If anyone is interested I just put my 2018 expenses on my blog. I'm a full timer that boondocks most of the time, and I live by myself in a 2013 30 foot Arctic Fox fifth wheel.

I don't break my expenses down into very much detail so I only have 10 categories, But it tells me everything I need to know.
If you're interested you can find it at   http://www.theboondork.com/mainphp

theboondork

$18,634 - you're doing great. I assume it's for one person.  Boondocking certainly helps.  I glanced at some of your older posts and your photography is awesome. You love nature!

Thank you very much 2gypsies that's very kind of you to say, and yes I do travel alone, and I do love nature.  I think boondocking not only saves me money but it gets me out into nature where the pictures just take themselves.

Tom

We long time /nearly full time. We track all our expenses on Quicken.We are afraid to look as we may choke but we have not run out of $$ yet.

I used to do the same thing, except I wrote my expenses in a notebook and never bothered to add them all up for fear of what I might see.
But then I learned how to use a spreadsheet which automatically adds everything up for me so the numbers can't be ignored. There's a lot of truth to the old saying, "ignorance is bliss"

Tom

I look at it like this, I came into the world with nothing and plan to go out the same way.

  On 1/8/2019 at 1:58 AM, theboondork said:

Thank you very much 2gypsies that's very kind of you to say, and yes I do travel alone, and I do love nature.  I think boondocking not only saves me money but it gets me out into nature where the pictures just take themselves.

Tom

Tom,

23 posts in three years and five of them are in the last two days? What's happening to you?  I guess we can blame it on procrastination, but you are putting your hermit status at risk here.   

What next? Barney is going to start posting here, too?

Linda Sand

the problem for me is making the money last until I leave this world. I would hate to spend my last couple of years wandering aimlessly around the country looking like a homeless bum...... oh wait a minute, I do that already....Nevermind.

Tom

Quicken puts everything in neat categories,spreadsheets, pie  charts  etc and we use them when we still did complicated income taxes.We still use quicken and every $$ is in a category and easy to see what we are spending $$ on. We do not look at it often as we are afraid of what we might see.

I never actually wanted to keep up with my expenses I figured that just limited my freedom. but since I don't have an income of any kind, no retirement benefits, no Social Security, I just sell off assets whenever I need some money. And since a lot of my assets are Real estate I have to hope that real estate is up when I need to sell something.And since I have a rough idea of what things are worth at the moment I figured I'd better see how much it cost me to  live every year so I would have a rough idea how long my assets would last.so I've figured I'll be okay as long as we don't have another crash like we did in 2008.   

Tom

  On 1/8/2019 at 3:56 AM, jjwicklund said:

I look at it like this, I came into the world with nothing and plan to go out the same way.

I arrived in the world with nothing at all, and I still have most of it now!   ?

  On 1/8/2019 at 7:20 AM, theboondork said:

I never actually wanted to keep up with my expenses I figured that just limited my freedom. but since I don't have an income of any kind,

I believe that good records are the key to good money management for most of us. I have been keeping detailed money records since we began to plan for retirement and fulltime RVing. We are now back to part-time RV travels but as we near the 20 year mark of retirement, we have begun to understand why we hear so much about living on a fixed income. 

You have certainly been there and done that so your suggestions are valuable to all of us. I've been RVing for 30 years but I've only been a full timer for a little over three so I've still got a lot to learn. I admit to having numerous character flaws such as lazy, and unambitious but when you throw procrastination in there it makes accurate record keeping hopeless at best. I try to keep up with my expenses as best I can but my heart usually isn't in it.  When I made my first expense spreadsheet it had two columns,  fuel, and miscellaneous, because the cost of diesel fuel was about all I cared about at the time. I envy people that can keep up with details but I like to think of myself as a "big picture" kind of guy, and my big picture is where do I want to spend the winter, and everything else is miscellaneous.

Tom

So there are other people out there with the same thinking as mine.  I do the same as you, leaving things out in the open like your rear view camera so I don't forget to install it some day.  I have left things out like that and moved them several times and saying one of these days when I have time I will install it.  Then I tell myself what about today, its not like I have a lot of things to do and I go ahead and install it and say Damn I wish I did that sooner...…….
I don't use budgets or keep track of expenses.  The reason is I don't do good at keeping receipts and without accurate record keeping its like the old saying "garbage in garbage out".  I've got a comfortable nest egg set back I think should last me and live month to month on my income.  Pretty much a wash out at the end of the year.
I hope you are having better luck with the winter weather.  I've been in Lake Havasu Az since after Christmas and looks like starting today will be the best weather I've had.  
I've looked at your blog and enjoy the pictures.  It just may inspire me to get the camera out and take a few myself.

Thank you for the compliment about the pictures I sure appreciate it, its just about the only hobby I have left.

 I used to think I put things off because I had better things to do, but it turned out I was lazy, unambitious, and unmotivated. I know this is true because my wife used to tell me all the time.

I was in Havasu, I think it was in November, and I boondocked out at Lone Tree BLM area for a while. I always liked Havasu, it's got a lot of shopping and things to do but in a few minutes you can be out in the desert in the middle of nowhere, my kind of place.

The weather is no better here, yesterday was okay but that was the first time in a long time. I'm beginning to think maybe I should've gone to southern Texas this winter.

I see you have a smart car. I've already got a smart phone that I carry around, I'm afraid if I got a smart car the phone and the car would get together and realize they no longer needed me.

Tom

I'm at Lone Tree now.  I've been coming here for the last 6 yrs.
Never thought about the car and the phone...…..Hmmmmmmm