Expense , money etc etc

As a general rule of thumb, a 5 year old RV will be worth about half of the original selling price. Example: if a new RV is sticker priced at $100,000 and sells for $80,000, then at the 5 year mark, it should be worth about $40,000 on the average market. That means the person that owned it for the first 5 years has lost $40,000 in depreciation, or $8,000 a year. Those are real dollars, which many owners don't like to even think about, as you can tell from some of the posts. The depreciation slows down considerably after about 5 years, give or take.

Fun can be very expensive, not just with RVing. We all tend to have some limits to our disposable incomes, which varies from person to person. Most of us involved in RVing, accept the costs involved. For rough operating costs, I tend to think in terms of about $1 a mile, not counting depreciation or loss of investment income, on that money. This would be using the RV for 10,000 to 15,000 miles a year and spending a month or two sleeping in it. Less or more of either will make the costs vary.

So many variations in costs, as mentioned above. Miles per year, maintenance costs, self done or shop done work, camping costs, insurance, depreciation, storage, and other items such as lawn chairs, grills, etc.

Ill look into all your good idea and planning tools, thanks for sharing tricks and experience, the grey zone are slowly diseapearing !

We like to travel X-country, NC to OR and back, different roads each time. We usually figure $5K to $7K for each trip. Just bought 09 MH DP and don't believe it will change much. Usually take 60 to 90 days each trip. Still budgeting about $5K for the trip. Hope to have fun but realize we will have to be a little tight on campgrounds and stuff. Probably use Walmart, National Forest,COE campgrounds as much as possible. Give it a try and let us know!

Homer,

Old Radios has most of the good idea, but go the whole way. Use Strips and Treats or Street Alas to plan the whole excursion and ask it for your fuel cost. Look up the campgrounds you expect to use and get the rates. Roll that all into a spreadsheet and you will find that RV travel compares favorably in every category except time.

I had planned a comfortable retirement, but (the following is not political, it is fact) about 25 years of savings carefully invested were "redistributed" (specifications on request). We sat down and did spreadsheets just like I described and found that we could still travel about 12000 miles a year as long as we do nothing when we are at home. So, we travel. We eat in the coach and see what we can see that is free or low cost. We frequently overnight in places that are free. When at home, we don't go out for meals or movies. But, we still travel. The new motorhome will just have to wait about twenty years.

Matt

Here's a simple Excel spreadsheet I made for figuring fuel costs. You can change distance, cost per gallon and miles per gallon.
Mileage Worksheet

Money is not going to be a problem, but you understand as an accountant the importance of doing your homework before making important financial decision.

Retiring is also a period of some sort of uncertaintity...its my first time you know ;)

So far i received the answer i was looking for and that reassure me that my evaluation done without any experience where not in the left field.

and thanks to all to bear with my English!

tjfogelberg wrote:
I am an accountant so I track every penny. I use an excel spreadsheet to forecast total costs.

I figure $1/mile (1 way) for gas and that includes the return. So if I'm planning to go 1,500 miles (furthest point), I budget $1,500 for gas. (Based upon my Lazy Daze Class C 8.5mpg)

As mentioned in earlier posts, camping fees can be quite low (on average) if you boondock some. We use WM and no hook-up sites to keep the average lower.

I recommend doing an overall personal budget/financial plan to make sure you can afford RV travel. If money becomes a stress point, it may not be any fun.

I will send my RV spreadsheet and personal budget spreadsheet to anyone who wants a copy.

Peterrrr, 100.00 a day is something we can handle lol, that was the cost we had or really close to when we traveled to the canadian rockies on our Goldwing in 2009.

im pretty handy so fixing the Rv wont be a problem, up to a point, the basic maintenance of the engine, brakes etc is something i can handle so a few bucks saved there...

the only thing i would change is less walmart and more liquor stores lol

thanks for your very informative post !

