What does it cost to become a fulltimer?
If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to our E-mail Digest or RSS Feed. We will then send you the stories that are posted each day in an e-mail digest. We use a service called Feedburner for delivery of these emails. You will receive an e-mail from Feedburner after you subscribe and you must click on that email to activate your subscription. Thanks for visiting and enjoy all the information!
RV.Net Blog Admin
By Bob Difley
Almost every new RVer or former weekender thinking about going fulltime asks the question “How much does it cost to live fulltime in an RV?” The answer is, pick any number and you will find someone who says that is what it costs. And they’re right–for them.
However, that is probably not the best question to ask. Try rephrasing the question to “I will have a net income of (fill in the blank), will this be enough to cover the RV lifestyle that I define?” And that, of course, implies that you have to first define the RV lifestyle before you can cost it out.
What does costing it out entail? This question is very individual, which only you–and your traveling companion or spouse, if any–can answer. So get out a piece of paper or open a new document on your computer and answer these questions first:
- Is your RV paid for or will you have to factor payments into your budget?
- Is your RV old or new? An old RV will require more dollars budgeted for maintenance and repairs?
- Do you have a residence that will require maintenance or will provide additional income by renting?
- Are all your financial obligations paid off or will payments–other than monthly usage of credit cards–have to be factored in?
- Add in health insurance and prescription drug plan premiums, and average monthly co-pays.
- Add in cell phone costs, a gift budget, hobby costs, and anything else that will be recurring expenses.
That was the easy part, numbers that are simple to come up with and are fairly accurate. Now the harder part.
- Food costs. This includes cooking in and eating out. What are you willing to establish as your eating habits in your new RV Lifestyle? Will you be content to eat out one a week, or are you accustomed to eating out frequently? The difference is huge in what your food costs. Restaurants = high, cooking in with fresh farmers market fare and local food = low.
- Camping. Are you comfortable with and enjoy boondocking on public lands or do you prefer campgrounds? Again a huge difference. RV resorts with golf, activities, rec room, full hookups, internet = expensive. Boondocking in the national forests and on BLM land = cheap to nothing. If somewhere in the middle, decide on how many nights a month you will stay in campgrounds and at what price level are you comfortable with and how many nights boondocking. Keep to whatever plan you work out.
- Fuel: Make a plan on how much you will spend on fuel each month. Stopping for only one night and then moving on and a “I want to see it all now” agenda = expensive. Staying in one place for a few days or a week and exploring the local area = cheap.
- Urges, whims, habits. Are you willing to part with some of these that you exercised when your income was higher, or are you unwilling to change?
- Define a dollar amount for emergencies–whatever figure you are comfortable with.
This is only a start. Write out every part of your preferred RV lifestyle as you define it or how you want to live it, then put dollar amounts to it, then figure out what that lifestyle will cost. That will be your personal plan and will not apply to anyone else. From there you can alter it to: (1) Reduce some part of it to fit your income, (2) Continue working until you have what it takes to pay for your defined RV lifestyle, or (3) Figure out how you can add to your income by part time or seasonal work, running an income producing website or online business, campground hosting to reduce your campground costs, or caretaking.
Whatever you decide, if you can stick to it–that is what it costs.
Check out my website for more RVing tips and destinations and for my ebooks, BOONDOCKING: Finding the Perfect Campsite on America’s Public Lands (Kindle version), Snowbird Guide to Boondocking in the Southwestern Deserts (Kindle version), and 111 Ways to Get the Biggest Bang out of your RV Lifestyle Dollar (Kindle version).
HELP! Are there any SEO experts or Web developers among you out there? I have some questions. Email me at bobdifley at gmail or my website email address hrvlcontact at gmail.
![[del.icio.us]](http://images.del.icio.us/static/img/delicious.small.gif){kind=small}
One things for sure there’s a limited supply of gasoline in the World and there’s only one way the price is going to go long term.
Join RV Camping clubs/associations. Most important of all “front load” your camping costs. That means, pay to join Coast to Coast, Resorts of Distinction and Resorts Parks International (stay away from Thousand Trails – just ask someone). While this can cost you 3K-5k up front, depending on what package you buy, if you are really going full time it will pay off in the long run. Think of it this way. If you have to pay $35-$45 to stay some place, and I am parked right next to you and my cost was “0″ or $10, which do you think is the better deal. Right now I am parked at an RV park right on the beach for a week. My cost $70 for the week. Others around me are paying $45 a day – that is $315 for the week. Our cost for travel since April of this year has been an average of $13.47 a day (parking fees). We had one run of paying “0″ for 10 weeks. You can not go full time and pay regular RV fees. Talk to other full timers and they will tell you the same thing.
