Mexico Stats Summary
Well, it’s now been almost a month and a half since we quit our jobs in San Francisco and started this road trip. We’ve had a wonderful time traveling through Mexico, and now that we’ve crossed the border into Guatemala we wanted to crunch the numbers and tally all of our Mexico expenses.
As noted earlier, we’re aiming to live on 4% of our equity portfolio, which is $40,000/yr. In truth, we would actually be very happy having our annual living expenses be closer to $30,000, but that’s an aggressive target. Let’s see how we’re doing so far.
Total days spent in Mexico = 34 (Includes 7 in Puerto Vallarta and 7 in Puerto Escondido)
Distance traveled in US = 947 mi / 1,524 km
Distance traveled in Mexico = 2,694 mi / 4,336 km
Costs (in USD):
To enter Mexico = $172.35 (Includes $115.02 for mandatory Mexican auto insurance good for 12 months)
To exit Mexico = $0
Bruno Parts & Maintenance = $395.74 (The bulk being a new auxiliary battery for $211.90. Also includes optional tint of the two rear windows for $10.00)
Food = $620.37 (Primarily groceries with a few restaurants and liquor thrown in for good measure. This could certainly have been scaled back, if needed)
Food divided by 34 days = $18.25 per day, $9.12 per person per day.
Percent Camping = 29% (10 days out of 34)
Percent Hotel/Airbnb = 71% (24 days out of 34)
Total cost of Camping = $143.73 (Average cost per night = $14.37. Includes costly RV park camping along the coast, and a $2/night camp in the parking lot of some natural springs)
Total cost of Hotel/Airbnb = $996.4 (Average cost per night = $41.52. Includes $300 for 7-day stay in Puerto Vallarta and $392 for 7-day stay in Puerto Escondido)
Mexican Toll Highways = $152.67 (Estimating about 50% of this was necessary -in our opinion- for safety, the other 50% was sheer laziness of wanting to get somewhere faster. The toll roads are in better shape and bypass the multitude of topes in small towns.)
Gas for Bruno = $483.07 (Unavoidable, as this is a road trip. Unfortunately, you can’t even shop around for the best price, since there is only a single nationalized company providing gas – Pemex. They don’t even advertise the price, so we back-calculated a few times. It was just under $1.00/L or $3.70/gal at the end of March.)
Average Bruno gas mileage = 20 mpg
Costs of what we have titled “funfunfun” = $217.27 (The most expensive luxuries being 6 hours of Spanish lessons for $80.00 and a day of mountain biking for $66.67)
Total costs for Mexico = $3,181.60
Cost per day (34 days) = $93.58
Hypothetically, if we continued to live like we did while traveling in Mexico, this would equate to an annual lifestyle of $34,155, so we are technically within budget. Hurray! Writing this up certainly provides a good pulse as to where we can shave our spending.
Other Interesting Stats:
# of Mexican state lines crossed = 12 out of 31
Stops by cops = 0
Hit and runs = 1 (Amanda furiously swears it was only a love-tap on the guy’s driver side mirror)
Cost to repair a hole in Travis’ shorts = $1.00
Cost to see Rapido y Furioso 7 in 3D Theater = $3.40 per person
Discoveries: We’re proud of how much camping we did and are pained by how much we spent on the cuotas (toll highways). We happily splurged on two full weeks at the beach in pretty cushy lodging, but overall need to tighten our belts. Onwards!