Category: Budgets

Reality Bites: Budgeting for Full-Time Travel

Posted on by Laura & Brett

The dream: road trip for a couple of years and visit all the national parks.

The reality: the monthly cost for how we thought we’d travel is significantly larger than we imagined.

It wasn’t long after starting work on a budget for our Big Adventure II that we began to discover our initial plans and itinerary would cost w-a-y more than we imagined, and would most likely drain our savings in short order, all without adding any extras.

Here’s the reality of what we’ve discovered so far:

  • Gasoline: We love the Armada – it’s the most comfortable car we’ve ever owned – and it’s perfect for this road trip in terms of safety, comfort, space, and the amount and type of of driving we would be doing. However, the Armada is a gas guzzler. It has a large tank and can go long distances, but would still require a fill-up or top-off nearly every day with our itinerary. Brett has worked hard at increasing the MPG, but he has figured out the cost of gas would be just slightly under double what we originally assumed. Ouch.
  • Lodging: This is largest monthly expense, and again, more than we initially assumed. After pricing (low cost) hotels and Airbnbs, a reasonable monthly budget amount for lodging would be about $3500/month to stay where we want to stay. Seriously. And that’s before adding in any pet fees. We could camp along the way, but neither of us is particularly interested in doing that for so long a period of time. We still do not want/plan to buy or pull a trailer.
  • Dining: This is the one reasonable area of the budget – with conditions. Completely avoiding restaurants, eating breakfast and dinner at our lodgings, investing in an electric cooler to keep fruit and other perishables fresh, and eating lunch on the road would keep food costs down to around what we’re paying now. But, it still requires some sacrifice and we doubt that’s sustainable for a year. Half the fun of traveling is dining out now and again.
  • Extras: There is no room in the budget for any extra side trips. We have free lifetime admission to the parks, but anything beyond that, like touring the slot canyons in northern Arizona or spending a few days in Santa Fe and Taos, NM, is out of the question.
  • Fixed expenses: We currently have only three fixed expenses that we’d continue to cover: car insurance, our phone plan, and storage fees for the few items we want to keep. We know what our phone plan will be each month, but the insurance and storage are currently wild cards. If we add an internet service for travel (like Starlink), that would be another additional fixed expense.
  • Unknown expenses: Thankfully medical costs are not a factor, but car maintenance is and we want to keep up a comfortable emergency fund. And of course other things can go wrong as well (an Airbnb canceling on us, for example, and having to find other lodging).

We are currently at a standstill and trying to come up with some options or ways to do things differently. One would be to rent Airbnbs for longer periods of time, say three or four months at a time, and use them as a base to visit parks in the area. This could cut our gas expenses down a bit, but wouldn’t save us all that much on lodging. Occasional overnight stays would still be required, but this plan would slow things w-a-y down and require us being able to find good, but reasonably priced Airbnbs in each place that will rent to us long term and accept a pet.

The Armada is big enough that we could sleep in the back of it but it doesn’t sound like a good option for us two oldsters for a variety of reasons. Neither does setting up and living in a tent and cooking outdoors for months on end.

We could sell the Armada, or trade it in on a more fuel efficient car, but a) we don’t want to be potentially stuck with another car payment, and b) it would just be a hassle. The overall savings wouldn’t be that much in the grand scheme of things.

It was so affordable traveling around the world back in the day, but we’ve unfortunately discovered expenses in the U.S. are much, much higher for everything (well except for gasoline, but everywhere else has trains, superb public transportation, etc.). We have a lot to think about right now. I know we can figure this out in a way that makes sense and that helps us stick to our budget, but for now we’ve arrived at a standstill.

Food: Simplifying and Saving in 2024

Posted on by Laura & Brett
photo credit: Maria Lin Kim/unsplash

Brett and I eat a nice variety of healthy meals. And, we do a good job for the most part sticking to our monthly budget of $500 per month for food. By leveraging my discount at Trader Joe’s and limiting what we buy at Costco and other grocery stores we keep our food expenses down without giving up quality.

