Our startup costs for full timing

BarbaraOK wrote:
After 8 years I have repeatedly seen a lot of people posting budgets for their expenses to others as an indication of how little they spend, but when you start to drill down you see that the way things are reported is isn't as transparent as someone who is trying to figure out if they can afford to fulltime would need.

We know people who put their budgets out, but don't mention up front that part of their expenses are written off as business expenses. So the initial budget looks like they can RV on practically nothing.

Barb

I agree that there seems to be a race to the bottom and, like you, I've seen that some numbers don't reflect the actual cost. I especially think this is true when it comes to workcamping. While it is true that workcampers can report low out-of-pocket camping costs there is still a cost. For instance, if they are getting a campsite in exchange for 25 hours of work even at the Texas minimum wage they are "paying" over $700 a month for their campsite.

I'm not against them doing that and I know there are other perks for workcamping, including a level of personal satisfaction in "giving back" but the only way to compare their camping costs to mine is for them to place some value on their hours worked.

Anyway, I protested against your use of the word "disingenuous" because it suggests deceit which obviously wasn't present in my blog post. I clearly stated in the earlier blogs that I wasn't including membership fees and then, when I did, I posted them in addition to my out of pocket camping fees.

I'm going to offer you some friendly coaching here, feel free to take it or leave it. I think that what you meant to say was more in line with the post I am responding to here. You didn't want to personally attack me for being a dishonest person. Instead, you wanted to say something like, "If it were me I would combine the out of pocket costs with the camping membership fees to give a clearer cost of camping." My response would have been pretty much what it was - I didn't combine them but I did move that line in the expense sheet up so that the two items were one after another. Still, it would have spared us the rabbit trail of my feeling I needed to defend myself from being called "disingenuous."

After 8 years I have repeatedly seen a lot of people posting budgets for their expenses to others as an indication of how little they spend, but when you start to drill down you see that the way things are reported is isn't as transparent as someone who is trying to figure out if they can afford to fulltime would need.

We know people who put their budgets out, but don't mention up front that part of their expenses are written off as business expenses. So the initial budget looks like they can RV on practically nothing.

Barb

BarbaraOK wrote:

nazpaz wrote:


Disingenuous huh? I can't imagine how. Both out of pocket fees and annual fees are listed right there for anyone who takes time to look at the data.

From someone who responded:

$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...

So clearly they didn't see that your monthly costs for camping were over $300 per month. Some people, especially those new to the RV lifestyle, may not be familiar with membership parks or what TT stand for - not to mention how to factor that into monthly camping averages.

Also notice that the budget sheet seems to have been redone?

Barb

Yes, I decided that your approach has merit so I moved that item to the line right under our out-of-pocket camping expenses so it would be easier for people to connect the two.

Obviously, there was nothing insincere or less than candid in the expenses I reported so your charge that it was "disingenuous" is over the top (and I'm overlooking the personal nature of your use of the term knowing that some people come across as more caustic online than they really are) but I do understand your point that some might just look at the top line and not take time to digest the information. My compromise is to put the two lines one after the other on the spreadsheet.

Edit to add: you might want to revisit the exchange about $234 for camping from the earlier expense sheet. If you do, you'll see that not only did I mention in that blog post that I wasn't including the annual fees because they hadn't been paid yet, but I also responded to that specific post, explaining that we will have "a year round average, including annual memberships, of around $13 a night." Again, nothing "disingenuous" here.

nazpaz wrote:


Disingenuous huh? I can't imagine how. Both out of pocket fees and annual fees are listed right there for anyone who takes time to look at the data.

From someone who responded:

$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...

So clearly they didn't see that your monthly costs for camping were over $300 per month. Some people, especially those new to the RV lifestyle, may not be familiar with membership parks or what TT stand for - not to mention how to factor that into monthly camping averages.

Also notice that the budget sheet seems to have been redone?

Barb

I am somewhat of a snowbird in that I do not camp in snow but occasionally am at places where it may get down into the mid to low thirties. Besides the space heaters I have an electric heating mattress pad on my bed and an electric blanket; it’s great to be sandwiched between the heat coming from the bottom pad and the top blanket.

