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Question Full Time RVer

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ScottGese

RVF Newbee
Joined
Dec 3, 2022
Messages
2
My wife and I are considering selling our home and full time RVing. My question to anyone who has done this or is currently doing this. Not including the cost of the RV, how does the cost of full time RVing compare to owning a home?
We've been crunching some numbers but would like to hear from anyone who has the experience.
Thanks for your reply
Scott
 
One of the internet Youtube people, GratefulGlampers had a show about that. It is not less expensive according to them.
 
That is like asking how much does it cost to live in a house. It's different for everyone.

It was much cheaper for me. But we were running two households in two states with a 200 mile one-way commute. I found that site rent was essentially our new "mortgage payment". Utilities were slightly lower because we had a smaller "house" (and only one). We still had vehicle insurance on our vehicles, cellphone bills, entertainment expenses, grocery/eating out expenses.

Most people continue living at the same level after going fulltime as they did before going fulltime. So you most likely won't "save" anything unless you either make an effort to cut back or unless you have outrageously high house payments. I suppose it's normal. Most people don't want to go from "expensive champagne" to "cheap beer".

You can keep traveling fuel expenses and site rent costs down by staying in a park long enough to get the monthly rates. Just pick your parks carefully. Pick a place that you can spend time in sightseeing (day tripping) instead of moving every few days. Or pick up a piece of property to stay on seasonally. That would also allow you do to maintenance work on your RV/camper/towed or towing vehicle(s) since few places will let that sort of thing to be done on site.
 
Overall, the costs didn’t go down much, but did go down marginally.

No house insurance, but full time RV insurance was higher than the house insurance was.

More maintenance on an RV than a house, if you aren’t broadly handy, this can be more than you expect.

Internet costs are MUCH higher. Used to pay $45/mth for rock solid fiber internet, now pay $135 for our primary + $55 for backup + more for cell plans that have reasonable sized hot spot data as a backup for the backup. This doesn’t include the couple grand + that was spent trying different types of equipment to find the right combination that worked well for us.

If we didn’t want to actually travel, we wouldn’t have done the full time RV gig. We have met many full-time RV folks who live in one place year round or maybe alternate between 2 places. If only wanting to save money, we would choose to stay in a house and skip the RV. We choose full-time RV because we wanted to do work-cations, travel around the country, still working 9-5, but able to take in new areas on downtime.
 
Thanks for your quick replies. You've verified what my numbers were showing me. Full time RVing may actually be more expensive than owning a house. Plan B, snowbirding might be a better fit for me. At least it will get me away from this winter weather. That's a plus.
 
If you purchase the right contract from Thousand Trails you can live within that system for no charge except for the annual dues.
 
If there is an opening and at what cost? I know two families with that and one hates it and the other loves it.......Perhaps "the right contract" is the key?
 
I would like to hear more from people with Thousand Trails as to its pro's and con's....anyone? Just read a blog and intrigued.
 
It’s a matter of what you want, where you will be going and can afford. We have the Adventure level. 21 days, park to park. For non peak I can make reservations 180 days out. For Encore resorts, an add on package, I can make reservations 90 days out. Right now we have already booked through March 21 in premium location in the south Texas area.

Yes, you are on a first come first available and some parks are crowded with “permanent” residents. We have been full time since May. One park we had to settle for 30amp full hook up or, we picked, a 50amp with no sewer.

Only real regret is the locations are in a horse shoe pattern. There are no parks in the central states.

Figuring at $60.00 per night we will be paid for in February. There are yearly dues but those are paid off in the first month or so then you have 10 (+ -) month free the rest of the year.

Resales are a good option but be careful what you get. A lot of the resales are old levels and don’t have the options you will, probably, wish you had.

Just my position and usage.
 

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