The cost to live in an RV full-time can definitely change from year to year.
We'll take you through each category and overall costs like last time
but now as we do a lot more awesome travel and exploring than we did in the first year.
Hey everyone. We're Christine and Kevin and thanks for joining us for the next video of what our RV
living costs have been. Last time we told you about our first year of full-time family travel,
buying our truck and fifth wheel, moving out of our apartment, and starting life in our
RV full-time. If you missed that video, check it out so you can see the cost of full-time RV life
in year one compared to our second year. The cost to live in an RV full-time can definitely
change from year to year, and since we're now part way through year four of full-time RVing,
we've definitely seen this in action over several years. We'll take you through each category and
overall costs like last time but now as we do a lot more awesome travel and exploring than we
did in the first year. So, we'll see what our RV full-time costs look like from March 2019 through
February 2020. Again, we're sharing our cost to live in an RV full-time because we've been really
grateful when others are transparent about their cost in RV living, and we want to share what we've
learned as well. We hope it helps you or at least you find it interesting. At the end of year one,
we'd gone to Florida to establish residency there and spent the holidays with family and friends.
In the new year we explored all around Florida, and at the very end of February headed to Illinois
for the start of year two of our travels. We had unfortunately discovered a crack in the
outside wall of the RV below the master bedroom slide which required us to take it back to the
factory for repair, thankfully under warranty. So we headed to my sister's during that time.
The need for repair was unfortunate, but it was a super nice visit. When the repair was complete,
we checked out Maquoketa Caves State Park in Iowa which was really neat, and
then we explored Wisconsin Dells, Wisconsin and surrounding areas, went to Custer, South Dakota,
one of our favorite places, and back to Denver for a bit for a wedding and to visit friends.
Then we began our trek to the northeast for fall colors, through Ohio and Cuyahoga National Park,
Pennsylvania, Vermont, New Hampshire. Vermont and New Hampshire especially surprised us, and we'll
have to go back someday to see even more. Our final northeast destination was Maine and Acadia
National Park, rocky shorelines, lighthouses, and a lobster boil were fun adventures had there.
Then we headed down the east coast, stopping in Boston, Hershey, Pennsylvania, the D.C. area,
visiting others in Virginia and North Carolina, all the way back to Florida for the holidays
again. In the new year, we took some road trips to Savannah, Georgia and Charleston, South Carolina
but mostly explored Florida, and wrapping up year two with a Fulltime Families rally event.
See what we meant about doing more travel in year two? And we didn't even mention everything.
The same things we mentioned not being included last time hold true. We don't have a truck or
RV payment, but we did share the original cost of both of those in the previous video.
We don't have the cost of a home or rental, storage fees, laundry since we have that built in,
or firewood as we bought a propane fire pit in year two. We also don't include our business
expenses, savings, or charitable contributions in these numbers. So consider any or all of
those types of costs if applicable for you. RVing costs can also vary due to many factors. This is
just an example of what it cost us. All right, now we'll share our average RV living cost per month
and the year for each category, and stay tuned for the grand totals at the end.
Starting with groceries. For groceries we spent an average of $942 per month and $11298 for the
year. This increased for us in year two which doesn't really surprise us because our kids are
eating more and grocery costs just keep going up. This is food, drinks, and anything else that we
buy at grocery stores. We'll share restaurants and additional general merchandise separately later.
