Our startup costs for full timing

Splitting your membership costs from your campground costs is kind of disingenuous - they should be combined to give a true idea of what it costs you for a spot for your RV.

Also, if you are giving expenses, give the lump sum of those that apply to you (taxes, etc.) that might be different to give a true picture of what it costs you to full time.

As for maintenance, you should be setting aside an amount (say $200) each month because things like batteries, tires, water pumps, new water hoses, new sewer hoses, camp chairs, etc. are all on going expenses.

Too many people think they need to make their expenses look as small as possible by taking items that are unusual to them and not reporting them - which gives others a false idea of what it takes to full time.

Barb

My 2013 expense sheet is up. Any comments are welcome. Had it not been for so many unexpected repair/replace items (for instance: 12 tires and 5 batteries it would have been a good first traveling fulltime budget! Still, all in all, we're satisfied.

Thank you for the info you give us.I like to know how much other people spend for theirs adventure .I hope that I will do that(not full time) pretty soon.

dougford wrote:
Enjoyed reading your posts on your travels--but imagine my surprise when I saw that you stayed at Green Valley lake in Iowa. I grew up about 10 miles from there. There is still a scar on my knee from a cut I got swimming in the lake when I was maybe 8. I have ridden snowmobiles on it when it was frozen over. Wow....

Also, my brother still lives in Granger, Iowa, which is near the next place you stopped--Sailorville lake.

I also found your cost data very useful. i'm not yet full timing (son is still in high school and I'm still working). But hope to be there soon....Thanks again!!

Thanks Doug. We didn't stay but one night at Green Valley. We had a family related stop at Mt Ayr and need a place to be the night before moving on up to Saylorville. Because of family we're sure to be back up your way again in a year or two.

Glad you enjoyed the blog.

MTPockets1 wrote:
$234.00 for camping? How do you do that? That's less than $9 per night? We've travelled and full time for three years and average a little over $20 per night...

Here's my math....

For starters my first 50 nights at Thousand Trails are "free" and after that stays are $5-8. Then, we use our America the Beautiful Senior Card and stay at Corps of Engineers campgrounds for $10-12. Also, we are members of RPI (annual fee not included, but around $100) and that gives us stays of $10-17.

Our most expensive stays have been a few weeks at state parks, coming in at $18-20.

So, we spend a lot of time at TT and always pay less than $10 and other places are almost always less than $15.

Put it all together and you end up averaging (before memberships) less than $10. BTW, even after the memberships are averaged in, we should still be at around $12.

Here's more if you are still reading:

For the winter we'll be staying at a couple of places reasonably near the coast in Texas on monthly rates of around $425 (including electricity) so the winter rate for us will be just over $14 a night which will give us a year round average, including annual memberships, of around $13 a night.

Hope this helps.

$234.00 for camping? How do you do that? That's less than $9 per night? We've travelled and full time for three years and average a little over $20 per night...

Enjoyed reading your posts on your travels--but imagine my surprise when I saw that you stayed at Green Valley lake in Iowa. I grew up about 10 miles from there. There is still a scar on my knee from a cut I got swimming in the lake when I was maybe 8. I have ridden snowmobiles on it when it was frozen over. Wow....

Also, my brother still lives in Granger, Iowa, which is near the next place you stopped--Sailorville lake.

I also found your cost data very useful. i'm not yet full timing (son is still in high school and I'm still working). But hope to be there soon....Thanks again!!

Having just concluded our summer of 2013 adventure I've written a blog post of random observations on the journey. If you are interested you can read it here:

http://pastorscott.com/travel/year-in-review-random-observations-on-our-summer-of-2013-adventure/
https://www.facebook.com/TravelsWithScottandJackie

Still on the topic of expenses, we're just concluding our first 6 months as fulltimers. When I began investigating this lifestyle I got a lot of help from fulltimers who were willing to share their expenses so I'm trying to return the favor by posting ours. If you are interested you'll find the information here..

brirene wrote:
Thank you for posting this information. Although we are stillupwards of5 years away, its interesting to get ideas of expenses involved. Forgive me if you addressed this previously, but can you give an idea of how often you moved and the miles involved?

Good question. We've towed about 2400 miles to date and have been in 13 campgrounds. There are a couple of short stays 1 and 3 days in that the rest 1 or 2 weeks. Sightseeing mileage is probably an additional 1000 miles.

Hope this helps.