The south end of the beach at Hua Hin, Thailand.
Where are Kevin and Ruth now? Hua Hin, Thailand.

Where are Kevin and Ruth going next? Maldives on March 23rd.

Thursday, September 1, 2016

August Expenses

Well, another month has passed, so it must be time for another monthly expense report. We were doing okay on our expenses during August...until we saw that kayak for sale. But overall, it was still a good month.

Except that there were five Wednesdays in the month, and we do grocery shopping on Wednesdays!

We spent a total of $1,035 for the month. Here's how it all broke down...

Gasoline: We started off the month with a full tank. Drove to Regina airport and back to drop off our motorhome exchange guests, but they gave me some gas money. Other than that, it was just our weekly grocery trips into town. Spent a total of $66 on gasoline.

The price of fuel had been hovering around $0.92 per litre CAD for most of the summer, but I noticed yesterday that it's gone up to $1.02 per litre CAD in Swift Current. That's about $2.87 per gallon USD.

Groceries: Again, we had been doing fairly well in this department, until we went and did shopping again yesterday. There were five Wednesdays in the month of August, and we do grocery shopping on Wednesdays. We spent $607 on groceries.

Just out of curiosity, I went back and checked our grocery expenses over the four month period May through August for the past four years.

2016 - $2,470

2015 - $2,116

2014 - $2,408

2013 - $2,045

Pretty stable, all things considered. Despite that, we still think that fruits and veggies have gone way up in price during that period.

Miscellaneous: Higher than expected, at $329. But that's because of the unplanned kayak purchase at $106. Other expenses were our monthly car insurance at $79, $40 for various clothing items, and I put $55 worth of "pay as you" go credit on the iPhone. And I bought the oil and filter for the little blue car's oil change later this month.

Alcohol: Nope, nothing. We continue to boycott the ridiculous cost of booze here in Canada.

Unfortunately, we're going to have to break that vow later this month, and next month as well. Just can't see us doing two weeks in the motorhome without being able to have a glass of wine when we get parked up for the night. Also, we're going to arrange for our daughter to go to one of those "brew it yourself" type of places and make some home made wine for us. If she does it this weekend, it should be ready to drink by the time we arrive in Ottawa!

Motorhome: I also bought the oil and filter to do Sherman's oil change later this month. Total of $28.

So, $1,035 for the month of August. Not bad. September expenses will be a bit higher though, mostly because of the fuel for the motorhome as we start our drive back to Ottawa later in the month.

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6 comments:

  1. There's nothing wrong with home made wine, we have our own cave in the basement and we have been making our own wine for 30 years.

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    1. Nope nothing wrong with it at all! We used to make our own wine in our basement as well for many, many years. :-)

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  2. We made homemade wine and beer for over 20 years before we went fulltime, just not convenient to carry that amount in our RV, so we just cut back substantially especially in Canada.

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    1. We did too! When we lived in Kingston, Ontario in the motorhome, we first used one of this wine making stores to make our wine in and when it was ready rather than bottle it in bottles we used the bags/bladders that the wine concentrate came in, this made storage and traveling much easier.

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  3. Heinz makes vodka out of potatoes. I've checked on line. Nothing wrong with a little still hidden behind the wood shed.

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    1. Hmm, we may have to look into that, lol! We are hoping that we will see Heinz and Uli in October, if they are still at home and haven't already left for Mexico.

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