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Wednesday, July 2, 2025

NORTH TO ALASKA 2025 BUDGET RECAP FOR JUNE

We have now been on the road for 61 days.  It is time to talk about the past 30 days of BUDGET!


Our last budget post for the first 31 days can be read here: 

https://kareninthewoods-kareninthewoods.blogspot.com/2025/06/north-to-alaska-2025-31-days-one-month.html


We get a lot of questions about what it costs to travel or what type of prices are we paying for things. Some people want to know how much things specifically cost in Alaska. Some people must imagine that we are mega-rich and can afford to just go willy-nilly all over the place. That isn't so. We stick to a pretty tight budget. So here are our numbers for the past 30 days...

FUEL 

$800 budget per month

$376.74 actually spent this month

$1,494.73 spent so far.

For fuel we are wayyyy under budget this month.  We had budgeted $4,000 for our total trip. Because we've done so much traveling in the first month, we expected to go over budget for the first 30 days. And we did.  But now for the month of June, we were way under that amount as we just traveled around within the state of Alaska and not such long distances.

We are averaging 14.7 miles per gallon with the diesel engine in our motorhome. 

Any time we pull up to a fuel station that's under $5 a gallon, we feel we're doing okay under budget. 


CAMPGROUNDS

$750 budget per month

$534 actually spent this month

$1,205 spent so far

We have done a variety of camping over the last 30 days. Some of the nights were free at campsites that do not collect a fee. 

We used our Federal America the Beautiful Senior Access Pass at many of the Chugach National Forest Campgrounds--- which gave us half-price camping. Many times we were only paying $9 to $11 per campsite.

Most of our camping is boondocking or rustic type camping without any hookups. We have solar, plus our Bluetti power station to supplement the coach batteries, and holding tanks for fresh and waste water.

Our entire campground budget over the trip is at $3,000 which comes out to approximately $25 a day. So anytime we find a place to camp under $25, or free, it helps our budget when we decide to splurge a little bit more on an expensive place.


GROCERIES 

$400 a month budget

$489.76 actually spent this month

$713.76 spent so far

Groceries is kind of a tough one because we literally cleared out our pantry and freezer and fridge before we left home. So for the first month we did use a lot of groceries that we had brought along with us. The only things we were picking up were fresh produce, milk, eggs, bread etc.

This month, we have picked up some meat items at a few places here and there. Especially when we splurged on the fresh salmon and halibut in Valdez! 

But again, it's hard to budget the food because right now at this given point I probably have 15 or 16 meals worth of meat in the freezer leading us into the third month. So it's kind of an ambiguous number. If we were at home we would be spending and shopping approximately the same way too. When you see a sale you stock up. You don't necessarily use it in that particular month. But with the extra baskets up overhead in our bunk holding additional dry goods and canned goods, we don't need to purchase all that much at the stores. 

The grocery store prices really didn't shock us on the types of things we buy. A few of the smaller mom and pop shops are higher in prices, but they have to because it cost them so much to have items transported to their shop. But all in all, it really isn't bad. We are still under budget for the first 2 months.


PROPANE

$118.93 actually spent this month

$128 spent last month

$246.93 spent so far

We really didn't budget for propane because we weren't sure of our actual usage. The biggest drain on the propane of course is the propane furnace. During the month of May we used the furnace more. Now during the month of June we used it less.  July and August it will probably be minimal. The propane is also used for our refrigerator, water heater, and our cooking stove and oven in the motorhome.  And for running the generator as needed. 

We started off with a full tank of propane so it's kind of hard to figure what we've actually paid in the first 2 months. Our motorhome has a large propane tank built in (13 gal / 55 lb) so it's not like we are refilling little barbecue tanks like some travel trailers or pickup campers use. 

Refilling propane at small fuel stations out in the middle of nowhere is going to be a higher price per liquid gallon then filling in a larger city at a bulk supplier. So again, this price is really going to vary depending on where we are when we need to be refilled.  You can't really shop around per price. You refill when you need it when it's available. We have paid between $2.50 and $4.15 a liquid gallon.


