November 2023 Budget Report – USA Exodus + Mérida (México)
So we finally departed the USA and returned to our international slow-travel lives. Thankfully, our expenses have almost stabilized from our time living in the USA.
Almost.
We are still feeling some financial carry-over effects from that, as well as the usual burn from entering a new country by airplane and settling into a new Airbnb.
So how bad was the damage?
Take a look at our November 2023 budget report and find out!
Accommodation: $641.57 USD
This expense category may be less than you expected, considering my recent whining about Mexico Airbnb taxes.
But consider for a moment that this total includes 7 free nights in the USA, 1 “free” night at a luxury resort in Cancun ($12.27 USD resort tax), and 22 nights at our current Airbnb in Merida ($629.30 USD).
So all in all, it could have been much worse.
Activities: $171.39 USD
Our ill-fated trip to Tulum made up the bulk of our expenses in this category.
This includes our round-trip ADO bus tickets to Tulum ($83.18 USD), 1 night in a super cool yurt ($36.23 USD), and our Tulum National Park tickets ($6.75 USD).
Other notable expenses included a gratuity for a “free” Merida walking tour guide ($11.36 USD) and tickets to Gran Museo del Mundo Maya ($17.31 USD) and Museo Regional de Antropología ($10.46 USD).
We also tipped for services at the Animaya Zoo ($5.81 USD), since the zoo itself was free.
So all in all, not bad.
But as you’ll see at the end of this budget report, we wish we had that Tulum money back!
Alcohol: $32.94 USD
What can we say? We were pretty dry this month.
Our alcohol was mostly spent at grocery stores on bottles of wine.
When the local Walmart is selling your favorite bang-for-buck wine at a discount ($14.17 USD for THREE bottles of Gato Negro Cabernet Sauvignon), you pounce when the opportunity presents itself! 🍷
Eating Out: $440.39
At first glance, this isn’t a great number for us based on past history.
But when we dug deeper we realized that about $178 USD of the total was spent eating out with friends and family during our final days in the USA.
Yikes! We hate how expensive restaurants have become there.
So the remainder of the total in this category is pretty reasonable, all things considered.
Groceries: $383.85
Not too bad, considering it took us a little while to get our bargain-hunting bearings dialed in for Merida.
We discovered that ground beef and quality chorizo are pretty expensive here, but whole chickens can be found on sale for CHEAP at the local Soriana supermarkets.
$2.88 USD each? 5 please.
This is why it is good to have a full-sized refrigerator and freezer in your Airbnb!
Medical: $314.55 USD
Most of this total came from my Merida opthalmologist consultation ($45.47 USD), Yag laser capsulotomy procedures ($229.98 USD), and prescription eye drops ($28.28 USD). You can read all about my experiences with these services HERE.
Money well spent!
The remainder of this expense category is just basic OTC medicine purchases.
Miscellaneous: $40.00 USD
We bought a present for a friend before we left the USA. That’s it.
Supplies: $106.51 USD
This expense category total is made almost entirely of Airbnb supplies and related quality-of-life upgrades that we can take with us while we travel within Mexico. Mostly kitchen-related stuff.
So we think that this total will go down in the future, but you never know.
Transportation: $256.89 USD
This is a beefier amount than usual, but considering that international flights to Cancun ($88.46 USD) and Merida bus fare ($65.19 USD) were baked into this total, we really can’t complain.
The remainder is from Boston subway fares, Cancun local buses, Va-y-Ven bus fares, Uber, and airport shuttles.
We expect this expense category to go down in future months though. We don’t have any truly long trips planned until January!
Utilities and Upkeep: $173.04 USD
This expense category total was made up of lots of little things.
For example, we have to pay for our own drinking water ($2.19 USD for a 20 L carboy) and laundry service ($4.03 USD per normal wash cycle). Our December Airbnb in Merida comes with a washer and dryer, so laundry expenses should be much lower that month.
Our cell phone data plan expenses include 2 Telcel SIM cards ($3.30 USD) and Amigo Sin Limite data plans ($11.50 USD per 4.5 GB 30-day plan).
But most significantly, we started a 2 TB Google One subscription that Rhonda and I can share. At $99.99 USD per year, this is probably the best cloud storage deal on the internet for a traveling couple. Thankfully, this is an annual expense and won’t show up again for a while.
Total Expenses for November 2023 = $2,561.13 USD
Here is a pretty graph summarizing our November 2023 budget report:
So unfortunately we were over our $2,500 USD average monthly budget goal by about $61 USD.
Not the end of the world though, since I got ~$300 USD worth of needed medical work done!
However, this result does not help our overall monthly average for Year 2. Our average monthly spend after 4 months is now $2,691.45 USD.
We hope that the next two months will improve this average. Our medical expenses should be less, although we still have dental, dermatology, and blood stuff we want to do. And our transportation expenses should go down markedly, as we don’t have any relocation trips planned until January.
But we shudder to think about how the upcoming months of February, April, and July in our Year 2 travel plan will ravage our budget. The accommodation costs alone are going to be ugly in those locations. In the end, we hope that our planned $0 USD accommodation costs for May and June bail us out, if frugal living prior to that point fails to.
We’ll see.
Until next time…
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