Next up are fuel costs. This includes diesel fuel for our truck, gas for our generator,
and propane. This category cost us an average of $483 monthly and $5796 for the year. Here's
the breakout. Even though we traveled more, this category cost us less than our first year when we
were semi-stationary in Denver initially. I guess it's because we kept moving and traveling shorter
distances at a time compared to several long-haul trips back in year one, back and forth to the west
coast, Illinois, and then to Florida to establish residency. And if you remember, we sold our second
vehicle and now no longer had the Subaru fuel cost in year two either. General Merchandise and
Miscellaneous. This includes things that aren't food but you can't just buy at the grocery store,
like clothes, presents, toys and games, other supplies, postage, ATM withdrawals that we
didn't tie to any other cost categories, essential oils, electronics etc. It also includes RV related
things, which in year two were items like new camp chairs, a propane fire pit and additional propane
tank, a dog crate that doubles as bench seating, cushions, an outdoor rug, and a Togo router. This
category cost us an average of $764 monthly and $9167 for the year. This cost went up a bit from
the year before, mostly because we needed to buy a new laptop this year and a new phone and those
things are pricey. While we had to buy a lot for the RV in year one, these costs in year two
were mostly non-RV related. Medical, Dental, and Vision Care. This year I was still working while
traveling, and we were still covered through my company and an HSA. So these costs were again $0.
That's what I like to see. Entertainment and Travel. This category includes the things that we
do for fun. We find a lot of free or cheap things to do when we can. But this year at times we paid
for things like state park passes, Wisconsin Dell's activities, and of course our National
Parks Pass, plus other things. Travel would typically include anything flights, rental cars,
or hotels, but we didn't have any of those costs this year. This category also includes any parking
and tolls which were minimal. So this category was an average of $132 per month for a total
of only $1581 for the year. So our overall costs in this category went down from year one to two,
but since we didn't go to Germany like the year before and did a lot more things for fun as we
were traveling, our entertainment costs definitely increased. Restaurants. Our restaurant costs only
went up slightly this year and considering we started having to buy more for our kids to eat out
as we went out, that's pretty good. This category cost us an average of $392 monthly and $4703 for
the year. It's definitely fun to check out local places and eat and drink as we travel the country.
Recurring costs. These include truck and RV insurance, a phone and internet connectivity,
mail service, legal shield, and long-term care insurance. In March we still had the
truck and RV rolled into a single USAA plan but then switched the RV to Progressive. Truck
insurance was an average of $124 a month. RV insurance was an average of $72 a month.
Phone and internet were $126 a month and that's an increase from the year before for several
reasons. Last year the cost was just my phone and we had a Verizon unlimited plan. But later in the
year I switched to Google Fi like Kevin, and his phone plan also stopped being a business expense
later in year two. Finally we got an AT&T unlimited plan for the Togo router and paid
that up front for one year in September. That was a really awesome deal so we had to jump
on it. Our mail service was $32 average per month through St. Brenden's Isle in Florida.
And we pay another $25 and $19 for Legal Shield and Long-term Care Insurance respectively.
All of these recurring costs together were an average of $403 per month and $4836 for the year.
Vehicle Maintenance Budget. It cost us an average of $513 per month for a total of $6157 for the
year to maintain our truck and RV. Maintenance needs for both increased from last year,
and here's the breakout. These include routine as well as repairs plus any RV projects. For
the truck this included a new DEF pump which was definitely the most expensive thing in the list,
oil changes, transmission flush and brake fluid, tire rotation, fuel filter, power steering,
brake fluid, and a cord for the block heater so we could actually use it.
For the RV this included water filters and a new fuse. So our recommendation continues to be,
budget for maintenance and expect things to happen that need to be repaired, because they will.
Yeah they will. RV Rent. Several things changed for us in this category in year two.
In year one we spent a lot of time in Colorado state parks which were cheaper back then and a
lot of time moochdocking with family, parked on their properties. Near the end of the year we had
bought our Thousand Trails Camping Pass membership and had started getting use out of it in Florida,
about six weeks of use total. We told you all about Thousand Trails in the last video. So you
could check that out if you're not at all familiar with them. But now let us tell you what changed
with our membership in year two. Several months later we decided to upgrade our Thousand Trails
Camping Pass. We had been getting more use out of our Thousand Trails membership and we knew in
the summer and fall we'd be traveling up near the Great Lakes, into the northeast, and down the east
coast back to Florida with lots of opportunity to use and save money with Thousand Trails. With
our current camping pass we would have been able to stay up to two weeks in each campground, but
then we'd have to be out of the system for a week unless we stayed for less than four days per park.
