Boondocking at Walmart

cjoseph wrote:
I just bought a new MH. I did ask the dealer if I had to stay in campgrounds all the time. He asked, "Why would you ask that?"

I told him, "The people on RV Net tell me I have to stay in campgrounds and should never sleep anywhere else or I'm cheap."

He laughed.

Some people are just uptight and not happy unless they are in everyone else's business, especially if it involves the great American institution of Wal Mart.

I was looking for a check and sorted my online banking by payee. We spent $8,700 at Sams Club last year. I didn't bother adding up all the WalMart purchases, too many to bother.

Holy smoke, if I sleep in one of Sam Walton's lots every once in a while, I earned it!

As for cheap, I have spent more than $100 per night at campgrounds for a week at a time. One local spot with few amenities charges $80. We like the location and it is kept nice. We use it while attending a yearly festival. We usually drop several hundred at the festival (if I can keep my wife distracted from spending)?

Yeah, drop 100K on an RV, take a trip, spend $1000 on gas, $750 on campgrounds, oh, and stay at Wal Mart a couple nights along the way and you are cheap.

So, call me cheap if you want.

You don't know me.

If it is all about how much money you spend, how about the fact that between lodging taxes, property taxes, licenses, permits and various other taxes I pay $100,000 plus to the counties and state governments for the priviledge of operating an RV park. If those government entities decide to enact and enforce parking laws partially to protect that $100,000 a year income stream, wouldn't that be an admirable use of governmental powers? Using your arguments that everyone should act in the interest of money, the government stands to make much more by outlawing overnighting in parking lots and forcing those people into tax generating situations.
How much you spend at Walmart is about the most bogus argument offered when defending overnighting at Walmart. 99.9% of their customers are perfectly capable of spending money at Walmart without ever staying overnight in their parking lots. I bet if Walmart stopped overnighting tomorrow, RVers will continue to spend $100s of dollars there each month. Personally, I couldn't care less about people overnighting at Walmart, because I know it is a financial decision and they are not going to ever spend the money for a full service RV site even if Wally Docking went away completely. The would be staying at Rest Stops, Truck Stops, forest service campgrounds and all the other free and low cost options. Walmart is not a competitor to a full service campground.