So how expensive is rv living really this summer we traveled over 6 000 miles and we kept track of
all of our expenses and we're gonna break it down in this video we are charity ben
dakota and trinity we decided we didn't want to wait for a life of adventure so in 2017
we bought our first rv and set off to live a life of travel in the USA
we've visited over 38 states in three years and have many more to go
follow along to learn all the best places to see rv and travel tips and much more
so we love rv life and more specifically rv travel part of the compelling reason for us to live the
rv lifestyle is really the ability to be able to move from place to place and have the scenery
constantly be changing we have had the conversation many times about things like
you know a mountain cabin or a lake house and we always came back to really what we want as an rv
because we want that view to be able to change from time to time instead of always going back
to the same place with the same view and that's part of the reason that we live this lifestyle
plus if you ever find yourself in a situation where maybe things just aren't going so well in
that campground you can just bring in your slides and pull up your jacks and take your wheels and
move down the road in fact one of our most viewed videos of all time was about a situation where we
had to do just that so we'll put a link up above on what happened there if you care to learn more
about that particular story but needless to say rv living for us isn't so much about saving money
is it is about experiences over things so some people their goal is to save money by living in
an rv and that's all great and fine and i don't really think there's a right or wrong answer
but when you ask about what is the expenses that come with rv living well there are some direct
rv related expenses that you have with an rv lifestyle and there are some expenses that
you have regardless of the lifestyle so in this particular video we're not going to necessarily
talk about grocery expenses or insurance expenses or our mobile expenses because those are things
that you have if you're in a sticks and bricks those are things that you have if you're in an
rv you're gonna still go to the grocery store you're gonna still eat out and how often that you
eat out probably isn't going to change much just because you moved into an rv those are all kind of
personal habits that don't necessarily change just because your way of living changed being in an rv
versus styx and bricks house so those are expenses we're not even going to include in the mix
they vary so much from person to person and with lifestyle choices and they're not truly
directly rv related expenses with how we choose to live our particular lifestyle we allocate these
financial resources to things like experiences so for example this last year even though our
kids had a few gifts under the tree it wasn't anything that was super extravagant it wasn't
anything that cost a lot of money but what we did instead was we spent four days at disney world
in florida as their christmas gift word to the wise here don't do four days in a row at disney
just don't do four days in a row break that up a little bit we learned that lesson the hard way
just had to you know throw that in there and then one more note that i wanted to make before that i
jump into our line item expenses and rv expenses that are direct rv expenses versus just typical
expenses with mobile expenses you are going to have a cell phone bill regardless of where you
live however if you're an rver your needs are probably going to be a little bit different from
that perspective so versus diving into our whole setup and what we do i'm just going to put a link
above to a video that we've already done about our particular mobile internet setup how it is that
we're working that particular set up and roughly kind of what that's costing us so you can get more
information there but i'll also put a link in the description below for that info as well okay so
direct rv related expenses you really have three main expenses that are directly related to rving
you have your cost of fuel getting from place to place you have your cost of campgrounds you have
to have a place to stay whether it's boondocking or mood stocking you have to have a place to
park your rv overnight or at night and then lastly would be things that we call excursions
sightseeing things like that we live this life to be able to go and see and do and so that's part of
our expenses when it comes to travel and rv travel is those expenses of going and seeing and doing
so let's break it down what does a 6 000 mile 75 day trip look like for us this summer
so cost number one and this was our most expensive
cost for the whole trip as far as just from a category perspective and that was
fuel so our total cost for fuel this summer for our trip was 3148.79
now a couple of things that i want to point out here number one that was our total fuel cost which
included diesel for our motorhome and gasoline for our jeep so we have a jeep that we tow behind
our motorhome and we would have to put fuel in both of those if we're going on an excursion in
the jeep we've got to put fuel in the jeep with our motorhome we have an onboard generator that
uses the same diesel fuel as the fuel tank that runs the diesel engine we did run our generator
quite a bit this summer it was one of the hottest summers on record and to be able to run the acs
on the inside of the rv while you're driving down the road you have to run the generator to be able
to power that we've got kids we've got pets and there were some times it was pretty dang hot and
so just to be able to keep everybody borderline comfortable the generator was running while we're
going down the road which is obviously using more fuel but we got to keep everybody happy so one
thing that we have that saved us approximately 400 on those fuel costs is the tsd logistics fuel card
now basically how this works is you're purchasing fuel through a fleet company that's buying fuel
in bulk so they're getting bulk discounts from a lot of the different fuel carriers
