Hell’s Half Acre

When we started RV’ing, I based our daily expenditures on the UnderageRV’ers budget of $40/day and various other estimates at RVdotNet of $100 or more. I had hoped that we could stay at $100/day and we aimed for that number. I began tracking expenses in a simple (and incredibly cumbersome) Notepad document, obtained Microsoft Excel and copied everything in an Excel worksheet. I tried Quicken, but wasn’t able to get the reports or any daily/yearly/monthly averages I counted on to stay on budget. I finally found PearBudget, a Excel solution that offers the averaging, budgeting and categorizing I needed. I’ve spent the last week moving all the data from my Excel worksheet to Pear and can’t be happier. After adding a 7th member and 2nd vehicle to the family, it is essential we now stay firmly on budget and Pear allows us to do that.I’ll try to post a monthly summary of expenses so you can use some of the data to figure your own expenses (or laugh at how ridiculuously high our food budget is :)).

Now, George might love to share his income with the WWW internets, but I don’t. So don’t look for the income; only the outgo. Who knows, the IRS might be watching.

Here are the amounts budgeted for each category (what we’re shooting for):

Storage Unit $176.00
Auto Insurance/Rental insurance $134.51
Internet $59.99
Allowance $11.16
Sirius $13.46
Life insurance $92.33
Clothes $10.00
Health insurance $161.17
Mexico permits/insurance $34.42
Mail service $15.00
Computer $10.00
Medicines $10.00
Auto/RV expenses $100.00
Entertainment $50.00
Eating out $50.00
Gifts $25.00
Groceries $600.00
Laundry $20.00
Diesel/gas/propane $310.00
Household $50.00
Camping $600.00
Snacks $25.00

Grand TOTAL $2558.03