Our startup costs for full timing

mobilcastle wrote:
Nazpaz,
I may have missed it in your post but what are your cost for Thousand Trails and any other memberships that you have. I think those cost would be helpful to others.

The line right under camping costs is annual memberships. That figure - prorated out to a monthly cost - is mostly TT but also includes PPA, Good Sam, and Escapees. Let me confess that that number is actually a bit high because I took advantage of special offers from PPA and Escapees (BTW, Escapees is having a good sale right now) and got multi-year memberships. I won't need to renew either of those for several years.

If you don't have a Thousand Trails membership already you may have some additional start up costs, and depending on whether you get a "new" membership or buy one from an individual that cost would range from $0 (a gift) to thousands of dollars if you go straight to the most expensive membership, bought from the company.

Good luck in your research!

Nazpaz,
I may have missed it in your post but what are your cost for Thousand Trails and any other memberships that you have. I think those cost would be helpful to others.

Camping WAS a cheep vacation years ago I can't say that now.I don't plan to be a full-timer but I like to travel(to the colder area) for 5 month during the summer time .

2freelife wrote:
We have fulltimed with a diesel truck for many years. When we travel we spend on average $140 for a tank of gas which will pull our 32 foot 5th wheel about 450 miles. Even if we are sitting still for a few months we will fill the tank at least twice in a month so we can go sightseeing, so that comes to at least $280 a month just to stay put. People need to have realistic numbers so they can truly judge if this lifestyle is affordable for them. I never came across a campground cheaper than $300 a month. The cheaper ones usually don't offer any many amenities. We would go bike riding or hiking wherever we visit. Both activities are free but usually involve using fuel to get to a certain area to explore. Personally I wouldn't think this lifestyle is great if I could only afford to sit in the 5th wheel at a crummy rv resort trying to live on little or nothing. I just want people to be realistic that it is kind of an expensive lifestyle, but anything worth doing does costs money. It's a wonderful lifestyle but can't be done comfortably on less than $5,000 a month. $5,000 would be a stretch if people are traveling every few days unless you want to park in a Walmart parking lot or truck stop.

We're gearing up and getting ready for fulltiming next year. We'll be funding this adventure ourselves until retirement age. I agree with you to some degree that it CAN be costly, but you should have some form of a budget pre and post fulltiming that shows ALL of your cost. Our budget while still in the S&B is ~$3K/month. We are 100% debt free and will be that way while in retirement and fulltiming. We have done a budget for fulltiming based on our current budget and feel that the $3K will still work, but are going to bump it to $4.5K so as not to strap us down to sitting in resorts and looking out the window. Our budget will be a "work in progress" as we figure things out. You should do the same and find what works for you.

As too others budgets. I have looked at A LOT of them that I found on the internet and have found that we fall in line with them. We will have expenses that they don't have an visa versa, but we will keep to OUR budget and spend how we think we need to.

-paul

2freelife wrote:
It just occurred to me I should let you all know I'm not trying to be a "Debbie Downer." It's just that I've read many posts over the years of how people are living the fulltime lifestyle on very little money, & having lots of fun doing it. I think it's kinder let people know the lifestyle is not cheap. Our bubble sure got burst when we thought we'd have a great cheap retirement living in a 5th wheel. There are many high costs attached to this lifestyle. Trucks & rv's all need maintenance, Health insurance is very costly which also needs to be considered. Insuring the vehicles for fulltiming isn't cheap either. It's great if someone has a large amount of money set aside to handle the surprise expenses, but personally I don't think anyone is having an exciting retirement on less than $2,000 a month. The numbers don't add up.....sorry.

It's kind of funny but anytime I post expenditure information I hear from people who tell me they do it for much less than that and I also hear from a few who think I'm not being accurate with the numbers because it costs lots more than that.

Our numbers are what they are. I keep track of what we spend and how it was spent. We aren't trying to see how cheaply we can live, we just want to live within our means. And that's what we are doing.

I'm glad to address specific things like campground fees. Apparently, we do pretty good with that compared to what others spend (but others manage to spend far less, mostly boondockers).

So far as diesel is concerned, we generally use one tank on move day, stay in a place for a week and a half and use another tank for sightseeing. However, our mid year budget didn't match that scenario until the middle of May. Prior to that we were either in winter mode and driving the car and using no diesel or, once we headed for the northwest, using a LOT of diesel in a short time.

The full year report will smooth out some numbers. For instance, camping will come down some as we are using our Thousand Trails membership a lot since we arrived on the west coast.

It just occurred to me I should let you all know I'm not trying to be a "Debbie Downer." It's just that I've read many posts over the years of how people are living the fulltime lifestyle on very little money, & having lots of fun doing it. I think it's kinder let people know the lifestyle is not cheap. Our bubble sure got burst when we thought we'd have a great cheap retirement living in a 5th wheel. There are many high costs attached to this lifestyle. Trucks & rv's all need maintenance, Health insurance is very costly which also needs to be considered. Insuring the vehicles for fulltiming isn't cheap either. It's great if someone has a large amount of money set aside to handle the surprise expenses, but personally I don't think anyone is having an exciting retirement on less than $2,000 a month. The numbers don't add up.....sorry.

We have fulltimed with a diesel truck for many years. When we travel we spend on average $140 for a tank of gas which will pull our 32 foot 5th wheel about 450 miles. Even if we are sitting still for a few months we will fill the tank at least twice in a month so we can go sightseeing, so that comes to at least $280 a month just to stay put. People need to have realistic numbers so they can truly judge if this lifestyle is affordable for them. I never came across a campground cheaper than $300 a month. The cheaper ones usually don't offer any many amenities. We would go bike riding or hiking wherever we visit. Both activities are free but usually involve using fuel to get to a certain area to explore. Personally I wouldn't think this lifestyle is great if I could only afford to sit in the 5th wheel at a crummy rv resort trying to live on little or nothing. I just want people to be realistic that it is kind of an expensive lifestyle, but anything worth doing does costs money. It's a wonderful lifestyle but can't be done comfortably on less than $5,000 a month. $5,000 would be a stretch if people are traveling every few days unless you want to park in a Walmart parking lot or truck stop.

I think people weren't reading your numbers correctly and didn't see you had 2 fuel numbers (gas + diesel) and thought your avg fuel bill was $29/month.

2freelife wrote:
I don't understand how you could average $29.60 a month for gas. How do you do that? I don't understand how you traveled over 2,000 miles but only spent about $500 for diesel. When we pull 2,000 miles our diesel cost is at least $600, or more.

You can average $29 a month for gas by not using any. :) We leave it parked in storage except for when we are in Texas for the winters. If you think $29 is impressive wait till my year end report. We won't pick the car up again until November so that average is going to drop by nearly half again.

If you think about it, a monthly average over six months smooths out the highs and lows. One real high month of diesel usage is balanced out by months when the truck is parked and we drive a small car.

Judging by the number of hits the budget has gotten a lot of people are looking but there aren't many comments - so I'm glad for this one - it shows that someone cared enough (even if it was to need clarification) to ask a question. So thanks for commenting!

2freelife wrote:
I don't understand how you could average $29.60 a month for gas. How do you do that? I don't understand how you traveled over 2,000 miles but only spent about $500 for diesel. When we pull 2,000 miles our diesel cost is at least $600, or more.

It states that the gas is a monthly average of 3 months spread over 6 months.

He spent $405/month for diesel - over 6 months that is $2400+. He also states that some months, they barely moved, other months, they moved a lot, hence the average.