Quarterly Budget Report: August – October 2023 (Panama + USA)

The Two Travel Turtles budget reports return, just in time for Halloween!

As you may have noticed, we haven’t posted any budget reports since finishing up our Year 1 Travel Plan in July 2023. This was partially due to heavy travel preventing a timely August 2023 report, and our blogging break disrupting things for September and October.

But we knew that our spending patterns would be of interest to some, so we always had the intention of reporting our expenses from August – October 2023. So this time, we decided to release our data in a quarterly format.

So let’s look at how the first financial quarter of our Year 2 travel plan shook out. You may find the USA vs. Latin America observations interesting!

August 2023 Expenses (Panama City, Panama)

For this quarterly expense report, I’ll take a different approach to presenting the data. I’ll start with an expense data table for a given month, then talk about any outliers or costs of note.

And remember, if the expense category is unclear as to what we include, you can review our expense category descriptions in our very first expense report back in August 2022.

So here are our August 2023 expenses:

Most of our August 2023 expenses were generated in Panama City, Panama while staying in our hi-rise Airbnb for 22 nights. The last 8 days of August were spent traveling to Boston, and then finally to Connecticut, USA.

We were pretty much right at our planned monthly budget of $2,500 USD.

Considering we were staying in expensive lodging in Panama City for 22 nights, we thought we did pretty well!

Of note during August:

• Our Accommodation expenses were only for our 22 nights in Panama City.
• Our Activities expenses were mostly due to our Toboga Express Fast Ferry tickets ($30.50 USD each) and park entrance fees ranging in cost from $4 – $8 USD each.
• Our Miscellaneous expenses were from a combination of gifts for folks back home and minor tech-related purchases made online, that were shipped to us back in the USA.
• The bulk of our Transportation expenses were to pay fees for two direct business-class tickets to Boston from Panama City, Panama ($141.20 USD total). The rest of this expense category was to pay for metro transportation in Panama City and Boston.
• Most of our Utilities/Upkeep expenses were to maintain connectivity. This included a +Movil data recharge for our remaining time in Panama ($10.70 USD), an eSIM to cover our first week in the USA ($8 USD), and our Visible data plan to cover our longer-term USA data needs (unlimited data/hotspot for $25 USD/month/SIM card).

September 2023 Expenses (Connecticut, USA)

Our September expenses were made 100% in the USA!

The entirety of September was spent with my parents in Connecticut and included a week-long excursion to upstate New York to visit friends.

It was interesting seeing the differences in how much things cost in the USA vs. Latin America (post-COVID), and not always in the ways you expect.

Some general USA vs. Latin America observations:

• Technology is MUCH cheaper in the USA. So we waited until we returned to make major replacements and upgrades.
• Supermarket costs in the USA aren’t that different than in Latin America, except for basic staples and regional differences in produce. This, of course, assumes you preferentially shop at Aldi in the USA instead of Whole Foods.
• Restaurants are, generally speaking, outrageously expensive in the USA. But if you look hard enough there are still deals to be had. We’ve had success at modest mom-and-pop international restaurants in the USA (ex. Indian cuisine, Mexican cuisine, etc.). In contrast, most sit-down chain restaurants seem to be a complete ripoff now.
• Housing costs (and associated utilities) are MUCH more expensive than in Latin America, although the degree varies depending on the country. You might be surprised how expensive rent is in some Latin American countries, compared to what most assume. But still, Latin America is a better deal if you do your due diligence.
• The USA FINALLY has reasonably priced national cell data plans. Our favorite so far is offered by Visble, whose plans (using Verizon towers) offer unlimited data, unlimited talk/text, and unlimited hot-spotting for $25 USD/month. And you get both 5G and LTE speeds.
• Life without a car is a BIG obstacle for living in the USA. Bus transportation is not always available and is relatively expensive between cities. And Uber in the USA also hits the wallet hard. Transportation was easier in Boston using the metro system, but fares were 9x more expensive than in Panama City, Panama. Still better than the costs associated with owning a car though.

This all said, let’s take a look at the damage for September:

Ouch.

Our expenses for our first month in the USA are a little weird. The first thing you probably noticed is that we exceeded our monthly budget by almost $1,100 USD! There are good reasons for that, which we explain below.

Of note during September:

• Our Miscellaneous expenses were HUGE! This is because we made major one-time technology purchases, including 2 new-to-us Pixel 6 Pro cellphones, a Pixel 4a cellphone (as a backup), a Lenovo Flex 3i Chromebook, a Lenovo 11 Pro tablet with accessories, and a Lenovo 11 tablet with pen/keyboard package. There were other travel resupply purchases as well, but one-time technology purchases made up ~$1800 USD of the total.
• No Accommodation and Activity expenses as you might expect, since we were with family & friends the entire month. We did a lot of things like hiking and going to local parks, but they were all freebies.
• Our Grocery expenses were for our share of food purchases during our stay with relatives.
• Our Medical expenses were for OTC medication resupplies, particularly for things that are hard to find (or are overly expensive) abroad.
• Our Transportation expenses were for a 7-day car rental to visit friends in the Finger Lakes region of upstate New York, as well as associated gas purchases. Otherwise, we were able to use my parent’s spare car for day-to-day things.

October 2023 Expenses (Ohio, USA)

During October, we spent the entire month staying with Rhonda’s mother and visiting her extended family in Ohio.

To be honest, our October spending patterns weren’t much different than in September, with a couple of exceptions.

Here is how the numbers played out:

This was a pretty cheap month, all things considered. It’s nice to be back in the budgetary black again!

Of note during October:

• We had very few Miscellaneous technology-related purchases, thank goodness. Mostly gifts for various family-related events.
• We did, however, make quite a few Supply purchases in the form of travel clothing and general travel equipment resupplies. We only had a few items of clothing wear out on us while we were on the road, like hiking boots and sandals. But we had a bigger problem with our clothes not fitting us as well. Losing tens of pounds each will do that, but it is a problem I don’t mind having!
• Travel expenses were only for gasoline for borrowed cars.

Year 2 Travel Plan – Quarter 1 Summary

For those who like a visual representation of how our spending habits changed from month to month, here is a graph of our spending breakdown for our first slow-travel quarter:

Our 3-month average monthly spend is $2734.80 USD. We are a bit over budget at this point due to all of the one-time big technology purchases we made in September 2023, but it isn’t too bad.

Final Thoughts

The first three months of our Year 2 Travel Plan are now in the books!

Although we are a bit over budget from a monthly average perspective, we aren’t too worried.

It will be interesting to see what our Mexico and Spain expenses end up being. Accommodation will be higher than our last year of travel for sure, but the other expense categories are less certain. We are hoping food-related expenses are cheaper, and that historically has been our biggest expense category (Eating Out + Groceries combined).

We’ll see!

One question for our readers before wrapping up this post: Do our readers prefer a quarterly budget report, or should we go back to the monthly format?

Let us know in the comments section!

Until next time…

Thanks for reading!

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