One year ago this week, we drove away from Humboldt County in a daze. We couldn’t believe that we had really pulled our sabbatical off, and year on the road seemed like an eternity. Little did we know that it would fly by seemingly as quick as a two week vacation. We have so much to say about our epic journey. But for now, let’s start with the hard numbers.

Thanks to the meticulous Quickbooks expense tracking I’ve done over the last several years, and Carol White’s Live Your Road Trip Dream book budgeting templates, I was able to put together a budget that works for us. In short: we came in under budget, and the money we’ve saved will enable us to continue to live this lifestyle for at least the next year if we choose to.

If you’d like to see the technical details, a PDF with summarized numbers is here. But if spreadsheets make you snooze, then here’s a quick summary of my numbers for the year, and some ways we saved money:

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