tsd also has a partner app called open roads this is only for tsd members you do have to log into
the app with your credentials to be able to access the information but what it does is it lets you
know what that the discount price is at those particular fuel stations we were pretty careful
this summer when we would fuel up to choose the stations that had the best price and on average we
paid less than three dollars a gallon for diesel fuel this summer using our tsd logistics card so
definitely was a money saver for fuel but obviously fuel is still one of our biggest costs
so the next cost that you're going to have with rv living and rv travel is going to be
campgrounds now some campgrounds are cheaper than others and after four years of rv living we have
learned to try to source the cheapest campgrounds possible but in some particular areas where it's
very very popular and especially during the height of the summer season in these more
popular areas you're gonna just have a hard time finding quote unquote cheap campgrounds
so our total cost for campgrounds this particular summer was two thousand one hundred sixty seven
dollars and fourteen cents which averages out to just under thirty dollars a night
because we were gone for 75 days away from our home base during this particular time now
one thing we did do is we mooch docked quite often so we had a family member in colorado that had a
couple of acres where we were able to park the rv on their property i have a relative in ohio that
let us park a night in their driveway where they had plenty of space and we also had five nights
of lot docking or overnight parking in a rest stop those types of situations so five nights basically
of camping that were free not at a campground mooch docking was kind of the same i did include
in this cost we did give our one family member some money to help cover utilities because we were
there for an extended period of time so we just you know didn't want to be that big of a mooch
so here's a savings tip when it comes to campgrounds so looking for campgrounds
that are city-run campgrounds county run campgrounds or even fairgrounds so we stayed
at a fairgrounds this particular summer outside of the detroit michigan area we stayed at a
city-run campground that was in wisconsin if you can find city county around campgrounds
just do kind of a google search for the area that you're planning on being in they can be
a great inexpensive most of the time full hookup option for campgrounds that can be pretty cheap
so category number three would be what i would call excursions or just activities things that
you're going and doing and seeing so our total excursion expenses for this particular summer
were eight hundred and eighty seven dollars so some of the things that we went and did that
had a cost associated with them was we went to a st louis cardinals home game which was just
super fun and high energy we visited the city museum in st louis which if you're in st louis put
that on your list it's just a wonderful experience we went on a kayaking trip at the apostle islands
national seashore outside of the wisconsin area and then we took the ferry to and from
mackinac island and rented bikes to ride around the island and so all of those were things that
had an expense associated with them that cost us some money now here's a great way to save
on some of these expenses and these are ways that we saved this particular excursion cost of 887
for the summer is one of our cheapest excursion summers to date so what we did is we did a lot of
free things like hiking we were in yellowstone national park and glacier national park we
visited teddy roosevelt national park a lot of these national parks you just can go hiking and
we had a fourth grader so we had the free national park pass through the fourth grade program
i'll put a link below and also a video above for more information on that program if you have a
fourth grader we won't have a fourth grader next year but purchasing the annual national park pass
is also a great way to save money and be able to take advantage of our national parks and monuments
and national lands to be able to do those types of activities outside that don't cost anything
so these are just some of the costs for our larger trip this summer we do still do a lot
of traveling out of our home base that's located here in florida throughout the year and we try to
keep those costs as minimal as possible but hey we live this lifestyle not so much to save money
but to have those experiences and see new places so your costs might be different depending upon
what your priorities are you can let me know in the comments just maybe what you live rv life
for are you living rv life to save money are you living rv life to have those experiences what's
your goal in how it is that you live rv life and as you check out other videos on costs you'll
probably see that some people spend less than we do and you'll probably see some people spend more
than we do and there's really no right or wrong answer as long as you're doing what you feel like
is best for you right now and that's the best thing that you can do so i'm going to be putting
all of these numbers all of these breakdowns and these cost saving tips over in a blog post on our
website at gratefulglamper.com so you can read all of this information in the blog post as well
as all of the numbers the breakdowns and some tips for how to save money in each particular
category of expenses as related specifically to rv living so you can check that out i'll have a
link below or just go to gratefulglamper.com and hit that blog post tab also don't forget
we have a giveaway going on right now and that's it gratefulglamper.com/giveaway
we'll have a link below for that as well if you would like to see videos about travel because
that's why we live this lifestyle you can check those out right down over here and if you would
like to see videos with organization tips and tricks you can check those out down over here
until next time if we don't see at the campground or on the road we'll see in the next video