Jason Betzing
One of the many reasons we decided to full time RV was to spend exclusive time together as a couple. Toasting the sunset at Valley of Fires BLM area in NM while drinking wine we purchased in WA.
Words by Jason Betzing
“How much does it cost per month to full-time RV?” I see the question pop up seemingly every week in the different RV groups I follow on social media. I get it. If you’re starting out or just considering the full-time RV lifestyle, you want to prepare and know if you can afford it before jumping in with both feet. If you’ve been RVing for a while, it’s one way to see how others are optimizing the experience. Asking how much an RVer spends monthly is like asking which rig is best. The answers are personal and vary greatly. The honest answer is, it depends. That’s right, you can spend as much or as little as you want. To get an accurate answer first, you have to ask yourself one important question: “What’s my budget?”
Actionable Steps:
- If you are considering the RV lifestyle, identify the experience you want and estimate what it will cost.
- Estimating your costs per day of travel and per day stationary will help you plan wisely for trips.
- Look at your total consumer debt and explore ideas for cutting debt; freeing up more money to live the lifestyle you want.
- Set and maintain a weekly budget for at least three months.
- Take a look at every dollar you spend, every bill you pay and save where you can.
Jason Betzing
Dry camping / Boondocking on Federal lands in the U.S. and Crown Land in Canada is a great way to get out into some amazing places while also camping for free or close to it for up to 14 days (in the U.S.) at a time.
Regardless of your financial situation, I recommend following a budget. While a budget tells you what you can afford, budgets also perform another eye-opening function; they tell you where your money is going. This information could be very revealing. It shows what you value most through how you spend. It may also reveal where you’re letting your dollars sneak away without noticing, like a slow leak. If you spend $5 every day on coffee it may bring you joy, and that’s great. But if you are looking to cut expenses, it’s a $1,200 per year leak you can reduce by simply making coffee at home for about $120 per year.
A budget for someone making payments on their rig will look much different than a budget for someone with no debt. Likewise, a budget for someone living the full-time RV lifestyle will vary greatly from someone who RVs part-time or still maintains a home base. First, look at your monthly income. Here, we are looking at after-tax money you live off of. This includes any money coming in and includes Pensions, CPP, OAS, Social Security, and of course your paycheque if you are still working. Total this up for your net income.
The second thing to look at is the consumer debt you’re paying such as car loans, home mortgages, college loans, a financed RV, and so on. These are expenses you must pay but they are temporary. Since most of our hard-earned money gets spent here, it’s easy to see the large impact on your budget if this category is zero. Next are fairly constant monthly bills for essentials such as cell phones, internet, utilities, and insurance, food, fuel, and savings. Don’t forget things you pay annually (life insurance, RV insurance, mail service) - just divide by 12 for the monthly cost. Take a look at the last two months of online bank statements and make sure you’ve included everything. From your net income, subtract monthly debt payments and monthly expenses for essentials. What you have left of your net income is known as “discretionary income”. You can spend it freely whether it be lattes, clothes, travel, or RV upgrades.
We used a “zero-based budget” where every dollar coming in is assigned a category. Whether it’s spent on groceries or fuel, you determine where it will go before getting paid. This keeps your money from sneaking away. If you overspend in the grocery category, the money will have to be moved from another category, and for the next budget you may need to increase it for groceries and decrease it from somewhere else. Don’t let this scare you, it’s simply a way of accounting for the money you have. Stick to this for three months, and you’ll have a really good handle on where your money goes and it will be easy to manage. There are a lot of online tools and apps you can use to set up a budget. We liked the free version of Every Dollar for its ease of setup and ability to use from a desktop, as well as mobile devices. A quick search of Google or Reddit’s Canadian Personal Finance pages will present many options from actual users.
After seeing your budget, you may want to make some changes to increase your discretionary income. Below are things we did on our journey to get debt free and begin our full-time RV adventure.
To pay off debt, there are several different tactics. One is referred to as the avalanche plan. You would make a list of all accounts from highest interest rate to lowest, then focus on the account with the highest interest rate and attack it with every extra dollar you have while paying minimum payments on the rest. When that one is paid in full, move all extra dollars to the second highest, and so on. The second method, (and the one we used), is called the debt snowball. For this plan, list accounts from the smallest to largest balance and focus on the smallest debt first and attack with all extra money, then that payment, plus the extra roll into the next smallest debt. The main difference is that the avalanche method may save you some money, while the snowball method provides a quicker psychological “win”. Both work well. The main thing is to have a plan and follow it.
