January 2023 Budget Report – Taganga, Colombia + Ecuador Immigration
And just like that, six months of continuous international travel are behind us. We unexpectedly ended up in Taganga, Colombia, which meant adjusting to a different pattern of living compared to Peru and Guatemala. And to save money, we successfully made a Colombia-Ecuador border crossing on foot. Even our friends in Ecuador thought that was adventurous!
So how much did we spend during the month of January?
Let’s take a look at our January 2023 budget report and find out.
Accommodation: $468.50 USD
Down from last month, this includes 24 nights at our Taganga Airbnb ($390.52 USD), 1 night at Hotel Mowa in Ipiales, Colombia ($12.84 USD), and 6 nights at our Quito, Ecuador Airbnb ($80.76 USD).
$15.11/day for accommodation during the month of January was extremely affordable, and is an all-time accommodation expense low for us so far!
Eating Out: $475.21 USD
This expense is about $100 lower than last month, which is a good thing. But this expense category is still higher than in past months, particularly those in Guatemala! This is probably due to Guatemala restaurant costs being lower on average, but also because we have developed a taste for eating out a bit more!
It’s really tough not to eat at restaurants when so many great options are so easily available!
Groceries: $256.61 USD
Lower than most months to date, which is likely due to our getting into the habit of making easy-to-cook meals at home with common local ingredients. We also indulge in local snacks (like baked goods), but they are usually so cheap that the effect on our budget is barely a rounding error.
General Supplies: $69.60 USD
About the same as last month. Really nothing of note here, just the usual expenses needed to maintain or enhance life in an Airbnb (primarily bathroom and kitchen supplies).
Transportation: $102.12 USD
This could have been worse considering we made an unbudgeted flight to Pasto, Colombia. Those flights would have cost $115.63 USD, but we paid for them with Capital One Venture Rewards points (affiliate link), so they were effectively free.
That said, the entirety of this expense comes from all of the different taxis, Ubers, collectivos, and buses we took in January. Considering how many times we did this, we are really happy with how low this expense category is!
Here’s hoping we can keep it up.
Activities: $242.75 USD
This is way down from last month, which shouldn’t be a surprise considering we went to Machu Picchu in December!
Still, for how little we spent on activities we did a lot! This included a sailboat cruise in Santa Marta, Colombia, an overnight excursion to Tayrona National Park, an hiking/birdwatching trip to Minca, Colombia, a snorkeling trip, buying our own snorkeling equipment, and a gondola ride in Quito, Ecuador.
So all things considered, pretty good value here!
Alcohol: $64.97 USD
Our alcohol expenses were more or less the same as last month, which was a little on the high side for us. This is primarily due to the attraction of taking advantage of happy hour drink specials during sunsets in Taganga, Colombia, and cheap cervezas during dinner. Restaurant cervezas were only slightly more expensive than bottled water in Colombia, so more times than not I got one when we went out to eat!
Utilities/Upkeep: $242.27 USD
This is WAY up from past months.
This cost includes the usual things, like haircuts, laundry, and our LTE SIM cards/plans for Colombia and Ecuador.
But the biggest expense was having to renew our annual membership to MyRVmail (affiliate link) for $199.20 USD. This is an important expense for us because it allows us to claim the state of Florida as our US state of residency, with all of the considerable tax and health insurance benefits that go with that.
We highly recommend MyRVmail as an international mailbox option for United States citizens who are perpetual travelers or digital nomads. Making the effort to set up Florida residency using MyRVmail can provide long-term tax and health insurance benefits that can save you thousands of dollars every year.
Well worth the annual fee for us.
Medical: $226.16 USD
This includes our fixed travel insurance cost for the month ($171.01 USD), 2 teeth cleanings in Quito, Ecuador ($40 USD total), and a bunch of different OTC medicine purchases.
Nothing really controversial here, but you HAVE to love a $20 dentist visit!
Miscellaneous: $67.10 USD
This expense includes a replacement Mi Band 7 (affiliate link) fitness watch for Rhonda when her older model died from abuse. It also included the cost of a cheap replacement hat when my beloved Tilley Wanderer hat (affiliate link) was caught by an unexpected gust of wind and sailed off a cliff. 🙁
Total Expenses for January 2023 = $2,215.29 USD
So we were UNDER our $2500/month budget by almost $300 USD!
Thankfully, our spending has gotten back on track after going a little off the rails in December.
Here is a pretty graph that summarizes our January 2023 budget report:
Our current monthly spending average is now $2,286.00 USD, down a bit (in a good way) from December 2022. Still comfortably below our goal of maintaining a monthly budget of $2,500 USD or less!
We’ll see how February 2023 plays out. We are planning on local day trips in the area surrounding Quito, Ecuador. And we have bigger excursions planned for when we move to Baños de Agua Santa, Ecuador later this month.
Amazon rainforest? Yes, please.
We hope you found our January 2023 budget report useful!
Until next time…
Thanks for reading!
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