As September was closing, we had $1752 to our names. Unfortunately, the sources of our slow financial death continued unchecked, and money disappeared to fund coffee, food, drinks, transit, and accommodation.

It turns out that we get paid on the 4th of the month, which fell on a Saturday in the first week of October. So, we still had to wait until Monday to collect our meager paychecks.

We were prepared to open our wallets wide for this trip to Buon Ma Thuot, but as we mentioned, we didn’t spend a single Vietnam dong. This act of hospitality effectively saved us whatever money a normal weekend would have cost, plus $30 by consolidating all our gear into 1 room (with Dan) for 2 nights.

Accommodations were only $180 this week, while food was around $200. The small financial crisis of the week was renewing our VISA’s, which were set to expire on the 5th of October. We doubted Vietnam had the infrastructure to track us down, but we figured being illegal aliens in our first country would be a bad idea. So we dropped $240 to avoid deportation. With all of us having jobs, transit rose to $35. Finally, Rob, Brian, and I needed some new clothes for teaching, so 2 tailored shirts and 1 tailored pair of pants cost us $61.
All in all, the past week cost us $716.
We now have $1036, barely holding onto 4 figures.

Here’s how it broke down per person, for the week of September 29th to October 5th.

• $50 for food, about $10/day, which includes an ok breakfast ($1), coffees at a wifi cafe (3 * $1 = $3), lunch ($2), dinner ($2.50), and maybe 2 drinks after a day of stressful teaching ($1.50). Remember that food was free for the 2 days of Buon Ma Thuot. We still need to drive this number down.
• $45 for sharing our double rooms, which includes splitting the cost of only 1 room for 2 days.
• $60 for new VISAs and a small sense of security.
• $12 for transit, even with Bonus Hog, our new bike. Any given day could involve multiple trips to our school (about $.75 each) and trips to outside classes ($1.50).
• $17 for a tailored shirt.

So the week that ended with Buon Ma Thuot was about $184/person, still higher than we want and higher than projections.