier on the pocketbook.

Here is a breakdown:

Fuel (Motorhome)                $4,800
Fuel (Honda)                        $300
Groceries (including liquor)     $4,400
RV Parks                             $3,560
Internet                                 $285
Dining Out                            $2,490 (this is also our "entertainment" budget)
Travel Medical Insurance         $3.391
Ferries                                   $457
Propane                                 $156

TOTAL                                 $19,839 or about $110.22 per day

The other large expense this year (not included above) was maintenance and repairs on the motorhome, car and dolly. This totaled $5,248 this year. It was a lot of money but is not representative of the average year. I keep telling myself! If you add repair costs it brings our daily costs to $139.37.

Many of these expenses would have been similar if we had of stayed home. Groceries, dining out, gas for the Honda are pretty much the same wherever we are.

Despite the weather we had a lot of fun and met so many interesting people. Louisiana was probably the most fun and the nicest city we visited was Savannah, Georgia.

Here is our +/- 9,000 mile route.


24 comments:

  1. Yikes. So not including the vehicle repairs, about $3,300 a month. The only thing I don't get is how your grocery bill can be that high as well as having a dining out bill of over $400 a month. That's over $1,100 a month in food and booze. For two people. And you don't even eat meat!

    I don't get it.

    Thanks for sharing though. I always find this stuff interesting.

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    1. We eat well and we entertain. The "groceries" also include cleaning supplies, magazines and paper products, pretty much everything that we buy at a grocery store.

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  2. Thank you for posting this info, it really helps us in the planning stage for what retirement could hold for us.

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    1. Shelagh, don't forget there are many people who do it for much less and there are also people who do it for much more. Like anything, "It all depends".

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  3. yep pretty costly winter considering the weather... Louisiana always seems to a be a fun stop for us!

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  4. Would you have not spend money of fuel for the Honda at home. Same with groceries and restaurants.
    Sure would reduce your cost of going south.

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    1. You are right George, these costs would have been similar if we had stayed home.

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  5. Email from Al (who does not have a Google Account)

    Hi Croft:

    Thanks for posting the trip costs. As a comparison, we spent about $18,000 US over the winter, I didn't do a detailed breakdown that you did but I captured virtually everything on our US$ credit card.

    Our expenditures included some hotel costs for a couple of nights in Hawaii (but not the travel costs to get there from Dan Diego) and it didn't include out of country insurance (provided to us as a retirement benefit). The main difference seems to be fuel costs, we spent $2,800 on diesel fuel to get from southern Ontario to southern California and return but you may have done more miles than we did. We also parked for 3 months, but our California RV resort cost about $1,500 per month so that may have reduced some of the fuel savings that we got by parking.

    Your costs are not out of line, you need to spend some $$ to enjoy yourselves (and we would have spent some of those $$ at home in the cold north anyways!).

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    1. Diesel vs. gas difference shows up here. $1500 per month for RV park? That is about $50 per day and you should have saved quite a bit over the daily price by staying long term.

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    2. Email from Al:

      Thanks for the additional info on the blog. We did about 1,000 miles less than you did so the cheaper diesel was a bit of a factor. In terms of the RV resort, that $1500 was the monthly rate!! (it's not a cheap park but you do get what you pay for!). The $50 per night is about the same as Ontario provincial parks (30 amp electric but no other hook-ups). As Canuks we are used to the higher prices!

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  6. My friend Bill did a breakdown of their expenses on his Blog: http://billinnebr.blogspot.ca/2014/05/southwest-trip-summary.html

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    1. I'm waiting on the travel catalogue from Louisiana tourism. A "maybe" for next winter.

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    2. Bill, you would love Betty's RV Park in Abbeville, LA. Betty is a Cajun Hall Of Fame member and the authentic Cajun food in the area is to die for!

      http://www.bettysrvpark.com/

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  7. Again, another one of your posts prompted me to look at my and the better halfs expenses from last winter. We travelled from Ottawa almost directly to LAS Vegas then south into Arizona and Southern California for most of the Winter. Coming back across the 40 to 81 then north back home.

    The Class C towing a Chevy Cobalt went 7733 Miles, used 1034.43 US Gallons, ($3475.71 at a calculated Average of $3.36 a gallon) I can then further determine that I get 7.48 MPG Avg. Accommodation Costs were $2590 for 160 days so 159 overnights for a 16.29 Avg overnight cost. I keep running totals for all the above items in a log where I record stays and highlights.

    From my US $ Mastercard I derived the following. Spent $2849 at Walmarts, $1232 at Grocery Stores(Albertsons, VONs, Bashas...) and $98 at Liquor Stores. The total for Groceries, wine, beer and liquor would then be $4179. Eating outside of the RV showed $1096, while entertainment totaled $746. Spent $866 on gas for the car, $73 for propane, and Cell phone and Internet was $539.12.

    Our travel Medical Insurance was $1305. I buy additional on top of my Mastercard yearly plan (first 30 free- for my wife who is still under 60), while mine is through Medipac where additional is purchased for the first 40 days (pension coverage) then full for the remaining 120.

