These are expenses for services and goods that you pay for, regardless of whether you use them. For many people this list includes: phone service, car insurance, cleaning service, long term parking fees, entertainment subscriptions, credit card fees, meal delivery plans, rent, pool maintenance, condo fees, mortgage, wine of the month club, health insurance, gym membership, magazine subscriptions, lawn service, charity programmed gifting, car payment, social club memberships, bank account monthly charges. It also includes some items that can vary, but still have a fixed cost component: electricity and gas bills, real estate taxes.
Generally, if someone says ‘I don’t know where the money goes’, fixed costs is the answer. In previous lives I had a very different notion of who I was, and what my surroundings and possessions said about me. My fixed costs were insane, and significantly reduced the amount of money that I have to live on in my latest life. The great news about full time travel is that most of your fixed costs will disappear.
I have worked very hard to pare down the number and expense of the remaining few bills. I list them in decreasing monthly cost:
Health insurance ($Shocking). This has been a very costly necessary evil of my current life. For very personal reasons I have maintained a domestic American policy. To be fair the investment has paid vastly more (>10x) in healthcare costs than I have contributed. As briefly discussed in Health Insurance I expect to substitute one of the many International plans when the time is right.
Travel health insurance ($4/day). The World Nomad insurance plan. I started using this five years ago, as many countries now require this coverage, and have no way to know if this will be a good investment.
Phone and data service ($100). T-Mobile and Google Fi. Discussed in Phone plans. This is a big number, but it returns great benefits in data access, texting, email, document filing, navigation.
Credit card fees ($120). The three credit cards that I carry are not the cheapest ones on the market. But they are excellent for full time travelers. As discussed in Credit cards these are huge net money makers for me, with valuable extra benefits that I regularly use.
Car rental personal liability insurance ($30). As discussed in Car rental I pay for an insurance policy so that I can decline the optional PIA. I consider this expense to be net positive as I can safely decline the per contract expense.
Mailbox rental ($40). If I could do without a physical mailing address I would. But replacement credit cards, IRS notices, and birthday cards need a place to land. Considering the service provided by Mail, this seems a reasonable cost.
Apps and web services ($30). This includes Spotify, TripIt, All Trails, Zipcar, GPS my city, Google cloud, a VPN, and others. A dollar a day for a lot of convenience, navigation, targeted information, and music.
Storage ($100). I have failed to completely get rid of all the legacy objects that I own, and pay a place to keep a 5’x5’ space to them while they gather dust. Because I have been paying to store them for years, they are gradually becoming the world’s most expensive clothing, etc. In my albeit weak defense, visiting this cave twice a year I have repurposed more objects and have reduced the size, thus cost, of this unit twice.