However, at the end of last year I began to wonder if there were still ways I could simplify menu planning and shopping to change things up and save a little more. We’re doing a good job keeping food waste to a minimum and using what we have on hand, but by changing not only what we buy but how I cook I knew we could create additional savings while still enjoying tasty, healthy meals.

For the past year I’ve tended to purchase foods (including many prepared foods) that feed us for a night, or a night and lunch for one the next day, but mostly don’t provide enough for leftovers. Most of these meals come from Trader Joe’s. Their prepared foods are not only fun but healthy and satisfying, and they save time and effort, especially after I’ve worked that day. However, we can cut back on these types of items if I do a better job of planning ahead. I honestly don’t enjoy cooking as much as I did in the past, but I know how to create tasty, healthy meals that will last Brett and I for a couple of days and not cost more than what we’re paying now for something already prepared. I still want to include one or two prepared items into our bi-weekly menu plan, but that will be the limit.

We’re pretty much only buying items at Costco these days that provide affordable building blocks for meals or are cost effective. For example, a tray of their prepared stuffed peppers costs somewhere around $18, and contains six large peppers, which provides three meals for us. I could make them myself, but it’s nice having something already prepared (they freeze well) at only slightly over $6 for the two of us. The same goes for Costco’s prepared meatloaf meal – I pretty much can’t make it for less, and we can get three meals from the Costco one (two dinners and one lunch). I’m also going buy a $5 roast chicken each time I shop at Costco, use the meat from that for various meals, and make broth and or soup from the bones. Back when I was feeding five of us, I could often get four meals from one chicken so I know I can do as well now. We rarely buy produce at Costco any more though as the packages almost always contain more than we can finish, and we also skip meat, cheese, bakery and most deli items as there’s just too much in these packages as well (and they take up a lot of space). Our rule of only buying six or less items when we shop at Costco has kept us more mindful and saved us a bundle and we plan to keep that up.

Aldi will continue to fill in the gaps. It remains our go-to for several items, things like butter, graham crackers, organic produce (always less than Trader Joe’s even with my discount), and a few other items.

Menu items and meal prep will focus more on casseroles, soups, and quiches during cooler weather, and on main dish salads in the summer. These meals cost less than many of the prepared items I have been buying at Trader Joe’s and can provide two or more meals each week from one dish. We will still keep a couple of quick meals from TJ’s in the freezer for those evenings I’m too tired to stand in front of the stove.

This is an achievable goal for this year. I’m aiming for a savings of around $40 per month, at least at the beginning of the year, and more as the year goes along.

Our Summer Travel Budget

Posted on by Laura & Brett
(photo credit: Mercedes Mehling/unsplash)

Any traveling Brett and I do always starts with a budget. Sometimes we research ahead of time to figure out how much we will need to save, but other times we start with an amount and then figure how to fit the spending into that. We’re going with the latter this summer when we go to New England for our daughter Meiling’s wedding followed by a short visit to Maine.

The journey up to Vermont from Tennessee will take three days with two nights spent in a hotel and Airbnb. We will spend two nights at the farmhouse in Vermont (one evening, one full day, and one morning), followed by four nights at a hotel in mid-coastal Maine. It will take another three days to drive home, again with two nights in hotels.

The total amount we’ve budgeted for this trip is $4000, to cover lodging expenses, meals on the road and in Maine, gasoline, all the food for the wedding, souvenirs, and any miscellaneous spending.

We’ve worked out how much we’ll need for each area, and if we’re careful and all goes right we should come right in at or under budget.