Excellent article that identifies our different situations and the things that have to be taken into consideration.
oh yea! I will. We traveled for ten years in Europe and it was cheaper than staying home. Free camped everywhere, except when laundry was necessary. Did stay in Portugal for 6 months, but the fee was sooo cheap. 50.00 US/ mo.
Now, we can’t even think about it. The Euro and assorted costs have risen way beyond our means. Travel in the US is really good , IF you can stand to be without all the luxeries that you have at home. Cost be damned. If you can afford it ,go! I realize that many people don’t worry about the costs and there are many who do. Your good advice and info should hit home. Set still and save money. Go and be gas poor. Probably the best word you have given is set your goals, whatever they may be. One little unexpected happening, such as a unforseen surgery can ruin all. Simple things require different actions. A gall bladder attack can set you wondering. Is our rig too small for a nice recovery, or do I rent, or sponge off someone. Take into account the health of the travelers and distance to help. We don’t , as help is always available, no matter where you are. But you must think ahead at all times.But don’t miss all the fun of full-time. PLAN. PLAN, PLAN.
Bob, some great tips for testing if we can afford full timing and HOW we can do it. Comments were helpful too. I might add that when you are staying at a park and you see something that you can improve, make the suggestion to the park operator. At our park we’ve had guests make us signs, make a nature trail, begin a community garden, design doggie bag boxes, clear out a particularly good fishing spot of brush, etc. in exchange for some trade out or reimbursement. If you develop a good idea it can be marketed to other parks as well and help support your RV lifestyle. I’ve also seen many of our guests offering their particular craft for sale to fellow campers with the parks permission. There’s some really crafty RVers out there.
There is not a limited amount of gas in the world. Only if you listen to what the green crowd and the government is saying..There is more oil under the ground in the USA than the rest of the known oil producing ntations put together. We have a president that is a lean, mean, green machine lover and will not alow drilling to get it!! I believe in alternative means of power but until we are able to do it in a posivtive manner without costing an arm and a leg we need to explore all means..Obame wants (and the environmentalist) to just shut off the oil now and we can go back to horses…Nice but they don’t understand that they will have to give up everything that they own that requires power in todays world..I have a few friends that work in the oil exploration business – not in USA any more since they can’t drill for it here…They have pulled up their rigs from the gulf and gone elsewhere!!!
The problem with oil/gas, seems to be that. It’s easy to find, but apparently not worth pumping, at least here in the USA…. Oil Company profits are record breaking. But the pumps here in the US don’t seem to be running all that much.
I’m thinking that we may need to nationalize some of it, or something along those lines, in order to get the prices down a to a reasonable level.
I’ve now heard of not One, but TWO proposals to EXPORT oil FROM the US . One pipeline in Canada, and the other leaving the Tar sands in northern US & Canada, going to the Gulf. When I hear of pipelines going from oil fields to coastal Ports, I smell EXPORT.
Yet the Drill Baby Drill, crowd Screams that We/US won’t let them drill.
OPERATE the wells you’ve already drilled or get the Hell OUT.
WOW!!!!!! do you have to have an oil well to fulltime?
Great intel.We lived in our r.v.full time during the evacuations during the 07 wild fires in so.ca.Made a bunch of adjustments on living conditions,water conservation,installing 4 large marine batteries in series absorbing volts from a 3 cell solar pac, purchaced from harbor frieght tools for $60.00.
The times we were not boondocking,we stayed in parks honoring our discount from passport america,enjoy america,good sam.
Still learning thanks to your articles and thanks,
Go camp,be safe.
Me and my family sold our house, paid cash for a 5th wheel and a big diesel truck to pull it and were sure that full timing was going to save us a ton of money.
By the time we paid park fees and bought a lot of extra gas for the diesel pulling a 40ft trailer, it turned out to be a wash. The RV park fees and the gas were pretty much equal to our mortgage payment before and most of our other expenses followed us, like a couple credit cards, health insurance, groceries, cell phone. Unless you’re fulltime boondocking and killing your own food, you’re going to have a lot of the same expenses.
To be fair, I was parking near larger metro areas for my work so the park rates I was paying were higher than average, but if you’re paying 45 – 50 bucks a day to park, it adds up and you’ve pretty much got a mortgage payment on your hands.
