During the planning process, we did our best to try and figure out what a realistic budget would look like for us traveling. We read lots of blogs, we researched other travelers and we already tracked our personal expenses. We knew there was no template that we could plug in and have it all figured out. We are a traveling family of 7. I’m sure there are plenty of families like ours traveling, but each one will have its unique needs. One thing we pride ourselves on, is we have ZERO debt. The truck and trailer are completely paid off. We saved more than enough to fund our journey for a couple years without working, and we started a business in our home state of Montana. Roadtrip Ventures. It’s a diverse company that I will get into more in the future. For now, let’s talk about expenses. That’s where it gets interesting. I am going to break down the primary categories we are using.
The values on them are Monthly:
Food/Groceries: $600
Obviously we have 7 mouths to feed. We looked at what we’re spending in S&B, and came up with this number. This includes foods bought to cook at home. Does not include Eating out.
Fuel: $400
This is for Diesel for the Fummins. We plan to take our time, and not be in a hurry.
Fun Stuff: $400
This is our budget for extra-curricular activities. Whether it is a museum, Amusement Park, or anything in between. This is our budget for going out and having fun. This includes eating out. Which we do NOT plan to so often. There are so many of us, it costs too much. We did purchase a yearly pass to a museum in Montana that gives us a “passport” or entry into many museums, science centers, etc. That membership was $80 a year. And we have a national parks pass that cost $70 a year.
Phone: $250
This is an estimate of our Verizon Bill. We have 3 smart phones and a MiFi mobile hot spot on the bill. I’m sure we could get it down and minimalize, but since we are active on social media, what’s a better tool than a smart phone. Wifi really isn’t an amenity at most campgrounds, so the MiFi allows easier access for laptops, kindles, ipads, etc…
Laundry: $125
This is pretty self-explanatory, for detergents, dryer sheets and quarters to make it all work.
Insurance: $125
This is for full coverage on both the Trailer and the Excursion. It includes roadside service and renters insurance that covers additional belongings in our trailer, and our stuff in storage back in Montana. Since we are Montana residents and fall under certain criteria, we are currently covered by Blue Cross BlueShield of Montana through Medicaid for health insurance. If that changes, then we will have to add additional here for marketplace coverage.
Maintenance: $100
This is for service and parts for the both the Fummins and the trailer.
Savings: $100
We are planning to keep putting at least $100 a month away into savings.
Parking: $100
This will be what’s budgeted for staying at parks outside of Thousand Trails.
Memberships: $70
When we were planning this adventure, one of my concerns with us traveling with so many children was to have “some place” to be. Now I do think boon docking has its advantages, and playing it by ear is can be fun. But I wanted more certainty, and to be able to be “somewhere”. So we researched various camping memberships/clubs. We ended up with a Thousand Trails VIP membership. If you’re not familiar with Thousand Trails, it’s a camping ground club that has about 80 campgrounds around the country. We can stay for 3 weeks at the parks in the system and move to another park. We can do it all year if we want to. The membership cost $1000 plus a $750 transfer fee since we bought it from an existing member. The yearly dues are $642. With This particular membership we are also entitled to join RPI (Resort Parks International) the yearly Dues for RPI are $119. With RPI it’s a little different. It’s a cooperative of many parks. For a majority of these, we get them for $10 a night. We also joined Full Time Families. This is a group that is all about families on the road. This membership was $45 for a year. The good thing about this one is it also included a free year of Good Sam’s Camping club. There are many benefits to this from Fuel discounts to discounts on campgrounds. We also got a free year of Escapees. Another camping club with a lot of benefits. If you’re considering this lifestyle, I recommend checking all of them out.
Utilities: $50
This category will include; propane, Wifi at parks that it costs extra, electricity if it costs extra, and basically anything that we need to function.
Cleaning supplies/toiletries: $40
Don’t know how much detail I need to go to on this one, but anything we need to use to clean the trailer or ourselves would fall into this category.
Amazon: $20
We have an Amazon Prime account and also Kindle Unlimited for Books. Besides, who doesn’t have Amazon Prime?!
Misc: $20
Anything else that we haven’t covered.
We accept the fact that this isn’t concrete. We are going to have additional needs (or wants), and sometimes we will need less. This is what we are starting with. So our Monthly budget will be $2400 a month. We use Quicken to track everything, so it’ll be easy to run reports and see how well we are doing compared to the budget we have set.
