Kaylee's not-a-blog » Human stuff » Expenses » my expenses for 2021

These are my total expenses for all of 2021 (365 days).
Here is a year-by-year summary of my expenses for all my years in my van.

• This was an atypical year. My "normal" expected costs are about three thousand (i.e. about $250/month).
• The above food row reflects how much I spent, not how much I consumed. Read the notes below for details.
• I do not have medical insurance.
• I have zero income (I'm disabled, and am not receiving any government assistance (I still have not received any of the "stimulus" payments from the IRS)).
• Friends gifted me about 41 days of food - thanks! :)
• Since I have no income, I am not "saving" anything for emergencies, rather I've been living off my savings for over a decade (this should be obvious, but evidently has flown over the heads of a number of individuals).
• I've lived frugally my entire life.
  When I became disabled, I cut back more.
  After being taken advantage of by several "repair" shops, I had no choice but to cut back even more.
• I do meaningful volunteer work (more than full-time equivalent), so I'm generally satisfied with my life.
  In other words, I can continue indefinitely at this level of personal expenses.
  Hacking Food has also helped a lot, in particular, finding substitutes for my main food wishes (pizza, french fries). :)
  Stay tuned for my next planned Food Hack:  the Crunchwrap Supreme! ;)
• I am committed to building a quality van repair database, and have already found a sponsor for the website.
  Volunteers are welcome, however it will probably be another year before I can contribute significant time.
  
  
• This page is a quick first draft, and I'll be adding more details later
  (as well as reorganizing/refactoring all expense pages).
• The "migration" miles are an estimate.
• My 2022 expenses should increase significantly, and will probably be between three and four thousand, due to more van repairs and re-acquiring phone/internet (I went without in 2021).

Vehicle only Expenditures:

Van expenses comprised 58.8% of all of my expenditures.

Total miles driven: 3130 miles
Of those miles, about 2500 miles (79.9%) were "travel"/migration miles between states, the rest were local, mostly relocating and town supply/etc runs.

In spring 2021, I indulged in some birding in Texas, which resulted in far more non-migration travel than I had expected.
The rest of the year I spent on rural land owned by some friends, and I was able to dramatically reduce my supply runs, which saved considerable fuel.

I also had another major van mechanical failure, the repairs of which have not yet been completed, so I decided not to migrate this winter, for safety reasons. I will probably end up saving enough on gas to cover the repairs.

Food Expenditures:

I spent $489.05 on food, which was 20.5% of my expenditures.
The daily average was $1.51/day (based on 324 calendar days (i.e. minus 0 days of gifted food)).

My estimated food stockpile at the end of 2020 was 160.3 days, vs 30.5 days at the end of 2021.
My cost per calorie day was about $2.52/day based on cost of calories (i.e. I bought about 194.2 days worth of food for the year).

Note that in January & February 2022, I did a major food restock, buying 135.5 calorie-days for $338.74, and obtained 14.3 calorie-days from a local food pantry, for a total of 4.9 calorie-months of food.
I felt much less stressed afterwards. :)

Everything Else:

Total cost of all my non van & food expenses was $492.07 (20.7% of my total).

Budget Limits:

My budget for luxuries is $60 per year ($5 per month).
I spent $15.38, which was $44.62 under my limit for the year.