Andy Hough

One Month in Downtown Cancun and an Airbnb Fiasco

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I stayed in Cancun from December 6th to January 6th. This wasn’t a vacation as I was working my document review job most of the time I was there. The main purpose of this trip was to get away from the cold weather in Missouri and to get some alone time. The trip was successful for those purposes.

I decided to go on this trip after finding a $345 round trip ticket from Springfield, MO (SGF) to Cancun. SGF is a very small airport so it can be difficult to find cheap fares to international destinations starting from SGF. I paid for the airfare using credit card points so I wasn’t out of pocket for the airfare.

The trip started off fine. I stayed the night before in Springfield since I had an early morning flight. I got a shuttle from the hotel to SGF about an hour and a half before my flight was to depart. It took about 5 minutes to get through security. I have TSA precheck, but there was no line so it would have been just as fast without precheck. The first leg of the flight was from SGF to Dallas. This was a small plane and seating was 4 across in 2 groups of 2. The guy that was sitting next to me moved to sit next to his friend so I had my own row for this flight. For the Dallas to Cancun flight I was assigned a middle seat. I was hoping the flight wouldn’t be very full so I could switch seats, but as I boarded the plane I could see it was going to be almost full. I was pleasantly surprised when I got to my row and my seat was taken. The lady sitting in my seat told me she had moved to sit by her husband and asked if I’d be okay taking her aisle seat. I gladly took that switch.

The flight was smooth and we actually arrived in Cancun about 20 minutes early. To save money I took a bus from the airport to the downtown Cancun bus terminal. The ticket cost me $6 USD. If I’d had Mexican pesos it would have only cost about $4.75 USD. Still it was a lot cheaper than the $25 a taxi would have cost.

After arriving in downtown Cancun, I pulled up my Airbnb address on Google Maps and started the approximately 10 minute walk to my Airbnb. I had no problems finding the neighborhood. After that I started The problem I had was the address listed on Airbnb didn’t exist. It was a short street so it should have been easy to find the address. I asked several residents on the street and none of them knew where the address was. I pulled out my phone and pulled up the Airbnb listing so I could contact the host. At this point, I still thought this would be a minor problem.

I called the number listed on Airbnb and it was for Spain. Nobody answered, but a message in Spanish came on. My Spanish wasn’t good enough for me to understand what it was saying. I left a message and hoped it was actually going through. I then decided to contact Airbnb support through their chat feature. I got a message that they were unusually busy and it would be a while before they could get back to me. It was over an hour before I got a response from Airbnb support. They had no clarification on the address and stated they would contact the host and get back to me.

I decided to go to dinner and hope that they would have the issue resolved by the time I finished. The entire time I was walking around with a heavy backpack since I didn’t have anywhere to put it while looking for the Airbnb. It took me over an hour to eat dinner and return to the area where the Airbnb should have been. I didn’t get a response from Airbnb, until after I had returned to the area. The response stated that they had been unable to contact the host and that they would keep trying to contact the host and get back to me. I let them know that I needed somewhere to stay right then and asked for help locating a place. I received no response to that message.

At this point it was dark and a light rain had started. Walking around in the rain all night didn’t seem to be a good option. I got a hotel room for the night at a cost of $71 and decided I would figure out the Airbnb situation in the morning. I didn’t get any further response from Airbnb support that night.

When I woke up in the morning, I had a message from Airbnb support that they still hadn’t been able to contact the host and I could cancel the reservation for a full refund if I wished. That was fine, but I still needed a place to stay. I asked for assistance in finding a place to stay and once again did not receive a timely response. I had to be out of the hotel by 11am so at 10am I got on Airbnb and looked for a new place for the month. Since I was now booking at the last minute and needed a place that allowed instant booking, the amount of places available was much fewer than it had been when I originally booked my Airbnb. There were no places left that were close to as cheap as my original room. I ended up having to pay $300 more than my original room for the new room.

Everything went smoothly with the new place. It was easy to locate and was as described. Airbnb eventually got back to me with a refund of the original room. I left a poor review of Airbnb support, but they never followed up on it. Overall, I was seriously disappointed with Airbnb support. I’ll be much more reluctant to book Airbnb in the future and will make sure to have a plan B if things go wrong.

The rest of the trip went smoothly. My room was in a good location. I could easily walk to Parque de las Palapas or Mercado 28, both of which had many places to eat. There were also a couple of grocery stores, several convenience stores, a Walmart, and several other restaurants within reasonable walking distance. When I had extra time, I would take the public bus to the beach or the mall. The bus fare was only about $1.

It wasn’t the most exciting trip since I spent most of it working in my room. Still I enjoyed the trip. Being able to take long walks in the sunny weather almost every day helped improve my physical and mental health. Overall, the trip was well worth the cost even though the trip got off to a bit of a rocky start.

