-Over the past year we have been tracking all of our RV expenses and our mileage.
We're gonna share it all with you.
-And if you guys are new to our channel, welcome. We are HappilyEverHanks.
My name is Kyle. -My name is Renee.
Back in 2017, we bought an RV for Travel Nursing.
Fast forward to today and we are still RVing.
-So before we got in this lifestyle we had a lot of questions. -A lot.
-Like how much was it going to actually cost to be on the road full-time.
-We also get these questions a lot through email and comments.
You know, people want to know how much to expect for RV parks.
-Laundry, that's a big one. Should we buy a washer and dryer.
Is it going to save us money in the long run. -We have that data.
-So we're hoping to paint like a more clear picture for you.
-Kind of fill in some of those gaps along the way.
Maybe bring you a little more peace of mind before you get out here on the road.
-We're also gonna share how us youngsters are able to afford this lifestyle.
-Listen listen listen. I am not young anymore. I just hit 30. The big 3-0. -So sorry.
-They don't call it dirty 30 for nothing. -Are you okay? Do you need like back support right now?
In order to do this we had to document everything. -Down to the penny.
Fore warning. This is just what works for us on the road.
There's a lot of different types of RVers out there.
A lot of different types of lifestyles that people love to live out there.
So this isn't one size fits all but it's the size that fits the Hanks. -Yeah.
So if you are curious and want to know what to expect.
Then stick around. -Oh I will.
-Let's start with what our time frame was. -Okay. -Because that's a big thing. -That's huge.
-We went with the fiscal year. For us was July to July.
-And I think it's a great moment because it hits it right in almost peak season.
You go through the winter months and you're getting that nice gradual...
difference between the seasons. -Like you're getting this... The bell curve. -Yeah. The... I like that.
And the great part is is we're gonna be able to break down expenses throughout the summer.
And then the winter months. Breaking down like propane. Maybe skirting in the winter.
-Yeah. We did it all. We... This is perfect. We did all types of RVing over the year.
So you get to not only see how much we spent in a year but per season.
-We would like to thank Renee for keeping such a niche down budget.
And keeping track of our expenses down to the penny. Round of applause.
-From July 2020 to December 2020 we went a lot of miles.
We started in Oregon and we drove to Michigan. Back to Montana.
And then like Wyoming, Idaho, Utah. Back all the way to Pennsylvania.
So that was a total of 8,300 miles. Just for those six months, the first six months.
And when 2021 rolled around we were stationary for a couple months in Pennsylvania.
And then hit the road again in March. Went down to Florida. And now we are in Tennessee. -Yes.
July started off as a busy year. -Yeah. -I mean we were bouncing everywhere.
But we then hunkered down. Hunkered for the winner to save a little bit more money.
-So our total mileage for this whole year of tracking our expenses was 11,820 towing miles.
Let's move on to everyone's favorite, fuel.
-Good coffee by the way. -Yeah. Are we gassed up?
Regarding fuel... -We did not separate the category between non-towing fuel and towing fuel.
And the reason being is because it could become muddied really quickly.
Our intentions were that we were stationary for a lot of times during the year.
And then also we were go go go.
So we wanted to paint a clear picture throughout the entire year rather than giving unclear expectations.
-For 2020... So from July to December we spent 3,190 dollars and 89 cents on fuel.
-And that was both the car and the truck.
We had two vehicles at that time. -We did have two vehicles. -What is wrong with us?
-We had it because of Travel Nursing. We thought we were going to be opposite schedules. -Correct.
So we got rid of her car in December of last year. -Yes.
-After we got rid of the car what was the rest of the year looking like?
-Well, we were like I said stationary in Pennsylvania for a while so we were not driving a lot.
From January to June it was 1,741 dollars and 10 cents. -Not bad.
So you could see already between being stationary getting rid of that extra vehicle.
Huge amount of savings. Almost about half of the savings. -Yeah. Just cut...
And just cutting down the amount of driving we did. -Correct.
-So that brings us to a total for one year for fuel 4,931 dollars and 99 cents.
-Oh, it bugs me. It's off by a penny.
-Let's move on because I can't wait till we talk about laundry. Is it worth it...
-To get the washer and dryer? That's a hot topic on the market right now. -Yes.
-A lot of RVers out there like I could not live without a washer and dryer.
-But... -Before we get there... -Yes. -Let's hit up the RV parks.
When we were sitting at home planning all this out before we even bought the RV we're like...
okay we have a mortgage right now. What is the RV park prices gonna be?
Are they gonna be somewhat similar? -Good point.
Because everyone wants to know how do they need to budget for this new rent?
So I’ll tell you what the total was for the year for RV parks...
And shocker we saved money in 2021 compared to 2020...
because we weren't moving as much. You could see a trend here right?
So I feel like RV parks is very important so hang on with us for this.
