Realistic Budget 2.0
After getting some really good feedback, I've modified my original budget to include Maintenance costs, increase fuel expenses and eliminate expenses we would have regardless of whether we were campin...
Forum Discussion
Jayco-noslide wrote:
I think the fact that no one else is even mentioning the depreciation of your RV proves my point that most RVers leave that cost out. This would be like claiming that one can drive a car for x number of years for an amount and completely leaving out the cost of the car. Someone mentioned their daily cost for camping being 20 something but if you add the cost of the RV to each day it will be more that the camp site. Assume you buy an RV for $100,000, use it for 10 years and stay in it 3,000 nights and sell it for $30,000, then it cost you 70000 divided by 3000 = $23/night and that's not counting any loan interest,upkeep, insurance, extra fuel, etc. If you only used it 1500 nights than it would cost $46/day. Of course you have to estimate because you don't know what it will be worth when you sell or trade. Houses gain value; RV's lose big time. I am also an RVer but I just want to know all the cost.
Your assumption is that the RVer begins with the idea of getting something back from their RV when they hang up the keys. We will run ours until we can't - don't expect to get a cent back. Just like when we buy a car - we run it until it 'quits'. We get maybe $250 on trade-in. We don't expect anything from it - after 12-15 years we have more than gotten our use out of it. Same for our motorhome, which is still going and is 15 years old. We don't expect to make money on it - we paid for it and never expect a return.
