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April Budget Brings May Nugget
· by dusty · budget
Money
We reversed course and finally started heading back towards the green! Although, we didn’t quite make it, April was the best month since December. We still did go over budget, but not by much and we spent some time in Uruguay, which was much more expensive than we budgeted for. But, that is the thing about budgets, sometimes you just don’t know. You can either not do anything because you don’t know the right answer, or just make it up, give it a shot, and adjust as needed.
Summary:
| Category | Budget | Actual | Difference | Notes |
| Transportation | 300 | 588 | (288) | busses, taxis, ferries, and trains |
| Rent | 800 | 1172 | (372) | hostels and hotels |
| Misc | 225 | 64 | 161 | clothes, clothes, and clothes |
| Activities | 200 | 134 | 66 | lots of fun |
| Food | 560 | 631 | (71) | food and dining |
| Allowance | 160 | 160 | 0 | coffee and beer |
| Health | 380 | 380 | 0 | health and travel insurance and dentist |
| TOTAL | 2625 | 3129 | (504) |
Over budget by $504
Transportation
Transportation wasn’t so bad because out of that $588, we also paid for two airline tickets home for $216 that we will be using in May. Those tickets were actually from Miami to Dayton. We paid for the Asuncion to Miami tickets in March. Aside from that flight, we were pretty good taking only short ferries, taxis, trucks, and busses, which kept the costs down. The most interesting transport may have been that truck on the right that took us to Cabo Polonia.
Rent
We rented an apartment for half of April in Buenos Aires. That was a little over our budget, but close enough that it helped us from going too far over. But, we then moved on to Uruguay and it was the most expensive place we’ve been so far. Even the bunk beds we slept in in Cabo Polonia were $25/night/person. We also opted to go a little fancier and rent some great views in Punta del Este.
Food
Food was a little over in April as well. In Buenos Aires we mostly ate at home at our apartment. We did notice that the grocery costs were slightly higher than we were used to, but overall, not so bad. However, when we when to Uruguay, the food costs were significantly higher. Even at McDonalds, it was about $10 USD for an Angus Burger combo meal. Ouch! We also had some delicious asados, which were a little more than we normally spend on groceries because of all the meat. But, definitely worth it!
Summary
Everything else was under or on budget. Activities was pretty cheap in April as we didn’t do much paid sightseeing, aside from Playing with Lions. We still had a lot of fun just walking around Buenos Aires, hanging out on the beach with our friends, and hosting some delicious asados. May is going to be interesting as we will be making our way back to the U.S. I am certain we are going to have to re-adjust our budget, but we’ll tackle that when we get there.