For daily expenses, optimizing is a great strategy. We like to spend as little as possible to get the things we need so we have extra for things we want. Nothing is sacred, we look at every expense and decide if it’s necessary. If we have to keep it, is there a way to reduce the expense to put more money in our pocket to use for our adventures? These are likely going to be small victories, $5 a month here or there, but they can add up to be significant monthly and yearly savings. We saved $80/month by cutting cable and getting Netflix instead. We saved $30/month by downgrading our cell phone plan to what we actually use and cancelled insurance for our old cell phones. We get truck and RV insurance quotes annually and review our policy to see if there are less expensive options. To be clear, this is not a compromise in quality to save a dollar. Our utilitarian items are high quality. However, if a $150 vacuum works the same as a $600 vacuum, we’d rather buy the less expensive vacuum and have money for things we value more than a vacuum, like RV upgrades or international travel.
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Jason Betzing
Saving money by utilizing discount programs like Passport America and Good Sam helps us stay on budget when we stay at more expensive sites with stunning views like this spot on Big Bay de Noc in Garden, MI.
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Jason Betzing
Saving money by utilizing discount programs like Passport America and Good Sam helps us stay on budget when we stay at more expensive sites with stunning views like this spot on Big Bay de Noc in Garden, MI.
Our Numbers and Strategies
This is a highly personal part. It’s tailored for how we’ve decided to live financially. There may be some similarities, but not everyone will live the same way and that’s the beauty of this lifestyle. We like to travel, so we are on the road every few days. We budget to spend $2000 or less per month. This leaves us a large buffer for when (not if) something unexpected (good or bad) pops up. Having this buffer means we rarely need to touch our Emergency Fund. At the end of the month, any leftover cash is invested.
Overnights average $30-$60 per day, including RV site and food. We spend roughly an extra $60 per day for fuel on the road towing a 41 ft Fifth Wheel with a Ford F350 Dually (diesel) getting about 11mpg and we like to travel about 3 hours a day, although this isn’t a strict rule.
For overnight stays, we stay at Passport America parks if possible, with 50 percent off nightly stays (Big Savings) the membership quickly pays for itself. If one is not available in the area we want to stay, we try and use Good Sam and Military discounts if offered, (about 10 percent off), and we are considering a KOA membership soon. We prefer simple RV parks with full hookups and pull-throughs if possible. We are not set up for dry camping/boondocking however, boon-docking for free on public lands such as BLM significantly reduces expenses. Parking lots and rest areas are not our thing - we tried it a few times and didn’t like it. We typically don’t stay at State Parks or National Parks as our rig is usually too big. We don’t often stay at high-end resort-style parks. They’re beautiful, but we’re usually out exploring the local area, so we don’t feel like we get the full value from luxury amenities that we would if we spent more time at the park or had kids to entertain.
When staying at an RV park, we dine out usually once per stay unless it’s a cool spot with a lot of places or unique eats we want to try. I enjoy cooking in our RV and primarily cook with electricity since it is included in the cost. A rice/slow cooker, convection oven, and Griddler are my favourites. When we know where we’re going, we research online and look at reviews to get the most value out of dollars spent. If you ask locals for good spots for sightseeing or dining, you may just find some secret gems not everyone knows about. We try and re-supply when near a Walmart or large grocer. It’s also usually cheaper at a larger store for fuel than in small towns or truck stops. If you enjoy National Parks and State Parks then annual or lifetime passes are probably worth it. If you are in greater metro areas, Groupon and other discount sites may have offers you’ll enjoy such as two-for-one dining and museum passes. Leverage your Credit Card Rewards to save even more; my next article will explore credit card rewards strategies in more depth.
Like many of you, we became interested in the full-time RV lifestyle for various reasons; the freedom to travel and stay in comfortable weather, the opportunity to enjoy our life together and share experiences as a couple, and the simplicity and having our home with us wherever we are. But one reason that stood out was an optimized way of life where we could spend more money on the things we love and less on things we didn’t. We asked, “What if we could spend more money on travel and less on bills, home maintenance, and other expenses?” This doesn’t mean the RV lifestyle is less expensive, although it can be with some planning. Creating and following a budget while also employing some of these strategies will allow you to live better for less. It will help you answer the question “How much will it cost ME to RV?”
Jason Betzing