We're going to kind of go through month to month here.
August was our most expensive month for RV parks. 1,335 dollars.
-Kind of in peak season. We were bouncing around a lot of National Parks.
-RV campgrounds around the National Parks they are pricey.
-They jack those prices up for the tourist season. And we paid the price.
-If you just look at August itself. You'll see that a lot of stuff is jacked up.
We went 2,820 miles just in August.
-Man, August was an expensive month for us. -Yeah, look at the fuel.
Nine... Almost 1000 dollars in fuel.
And RV parks was up there too like over a thousand dollars.
-So I guess what we're saying is plan according to the season.
If you do a lot of traveling during the nice summer months...
Or go to National Parks where it's more busy just expect jacked up prices. -Yeah.
Like plan for it to be more pricey if you're gonna go do some National Park hopping.
Because I know a lot of people really want to go see like the fabulous five or whatever.
-Oh, the magnificent five? -What?
-What is that? -The mighty five? -The mighty five. That's it.
-Like if you're gonna go do the mighty five I would be like budgeting higher for that month.
-Oh for sure. So getting more into the rest of the year.
It kind of chilled out towards December it looks like.
-Once we had that really expensive August month. And then September was also 1000 dollars.
We started to learn ourselves hey...
If we slow it down a little bit and start paying weekly and monthly rates... -Yeah.
-We will save much more. And you could see...
October, November, just look at that trend. It trends down because we started...
We started to realize it ourselves. We were like... -Did you say a light bulb went on?
-It did.
I remember we were only gonna stay in Moab for like five nights.
And then we were like why don't we just stay for a week?
-Staying at places for an extended period of time, they offer discounts which is phenomenal.
So instead of staying somewhere for three nights...
and then picking up and going somewhere else, chill out there for a week and get some discounts.
-Get some R and R in place.
We have an entire video of more of these tips when it comes to like living on the road and saving money.
-Yeah. Right up there. Yeah I see it.
-So when this video is finished definitely check out that video.
Because it's gonna bring more of those tips your way.
But let's go back to this. -Okay. -Let's go back to the facts and the data. -I love it.
-Okay. So yeah. We saved a ton of money like we said being in Pennsylvania.
Uh just paying the electricity. -Yeah. -And then we decided to hit the road again.
Lucky us, right? -Lucky us. -So March we hit the road.
We went from Pennsylvania all the way to Florida.
So in March we went more than double the amount of miles that we did in October.
But we saved more in RV parks because we started to like realize how to like...
find cheaper RV parks. -Oh snap ola. Yeah. -Do you see that? -Yeah. I do see that.
Okay so we were paying like 900 almost a thousand dollars in October.
But when we hit the road again in... Yeah. March, April we were paying 450.
-December we went only 720 miles but still paying more for RV parks.
November, 945 miles. Still paying more.
It's like a light bulb definitely went off in March.
-So we traveled more miles in March and saved even more money in RV parks. How does that work?
-We found the magic. -Oh man. And when I say magic I mean magic. Boondockers Welcome.
-Yeah. We talk about it a lot but we really like to talk about stuff we think is...
really valuable to us and for you guys.
-You pay 50 dollars for this membership.
And then it opens up these doors that you can go stay on other RVers property for free.
-Yes. -If you boondock. Some of these RVers have hookups at their homes.
So they might have like 30 amp electricity.
And if it's really bougie they might have a dump there for you to use as well.
And they'll say hey come stay with us.
We'll charge you 10 bucks a night and you can stay with us for a couple nights.
Kind of get your bearings and then hit the road again.
If you are interested and it's something that you do want to purchase.
Maybe not now but in the future. Check out our link below as well. It could save you some money.
-March and April are the months that we used Boondockers Welcome the most. -Yes.
I’m looking at these prices here and it literally cut our expenditures in half.
So for March and April we were traveling more miles than we were back in November and December.
And we paid half of the pricing that we did.
What about food? -Can I get a sandwich?
Now food budget for us is groceries, uh fast food, going out to eat.
Or if we bought alcohol anything that we're... -Consuming.
-Food is one of those things that's gonna greatly vary depending on how many people.
The types of foods you eat. Like kids and all. I mean...
-There's a lot that goes into it but just for the two of us...
7,972 and 74 cents is how much we spent in food all together throughout the year. Not too bad.
-And I would say the average is about six hundred dollars a month. -I’d say yeah.
-Moving on to um propane.
-In total throughout the whole year we spent 716 dollars and 17 cents in propane.
-The whole year. -I thought it was gonna be a lot more.
-And that was for an entire winter in Pennsylvania.
Let's look at the propane costs just for the winter.
While I’m calculating that why don't you tell them about the skirting.
-So we ended up skirting. And we did a whole full-blown do-it-yourself skirting for like 200 bucks.
-Yeah. -And it saved a lot with propane I mean we were kicking propane left and right.
