The Frugal Traveler! How much did I spend?

I had a budget and I worked really hard to stay within it. If you're a big spender, you can stop reading this post right about here because the little bit I spent, averaged out to about $112 per day by 13 days, pretty cheap for such a great adventure.

I'm happy to say that I did really well with my little bit of $. I didn't buy a lot of stuff I didn't need, of course that is very easy to do on a bike, where would I put it? Some folks shopped and shipped their goodies home. I didn't do that. I don't really need anything, which is nice to say. I did buy a new set of ponytails for my helmet, but anyone knows that is $25.00 well spent! And I bought a few other fun things, like motorcycle soap and a leather Motor Maid hair holder, but nothing extravagant.

I spent approximately 350 on gas, 700 on lodging (but keep in mind, all but 4 nights I shared that expense with Tricia and Janet, so that really helped a lot). And I spent another 400+ on meals and miscellaneous. I had enough money left over, from what I'd saved for my trip, to buy myself a new laptop! Not an expensive trip by most people's standards, but I don't have a lot of $ so being able to stay within my budget just made my trip so much better.

Strangely enough, even though I work in IT, I have never ever bought myself a brand new laptop. I've had a few new desktop's, and lots of used of each, but this is my first new laptop. 2 days after I returned, I bought a new touchscreen Windows 8.1 laptop. I'm loving it! I did have to go back twice, the first time because I didn't realize until I got home, that the laptop I bought, wasn't a touchscreen, 15 minutes later I returned it. The second time, 2 days after buying my new laptop, the down arrow key kept sticking so I took it in to see if they could "fix it". I didn't want to try prying it up and breaking. They said they couldn't, the entire keyboard would have to be replaced, so they gave me a new, new laptop! Hopefully the 3rd time is the charm.

Next year, the 75th annual Motor Maid Convention is in Moncton, NB. It's an additional 600 miles each way, so that'll increase the lodging/gas/meal costs by at least 2 days on either end. I've already got my budget figured out and savings plan started! I'm going to talk to Lynne/Elizabeth about how they camp when they ride, and might consider doing that, at least on a night here and there. We'll see. 

I've already starting planning my route. Since I want to spend some time back home in Nova Scotia with Tiana, I might just ride straight up and not stop over at any points of interest, like NYC or Boston (where I was born) which are places on my bucket list. But then again, it's early, I might change my mind a dozen times (in the next month). Nothing is written in stone!

Woo hoo, Moncton, via Nova Scotia, 2015, here I come!