The Finances of Living On the Road (Part 2 - Reality)

If you haven’t already read my first budget post, that’s an important pre-cursor to this one. We created a robust budget for the road, but we knew it was somewhat of an experiment until we saw how things would actually go. We set out to spend one to two months per city in Short Term Rentals (primarily Airbnb) and we had a budget ready to go!

If you read that post, you know we set out with a goal of a net change of $0 to our budget. That was possible at first.

However, we left for the road at the end of 2021. At the time, it was still easy to find rental places within our budget and I was able to mostly keep our food budget on pace (aside from a few extra meals out while we were at the beach…).

Since we left things have started bouncing back like crazy and the rental market has been tough as we look to book the rest of the year.

A few months in, here are some realistic updates

$200: Our average monthly overage on Airbnb rentals. The market is much more competitive than when we left. As an example, our first place in San Destin was $2,800 all-in per month that we stayed there last fall. Same months this fall? $7,500 a month!!! Finding the two-bedroom places we need has just become a lot tougher. So far we’ve kept it to an average of $200/month over budget, but I think we’ll have to increase that more for next year.

$400: Food. Now, I know that food is up for everyone. So that’s part of it. We also did half the year on the west coast and hadn’t budgeted for the notoriously higher prices. We do have some food increases around the times we move, too - we eat out more around then because I don’t want to buy things we’re going to waste. But let’s be honest here, the real reason is that it is so much harder to not eat out on the road. It feels like vacation and there are so many places we want to try!

=$600/month over (on average*)

*As a note - we’ve also had a few additional expenses in travel between cities, but those are recurring monthly things. We learned pretty fast that we didn’t want to do more than 1 day of driving with a toddler, so we’ve flown me and Rohry between cities a few times. But I feel like those were things we chose based on our city choices and not on a regular basis.

That’s no small amount, we know that. But thankfully our work has mostly balanced it out and we’ve come to terms with it. We also had a car issue after our cross-country trip and ended up paying $1000 over what we had saved for car issues. We had mentally prepared to be willing to do what we needed for our car. That is non-negotiable on the road!

All in all, we feel like this is a once in a lifetime thing that we’re doing so we’ve seen the cost as worthwhile. It is a bummer to be over budget every month because it means less savings. But setting out we said our goal was just not to go backwards unless a life event came up, and so far we’ve been able to manage that.

You should also know that if you have a different situation than us (meaning travelling without kids and/or only one parent is working), you could get by with much smaller rentals that would save a lot of money.

I still believe this is a life that is possible for a lot of people if you plan. Don’t set out on the road without an emergency fund and/or some buffer in your budget. There just aren’t as many options once you’re out here and sometimes spending the money is necessary.

But if you plan ahead (it took us 6 years for goodness sake!), you can do it!

What other budget questions do you have for us?