-If you don't know RV skirting could be very expensive. -Yeah.
-Just skirting alone could be over a thousand dollars.
And then if you want to have it professionally installed that's like another thousand dollars.
No. -Yeah. -We don't care if it looks pretty.
We're gonna get the foam board insulation and we're gonna go for it. -We're just going for it.
-And we have a whole blog post of our skirting process, the supplies we needed...
and how we actually did it. So if you pop on over to our website...
you can see that information and prepare yourselves... -That's really good.
-Yeah. -I’m glad you wrote that one up. Because we might have to refer back to that one day.
Getting right back into it. With the propane costs...
What was it? December, January, and February we spent...
532 dollars and 23 cents just in three months of propane.
-If you take away the winter propane costs then that leaves us with 183 dollars and 94 cents.
That is for nine months right? -Nine months.
-You're looking at budgeting about twenty dollars a month for propane. -I’d say twenty, thirty.
-Let's finally get to the laundry.
-Ooh touchy subject. Okay. -I was really excited to see this data just ourselves.
Why don't you read them the total. Now really quick guys. The frugal Hanks...
Whenever we were meeting up with friends or family or anybody that...
offered us to use their washer dryer, we took advantage of it.
-Yeah. Frugal living.
-We're just doing laundry and then we're gonna skedaddle.
-That's it. We just met these people and they're just like...
-Come on in. -Yeah, come do your laundry. I’m like great.
-We found ways to not have to go to laundromats all the time. -Yes.
So we ended up spending all year in laundry 110 dollars and 50 cents. -Wow.
-This is full-time RV living one year.
A new washer and dryer... How much do those cost?
A washer dryer combo for 1500 dollars.
We spent 110 in one year.
Looking at it from a number standpoint it would take us 13 years of full-time RV living at that rate...
to be able to find and justify the need to buy a washer and dryer.
-Well let's do the math and pretend that you are always going to laundromats...
and you never get free washers.
I looked at this earlier and it seemed like the average amount we would spend at a...
laundry facility whether it's at the RV park or at a laundromat was around...
15 dollars a month in laundry for the two of us. -Okay.
-Even at that... Let's say 15 dollars a month times 12. That's 180 dollars.
-So that would still take you eight years to pay off...
those washer and dryers or find a justification of having those.
So do what you will we're just giving you the numbers and what our experience has been so far.
-We even thought about getting one of those portable washers.
It like sits in your shower.
And it does like a really small load and then it spins it dry and you still have to hang it.
But those are even like two hundred dollars.
The Hanks may someday get a washer and dryer in our RV. -Yeah.
-But what we're trying to say is that we just didn't rush to get one right away. We made it work.
So we're just letting you know all the options out there and how much money it saves you. -Totally.
So speaking of how much money it saves us.
Should we start breaking down how we afford this lifestyle at our age?
Don't worry we're about to tell you.
So it all started off with Travel Nursing.
Four years ago we made the decision to leave our staff jobs and go pursue Travel Nursing.
We knew we were going to be making more money on the road.
It was up to us to figure out what we were going to do with that money.
Time and time after again a lot of people the more you make the more you spend.
Instead we went the opposite way against the grain.
We took all that extra money and we paid off every single penny of our debt.
-It was a journey. -Four years long journey.
-Like when we first started RVing back in 2017 we were...
in a lot of debt. Like 225,000 dollars worth of debt. -That's a lot.
So we took it upon ourselves to do the hardest thing...
yet most fulfilling thing we've ever done in our lives. We became absolutely debt free.
-We were really good at saving money because that's how we were able to pay off debt...
that we continued to save our money. And we were like hey...
we have this much money in our bank account.
And if we are frugal with our spending each month we can just take off work for a year and just enjoy life.
-Love it. And we are enjoying life to the fullest.
And the best part is we've realized the more stuff we downsize and get rid of...
the more it would add to that slush fund and keep us on the road longer.
So we sold the car. -And the motorcycle.
-And then we started getting rid of a lot of junk that was just sitting around. -That we didn't need.
And now with uh you know this whole YouTube thing going on we are able to continue to take off work.
-Now it's not a make or break it thing. But it does supplement our income a little.
We didn't want to wait till retirement to get a taste of what the retired life felt like.
-Yeah. -We wanted to enjoy it now before we had kids.
And the ultimate answer for us was becoming debt free.
And using our career path to work the most it could.
-And if it weren't for Travel Nursing and...
paying off all our debt we wouldn't be able to do what we're doing now. -No. For surely not.
If you are looking for more information like this.
And you just need a little bit more clarification about what the RV life is about.
Check out this video right here.
If you haven't already...
subscribe to us and hit the notification bell so you guys can stay up to journey with us. -Yeah.
-We love you guys and we'll see you next week. -Bye. -See you guys.