  • Lodging: This is the only part where we know exactly what it’s going to cost, and if we were only looking at this we are not off to a good start. While we’re not way over our projected spending, we’re still over – summer lodging rates plus hotel pet fees really added up fast. We had figured setting aside $1600 for five nights on the road and four nights in Maine (the stay at the wedding venue has been covered by Meiling and K). We ended up needing only four nights on the road, but bought an airline ticket for YaYu, so the total expense for all nights, including taxes, pet fees, and the plane ticket came to $1791. It was a good thing we booked our hotel stay in Maine a couple of months ago; rooms at the hotel for the same time period (if available) currently cost $50 more per night than what we paid earlier.
  • Gasoline: We always plan for the worse but usually spend less so fingers are crossed for this trip. We’re setting aside $500 for this category, but Brett thinks we’ll actually spend closer to $400, maybe a little less. Our car gets excellent mileage on the road (35-40 mpg).
  • Wedding meals: We’re taking care of all the meals for everyone while we’re in Vermont as one of our gifts to Meiling and K. We are budgeting $500 for the food we will bring up with us – my TJ’s discount is going to be a huge help.
  • Other dining: All the hotels we’re staying at provide a free breakfast, and I will bring something along for our breakfast at the Airbnb in Pennsylvania on the way up. We don’t plan to do any fancy restaurant meals while we’re in Maine (no lobster dinners for example) and will stick with lighter fare and shared plates. We’ve budgeted $75/day for meals (excluding two days for Vermont): $700.
  • Souvenirs: We want to bring home some maple syrup and local jams from Maine, possibly get a couple of t-shirts for Brett but otherwise no shopping for us. Total allotted for souvenirs: $200
  • Miscellaneous: Right now the only miscellaneous expense we know is the purchase of a large cooler to carry food up to Vermont. We are budgeting around $75 for that. Total amount for miscellaneous items though: $200

Pre-departure, everything totals up to $3,891 dollars giving us only around $100 of wiggle room at the start (we do have backup funds if needed). We’re hopeful that in the end we’ll come out ahead, and have saved some more along the way.

Another Travel Challenge

Posted on by Laura & Brett

I used my days off a couple of weeks ago to make hotel reservations for our trip up and back to Vermont and Maine in July. What is usually a fun task for me – comparing prices, and finding the best hotel deals – turned into two days of nearly utter frustration at times.

A drive up to Vermont from Nashville requires two nights on the road, but a couple of months ago YaYu called and asked if we would please come through Philadelphia and pick her up because she couldn’t afford to get to Vermont otherwise (she’s a research assistant and her pay is meager). We said of course although it added an additional day to the trip, so Brett recalculated our route and we adjusted our budget. Brett’s sister and her husband are going to the wedding as well, driving over to Nashville from Texas where we’ll join up and caravan up to Vermont together. They also have a dog that will be coming along, and they were fine with the Philly detour.

So with my trusty computer and my calculator by my side, I set out to find places for us to stay along the way. We and our in-laws agreed on a maximum price point for each night for lodging that was affordably pet friendly and offered a free breakfast.

How difficult could this be? I thought.

I quickly discovered it was going to be very difficult. Most hotels where we wanted to stop met either one or two of our criteria, but hitting the trifecta (price point, pet friendly, free breakfast) proved to be impossible. What happened over and over was I would (finally) find a pet-friendly hotel that offered a free breakfast, but when the date for our stay (mid July) was entered the price went skyrocketing. Most hotels though had only two of the three things we wanted.

I eventually found a good (name brand) hotel in Roanoke, Virginia, our first night’s stop, where the price dropped when I put in our date. The hotel is both pet friendly and offers a free breakfast, and the nightly price is low enough that even with the additional pet fee we will be within our budget. The in-laws were happy with the hotel and we reserved our rooms.

I foolishly thought our next evening’s stop, Philadelphia, might also provide some similar prices and options for a night. However, after a couple of hours of checking prices I was almost ready to give up the entire trip. There was nothing that fit our needs nor our budget, at least nothing anywhere near where YaYu lives. After nearly pulling out my hair in frustration, I thought to myself that it really was too bad YaYu couldn’t fly to Boston and ride up to Vermont with her sisters. This option had been problematic as Meiling and K don’t drive and would be riding up with WenYu and her partner; there wouldn’t be room for YaYu. I went ahead and looked at flights anyway and found a non-stop one for one-third less than our hotel budget! I communicated with the girls and this time they agreed to drive her up to Vermont after all. A short while later I had YaYu booked on the flight.

