Spending Our Days: Q2

It’s time to run the numbers again! Rogue Trip remains a frugal venture by New Yorkers’ standards, and is now starting to take shape as a good investment regardless of geography. Obviously we have some of our fine friends and family to thank for that… but this time, we can also give some of the credit to good ol’ gambling.

As a reminder, here’s our Q1 recap, and below are the core budget lines we’ve been tracking:

  • Lodging: anywhere we pay to rest our heads, including campgrounds, Airbnbs, hotels, etc.
  • Meals: yep
  • Activities: basically any other part of our day that costs money
  • Mileage: the only non-dollar item being tracked daily

Through May:

Through June:

Through July:

RECAP:

Lodging keeps getting better, with the weather being magnificent for car sleeping — save for Iowa, which experienced an atrocious heatwave hitting 100 degrees, and left us with one sleepless night before our network of friends bailed us out. Six months into the trip, and we’re averaging $5/night for lodging; that’s down from $7 as of last quarter, and laughably low compared to the $40 we budgeted in planning the trip. Six months without a rent or mortgage payment, and to date we’ve spent all of $890 on housing. Kick ass.

Meals haven’t budged from last quarter’s $74 mark, and are still over the planned $60/day estimate… though in our last recap, we clarified that the figure was probably too low to begin with, and is bound to see some bloat when you spend so many days in a home that has no kitchen. So again, lodging and meals are a delicate balance.

Activities: remember that we plug most of our coffee shop purchases in here, so that along with parking, movies (something to do when it’s hot out and you finish dinner at 7pm), etc. sums up most of our spending. Some of the pricier days are zoos or other attractions, but it’s hard to see them when that one huge negative yellow bar is staring you in the face. What is that? Why, it’s our magic wrists at work in Reno, running the craps table to the tune of $377 in profits! Who wants lobster?!

Mileage continues to increase, though much of this was thanks to actual vacation we took for two weeks as we cannonballed across Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, South Dakota, Nebraska and Iowa to make sure we came out the other side in a part of the country with reliable internet. To that point, connectivity is still better overall than we imagined, albeit with some surprising gaps in the likes of Oregon and Washington. Get on that, Bezos. Mommy needs to Instagram some sea lion videos.

Thank you for attending Rogue Trip’s quarterly budget meeting. If you can believe it, we fully expect lodging to get even cheaper in the next quarter, as we head straight through the core of Mitch’s midwest and northeast connections. Watch those Pit Stop cards fly!