Well we are another month in, and we are still under budget! However, this may have occurred to some fortunate breaks.
We actually ended up spending over $900 above budget. Uh-oh. Luckily, we got some unexpected refund checks from some old services we cancelled. These came in to a little over $1000. Phew!
Our biggest expense from the month was among three areas: Food, Fun, Groceries, and Uber.
Our budget for these 4 total was a measly $800/month. In the end we ended up spending $1,433. So, way over budget.
This overage accounted for $633 of our overall spend over budget
Why did we go so far over?
First of all, groceries remain pretty expensive out here in Quito. In total for July we ended up spending $643 dollars.
A part of this is the fact that we had guests over for a week. That will always spike up groceries
Also, our unexpected trip to Banos came in at $263 total. This was a big part of why we went over, but we would do it all over again given the opportunity.
What saved us?
Well luckily we got those large refund checks! These were definitely a budget saver.
Gap Year-to-date
Thanks to those refund checks we actually ended up under budget for the second month in a row. So this puts our little red bar below the blue one. Total expenditure through end of the second month is $8,773.66.
We shall see if we can continue the momentum into next month (something tells me this may not happen with the big Galapagos trip coming up).