    So our total would be $14,869 or about $92.93 per day. Of course I did not include Casino gambling in the entertainment, which I purchase with cash. Come to think of it I do believe we came out ahead in this category this year with a $550 Bingo win. I replaced my RV tires this past year for $1400 and had to get a full brake job on the Cobalt for $642.

    Don't mean to gloat, but the weather we experienced in Arizona and Southern California was fantastic. Was so good my wife had to quit posting pictures to Facebook, because it was frustrating to those who spent a winter in Ontario this year.

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    1. Thanks for posting this Peter. We are a little older and that is reflected in our travel medical insurance costs and we traveled further so those associated costs were higher as well. Otherwise we are pretty close considering we were in the US for about 20 days longer than you. We do a little worse than your 7.48 MPG as we tend to run overweight. When I do calculate the mileage it is usually in the 6.8 range.

      You used your car a lot more than us and that was one of the things I noticed about our winter, that we tended to hang around the RV a lot more than we had in the past.

      The weather. Yes, you are certainly entitled to gloat about that. Weather was the downside of our winter.

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  8. Hola Croft!

    This is a very interesting post. I have yet to tot up my costs, but I think they aren't all that far from yours. Of course I'm driving a small pickup truck, though it's a bit of a gas guzzler by current standards. It gets about 20 MPG on average. So I'm saving a lot relative to you on gas. But of course I'm spending on hotels, which in Mexico seems to be averaging about $38 a night or so (USD). And I have to eat in restaurants, though I've been eating a lot of "comida corrida," where I can get a full lunch for around 50 pesos, or about $3.80 USD. Though I spent a lot on getting the truck ready for the road, I would have spent that anyway.

    All that said, I am planning a post some time in the future along the lines of your post here. By the way, I have fantasized about buying a Dodge/Mercedes Sprinter and living out of that. The main problem would be showering facilities, but otherwise it could work well.

    So are you back in CA for the summer then?

    Saludos,

    Kim G
    Tehuacán, Puebla
    Where its cheap to stay in a nice hotel, and we're having a great time.

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    1. P.S. by "CA" I mean Canada, of course.

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    2. We arrived home on April 26, just in time to do our income taxes. I have often wondered if a winter in Mexico could be accomplished almost as cheaply by traveling in a car and staying in hotels and your experiences show that is possible although it is very nice to have your own facilities and to not have to carry luggage in and out. I know that in Mexico you can eat in restaurants cheaper than you can cook at home.

      Most RV parks (all in the US and most in Mexico) have shower rooms and many of them are clean with lots of hot water. We do not us our inside shower as it is used for storage but we have an outside shower which we use when necessary (at night, when parked where there is a little privacy).

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    3. The couple I met in Jerez, Zacatecas spoke fondly of the deals they had been able to secure on lodging via AirBNB. I'm kind of wondering about the idea of doing something like my trip again, but by bus, and staying in each place for a few weeks or a month. The idea would be to rent a furnished place via AirBNB or something similar, and then cook at "home," or eat comida corrida.

      I, of course, could have spent less on hotels. And if I were to do so, I'd probably want to pack my own towels. But that said, I find the increased "ick factor" to often not be worth the $10 USD or so in savings. My first hotel in San Cristóbal pissed me off the first night (waking me up early to move my car after assuring me only 12 hours prior that there would be no need, and not providing hot water when I wanted it), and I ended up going to a more expensive place the next day and having a much better experience.

      And I can imagine that not schlepping luggage would be a nice thing.

      By the way, there are also showers at some Mexican truck stops, though the one I saw looked a bit dodgy. And I'm not sure about whether women could use such a shower either.

      Saludos,

      Kim G

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    4. I have used AirB&B and have been happy with them. Some hotels I would want to have my own plastic tarps to cover everything!

      We had parking problems in San Cristobal as well. Their parking lot was several blocks away and I had to drive there with an employee. Getting the car out to use part way through our stay proved to be too difficult so we left it there.

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  9. Thanks for the $$$ break down ... I'm always interested to see what you two spend compared to us.
    But Norma's casino winnings should have covered at LEAST half of that. If you spent a few more days in Vegas she'd probably snag enough loot to fund your entire winter. Including repairs.

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    1. Norma probably does better than break even but I have to keep my eye on her ;). She puts a lot of money through the machine but does not really keep track of whose money it is.. hers or the houses. Ii keep trying to tell her to cash out and put her money back in her pocket and then play with "their" money but in most cases it is not until we are back home wand she counts the money in her purse that she really knows how she has won (or lost).She is lucky but she is also hard on the nerves!

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  10. Linda and I have been wintering in Antigua Guatemala the last three years. We use rental cars, shuttles and buses to get around the country, we fly into the country. Winter is the dry season there, we had a few sprinkles this past trip.
    on costs: the flight for two was $1600 US, condo rental $650 a month and a few cans of liquid gas for the stove. The rental cars run 40-50 a day depending on if we rent for a week at a time, our most expensive motel was $50 a night at a place outside Tikal but most hotels with pool and parking are $40 US . All said and done, paying our static bills here in Ohio and what we incur living in Guatemala over the winter, costs about $1000 less per month than what we spend living in Ohio the rest of the year.

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  11. Croft, et al, Great information. Thanks for documenting expenses - very interesting.

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