Sept Oct Nov
Rent $560 $550 $547
Eating Out $473 $377 $437
Transportation $159 $43 $16
Groceries $205 $181 $148
Phone/Internet $66 $21 $20
Entertainment $208 $241 $314
Medical $9 $87 $40
Misc $197 $207 $71
Electricity $16 $16 $19
Water $4 $4 $4
Tuition/Visa $130 $130 $246
Total $2,047 $1,740 $1,862
Per Day $68 $56 $62
It seems like every time we do this we expect to see monthly totals that are not in our favor. We worry about eating out too much, having too many massages, or maybe this month we went out way more than ever before. However, much to our delight, it still all seems to average itself out by the end of the month.
You will see our entertainment expenses went up this month but our groceries subsequently went down. Someone once told us that drinking beer can be considered a form of eating. I'll drink to that!
Other areas that went up were medical expenses. Lori went to the dermatologist and had a minor procedure done while there. The total cost was $40 for the visit, procedure, and medicine. More details to come in another blog on that experience.
Also, it was time for our three month visa renewal which we blogged about earlier. http://freetirement.weebly.com/blog/thai-immigration-a-lesson-in-patience. This category will go up every three months when it's time to renew.
Other than that, every other area looks good. Chase comes to visit in mid-January so I'm really interested to see how that impacts our expenses for that month since he likes to eat and we will want to show him some fun experiences while he's here.
The bottom line is...being this far under our original projected budget of $3000 per month will really help us financially when we go to Europe next fall and prices will be much higher. We will also have to include transportation costs to the states from Europe.
So, life is still good in early retirement. If you have any questions about our expenses, please don't hesitate to ask. We will remain open and candid in our responses.
Randy