January Travel and Expenses

It’s hard to believe the first month of 2025 has already passed us by! We’ve seen some crazy weather all over, including in Florida! This month has been a blend of all the things in life.

We’ve set goals for this year and plan to focus on our 2 blogs a week (Sundays and Wednesdays), interacting with all of you on social media (Facebook & Instagram, and we are working on YouTube), and our website (check out the interactive map we are slowly building, the free printables page for planning and organizing, and the newly added savings page with discount codes for products and companies we love).

We enjoyed the Tampa RV Show and camped on site. It was great to reconnect with friends, meet people in person that we’d talked to online for ages, visit companies we love, see new things in the industry and stock up on items we needed for the rig. The weather was all the seasons but we didn’t let that stop us! Our Harvest Host membership renewed this month, so that did drive up our camping costs this month. We also chip into utilities at our homebase since we moochdocked with family. We spent the last week of the month in Fort Myers since BJ had an install job, so we got to play snowbirds for a bit, too! Since it was cold this month, we also spent a little extra on propane since it just makes the rig warmer than electric heaters along.
Camping: $456 (budgeted: $300)
Propane: $61 (budgeted: $35)

We did several projects on the rig this month. We added a 3 stage filter to our water, our biggest expense, as well as parts for the Starlink Port BJ swears is going to get installed on the rig soon so we don’t have to feed the wire through the slide anymore. He did some maintenance on the brakes and tires for the rig, as well. Before we set out this season, we plan to upgrade our other 2 trailer tires and add another spare and mount. We also had to repair the water hose and replace a sewer hose–did you know that Wal-mart carries them and offers a 2 year warranty on them? We didn’t get it this time, but may on the next one once we research. Have you used that before? We also did our weigh in on the rig this month to see what kind of diet we need to put the rig on before traveling. It’s crazy how much creeps in when you sit still for a season!
Repairs/Upgrades: $401 (budgeted: $200)

We had our annual appointments this month at the dentist and doctor’s office. We are new to being cash patients, so that has been a learning curve for us, but our teenager is making great progress with his braces–we can’t believe he’s almost a year in! We also got hair cuts and BJ finally got his running tattoo he’s been talking about for years, so he is happy!
Medical/Health & Life Insurance: $770 (budgeted: $285)
Personal Care: $140 (budgeted: $100)

If you’ve been following on social media, you’ve seen my sourdough experiment this month (more on that in another blog, including why it is also coming to an end), so we’ve been cooking and baking a lot, but still stayed in budget. We’ve made up for it by eating out a couple extra times, though, and since we’ve been home, we’ve been frequenting our favorite local coffee shop and bakery!
Groceries/household items: $626 (budgeted: $800)
Dining out: $339 (budgeted: $200)

For entertainment, we’ve been going on hikes at local places (see prior blogs!) and I’ve taken up crafting and baking hobbies, so it’s been nice to have a creative outlet again! Our toll passes also replenished since that is the main way around here. While if Fort Myers, we splurged and got an annual pass for Ford and Edison Estates since the list of places with reciprocity included several we already planned to visit this year, so it was a win-win!
Entertainment/Tolls & Parking: $172 (budgeted: $200)

With only travel to the RV show and the job in Fort Myers, we’ve kept our fuel and DEF expenses low, and same for our mileage this month, which is a nice offset from busy travel months.
Travel miles: 181
Fuel/Def: $305 (budgeted: $750)

Other expenses have been pretty routine and on budget, so it’s been nice to have no surprises there:
RV Loan $939 (budgeted $939)
Technology $438 (budgeted $435)
RV/Truck Insurance: $327 (budgeted $327)
Pet care: $144 (budgeted $150)
Dump/water fees: $0 (budgeted $10)
Laundry: $0 (budgeted $10)
Donations/savings/bank fees: $25 (budgeted $100)
Gifts: $0 (budgeted $100)

If you’ve followed our spending and travel series for long, you know this has adapted–both in format and in amounts. With the end of year data for 2024, I tweaked some categories and amounts, combining things and increasing/decreasing or splitting them, for simplicity of tracking. I did add gifts and donations categories since we were finding we use these and I wanted to track them separate from the household expenses since that is where we overspent a lot. I’m hoping with these tweaks, along with slower travel habits, 2025 won’t be as expensive, but we will see how things like insurance and technology subscriptions change.
2024 Monthly average expenses: $6,607 (budgeted $4754–but we paid off some big expenses)
2025 January expenses: $5026 (budgeted $4941)

We expect February to be finishing projects and prepping for the upcoming travel season. We may squeeze in a trip to visit our son in Georgia while he is there for training, too. This year, we hope to work our way around the country and cross off as many as we can of the states we’ve missed the last few years, but it will depend on jobs that come in and family needs.

I’ll have the recap video out on social media this week, too, so let me know which format you prefer (blog, and blog style, or video)! Your feedback helps us make sure we are sharing in the best possible way!

Let us know in the comments–how does this compare to your spending/budgeting & travel for January?