Brett figured a new post-Roanoke route with Scranton now our destination for the second night. Once again, hotels that fit our needs either did not exist nor if they did, were completely unaffordable. I was about to give up and admit we were going to have to spend above our budget when I got the idea to check Airbnb. Within minutes I had found a lovely house just north of Scranton that accepted dogs. The cost for our half of the rental (taxes and fees included) would be $10 less than our nightly budget! I communicated with my sister-in-law who quickly let me know they would happily split the cost for the Airbnb. The reservation was made and with that our trip up to Vermont was set.

All’s well that ends well! When I added everything up, including the cost of the plane ticket, we are are spending $82 less than we had budgeted for the trip up to Vermont. And, without the detour into Philadelphia, we will be saving on gasoline expenses as well.

While it was worth it in the end, searching was a beyond frustrating experience this time. I did not have fun doing it like I usually do (and was extremely grateful we already have hotel reservations in Maine). It felt the whole time that I had lost my travel mojo. I’m thinking now though that what I encountered over and over is just a sign of the times and what comes along with traveling with a pet, a new experience for us. I’m relieved to be finished with this part of the trip and am happily surprised things turned out as well as they did.

However . . . I still have to make reservations for the trip back. Wish me luck!

Eating Well On $450 a month

Posted on by Laura & Brett

I think we’ve been eating pretty well so far this year, spending a little less than $450 each month. With careful planning and using items and ingredients we already have on hand, we’ve been able to enjoy some very tasty and satisfying dinners.

Does it make a difference that I get a discount at Trader Joe’s? Definitely! Not only does the discount provide savings, but also a larger variety of meals to enjoy these days. I’d still buy a few of these items if I didn’t have the discount, but otherwise would substitute other low cost meals. For example, instead of the Caprese salad we had this past month I might have instead made spaghetti with marinara.

Below are most of the dinners we enjoyed at home in April. Ingredients for some of them were things we already had on hand, like the puff pastry for the chicken pot pie or the Polish sausages, sauerkraut, and hot dog rolls. There are less than 30 meals pictured though because we ate out on the first evening of the month for our anniversary, our DIL took us out to dinner on Brett’s birthday, and she brought over the Japanese hiyashi beef stew one evening (a delicious surprise). Other missing days are when we ate leftovers, and a couple of days when I was too tired to take a photo (we had mini pepperoni pizzas and roasted red pepper soup with toasted cheese sandwiches on those nights).

Lunches are always leftovers, and breakfasts are cereal (for me) or oatmeal (for Brett), English muffins with peanut butter and/or jam, or occasionally pancakes.

(Apologies in advance for the poor quality of the photos.)

Clockwise from the top left: Italian wedding soup & beer bread; chicken Waldorf salad with grapes & beer bread; deconstructed Frito pie; chili-pork burritos; chicken pot pie

Clockwise from top left: katsudon; Polish sausage with sauerkraut, three-bean salad; fried rice; Caprese salad, salami, Dutch oven bread; Cuban sandwiches on Dutch oven bread, sweet potato fries

Clockwise from top left: Mississippi pot roast, mashed potatoes, green beans; lemon-ricotta pasta with peas and Dutch oven bread; Cuban bowl, gorgonzola gnocchi and sautéed green beans; French dip sandwich and coleslaw

Clockwise from top left: Korean-style short ribs, bulgogi fried rice, and green beans; loco moco, apples, and carrots; “Chinese takeout” (*beef & broccoli, honey walnut shrimp, and mandarin orange chicken); hiyashi beef stew with rice (from our DIL); cacio e pepe, sautéed zucchini, and garlic toast; tuna melts and apple slices; spanakopita pie and pita bread

Our menu and spending work for us right now because there’s just the two of us. However, if we were still feeding the girls, I think another $200 – $250 per month would be enough to still provide variety and eat well. There would definitely be a few changes in the menu however.

* both the beef & broccoli and honey walnut shrimp were just OK; I will probably not buy them again.