Don’t know what your age is but if you’re 62 or over, or have a disability, you may be able to get a lifelong discount camping pass for Federal lands and many State parks. A lot of the state parks don’t even require that you be a resident of that state to get their discount pass.

I have a Golden Access Passport which gives me a 50% discount camping on Federal lands, and I also have various state park passes that allows me to camp for free. Regardless, whether you have a pass or not there are a lot of free campgrounds, and cheap campgrounds, all over the U.S., especially on public lands.

Larryzv7 wrote:
Nazpaz, One of the refinements I made had to do with how I use propane, and this just may be me and I am not advocating it for others. I still include $60/month in my budget for propane but I rarely use that money to refill my propane tanks.

I am a fulltime RV’er, 24/7/365, and I seldom go to private RV Parks. I’ve heard that they charge extra for electricity if you stay a month or more, and I have substituted by propane usage with electrical usage. The only thing I regularly use propane for is to heat water for a shower.

I use electric space heaters to heat my 5th wheel, an electric kettle to heat water for washing dishes, and electric portable oven and an electric frying pan to cook food; this also allows me to broil, bake, or fry foods outside. I also have an electric bucket warmer, which is something that farmers use to heat up water in a bucket for their livestock.

I have 2-20 lb. propane tanks on my 5th wheel and those tanks usually last about 10-months before I have to refill them. So the money I budget for propane can usually be shifted to some other line-item where I may have overspent. The electric kettle heats up water much quicker than the RV’s water heater and I don’t waste propane.

When I use the RV’s water heater it heats a full tank of water which I may not use that entire tank and thereby have wasted propane heating a full tank. Like I said this is not for everyone; because some people like to leave their water heater on so that they can have hot water on demand, but I turn my water heater off, unless I am going to take a shower.

I have finished my 2014 camping route and have already made reservations for campgrounds right up to August 2014. I will be staying at 1-private campground for 7-days and the rest are State and National Parks, and military campgrounds. I’m looking forward to camping in the Olympic National Park Rainforest in Washington State and Zion National Park in Utah, as well as a lot of other places. :C

P.S. If I am dry camping I have 2-Honda 2000 generators which I sometimes piggyback to give me 4000 watts. The generators are rather quiet.

This is our first winter as fulltimers and we're spending it on the Texas Gulf coast. Right now we're in a park that includes electric in the monthly fee (really the best deal in the Houston area) so we've been living "electric" - in spite of some cold nights we've been quite comfortable, using a couple of space heaters plus the camper's heat pump along with sleeping under electric blankets. It's been unseasonably cool and I hate to think of what our electric bill would be if we were paying for it separately.

In 6 weeks or so we'll move south a ways into a park where we pay the electric. Depending on the weather our budget may take a hit.

I'm interested in your staying at state parks. Texas has wonderful parks but they are high in cost compared to what we generally end up paying. Still, we love the Texas parks so much that we're working a few in over the next year as we are leaving the state for the summer and again as we return next winter.

I too have started making reservations. I'm a planner (blogged about that last week) and I enjoy working through the trip ahead of time. We may cross paths as we're headed for the Pacific NW this summer. I can hardly wait!

Nazpaz, One of the refinements I made had to do with how I use propane, and this just may be me and I am not advocating it for others. I still include $60/month in my budget for propane but I rarely use that money to refill my propane tanks.

I am a fulltime RV’er, 24/7/365, and I seldom go to private RV Parks. I’ve heard that they charge extra for electricity if you stay a month or more, and I have substituted by propane usage with electrical usage. The only thing I regularly use propane for is to heat water for a shower.

I use electric space heaters to heat my 5th wheel, an electric kettle to heat water for washing dishes, and electric portable oven and an electric frying pan to cook food; this also allows me to broil, bake, or fry foods outside. I also have an electric bucket warmer, which is something that farmers use to heat up water in a bucket for their livestock.

I have 2-20 lb. propane tanks on my 5th wheel and those tanks usually last about 10-months before I have to refill them. So the money I budget for propane can usually be shifted to some other line-item where I may have overspent. The electric kettle heats up water much quicker than the RV’s water heater and I don’t waste propane.

