| Category | Total Spent for Year | Monthly Average | Daily Average |
|---|---|---|---|
| all Vehicle expenses (gas, repairs, insurance, etc) | $998.77 | $83.23 | $2.73/day
( $0.20/mile ) |
| food | $1165.88 | $97.16 | $3.20/day |
| everything else | $511.83 | $42.65 | $1.40/day |
| Total Year: | $2676.48 | $223.04 | $7.31/day |
These are my total expenses for all of 2020 (366 days).
Here is a year-by-year summary
of my expenses for all my years in my van.
At the very bottom of this page, there are some "Metrics" including the oft cited "Unicorn" ones as well as some far more meaningful & Geek ones. :)
| Category | Total Spent for Year | Monthly Average | Cost per Mile |
|---|---|---|---|
| repairs & maintenance | $86.83 | $7.24 | $0.02 |
| gas | $751.83 | $62.65 | $0.15 |
| van insurance | $95.21 | $7.93 | $0.0188 |
| van registration | $64.90 | $5.41 | $0.0128 |
| Total for Year: | $998.77 | $83.23 | $0.20 |
Van expenses comprised 37.3% of all of my expenditures.
Total miles driven: 5056 miles
Of those miles, about 3418 miles
(67.6%)
were "travel"/migration miles between states,
the rest were local, mostly relocating and town supply/etc runs.
Early 2020, I wintered in Texas, which required far more non-migration travel than I had expected.
Spring was chaotic (due to the COVID-19 pandemic), with far more travel than should have been necessary.
Summer and Fall were spent on rural land owned by some friends, and I was able to dramatically reduce my supply runs, which saved considerable fuel. I hope to repeat that in 2021.
I spent $1165.88 on food,
which was
43.6%
of my expenditures.
The daily average was
$3.20/day
(based on 364 calendar days (i.e. minus 2 days of gifted food)).
Part of the total spent was stockpiling in response to the early Spring grocery shortages caused by COVID-idiots panic hoarding.
My actual consumption was about $2.58/day based on cost of calories (which I began tracking in March).
I plan to publish more details about my food costs, including at least one detailed sample week, as per several requests. :)
The total amount includes sales taxes:
food "sin" (soda, candy, fast food) tax that most states levy, and
grocery (i.e. regular food) sales tax that is levied by some particularly regressive states (MO,AR).
Pre-COVID, I had planned to stock up much more efficiently in states with lower or no sin/grocery taxes,
however did end up doing a significant stock up in Arkansas(AR), entirely due to COVID shortages when I had tried to stock up in Texas.
That stockup included a 16-roll pack of single-ply toilet paper, which was a great stress relief. :)
Total cost of all my non van & food expenses was $511.83 (19.1% of my total).
Breakdown by sub-category:| expenses that are roughly equivalent to "sticks & bricks" Utilities | |||
| PO box | $86.00 | ||
| storage unit | $20.00 | ||
| Communications | total: $176.09 | cell phone ("GoPhone") (I've let this lapse to save money) | 26.76 |
| hotspot data cards (a Friend donated several more cards) | 149.33 | ||
| Consumables | total: $52.95 | butane (bought 2 cases of 12 canisters each) | 46.59 |
| water | 6.36 | ||
| expenses that are personal or long-term gear | |||
| Personal expenses ("budget-limited") |
total: $114.79 | hygiene (supplies, laundry, showers, etc) | 72.50 |
| luxuries (non-food, see below) | 10.58 | ||
| medical | 17.76 | ||
| etc | 13.95 | ||
| Gear/Equipment (mostly one-offs) |
total: $62.00 | mini thermoelectric cooler (This is an experiment, similar to last year's crockpot, and so far is working out well. It is just large enough to cool 2L worth of drinks, which has been an enormous relief on Heat Advisory days.) | 41.83 |
| car charger inverter (Had a major solar system issue, thought my old one had died, and so bought this as a replacement, then kept it as a backup.) |
10.68 | ||
| USB powered mosquito-zapper | 8.43 | ||
| solar light (cheap Dollar Tree "garden stake") | 1.06 | ||
For butane, I averaged 14.5 cooking days, 16.8 calendar days, per canister.
Originally in 2019, I had intended to cut out all luxuries, but quickly came to my senses, and merely set a sub-limit of $10/month.
In the past I had not set any sub-limit on that or any other sub category within my "personal" expenses budget.
For 2020, I decided to reduce my luxury budget to $5/month, mainly to discourage me from buying fast food.
The COVID-19 pandemic has helped even more with that particular goal (i.e. most TacoBells do not allow walk-ins).
| "The Stand" miniseries DVD (I saw this at three (3) different Walmarts, while trying to find staples during the early COVID supply shortages, and... Resistance was (finally) Futile! :)) | 5.30 |
| headphones (my previous set died, and it's Bad Karma not to use headphones) | 5.28 |
My budget for luxuries is $60 per year ($5 per month).
I spent $10.58, which was
$49.42
under my limit for the year.
I do intend to "carry forward" my luxury underages ($31.08 for 2019, $49.42 for 2020), until such time as I'm solvent and/or receiving age-based Social Security. :)
I expect to continue at about the same levels of controllable expenses.
As before, the big unknown is breakdowns.
If I can again stay on private land for most of the year, I have a viable prospect of getting a Remote job, and (finally!) becoming solvent.
The biggest thing I can do to enable that, is to focus on learning one or more in demand computer languages.
| Unicorns: | ||
| miles driven | 5056 | |
| States camped in | 7 | |
| National Forests camped in | 6 | |
| Reality: | ||
| breakdowns & tows | [nil] | |
| Geekery: | ||
| Lines of Computer Code created/modified | 37 K | |
| National Forests in which booted Linux and did at least one Build | [nil] | |
| privately owned Land of Friends at which booted Linux and did at least one Build :) | 2 | |
| cup-o-noodles consumed (approx) | 7 | |
| HotPockets consumed (approx) | 15 | |