Creating a Travel Budget Occasional Nomads Style

Posted on by Laura & Brett
(Photo credit: Scott Graham/Unsplash)

We continue to dream and plan for travel in spite of not knowing what the future holds. While our first post-pandemic trip won’t be until spring of next year, doing what we can to be ready remains our primary focus. Since we are not those people who can take out their checkbook or credit card and pay for everything without a thought, we save, save, save and have already started work on setting up a budget for next year’s travels. There are many pieces of a travel budget: lodging, transportation (getting there and back, on the ground, car rentals, etc.), dining, activities, tours, and other things as well, and it takes time and thought to get it right

The first thing we do whenever we create a travel budget is to think very carefully about the maximum we know we can save and have on hand before traveling along with the maximum we want to spend. Both numbers help us set our goals and budget parameters. Once we’ve figured them out we figure out the purpose of the trip and what we’d like to do. Are there things we’ve always dreamed of doing and this is our chance? Or, are we just looking forward to spending time with family members. Are we willing to try something new and/or different? What are things we won’t budge on? Where we stay, how we travel, and so forth are things that will strongly affect our planning and the budget for each trip. The overall goal is to make sure what we want to do matches what we can save, and that Brett and I are on the same page for what’s achievable.

The most important thing we keep in mind as we go along is: be realistic. While we’d love to fly first class or stay in 5-star hotels, we know that’s not usually possible, and we go with what we know we can afford and what pieces of the budget cost rather than what we’d like to do. We always strive to come in under the maximum amount we’ve allowed for a trip while getting the biggest bang for our dollars, but that’s only possible if we have figured costs accurately, and are honest with ourselves about costs. We know it’s possible to upgrade in one area if we can save in another.

Then it’s time to research, research, research. I look at a variety of flight schedules, airlines, and costs balancing upgrades with perks (i.e. saving on checked luggage costs and comfort for long flights versus lower cost for main cabin) to get an upper limit of what our flight will cost. If we’re driving I research mileage and cost of gasoline. I search for what lodging will cost at different levels of service, check Airbnb, VRBO, hotel sites (Hotels.com, Trivago, etc.) and other travel sites to see what’s possible and where things are located. For dining costs I generally use TripAdvisor recommendations and restaurant reviews; we’ve always found great, low-cost places to eat through their site. Cooking for ourselves always saves money, but we always enjoy eating out now and again. If we’re staying in a hotel we try to find ones that offer a free breakfast if possible (although some of those are pretty pathetic) and allow us to have some (simple) meals in our room. We also check how easy it is to get around – is there good public transportation available and what does that cost? Can we do more if we rent a car? How walkable is the area?

It’s not unusual to discover that what we’d like to do and the maximum we want to spend are not a good fit. That means we either have to adjust our wants or increase our maximum. We’ve done both, either giving up some things or downsizing our wants, or deciding we weren’t going to budge on some items and increasing the upper limit of our budget and finding ways to save more.

The very first budget item we focus on is our upper limit for lodging. That amount is determined by how long are we are staying somewhere, what sort of accommodation we want or need (hotel or our own apartment). We also think about any certain location we want to be near and then how far away from that location we are willing to stay. That is, do we want to stay in the center of things or are we willing to stay a little further out to possibly save? In Japan, for example, we always try to find lodging near our son’s home that has room for the grandkids to sleep over, something that affects the cost of our lodging there.

Are we driving, taking a bus or train, or flying? For now, from Hawaii, it’s always flying, so we look at things like the length of the flight, the schedule, layovers, and do we think we need or want more legroom? Are we willing to pay more for a shorter and/or more convenient travel time? What are the charges for luggage? Weight limits for luggage? Will we need to rent a car at our destination or can we use public transportation? Once we’ve researched all the options, figured out costs and times, we set a realistic upper limit for what we are willing to spend for transportation costs and then keep our fingers crossed we find a great fare sale.

Using convenience stores for prepared foods is one of the ways we save on dining costs in Japan.

Food is one of the easiest parts of the budget to figure out. We generally start with a dollar amount based on what we spend on food at home each month and then add anywhere from half again to double the amount depending on whether we’ll be cooking our own meals or mostly eating out. This always seems like so much at first, but having an adequate amount for eating is crucial, especially if we know we will be eating in restaurants, even only occasionally, or don’t know what food shopping opportunities await us. Food costs also require that we think carefully in advance about what part of the travel experience we want dining out to be and if there are special places or dishes we want to try in the location(s) we are going to.

