August 2022 Budget Report – Guatemala

Our first month of international travel is finally over! It’s been a whirlwind of a month, but it has been a fantastic experience so far. And as promised, we are releasing monthly budget reports so readers can see how we manage our average monthly budget of $2500 USD. So here is our August 2022 budget report for our first month in Guatemala!

Confession time.

We knew we would be busting our budget our first month.

Education and homestay costs alone nearly depleted all but $500 USD of our stated monthly budget goal, which was not a surprise. The question was, how badly would we go over budget?

Let’s find out.

Accommodation: $910.06 USD

Our first night in Guatemala City (on July 31) at our Airbnb cost $19.40 USD for one night. Our homestay in San Pedro La Laguna cost $814.66 USD for 27 nights. And our Airbnb in San Pablo La Laguna cost $19.00 USD per night for 4 nights in August, but we will be staying through most of September.

This is actually a strange category because our homestay included 3 meals per day 6 days per week. So it will be interesting moving forward to see how our accommodation and food expenses shift over time.

Eating Out: $146.90 USD

This expense includes any food purchased at a local restaurant or cafe.

We were on our own for food in Guatemala City, on Sundays in San Pedro La Laguna, and in San Pablo La Laguna. While in San Pedro La Laguna, when we ate out we tried to keep things reasonable. We hope to continue this trend moving forward. Again, food was largely accounted for this month by our homestay, so it will be interesting to see how this expense changes over time.

Groceries: $107.06 USD

Most of this expense was loading up on long-term food supplies for our kitchen in San Pablo La Laguna. Dry goods and locally sourced produce/meats are quite inexpensive, generally speaking. Our need for specialty items that need to be imported or are difficult to source (niche oils, spices, dairy, etc.) will be the real factor in controlling this area of our budget moving forward.

We’ll see. We do love to eat!

General Supplies: $102.82 USD

This category includes any non-consumable supplies needed for day-to-day living, like soap, shampoo, sunscreen, etc. Prices vary widely on products you might be used to in the USA. For example, my favorite toothpaste in a massively sized tube cost just $1.50 USD. But a modestly sized bottle of SPF 50 sunscreen may cost $21 USD.

But in general, if you are not picky on brand names you can find inexpensive local versions of the products you need in most Lake Atitlan pueblos. And if you really need a specific brand, you’ll need to go to one of the tourist areas to have a chance of finding it.

Transportation: $167.28 USD

About 1/3rd of this expense was for tuk-tuks and boat travel on Lake Atitlan. Exceptions were our shuttle from Guatemala City to San Pablo La Laguna ($60 USD), our car rental to JFK airport in New York City (including gas – $61.81 USD), and our flight to Guatemala City ($11.40 USD). Technically these last two expenses happened on July 31, but we still included them.

Activities: $120.81 USD

Basically, any fun activity that costs money goes into this category. For example, park entrance fees, museum tickets, guide fees, tour-related costs, etc. This expense will vary widely depending on where we are and what we decide to do.

Alcohol: $104.40 USD

Social libations with our international friends at the Community Spanish School cost money. But thankfully, it was easy to find high-value drinks for a low price to stretch the budget in San Pedro La Laguna. We expect this expense to drop in future months.

We’ll miss your cocktails Ola Bar!

Utilities/Upkeep: $71.83 USD

Costs for regular monthly “utility” expenses (like laundry) and personal upkeep (like haircuts) go here. Our Claro SIM card + 15 GB of data cost $16.79 USD for 1 month. And next month we won’t have to pay for the SIM card, which made up about 25% of that cost. Also, I included our last LTE internet bill ($25 USD) from the United States because we did continue to use it after we sold our house.

Education: $1,019.96 USD

This was for 20 days of tuition at the Community Spanish School. Rhonda and I shared an instructor (Francisco) for 6 hours per day, 5 days per week. It also included free cultural activities, coffee, locally sourced snacks, and school supplies. A pretty great deal!

This will likely be a one-time expense, but we are seriously looking into occasional Spanish language instruction (in person or online) to keep our progress moving forward.

Medical: $171.01 USD

This is the set monthly cost for our travel insurance. But any other medical expenses that come up (like medications) will go here.

Miscellaneous: $123.39 USD

Unusual expenses will go here. For this month, the total includes the cost of the gifts we gave to our homestay family and instructor.

Total Expenses for August 2022 = $3,045.52 USD

So we were over budget by about $500 USD, which isn’t that bad considering what we did over the last month.

And when we look at our potential expenses on the horizon, they should seriously drop. No more tuition, less alcohol, and preferentially cooking food in our own kitchen the majority of the time should bring our average monthly expenses back down pretty quickly.

Here is a pretty graph that summarizes our August 2022 budget:

We hope you found this information useful!

Until next time…

Thanks for reading!

Leave a comment below and subscribe to get email notifications whenever we post!

Follow Two Travel Turtles on Facebook and Twitter!

Please leave this field empty

Subscribe and never miss a post!

We don’t spam! Read our privacy policy for more info.

Thanks for subscribing to Two Travel Turtles! Check your inbox or spam folder to confirm your subscription.