We'd also have to purchase two additional zones to add on to our membership since we only had the
southeast zone at the time. Our upgrade was to an Elite Basic Membership and it cost us $5995.
It would now allow us to stay three weeks at a time and go park to park in any of the zones,
as well as book further in advance to make sure we could secure our reservations,
especially in popular areas during the busy seasons, so 120 days in advance rather than
60 days in advance previously. We had fees of $74 a month which also included the add-on of
the additional Trails Collection campgrounds we could use and an annual assessment fee of $65.
We used our Thousand Trails membership for a total of 164 nights in year two.
We expected we'd continue to use it over the years as we knew we'd continue RVing,
so it really was an investment of sorts into lower camping costs in the long run. This year we also
joined Harvest Hosts, which is an awesome membership where you can stay overnight at
wineries, breweries, farms, museums, and other types of locations participating in the program.
You get a place to park your RV at no additional camping cost, but in return your support of the
business in some way is expected. You can purchase some of their products for example, and we love it
because they're typically pretty nice places to park and you get a fun experience at the same
time. You can go into a winery and do a tasting, or a brew pub and get a drink and some pizza,
and then walk only a short distance and hey you're back at home. We've parked in an apple orchard,
next to a distillery, next to a vineyard, and near donkeys and sheep. It's pretty varied.
It's really fun, but the way it works out for us doesn't typically equal cost savings.
Not at all. Yeah. It's more for the convenience and experience for us. So our membership rate
is $67 per year, but factoring that in with what we spent at the locations came out to
$56 a night. Other people might spend less, but we like to get a bottle of wine or have dinner,
stock up on local cheeses or other produce, things like that. Then we get to enjoy being there,
and eating and drinking our camping fees just feels more fun than spending them on a gravel
spot in a campground, in our opinion. We also had only $10 in dump station fees this year. Again
those were really minimal. Here are the number of nights we stayed in various types of locations:
52 nights moochdocking, 164 nights in Thousand Trails, 8 nights at Harvest Hosts, 140 nights
at various other types of campgrounds. Factoring in our Thousand Trail upgrade,
we paid an average of $1157 per month and $13878 for the year for camping sites. Since that isn't
an entirely accurate picture since it lumps all of the cost of the Thousand Trails upgrade into
this year with only some of the savings, if the $5995 we paid for the upgrade were removed,
the cost would only be an average of $654 per month and $7883 for the year.
Though we think it's fair to say our cost would have been a bit higher than that,
because of having to find additional campgrounds between some of the Thousand Trails stays.
We'll have a separate video in the future where we talk more about what our average night cost
through the Thousand Trail membership has been and if looking back, it has been worth it or not.
So with a Thousand Trail upgrade, that brings our grand totals to $4785
per month for our second year as full-time RVers. And that cost us a total of $57416
dollars. But again since the upgrade skews the numbers, if we were to remove it that would have
been a bit more than an average of $4285 per month and $51421 for the year. So though we
were able to reduce costs in several categories, the overall totals are a bit up from year one.
Though considering this was a year of a lot more travel and sightseeing, it makes a whole
lot of sense. Sure does. So now we've shown you our cost of full-time RVing for year two
of our family travels on the road. Let us know if this info is helpful to you and if you have any
questions for us. Stay tuned for our next episode where we talk about year three RV costs. This year
includes a fun RVing event near the beginning of the year, a battery upgrade and RV solar install,
big plans and then big changes when the pandemic blindsided everyone. Subscribe so you don't miss
it. In the meantime, check out the description below for the blog post related to this video with
all of the details. On our blog we also post our current monthly RV expense reports that are very
in-depth. We'll link that below as well so you can check those out monthly and you can even download
the spreadsheets and graphs and charts that we use to track our budget. See you all next time. Bye.