LAUNDROMAT

$60 budgeted

$28 actually spent this month

$67 spent so far

We have done laundry two times in the last 4 weeks. We really hate going to city/public laundromats. Mostly the ones we used are just the coin ops located at some of the campgrounds we have stopped at. We started out with $100 in rolled coins and we will see what we have at the end of the trip.


DUMP STATIONS

Nothing budgeted. 

$40 spent this month so far

For the first 30 days, we didn't pay any dump station fees anywhere that we were at. We were often at campgrounds with hookups due to the extremely cold weather. And they offered free dump and potable water as we entered or left the campsites. 

But now for this month, we've been staying at more rustic campgrounds and mostly in the National Forest. They don't include dump stations very often. 

So we did have to seek out dump stations in other places. This month we twice paid a $10 fee, once a $15 fee, and a $5 fee to take on fresh potable water.


ROADSIDE INSURANCE

Our American Family automobile policy for the motorhome has excellent roadside assistance and windshield glass breakage. In the past years with our other motorhome, we have had to make claims and never had a problem. We know it's great coverage. And we do carry it year-round so it really didn't add to our trip. We made sure in advance that we had out of the country coverage from our agent already included in our policy, and a special insurance card was mailed to us prior to leaving to show we do have coverage in Canada in case of an accident or a claim.

We did have a chip in the windshield earlier in the month, and it was repaired free of charge for us at Safelite in Wasilla. It was covered by our American Family Insurance.

But we did also purchase an additional policy from CoachNet. It is good for one year. It cost $249. Not only is it roadside assistance, which covers us also for tire changing, fuel replacement if we run out, locksmith, and of course towing. But in addition to that it also includes a medivac policy that if you are hospitalized and wish to return home they will transport you and your partner as well as have someone return your RV back to your home. So we felt it was good to pick this up as an additional coverage, just in case.

INTERNET/CELL PHONE

We really didn't have this in the budget because we already pay it whether we are home or on the road. Our cell phone plans are $25 for Steve's Visible phone, which gets boosted up to $40 when we leave the country per month. 

My cell phone is covered under our children's network as a family plan, So there is no additional cost there whether I am traveling or at home.

Our internet is through Starlink, which runs $165 a month. We have the Gen 3 unit which we keep on a post at home. When we leave to travel we telescope the post down and remove the unit. We take it along in the motorhome where it resides up in our skylight. It functions while we are enroute moving down the road. If we are parked under trees, we can take it out and set it on a long cord in an open area.  Either way, we pay for our internet if we were home or on the road so it's part of our regular household budget. Not really part of our special traveling budget. But it's how we handle internet when we are traveling.


TOLLS/TRAVEL

$13 for the toll to go through the Whittier tunnel.

$187 last month for ferry from Skagway to Haines.

So that rounds out for an even $200!

MISCELLANEOUS

$123.95

We purchased a new water filter for adding fresh water to the motorhome. That was approximately $20. We also purchased a little step ladder so it was easier to reach our Starlink up in the skylight. I picked up some cotton jammies I found on sale, most often you only find polyester in the stores. It was so nice to find some cotton ones for summer sleeping.

At about every 2500 miles of travel Steve needs to add a 2.5 gallon jug of DEF fluid to the engine. This is supplementing the diesel emissions with exhaust requirements for our Mercedes engine. He bought a jug at $18.38.

We expect we will probably be buying two or three more jugs of this while we are traveling for remaining months. 


BACK HOME EXPENSES

Of course our household budget still has the same costs back at home. We are paying the security camera costs, the electric bill, the water bill, and house insurance and taxes. Those are not included in our traveling budget because we would be paying them anyhow.

So here is the grand total of what we spent over the last 30 days:

$1,875.83

divided by 30 days 

comes out to $62.53 per day


Last month was higher at:

$2,386.85


$4262.68

Spent so far for 61 days





for the memories, 

that is 

PRICELESS!

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