Apparently the Weather People cobbled together their latest forecast after downing a 40 of rum since our predicted sunny long weekend turned into 1.5 days of sun and two days of pouring rain.
With a chance of a thunderstorm this evening.
My Fella is working all weekend so I was free to mess around with our annual budget again. Some people collect stamps, or do puzzles; I play with my calculators. And yes, I do have two of them, but one is just a back-up.
For math emergencies. :)
As mentioned in my last post, our RV gas budget for the year was pretty much right on target, but will have to be increased for this winter since we're travelling further than Arizona. Still working on the final numbers but it'll probably go up about $1600 - from $2400 to $4000. And of course, that depends on the price of gas this fall/winter.
Our car gas budget is way under at this point. 31 weeks into our fiscal year we've only spent $546.49 for gas, which means we have $1013.51 left from the total of $1560/year. (Our budget year is from October 16th to October 15 - NOT Jan 1 to Dec 31.)
Moving on to our biggest monthly expense - food. We actually lump groceries together with household supplies, toiletries, cleaning stuff, vitamins, booze, gifts, laundry quarters, stamps, pocket money, etc. - so I just label it groceries & stuff.
Multiple choice test time... Do I budget this way because:
- a) it's a pain in the butt to figure out an accurate number for each of those categories
- b) when I lump everything together, it's easier to hide how much I spend on booze, or
- c) all of the above
Our groceries & stuff budget needs a facelift since we are over by $118/month. Instead of spending the allocated $750, we're shelling out $868 every month. We spend about $500/month on food and the rest on everything else. Going thru all our receipts there's really nothing to cut out so I'll just increase the annual number from $9000 to $10,500. My Fella and I are very lucky that we have a strong free cash flow and don't have to worry about cutting out another category to make up the difference. No doubt there are lots of families that don't have this luxury, and are forced to work with what they have.
The other category I added up today is cash we spend on the mutts. 31 weeks into our budget year we've spent $789.19. The Shelbert/Norman budget is $1000 per year and includes food, treats, toys, grooming and annual shots. That cash isn't used for emergency vet care, but it does include one time items like doggy stairs and a plastic baby gate. "A baby gate ???"
Yeah, you read that right.
Shelby would be fine home alone in any part of the RV. But since Norman is still a pup, he has to stay in the front room. And the quickest (and most fun) way for him to get thru an RV door is just chew it.
Kids can't chew thru a baby gate; hopefully pups can't either.
My wife keeps careful track of our spending and says that even with our buying normal groceries our costs have gone way up.
Posted by: Don | May 22, 2011 at 09:21 PM
Mr P - Any food items in particular? Fresh veggies and fruits have definitely gone up a bit. And cleaning supplies too.
Have you had a chance to take any other mini-trips yet? What's the verdict on your new rig?
Posted by: kelsi | May 23, 2011 at 08:43 AM
It seems that most types of groceries have gone up. We just returned from Logan Lake, Cache Creek area, we enjoy the different scenery there. We are very pleased with our new RV, it is small enough to poke around with, 25 feet, and yet still has almost everything in it our 32 footer had! Gasoline in Kamloops was $1.07!
Posted by: Don | May 24, 2011 at 07:18 AM
$1.07 ???
How can that be? It's $1.30 everywhere else in the Okanagan!
Posted by: kelsi | May 24, 2011 at 10:40 AM
There is a price war there, I think Costco started it, we need one in Vernon to shake things up! Our Kelowna Costco is getting way too overcrowded anyway. What kind of snake is Sid? What do your pets think of it?
Posted by: Don | May 25, 2011 at 08:02 AM
We just got a Costco card and so far I'm not sure if we're getting our moneys worth. The best deals we've found so far are on Kraft peanut butter and garden sheds. How is the Kamloops Costco?
As far as Sid goes... Shelbert hasn't even noticed him yet and probably never will. But we'll have to keep Normie away from him, since Norm is a pup and wants to play with everything. Including snakes!
Posted by: kelsi | May 25, 2011 at 09:11 AM
I put booze in its own category. It's under "hobbies". ;-) If the category goes over $75/month, please stage an intervention.
Posted by: Jacq | May 28, 2011 at 07:20 AM