How I Lived on $13,526.69 in 2020

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My annual expenses for 2020 were about $3000 less than the $16,826.37 I spent in 2019. I spent $17,433 in 2018. It is good to have a downward trend in spending. My annual expenses for the past few years were $13,697 in 2017, $16,431 in 2016, $16,999 in 2015 and $15,775 in 2014. My annual spending seems to stay in the area of $15k a year. I expect my spending in 2021 will be a little higher than in 2020 since the pandemic kept me from spending as much on travel and some other stuff as I usually would.

Rent/Mortgage$4397.17
Utilities$198.99
Miscellaneous$1257.02
Laundry$38.5
Gas$815.36
Car Maintenance$1451.93
Rideshare/Public Transportation$4.64
Car Insurance $454
Groceries$542.90
Restaurants$1063.56
Clothing$0
Phone $374.72
Travel$1163.09
Movies$145
Other Entertainment$233.31
Gym$21.7
Meds/Vitamins$67.71
Doctor Visits$533
Health Insurance$46.27
Student Loan$345
Gifts/Charity$372.82
Total$13,526.69

The above table provides my annual expenses broken down into 21 different categories. For 2021 I will tweak the categories so that Miscellaneous isn’t such a big category. Other than the too big Misc. category, I think the table provides a good detail of my annual expenses. Further explanation for each category is included below.

Rent and mortgage was what I paid for rent before I bought the house with my mom. Mortgage, is of course the mortgage I paid after buying the house. This will stay about the same unless I am able to travel to Thailand and rent an apartment there for a few months. Any extra mortgage payments I make I count as savings and won’t be included in my annual expenses since I don’t consider saving to be an expense.

Utilities was low because I mostly didn’t pay utilities. I won’t pay any utilities at all this year unless I rent an apartment in Thailand and pay utilities there.

The bulk of the Misc. category was for my annual bar fee and paying for siding on my mom’s former home. This year I hope to have some relevant business income to use the bar fee as a biz expense against. Business income and expenses aren’t included in my annual expenses. This category will be much smaller this year.

Laundry was for the laundromat when I lived in an apartment and for the month I stayed in Cancun. The amount I spend on this category this year depends on whether I’m able to travel.

There were some months I spent hardly anything on gasoline. I expect this category to go up this year. I’m hoping car maintenance will go down. I’m considering buying a new car this year which would create a new category and would of course result in quite an increase in my annual spending.

Rideshare and public transportation were low since I didn’t travel much.

Car insurance will probably stay about the same level.

This year I intend to increase the grocery spending and decrease the restaurant spending. My overall spending on food is pretty low, but I need to start eating healthier food.

I included the clothing category of $0 just for fun. I did buy a pair of shoes last year that I included in the miscellaneous category. Perhaps, I should have included them in clothing. I’ll probably spend something on clothing this year.

My phone is with Google Fi and it should cost me about the same this year.

Travel was actually kind of high considering I didn’t travel much. I spent a week hiking in Shenandoah and a month in Cancun. Although I suppose some people would spend more than $1163 just on a one month trip to Cancun. I have two international flights booked for this year that have already been paid for, but there is a good chance I won’t be able to use them. I’m hoping I’ll be able to get vaccinated and travel later this year, but I’ll have to wait and see what happens. If I’m able to travel this expense will go up.

Movies and other entertainment were not too expensive since I mostly stopped going to the movies after the pandemic started. This expense will probably be about the same.

I paid for 2 months gym membership at the beginning of the year. This expense will be much higher this year since I now have a new, more expensive gym membership. I really want to get in much better shape this year.

Doctor visits and health insurance will be much higher this year. My ACA subsidy doesn’t completely cover the cost of my insurance like it did last year. Also, I have a low deductible this year so I’m going to try to get several health issues addressed.

I wasn’t required to make any student loan payments last year. The amount I did pay was because I use any money made by this blog to pay the student loan.

I should probably be more generous with my giving. I’ll make it a goal to increase spending in this category this year.

That is how I spent $13,526.69 to live in 2020. I think I had a pretty good quality of life for the year and received great value for the money spent. If you have any questions about any of my spending, let me know. How was your year?

December Expenses – $1465.82

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Here is a breakdown of my expenses for December.

Household$35.65
Mortgage$455
Entertainment$39.72
Transportation$21.77
Food$221.50
Phone$32.93
Health$167.24
Travel$492.01
Total$1465.82

My December expenses were a little higher than normal due to being in Cancun for most of the month.

Entertainment expense was for three movies and a one month digital subscription to the New York Times.

The mortgage payment includes a $100 extra payment made to the mortgage. I’m considering not including extra mortgage payments in my expenses since they are a form of savings. What do you think?

Transportation was for one tank of gas and a few bus trips in Cancun. This category was much lower than normal since I can mostly walk everywhere I need to go in Cancun.

My food expense was much higher than normal. This isn’t surprising since I ate out almost every day and sometimes ate out twice a day. These meals brought me quite a bit of enjoyment so I think I received good value for the expense. I’ll be returning home this month which should result in this expense going down considerably.