When setting up the activities we many want to do we consider whether we’re going to want to do a lot of sightseeing, explore on our own or possibly take a tour, maybe go to a concert or visit a museum, or whether we’d like to take a class. Or, do we just want to relax. We enjoy taking walking tours, free if possible, and the classes we’ve tried have been great experiences and worth the cost.

Once we have done our research, set the upper limits of different sections of the budget as well as what we’re willing to pay, we work with the information we have gathered and start filling in the blanks. We start looking for deals and where trade-offs can be made. These need to be carefully considered (for example, we almost always go for a more comfortable flight as we’ve found it makes a difference in the whole experience for us). The further out we can book or make reservations, the better the deals or price we usually can find. I used to book air travel early, but these days with airlines making so many changes and so many unknowns booking closer to travel seems to be the better and safer choice even though it may cost more.

We always build in a cushion for emergencies. Always. Besides buying travel insurance, we add an additional 10% – 15% of our total budget as a cushion for emergencies or other contingencies. If it turns out we don’t use our emergency cushion then it goes right back into travel savings. Same for any money we save and don’t spend on a trip.

Brett tracks our spending daily when we travel in a journal.

The most important part of our travel budget? Keeping track of what we spend as we go along, even before we set out on your travels. We tracked every single penny when we were on our Big Adventure because it was critical we stayed at or under our budget. Brett kept a daily log of what we did and what we spent, we saved receipts for everything, and tracked our spending every day. The biggest benefit of doing this was that we could see when we needed to cut back or when we could splurge a bit and where.

Budget Challenge: Grocery Shopping on Kaua’i

Posted on by Laura & Brett

Brett and I have a standing challenge whenever we go food shopping: buy what we need but try to stay under budget if possible so there’s something leftover to put into the travel savings. Between Walmart, Costco, Safeway or Big Save Market, and the weekly farmers’ market we have a wide selection of places to shop, but staying within our budget can be difficult because prices here can be high, sometimes a good deal higher, than they are in most places on the mainland. We’re very good at knowing the difference between a need and a want though, and telling ourselves “no” whenever we have to. We shop for groceries three times a month, weekly if you count our Wednesday trips to the farmers’ market, and we try very hard to not have to go to any store in-between shopping trip if at all possible. We no longer do “big shops” or stock ups because we don’t have the storage space like we did in the past nor do we like spending such vast sums.

Last week was a good week for us, shopping wise. We had budgeted $160 for the week, but spent only $128.80, and put $31.20 into our travel savings ($11.20 into the change/$1 bill jar and an additional $20 bill for good measure). Here’s how we did it:

We ALWAYS shop with a list, and by the time we make it to the store it usually looks like the one above. The circled items are the items that made the final cut; others were deemed either not necessary or not necessary now and were added to this week’s list. Two of the circled items on the Costco side did not get purchased: sparkling water and a beach towel ($9.99 at Costco). Costco had no affordable choices for sparkling water, and although we had the funds for a beach towel we decided it could wait. It will eventually need to be purchased and will go on a list in the future.

We spent exactly $41 at Walmart, and got everything on our list except for soba noodles and Yoshida (teriyaki) sauce, neither of which they had. We couldn’t find suitable substitutes there for either so decided to look for those items at Safeway, which was going to be our last stop of the day.

Our Costco list ended up being quite short, but we didn’t need much. We spent $50.10 there and now have enough dental floss for months to come (it was on sale this month). It’s sort of strange to leave Costco with so few things these days – when we lived here before any trip to Costco meant a cart filled to overflowing.

We sometimes stop at Safeway because it’s pretty much right next door to Costco and on our way home. Along with the head of lettuce and the big locally-grown tomato for our hamburgers we also found the brand of soba we like and some teriyaki sauce that worked for us. The soba cost more than it usually does at Walmart, but the teriyaki sauce was on sale and cost less so it evened out. Still, we spent $17.70 total for these four items, which is a lot and a good indicator of why we don’t regularly shop at Safeway here. Milk was also on our list but they didn’t have what we were looking for (a quart of 1%), and we decided we didn’t need it this week after all.