Stay monthly in places if possible, monthly rates fall somewhere between cheaper and WAAAAAAYYYYY cheaper than daily rates. That’s one thing that will save you tons over the long haul. It will also help keep your monthly fuel costs down if you’re not criss crossing the country on a weekly basis. Part of the fun of RVing is to be able to hang out and really soak in a place so take your time, it’ll be your biggest money saver.
We have camping discounts at RV123.com. Check out our discount of the month: The new Ready Camp Go! card will make your camping experience easier and more affordable than ever. Now you can access breathtaking resorts, premium rental accommodations, RV sites, special offers and resort style amenities at incredible savings! Stay at more than 100 Encore and Thousand Trails RV resorts and campgrounds. Like other discount programs, availability may be limited. Reservations are required. Visit http://www.rv123.com/readycampgo.aspx for more information.
We are full timers and we are having a ball. We can afford to do this because we bought into a couple of groups. We have Holiday Trails for Canada (our resident country) and Coast to Coast for most of our American travel. By having these memberships we can live every two weeks in the Holiday Trails system by moving from campsite to campsite. We never need to be out of the system, just change parks. We bought into the system for about $7000 which included our buy in for Coast to Coast. In our first 3 years (while still working and owning a home) we used the equivalent of $17,000 in nightly dues for our purchase price. We have to pay about $600 a year in dues, so now it costs us about 3 dollars a night to camp in the Holiday Trails System. When travelling in the US our outside of the area of the Holiday Trail Parks Coast to Coast costs us about $10 per night. We do not count food into our expenses and you eat no matter where you live. We never have an electric, garbage, or sewage bill, it is part of our park fees. We do have to consider Diesel cost while towing but even that is much cheaper than “Taxes, upkeep, etc on a house” We have been full timing now for 4 years and have never lived so cheaply.
WIFE AND I FOUND A 25% PER MONTH SAVINGS IN OUR FULL TIME RV LIVING COMPARED TO OUR HOUSE. TRICK IS HOW MUCH YOU TRAVEL (GAS ETC). OUR 25% ASSUMES A COUPLE THOUSAND MILES PER YEAR MAX. AND A MIN. OF 3 MONTHS WORK CAMPING (FREE SITE).
… [Trackback] …
[...] Informations on that Topic: blog.rv.net/2011/11/can-you-really-save-money-on-the-road-and-still-enjoy-the-rv-lifestyle/ [...] …
the topic you are writing on, and…
that fit within the context that you are writing for. in that respect, writing can be done in print, online, or by hand. writing also takes time to perfect. once you have begun to write it will be a process that…
post or an ebook and finding that…
you can’t think of a single word to write. this is known as writer’s block.remember all those exams you took at school? how many times did you sit staring at a blank page for what seemed like ages? this is the…
locally per month.you find this using google’s…
keyword tool external. use the external because if you sign in its going to use your profile to tailor the search results. what you want is the most organic results available. don’t sign in.write relevant content – ask yourself the same…
competition.ideally you want a combination of high…
monthly searches & low competition. remember when using the tool to select ‘exact’ in the search types, as opposed to ‘broad’ or ‘phrase’.now you’ve decided on your keywords you need to get them in your site, but make them appear in…
no one understands the process of writing…
a successful blog better than blog post writers for hire, and these individuals guarantee that readers will keep coming back again and again in order to read the latest entries.business owners who are interested in starting or maintaining a blog have…
a few things to keep in mind:-…
sum up the key message from the post. – encourage your reader to take action. – ask your reader to share and/or tweet your post. – let your reader know what’s coming up next and to subscribe for updates. – promote…
a niche about which you feel passionate….
let’s examine a handful of them.do what you lovefirst, if you love your niche, you’re far more likely to create content that will appeal to readers. if you know and care about a topic, you’re less likely to produce factually inaccurate…
transform the way you write. writing correctly,…
compellingly and with passion is one of the most crucial and lasting forms of human interaction.nowadays, internet provides a number of tools to write correctly and coherently. you have tools which can within seconds to correct your grammar, spelling a…
your business too so, ensure that you…
make the most out of it. blogging tips are essential for an internet marketer to be successful in this business. most people around the world do not realize that people can actually make money by blogging. popular blogs are media where…
you sit down at your computer with…
a big happy grin and start thinking about all the money that’s going to start coming into your paypal account.you open up your laptop, click on ms word and start to write…uh-oh. you got nothing flowing, you re-read it a couple…
look colorful and insightful by uploading pictures…
related to your topic. it’s a great attention grabber. it would also save you time from describing things.5. link your blog with your other social networking sitesin the time we live in now, 1 out 12 people use social networking sites….