When I use the RV’s water heater it heats a full tank of water which I may not use that entire tank and thereby have wasted propane heating a full tank. Like I said this is not for everyone; because some people like to leave their water heater on so that they can have hot water on demand, but I turn my water heater off, unless I am going to take a shower.

I have finished my 2014 camping route and have already made reservations for campgrounds right up to August 2014. I will be staying at 1-private campground for 7-days and the rest are State and National Parks, and military campgrounds. I’m looking forward to camping in the Olympic National Park Rainforest in Washington State and Zion National Park in Utah, as well as a lot of other places. :C

P.S. If I am dry camping I have 2-Honda 2000 generators which I sometimes piggyback to give me 4000 watts. The generators are rather quiet.

Larryzv7 wrote:
Nazpaz, I enjoyed reading your blog and perusing your budget. I make up a yearly budget which for more than a decade now I’ve handled very well. I put it on a spreadsheet with 12-monthly columns showing my estimates and then each month I put in my actual spending and compare it to the monthly estimates.

Averages are good but they are very general because one month I may have to renew my insurance, or have some other bill come due, which would mean spending more in that month than I would in other months. So while averages show “normal” expenses they do not show accurate expenses that are specific, like paying for insurance, which is not a monthly occurrence.

I think you are on the right track; each person that makes up a budget does so with consideration for what is germane to their particular situation, and their understanding of cash flow, etc. I don’t think that there is any right or wrong in this. The budget I make up for myself is germane for my situation, i.e. I do not use diesel, camp for free at State Parks, and use space heaters instead of propane to heat my 5th wheel during cold weather.

Being a full-time RV’er is a culture unto itself with very flexible parameters. In the few years that I have been full-timing I refined my budget many times to better have it reflect the scheduled RV stops I may have planned for a given year. Little things have made themselves known to me, like if I plan on dry camping I will budget money for generator gasoline, unlike if I was going to be at a place that had full hookups. So I would guess that as you go along you will refine your budget as well.

Like you, my actual spreadsheet is quite a detailed effort. I like doing stuff like that and I have formulas for just about everything with worksheets for projected fuel use and camping plus lots of other little tricks. There's way more than is necessary but it is fun to put together and see work.

Because of that I could give tons of data but opted to go with averages. I do admit your point that using annual averages tends to gloss over some annual major expenses. You will note though, that I gave vehicle insurance it's own column so it wouldn't be lost in all the figures.

On my 7 month 2013 fulltiming budget I overshot by just over $1000. That looks pretty impressive for a first year's budget but really I have to admit that it was just the result of over-budgeting for a lot of stuff and then getting hit with more major repairs than anyone would budget for. I blew past my repair budget about three months in and then kept going! Had I not over-budgeted for a bunch of other stuff I would have been off by a lot more than $1000.

Also, I certainly appreciate your point that little things sneak in and I know you are right that if I continue keeping good records that I'll be able to better refine the budget as time goes by.

BarbaraOK wrote:
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

Disingenuous huh? I can't imagine how. Both out of pocket fees and annual fees are listed right there for anyone who takes time to look at the data.

Nazpaz, I enjoyed reading your blog and perusing your budget. I make up a yearly budget which for more than a decade now I’ve handled very well. I put it on a spreadsheet with 12-monthly columns showing my estimates and then each month I put in my actual spending and compare it to the monthly estimates.

Averages are good but they are very general because one month I may have to renew my insurance, or have some other bill come due, which would mean spending more in that month than I would in other months. So while averages show “normal” expenses they do not show accurate expenses that are specific, like paying for insurance, which is not a monthly occurrence.

I think you are on the right track; each person that makes up a budget does so with consideration for what is germane to their particular situation, and their understanding of cash flow, etc. I don’t think that there is any right or wrong in this. The budget I make up for myself is germane for my situation, i.e. I do not use diesel, camp for free at State Parks, and use space heaters instead of propane to heat my 5th wheel during cold weather.

Being a full-time RV’er is a culture unto itself with very flexible parameters. In the few years that I have been full-timing I refined my budget many times to better have it reflect the scheduled RV stops I may have planned for a given year. Little things have made themselves known to me, like if I plan on dry camping I will budget money for generator gasoline, unlike if I was going to be at a place that had full hookups. So I would guess that as you go along you will refine your budget as well.