Let The Diet Games Begin!!!

Eating out as much as we did the last 5 months was a good thing ... and a bad thing.  I crept up on the scales and held on to the wall, hoping I could sneak up on it and it would read 5 pounds more than when I left.  No such luck ... I put on 10 pounds and my clothes don't fit.  I just cleaned out my closet in May (a really big thing if you ever saw my closet), and I don't want to fill it up again, so the first stop was at the store for some rabbit food!!  Change is hard, especially when you love bacon and cheeseburgers!!  I read recently however, that if you just change one little thing a week ... like half a cup of coffee instead of two ... or an egg for breakfast instead of a bagel ... that it's easier to get used to the deprivation!!!!!  Worst of all, I'm out of Ben and Jerry's!!  It took lots of willpower to pass that section of the freezer and go for green beans!!

I think I just figured out why so many people want to full-time!!  It took me 2-1/2 hours to clean my house ... in the rig, it takes me 5 minutes.  It takes two weeks to change a habit ... it was pretty easy adapting to the small motorhome, it's much harder trying to adapt back to a large house.  There was no yard work ... no messes to clean up, except for that bottle of chili sauce that came flying out of the fridge and hit the floor ... it was just so much easier with less "stuff".

Speaking of stuff ....  this is maybe half ... an Alaskan license plate??  Really????  Where did THAT come from!!

And of course the quilt material!  After dragging all this from the rig, I guarantee I have learned my lesson.  Any travels from here on out will NOT result in the purchase of soooo many treasures!!  They go in so easy one at a time, but getting them out is a tripping/falling hazard!!

I picked up my mail that was forwarded to a friends house to the tune of $300 ... glad I can keep the U.S. Post Office in business.  Two boxes, 12x18x10 were finally reduced to a stack of large envelopes 8 inches high.  Talk about waste ... 1/3 was magazines I never ordered, 1/3 was "refinance your house" and the rest just trash.  The funny part is that my friend actually threw away all the advertisement junk!!

Here's my final tally of the rig expenses for the 5 months ...

Miles traveled                   8,670  (can you believe it???)

Gal fuel used                    1,008 

Cost                                $4,602  (avg $4.56 per gallon, most $$ left in Canada)

Gal DEF used                       16  (take it with you ... it's not readily available in Canada)

Avg MPG                            8.6

RV Parks                        $1,800 (not counting the purchase of a new TT membership)

Food and Misc                I'm guessing here ... maybe around $500 a month

Dan's estimate of $10,000 was right on the money!!  If you never ate out, you would probably spend much less, but what's the fun in that???

Best trip of my life ... and I hope to have many more!!  I plan on getting MORE than my money's worth out of my Thousand Trails membership!!!  Now to find some place to fly a kite!!!

Happy Trails!!