July Expenses

Well, we knew July was going to be an expensive month, and that's exactly what it was.

We started the month in China, and ended it in Mexico... with stops in Hong Kong, Japan, and Canada in between. So we were in a total of five countries in July! No wonder it was expensive.

I had budgeted $6,400 CAD ($4,565 USD) for the month, and we ended up spending $7,454 CAD ($5,316 USD). Part of the discrepancy was my fault... I forgot to include a few things in the original budget that I should have known about. And the balance is a couple of items we bought for the house when we returned to Mexico.

Here's how it all broke down... (the following figures are all in $CAD)...

Groceries: We ate out in China and Hong Kong, but then we did all our own meals for the one week in Japan, and Japan is fairly pricey for groceries. And, when we returned to Mexico of course our fridge was empty so we had to do some stocking up. We spent $380 CAD on groceries. 

Meals out: As I said, we ate in restaurants for the first two weeks of the month. China is reasonably cheap, but Hong Kong was more. We spent $409 CAD eating out, and $135 of that was for two and a half days in  Hong Kong. 

Alcohol: Reasonable, at $110 CAD. That's about average for us.

Miscellaneous: A total of $548 CAD. We bought a fair bit of high quality clothing. We've decided to try to spend more on quality and hope that we get many years out of it. And we spent quite a lot on taxis, buses and other public transportation throughout the month. Then we spent some money on a tool kit to keep at the house, and some exercise equipment. I'll get into that more in another post next week.

Entertainment: We spent $237 keeping ourselves entertained. The majority of that was the two national parks we went to in China.

Overnight: $2,286 CAD, which considering that includes our rental house in Mexico, and some fairly expensive nights in Hong Kong and Japan... it's actually pretty good. I think about what most people pay for accommodation for a month of just staying in one place, and this is actually pretty good!

Motorhome: We are paying for storage and the monthly costs of registration and insurance for Igor, our motorhome that is currently parked in Oaxaca, Mexico. Total of $122.

Travel: Of course flying in July is expensive, and we knew that would be the case. We spent a total of $3,362 CAD, but that was not only flights, it also included two trains in China, two trains in Japan, and a bus in Mexico. 

So, a total of $7,454 CAD ($5,316 USD) for the month of July.

August will be less than half of that... we have a budget of $3,300 for the month of August. The major expense is our upcoming trip back to Canada on the 19th. 

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