This deer was wondering around the campground at Waterton Lakes National Park not afraid of anything, cute eh? Now that I have your attention… a dry topic – month end numbers.
As the month of June comes to a close I would like to share some of the things I have been tracking. Since we left Phoenix on June 5th we have been on the road for 26 days, not a full month but it is easiest to track by the calendar month so I am just going with that.
States Visited: 5
Arizona
Utah
Nevada
Idaho
Montana
Types of Campgrounds:
National Forest: 3
National Park: 2
State Park: 1
Private: 2
BLM: 1
Average Campsite Cost: $22.46
Cheapest Campsite: $10 (BLM)
Most Expensive Campsite: $44 (Missoula KOA)
Miles Traveled: 1,669
When we were planning this new lifestyle we kept looking on the internet for expense reports from other people with this lifestyle to see if we could estimate what our own costs would be. There is not a lot of information out there. One big area that was lacking was health insurance costs. The laws and rules on health insurance are constantly changing so there was a lot of outdated information out there. Like pre-retirement age people saying they are only paying only a couple hundred dollars a month for individual health insurance because they are healthy. Yeah right, that does not exist in today’s environment but apparently it did before the Affordable Care Act. Health Insurance is a huge topic for another time. We decided to go with COBRA from our jobs for the remainder of 2016 and reevaluate for 2017.
As I get older I am more comfortable sharing financial information. It is everyone’s personal choice on what type of lifestyle they want to live and everything costs a certain amount, it is just a fact of life. We have tracked every dollar spent since we have been on the road, and this is what we have learned so far:
- We are still addicted to eating out
- If you need to cut down on your data usage for a month, go somewhere where there is no cell phone service
- If you need to cut down on your fuel cost, find a nice spot and stay there
- Health Insurance is our biggest expense, a huge fee for nothing. We don’t even use it.
Here is another pretty picture for you from the Canadian Badlands, more on that later.
exitthecube.com 
I’m so happy for you guys. Sounds like you are approaching this with your eyes wide open.
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Thanks Carol! One thing I keep saying when things don’t work out is “take a lesson and move on”.
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Hi Sheri good information! Yeah I know Cobra is expensive better to have it if you can afford it you never know what could happen.. Picture of the badland sky is beautiful! Is the sun setting or rising in that pic?
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What is a BLM camp site?
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BLM is Bureau of Land Management. They manage large areas of public lands in the west. A lot of it you can just park/camp on it way out on a dirt road somewhere for free, no services of course. They also have some developed campgrounds but they are usually very basic like vault toilets, but very cheap. We stayed at one in Barstow CA a while back, out in the desert for $6!
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That was sunset in the badlands. Tim’s picture of course! We had no idea there was such a thing as Canadian Badlands! Sunset is around 10 pm up here, it is so strange! People seem to stay up late at night and sleep late in the morning. Even in the campgrounds.
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Yeah guess RV camping is good in a BLM area – other wise must like roughing it! Ya know when Mom and Dad camped cross country guess that was 50 years ago camp grounds cost 2 or 3 dollars a night..
I didn’t know there were bad lands in Canada either looks really pretty! Day light is like that in Seattle too – when Don and I went to visit his daughter, June of 2015 the sky was still so bright 10 o’clock at night..
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$2 for camping, that is funny! Yeah there is really a wide range of services and prices at different types of campgrounds.
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