We budget $20 every week for the farmers’ market, and this past week spent every bit of it on a big bunch of bananas, two huge papayas, a large dragonfruit, three cucumbers, green beans, green onions, and a head of cabbage. 

We will go shopping again tomorrow, but with a smaller allotment than last week, and then go once again next week. Both shopping trips will pose additional challenges as we need to make sure we shop smartly to get ourselves through a three week stretch before our next piece of income rolls in again. That’s a long time to go without shopping, but we have plenty of protein on hand (meat, chicken, and fish) for the two of us, a good supply of other pantry staples, and along with the produce from the farmers’ market every week we should make it – fingers are crossed!

(If you have any questions about individual prices here for items we bought, let me know in the comments and I’ll look them up.)

Closing Out the Books for March 2020

Posted on by Laura & Brett

Before we suddenly had to leave Japan, we were on track to have a very good month, budget-wise. Our daily spending average on the day we left Japan was $20.50/day, nearly $4 below the very minimal spending limit we had given ourselves for the month of $24/day. We had a good supply of food on hand to get us through the rest of the month and until our departure in April (including those five jars of peanut butter I carried home on my own one day!). Our daily spending average for our entire time in Japan, beginning when we arrived in January, was $28.00/day, just $4 over our budget, and we were on track to get it down to $24/day.

Those numbers were partially the result of the pandemic slowdown in Tokyo which stopped many of our plans and kept us from spending. However, they also show that with careful budgeting, taking advantage of lower-cost benefits in the area (for us, that was the commissary or other military facilities), exploring local or neighborhood attractions, and watching and tracking spending carefully, it’s possible to live in an expensive location like Tokyo on less and still have a good time. We discovered we didn’t have to visit distant or famous locations in the city to find interesting and affordable things to do, or beautiful things to see, that there was plenty of all that right in our own neighborhood.

We are ending March though with a daily spending average of $42.94/day, the result of having to stock up on food for a long quarantine after our arrival back on Kaua’i, not just for us but for YaYu as well. We did a big food shopping at Costco the day we arrived, spent some more at Big Save Market the day after, and have picked up a few more things at the Princeville Foodland that we weren’t able to find earlier or forgot to buy (things like baking soda, green onions, carrots, ice cream, and toilet paper). We have enough though to get us through the next 11 days before we move over to our apartment. Many of the things we bought are pantry staples that will move with us and get us started in our new residence (the apartment actually has a pantry too!).

Although we won’t be traveling again for a long while, Brett is going to continue to maintain our daily spending journal, and I plan to continue reporting on our spending each month, especially since the cost of living in Hawai’i is so different than it is back on the mainland. Our stay in Japan was good preparation for us here as it can also be an expensive location. We’re going to continue much as we did in Japan, especially doing our food shopping once a week using a list made off of a weekly menu. We’re giving ourselves a daily budget of $20/day for food and gasoline beginning in April. It’s not very much but I think we’ll be able to manage with careful menu planning and shopping. Our car currently gets around 35/mpg so there’s lots of potential for saving when it comes to gasoline purchases (prices are currently low for Kaua’i too – gas at Costco is just $2.55/gallon right now), and with current stay-at-home orders we won’t be going out much anyway. We won’t be eating out any time soon as all restaurants on the island are closed, and there is no date scheduled for reopening (hotels are not expected to reopen until May 20 at the earliest). None of us need any new clothes either.

However, we will be spending quite a bit in the next two weeks to get ourselves ready to move into our new place, but those costs will be covered by savings. We have nothing here – no dishes, cookware, cutlery, utensils,, linens, furniture . . . nothing. Almost all stores on the island are closed, but there are enough open that we should be able to get some essentials to get us started (a sofa, a bed, a TV, towels, sheets, kitchen linens, a dish drainer, trash cans, some bakeware and a couple of pans for cooking). We will be shopping for those items with a list we have been putting together so we don’t overspend. 

