As we headed into May, I wasn’t feeling too optimistic about how closely we’d be able to stick to our budget.
To be honest, I’d figured our budget would be wrecked in the first few days of the month because of how much I anticipated us spending at the Kentucky Derby.
In the end, we didn’t spend quite as much at the Derby as I’d expected, although it certainly didn’t help with our overall spending. Here’s how we did with our budget, along with all our other stats for last month.
Miles Driven
Our car started May 2019 with 114,396 miles on the odometer. By the end of the month, it showed 117,458 miles which means that we drove 3,062 miles during May.
I predicted last month that we’d drive 3,000 miles in May, so that guess was pretty accurate. I don’t think we’ll be driving as much as that in June because we’ll be in Vermont and Connecticut, two smaller states that are right next to each other. My prediction for our mileage in June is that we’ll drive 2,050 miles – we’ll see in a few weeks if I’m as accurate this month as I was last month.
Money Spent
As you might’ve guessed from the intro of this post, we went over budget in May. With 31 days in the month, our budget was $3,100 as we’re trying to do our road trip on a budget of $100 per day.
At the end of the month, we’d spent $3,424.61 which means we went over budget by $324.61. Although that’s disappointing, it’s better than I’d been expecting, especially considering an unexpected expense at the end of the month.
Shae and I spent $307.20 at the Kentucky Derby which was less than I’d been expecting, but accounts for pretty much all our overspend. That amount would’ve been even lower if Maximum Security hadn’t been disqualified after “winning” the race as I’d put a couple of bucks on him winning. Still, the day was a lot of fun and was worth it for the experience.
After a few weeks of May, our budget was still looking pretty healthy and so I thought that we’d only be ~$150 over by the end of the month. Unfortunately our small dog Truffles got barreled over at the dog park by a much larger dog who body-slammed her twice in the excitement of playing. This seemed to hurt Truffles quite badly, so we had to take her to the vet which cost us almost $200.
Our eating out expenditure was $704.51 which is a fairly obscene amount considering that was almost 25% of our May budget. However, that spending included our drinks at the Kentucky Derby which, at ~$15 per drink, weren’t cheap.
Overall though, I’m not too disappointed by the overspend, especially because more than half the overspend related to Truffles’ vet bill.
Here’s a breakdown of our May 2019 spending…
…along with how we’re doing so far this year. As you’ll see, we’ve overspent two of the last three months. However, that extra spending is more than offset by our lower spending in January and February. As a result, we’re still ahead for the year.
Points Earned
We didn’t have many paid stays during May, so our hotel points earnings from that avenue weren’t very high. However, we did manage to boost our points balances with some credit card spend, card renewal bonuses and more.
Here’s a list of the points we earned last month:
- IHG Rewards Club – 5,785
- Hilton Honors – 2,625
- Marriott Rewards – 2,071
- World of Hyatt – 4,268
- Radisson Rewards – 42,605
- Choice Privileges – 200
- Wyndham Rewards – 0
- Hotels.com Welcome Rewards Credits – 3
- Chase Ultimate Rewards – 14,724
Points Redeemed
Other than booking three additional nights at the Hyatt Place Lexington at the end of our time in Kentucky, we didn’t redeem any points during May. That makes the following list of our redeemed points easy to complete:
- IHG Rewards Club – 0
- Hilton Honors – 0
- Marriott Rewards – 0
- World of Hyatt – 15,000
- Radisson Rewards – 0
- Choice Privileges – 0
- Wyndham Rewards – 0
- Hotels.com Welcome Rewards Credits – 0
- Chase Ultimate Rewards – 0
Total Points Balances
Thanks to the points we earned in May, our total points balances were healthier by the end of the month than at the start:
- IHG Rewards Club – 544,717
- Hilton Honors – 582,475
- Marriott Rewards – 569,855
- World of Hyatt – 55,639
- Radisson Rewards – 274,240
- Choice Privileges – 26,226
- Wyndham Rewards – 46,600
- Hotels.com Welcome Rewards Credits – 15
- Chase Ultimate Rewards – 290,143
June and July will involve several stays using points that still need to be booked, so we probably won’t have as many points by the end of June.
Here’s all the points information in table form for those who like it presented that way:
Blog Stats
Here are a couple of details about how the No Home Just Roam blog did last month:
- Number of blog posts published – 23
- Page views – 32,831
Final Thoughts
Seeing as I was expecting us to go over budget by several hundred dollars last month, I wasn’t too disappointed when that’s exactly what happened. To be honest, I actually feel fairly positive about it seeing as more than half the overspend was due to Truffles’ unexpected vet bill rather than us spending recklessly.
It’ll be interesting to see how well we do with our budget in June. Our accommodation expenses aren’t due to be too high, but general living costs in Vermont and Connecticut are higher than many other states, so that might push us over budget.
Leave a Reply