are always well received; however, you still…
want to make sure that humor is the vehicle you are using to carry your message across to your readers.be inspirationalfind something that is uplifting and motivating for your audience. it’s easy to find inspiration because we see some form of…
back to your post in that thread…
which would be a very effective source of targeted traffic.write about what you know – i always recommend that when someone gets into blogging that you start in a niche/subject which you have an interest in and existing knowledge about. a…
i’ve noticed works really well for building…
credibility and trust with your readers is to interview someone well known in your niche. so you’ll want to make sure you have some good questions to ask this expert…then give it to your readers as a free gift. this is…
within the realm of possibilities.choosing the best…
post pregnancy diet is often left to the discretion of the woman herself depending on her food habits, tastes, likes and dislikes. hence it would be wrong to jump immediately on to such a post-pregnancy diet because it may not be…
disoriented with the way the elements of…
the site are placed and it actually draws a person to explore the site.don’t settle with the basic and standard template that many free blog hosts provide. take the time to look for themes that you can fully customize to complement…
blog. as well as support for your…
content management. perfect for the blogger remains with the large amount of free themes for a variety of styles, and provides anything you need for e-commerce or social networking plug-ins for wonderful expansion of your site.lastly to mention is mova…
at most two videos, most blog websites…
allow you to add links and add videos can be embedded into the blog itself.6. time frame, set a time each day to work on a blog post. give yourself a time frame in which to complete articles and set aside…
out your site.backlinks are a good way…
to improve your page ranking. visit other peoples blogs and leave a comment. don’t just say ‘nice blog’ or ‘liked your post’, make your comments worthwhile and you will soon have people visiting your blog and leaving comments.use keywords effectiv…
free of charge. there are many other…
document sharing sites such as gazhoo, scribd etc. just do a little online research as well-spend a few minutes researching “places to advertise for free”, etc. and you are on your way!3. use social network sites as your advertising platform (but…
to steer clear of any brightly colored…
font. while yes, many people can read it, it can become straining on the eyes and you will loose many readers this way. stick with the basics, either white on black or black on white. any other option can become difficult…
talk, your speech patterns, and conversational idiosyncrasies…
that can then be worked into the writing that they do for you.here are some things to keep in mind:the writing styles don’t have to match exactly–as long as they don’t contradict each other there should be no noticeable difference. if…
story telling has been a way to…
communicate since the beginning of time. everyone can relate to a good story, you can even use your own insight and retell a story by adding in your own personal opinions.use humorthis is where you can really let loose. everyone loves…
else there are easy to follow instructions…
on blogger for that as well.the first thing you will see on a blog is the look and feel, this is set up using a standard template from blogger with a few customizations for the type style and color. next you…
example, if you write a blog about…
cupcake decorating ideas, you might want your keywords to be something like “cute cupcakes” or “cupcakes for birthday parties”. some other examples might be “cupcake decorating ideas” and just plain “cupcakes”. when you focus the article around…
simple and easy to follow. once you…
have finished signing up it would take you to an add blog page.there is where you will put all of your information about your blog.now this is very important to remember that you want to attract subscribers to your blog.the first…
and it adds an even more personal…
touch. other highlights are “city of immigrants” and the haunting “oxycontin blues,” a ballad of a “hillbilly heroin” addict in the throes of the new drug. a tom waits cover is a nice way to finish the record as well.1. i’ll…
your post. you tube is a great…
resource for this, but always make sure that you write a short summary about your impressions on the video.cause and effectthis is a fun way to examine the action reaction style of writing, as we all know there is a consequence…
amount of plugins you have at your…
disposal. wordpress is not the only blogging platform with plugins, however they offer you the biggest selection. i use certain plugins to do certain things. i have a plugin to ensure i have blog h1 and h2 tag on my blog,…
but social networking is one of the…
most effective, because it allows the viewer to have a much more personal relationship with your brand. the effectiveness of social media for network marketing has been established time and again, as companies make big profits by promoting their sites …
open every door of success for you.but,…
while preparing yourself for higher education, you must not target minimum percentage criteria, and you must give your best in your 10th and 12th board exams and even in your graduation exams if you are aiming at an mba degree. blogs…