A descriptive look at traveling and full-timing with our second RV, a fifth wheel toyhauler.
Laura and Sasha started this adventure in April of 2005
for a two week vacation in a truck camper.
Expenses of June 2010:
Now 2010 is still upon us, but if all goes according to plan, we will volunteer in the winter (which ended up being only a couple of months: January and February) and work/volunteer for six months at a National Park. Then head to Texas for some driver licenses and then back East for a couple of months. Then hopefully back to Nevada in the month of December. That is the hope anyway.
June 2010 - Getting Hot in Canyonlands National Park, but still...Not too bad Biggest expense has been something I have been putting off for over a year now, and so bit the bullet, so to speak and went off to buy....
Expenses: For the Month of June:
| Categories | Things Bought | Amount |
| Food | Food&Household | 57.64 |
| Provisions | 645.71 | |
| PYO & Farm Market | ||
| Meals to Go | 41.96 | |
| Clothing | All | 42.95 |
| Transportation | ||
| Truck | Diesel | 105.71 |
| Moto Vehicles | Gas | 21.03 |
| Moto Vehicles | Maintenance | 84.96 |
| Parking | 3.00 | |
| Utilities | Propane | |
| Rent | 100 | |
| Camper | Equipment | |
| Communication | ||
| Postage/Escapees | 40.35 | |
| Cell Phone | ||
| Apple Laptop | 1,168.79 | |
| Dreamweaver | 425.35 | |
| Aperture | 232.86 | |
| Internet | 58.92 | |
| Health | Insurance (L) | |
| Insurance (S) | ||
| Recreation | Fun Stuff | 222.83 |
| Gifts | 8.61 | |
| Total Spent | $3,260.65 |
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Well, first as you can see, we spent a bit for food - went to a Costco, Walmart, and Winco when we went to visit Bo and Sasha's parents when we went to Eden, UT. It had been a long time since we saw Sasha's parents, and so when his Dad had a conference in San Francisco, they flew to Salt Lake City, and we picked them up. It was great to see them again. It would have been too tough for them to come here to Canyonlands, there would be no place for them to stay, and they do not hike...and we could see Bo again...
So we went a little hog wild on the groceries, getting not only foodstuff, but also vitamins, cleaning stuff, and some paper stuff, plus a bunch of dried foods - not as much as before, but some really good things.
Since we had gone to Eden, UT to visit the folks, we did not go into Moab too often this month, just one other time to get groceries and eat out.
But while we were in civilization, we went to the Crocs outlet in Park City, UT and we got three pairs of Crocs between the two of us. So in the pictures, you might see my hot pink Crocs and Sasha's green ones (he uses those for volunteering.)
Dad treated us to a nice fill up of the diesel, I guess because we used our truck more often to drive around (easy to put five adults in a SuperDuty than in a car). THANKS Dad! We only had to fill up a little ways on the way back. At that time too, we got gasoline (I think it was a few times...)
Sasha got oil to do an oil change and we also had to pay insurance for the motorcycles - not too bad.
We paid for parking when we went to downtown Park City - what a trip of a town - basically just one street of stores, but what is so neat is that they have a trolley so once you get down the hill, the trolley can bring you back up. I thought that was pretty cool, and great for the parents.
We paid rent, still so very cheap for the site, considering how it is so hot, we have to run the AC. Thankfully, a dry heat means that if we leave it at 80 degrees F, we still stay nice and cool. Having two fans helps!
And then of course, is the reason WHY the expenses are so high - I finally bought the bullet and got me a MacBook Pro - 13 inch screen, lots of memory and space, and refurbished. Plus two softwares - Dreamweaver (which this website template is using) and Aperture - which Sasha uses for the pictures. So I had to learn how to use a Mac (still learning that!) and how to use a very robust web designing software system. I cheated a little and found a template online that I liked and then modified it enough to make it ours. In July 2010 Pictures page, you can see how the Aperture software has really helped us.
For those that are in the government, and especially for those in the NPS who are looking for a computer, I would suggest a MacBook. They have a discount program for you. I'm sure other companies have discounts, but might as well ask.
Also, one of the ongoing headaches is mailing things to us here in Canyonlands. You specify to the vendor to use UPS and they instead did FedEx - which can be a problem as FedEx Ground does not come here. Don't know why except they are based out of Moab and it is a 75 mile one way drive! But still - it gets confusing when things ship and they switch around the shipping company. Then you have to worry if it really will get here. But I was able to get the computer pretty quickly and boy, is it nice. All the programs and none of the junk programs.
However, we did install Parallels as I need to go back into Frontpage to copy some of the info from the older websites (that will take a while....) and also Outlook is occasionally accessed to get to some old emails.
For the postage, that was as we were getting low on the weekly postage from Escapees, the company that delivers our mail to the PO Box here in Moab. We also sent a hard drive filled with Sasha's music to a friend of ours...In Sasha's collection he has 24,523 songs right now, which equates to 70.4 days of listening 24 hours a day - you would not hear the same song twice! Whenever I tell that to some teen or someone holding a iPod - I got the proper response - oooh, and usually a good WOW!
One of the GLARINGLY non-expense is health care - we took care of that last month and will not have to pay again until December or Janurary. Always nice....
We did some fun stuff this time around, going for get the camping gear together - this time getting an air mattress, so we do not sleep on the ground. We do like our creature comforts after all.
It was also my niece - Stephanie Miles birthday in June, so I got her some cool magazines to check out - similar to Teen Beat (but I do not think that is around anymore.)
So there you have it, we spent a bit, went to Eden and Park City UT and came home, but next month we will be doing some camping for sure!
Check out Next Month July for the Expenses, and July 2010 Pictures for the explanation of what we were doing that month, and all of the pictures we have. There are lots! There are always lots, we always take tons of pictures. I just got to figure out how to put them all on the website.