Our life is going to be an extremely simple one for a while, at least until our shipment arrives from Portland, whenever that may be. However, if Brett and I learned nothing else while we were traveling it was how to live the good life on less by making sure we tracked our spending every day. We’ve got this.

Closing Out the Books for February 2020

Posted on by Laura & Brett
Brett’s budget journals aren’t as pretty as this one, but he gets everything in there to keep us on track. Receipts are taped in, the daily average for the month is computed (as well as our average for the location), and steps taken and stairs climbed that day are noted as well. It’s an ingrained habit now, something he’ll continue to do long after we stop traveling.

We did OK in February. Not great, but not bad either. Our daily spending average for the month of February was $39/day; we ended the month with an average of $33.91. We can live with that.

Our commissary shop plus two trips to the mini-mart at Hardy Barracks and the New Sanno are a big reason for the elevated average last month, but I’m happy to report that we have lots of food on hand, probably a little more than three weeks’ worth. Our freezer is stuffed full of food! We also picked up extra supplies at Tokyu and at Kaldi Coffee Farm (cheese, peanut butter and oatmeal) this month. We have sufficient supplies of paper products to get us through the rest of our stay. We want to have plenty on hand if the virus situation here takes a turn for the worse.

March may or may not be a challenge. It’s a 31-day month, and there is nothing remaining out of the $400 we brought along for commissary shopping, so we’re going to have to stay within our limit of ¥40,000 for the month for food. That’s only around $12/day for food for the two of us. Our monthly budget of ¥80,000 only gives us about $24/day, our lowest budget amount since we began traveling. This is where our food stockpile will come in handy – when those items are gradually added back in over the next few weeks we should be OK. As we won’t be traveling daily to pick up the grandkids or going out sightseeing our transportation costs will be lower as well. We’ve done much better than expected at keeping our dining out expenses well below ¥3000 per week, and that will continue too. We do have one big event coming up at the end of the month – our 41st anniversary – but we haven’t decided yet what or if we’ll be doing (if anything) for that special event.

So, here we go again, with fingers crossed!

Closing Out the Books for January 2020

Posted on by Laura & Brett

With two of our girls with us in Portland until the day before we left, nine days on Kaua’i, our usual travel day expenses, and then settling in once we got to Tokyo, we assumed we would go w-a-y over our daily spending average in January.

But that didn’t happen. We ended up with a daily spending average of $34.94, just under our $35/day limit.

Looking back, YaYu and WenYu helped us eat down all the food we had remaining in our Portland Airbnb and we spent very little during those final 10 days in Portland. We stuck to our pre-determined spending limits while we were on Kaua’i and left with cash in our wallets. Other than a couple of cups of coffee and two breakfast sandwiches, we bought nothing on our travel days and let our hotel or the airlines feed us. And, we “paid” ourselves upfront for a month when we arrived in Japan, a pre-determined amount of 80,000 yen, instead of using our debit card over and over. Because of that, we have carefully watched our spending so we don’t run out before our next “payday.” Our son and DIL have helped with a few expenses, such as our transportation from Narita airport, some local travel expenses, and a few meals at their home. Those have helped our bottom line as well.

We ended January with a total of ¥42,800 on hand out of our original ¥80,000 (¥23,000 for groceries, ¥10,800 for dining out, and ¥9,000 for miscellaneous expenses). We added $400 to that for commissary/exchange shopping which we did this past Saturday, February 1 (we have $146 of that remaining). There is zero yen left in the envelope for transportation but our PASMO cards still have over ¥4,000 on them which should last us for a while. We will replenish our yen supply again on the 15th of this month, withdrawing another ¥80,000 and dividing it among the envelopes.

Based on the current exchange rate, ¥80,000 equals around $740 (which means $60 gets left in our bank account). With the additional $400 in U.S. dollars we added in, we have a total of $1140 available for the month of February. Divided by 29 days, that’s an average of a little over $39/day for the month. However, the average will drop to around $24/day in March, so we’re challenging ourselves to keep our spending average as low as possible to get ready for that. Once again, fingers crossed!