Peterrrrr wrote:
It all depends on what you do on the road and where you stay. I copied this from a blog where I had posted it before on a discussion of costs. ( Not sure of the forum rules here for links to blogs so I copied my part of the remarks.) The travel is for my wife and I, and we are Canadian, thus buy medical travel insurance for the states. These costs are from last winters trip to the much nicer weather of the southern states.

The Class C towing a Chevy Cobalt went 7733 Miles, used 1034.43 US Gallons, ($3475.71 at a calculated Average of $3.36 a gallon) I can then further determine that I get 7.48 MPG Avg. Accommodation Costs were $2590 for 160 days so 159 overnights for a 16.29 Avg overnight cost. We do boondock quite a bit thus the overnite stay average is lower then the $30-$40 a nite that is average for an RV park. I also use PA for discounts at parks.

From my US $ Mastercard I derived the following. Spent $2849 at Walmarts, $1232 at Grocery Stores(Albertsons, VONs, Bashas...) and $98 at Liquor Stores. The total for Groceries,incidentals, wine, beer and liquor would then be $4179. Eating outside of the RV showed $1096, while entertainment totaled $746. Spent $866 on gas for the car, $73 for propane, and Cell phone and Internet was $539.12.

Our travel Medical Insurance was $1305. I buy additional on top of my Mastercard yearly plan (first 30 free- for my wife who is still under 60), while mine is through Medipac where additional is purchased for the first 40 days (pension coverage) then full for the remaining 120.

So our total would be $14,869 or about $92.93 per day. Of course I did not include Casino gambling in the entertainment, which I purchase with cash. I replaced my RV tires this past year for $1400 and had a full brake job on the Cobalt for $642.

Hope this helps you. I certainly do not think my wife and I are monetary rich. We very much enjoy our time in the States during the winter, away from our house and the miserable weather we leave behind. The enjoyment of the time and the people we meet certainly enriches our lives.

I know the OP asked about Class C, but I have some real world numbers for my Class B. I use an app on my Android that keeps track of all expenses related to a vehicle - purchase price, insurance, inspections, maintenance, gas, oil and I also record things like propane, new batteries, etc. I now have almost 50K miles on it since purchase new and my cost of ownership works out to be about $0.26/mile. To that I'd add an average cost per day when I'm using the RV to cover campground fees, food, and other misc expenses. Assuming $35/day for campground, $12/day for food and $25/day for misc my formula would be:

cost of an RV vacation = (miles * $0.26) + (days * ($35+$12+$25))

However, since I have yet to replace tires the cost of ownership per mile will increase slightly. On the plus side I've made some not inexpensive enhancements to my RV and the cost of them is included.

I am an accountant so I track every penny. I use an excel spreadsheet to forecast total costs.

I figure $1/mile (1 way) for gas and that includes the return. So if I'm planning to go 1,500 miles (furthest point), I budget $1,500 for gas. (Based upon my Lazy Daze Class C 8.5mpg)

As mentioned in earlier posts, camping fees can be quite low (on average) if you boondock some. We use WM and no hook-up sites to keep the average lower.

I recommend doing an overall personal budget/financial plan to make sure you can afford RV travel. If money becomes a stress point, it may not be any fun.

I will send my RV spreadsheet and personal budget spreadsheet to anyone who wants a copy.

Hank85713 wrote:
Well now that you asked the question and got responses, tell us if you do have an rv and if so what is it?

I've sold my pop up camper and now I have the eyes on a Sunseeker 3010 2014.
I was hesitating between a TT 30 feet 248RBS from Jayco, we really liked that trailer, but I also need a 3/4 ton pick up and Im not really interested to tow.

After many nights of thinkin instead of sleeping we went back to my first choice...a class c. We always prefered to move from A to B on a timely basis instead of camping at the same place for weeks.

There is pro and cons to both, but i would prefer not having a hinge between me and my bed, so the MH is the way to go for US.

My question about money was only to get a good idea of the operating cost, its a lot of money when you start from scratch. I dont want to buy a old Rv, used up to 3 years max low milleage is what im looking for. New would be nice, but sending 15 grand if not more to the drain right off the dealers curb is hard to swallow