My phone bill was just a tiny bit higher than normal. I had to use my phone as a hotspot for work for a couple of hours and I needed to use my phone’s data to try to solve a problem with Airbnb which resulted in more data use than usual. This month should go back to normal

Household expense was for laundry, a haircut, a small gift and some small items that I needed while away from home that I didn’t pack.

Health expense was for a dental visit and some medicine.

Travel expense was for a hotel room for one night in Cancun and switching to a different Airbnb which was about $300 more expensive than the one I originally booked. My experience with Airbnb was somewhat of a fiasco which I should write a post about. The details are too much to include here.

This month my expenses should return to normal since I’ll be back home for most of the month.

How was your month?

December Income – $2651.76

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Here is a breakdown of my income for December.

Interest$22.81
Amazon FBA($13.58)
Swagbucks Deal$68.77
Job$2183.89
Cashback$236.58
Other Bonuses$97
Bank Bonus$50
Dividends$6.29
Ebay/Other Selling$0
Total$2651.76

December’s income was pretty good since I was working at my doc review job most of the month.

I made $2183.89 from my doc review job. Although there were three weeks with reduced hours, the fact that the month had 5 paydays helped make up for that.

My Amazon FBA side hustle lost a little money since I didn’t do any selling during the month, but still had some expenses.

I made $50 from a bank bonus and $97 from other bonuses.

Dividend income came in at $6.29. Not many of the companies I own payout dividends in December. There will be a lot more dividends this month. If you sign up using my Robinhood referral link we will both get one share of free stock. Thanks to anyone who signs up using my link. Every little bit helps.

I made $0 selling stuff online and eBay since I couldn’t sell stuff while in Cancun.

I also received $236.58 in cash back. This relatively large amount is mainly from buying stuff online to resell.

Lastly, I received $22.81 in interest and $68.77 from a Swagbucks deal. I’m a little peeved that the bank I opened an account with three months ago cut their interest rate from 3% to 2%. I only opened the account with them due to the higher interest. I’ll have to reevaluate whether it is worth jumping through the necessary hoops to earn the reduced interest rate.

How was your month?

2020 Review and 2021 Preview

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2020 was a terrible year for most people and the world in general. For me, it was an okay year.

The year didn’t go as planned due to the Covid-19 pandemic. I had an around the world trip planned. I was going to spend a week or so in Japan. Then take a business class trip from Japan to Singapore to Thailand. I was going to stay in Thailand for three months and then take an economy flight to Hong Kong for a short visit and take a premium economy flight from Hong Kong to London. I hadn’t yet decided how I was going to get from London to the US when it became clear I wasn’t going to be making any of these trips. I was able to cancel all my flights and I have a bunch of miles to use when I’m able to travel again.

My plan B was to hike the Appalachian Trail since I couldn’t travel to Asia. I figured that hiking in the woods would be pretty safe. The ATC and many state and local governments asked people to not hike the AT so I abandoned plan B also.

I ended up staying in Missouri and buying a house with my Mom. My job went remote which allowed me to work from home in my small town rather than the office in Kansas City. That was a nice benefit from the pandemic. The drawback was that the pandemic also resulted in there being much less work available and I spent more time unemployed than working.

I only set two goals during 2020. The first was to save $10,000 during the first quarter of 2020. I did manage to do that and it was nice having that cushion once my employment became sporadic. My second goal was to lose 10% of my body weight. I did manage to lose about 15 pounds. That is good, but well short of my 10% goal.

Despite being sporadically employed my net worth increased dramatically during the year. The value of my retirement accounts went from being in the $50K range when the stock market crashed to just over $100k at the end of the year. I did keep adding money to my retirement accounts when the market crashed and that worked out well.

At the end of the year I spent 1 month in Cancun so I didn’t get completely shut out from being able to travel internationally.

So 2020 was a mixed bag, but overall it was a decent year for me.

Looking ahead to this year, I have three big things I’d like to do. I want to hike the Camino de Santiago in Spain, complete my section hike of the AT, and spend three months in Thailand. I’m unlikely to do all three, but I think doing two of those is possible.

Whether travel restrictions to Europe and Thailand are lifted and how soon they are lifted will affect whether I’m able to do the international trips. I’ll post in more detail about the travel plans once it is more certain I’ll actually be able to do them.

At some point I will make some 2021 goals. One of them will be to lose weight which is seemingly always one of my goals. The other goals will be related to alternative ways of making money.

I plan to quit working my doc review job. Once I finish my current project I most likely won’t accept new projects from my current company. I have already told my previous doc review company I’d work on an upcoming project for them. I’ll do that project if they hire me. After that I plan to make money from various side hustles. I don’t need much money to pay my bills.

There is one caveat. I might buy a new car this year. If I do that, then I’ll work a bit longer at the doc review job so I can pay cash for the car without putting a big dent in my savings. There is also a chance I’ll have to do a hotel quarantine to visit Thailand. That would also require me to save a little more money.

That is all I have planned for the year at this point. How was 2020 for you? Do you have any 2021 plans?