Am I correct or not?

Thank you so much all for the feedback. Very informative and interesting.

However, there may have been a bit of misinterpretation regarding my inquiry. I was primarily addressing "recoverable" funds.

As an example; One purchases a 10 year old motor home in good shape. One that does not require rebuilding or extensive work. You purchase it for $30,000. You keep it for 10 years, use it for recreation, and then sell it when finished with it for $15,000. (this is just a ballpark example and not an actual). You have recovered half of your investment. In fact, you can even figure, the funds you recovered from the sale, into the total expenses for the motorhome and traveling over a 10 year period.

I also somehow think that, when you consider how much it costs to drive your car on vacation, stay at hotels (sorry, but at my age I don't do Motel 6 and Super 8. Hampton Inns routinely are $100 per day ), 3 meals a day at restaurants (again, I don't do McDonalds), as opposed to driving your motor home, eating the same food, in the motor home, that you would eat at home, and occasionally staying at a medium priced RV park and other times staying at rest stops and big box store parking lots, then I'm wondering how, except for maintenance on the motor home and a little less gas mileage, that traveling in your car could possibly be less expensive.

I do agree, it you purchase a new motor home or one that is less than 5 years old, you will not recoup as much percentage wise that you would with a 10 year old motor home.

Does this add some clarification?

We enjoy our 5er and the campin' experience is one of our most enjoyable "hobbies" that we have. And yes, many hobbies are not cheap. However, when we travel in our rig to meet all our family for a get-together, and we stay in an RV park at $30 per night and everybody else is paying $120 at the different motels, I do feel that our hobby paid us back a bit.

If you want to think your RV is an investment, go for it. It looks like about 95 percent of "RV" Owners disagree with that assesment. And I think you would be hard pressed to find a Financial Planner that would agree with you (contrary to what they would say about owning a home). But you can believe what you will.

Walaby wrote:

johnwalkerpa1 wrote:
I rarely find campgrounds for $25 per night or hotels for $50 per night...

You need to stay at State Parks more often. $25-$30 per night is average. At least where I've been going.

Mike

heck if you want to rough it, Walmart is free.
bumpy

johnwalkerpa1 wrote:
I rarely find campgrounds for $25 per night or hotels for $50 per night...

You need to stay at State Parks more often. $25-$30 per night is average. At least where I've been going.

Mike

dahkota wrote:

Effy wrote:

2gypsies wrote:
You can look at the 'investment' in many ways.

We full-timed and traveled constantly for 16 years = 5,840 nights.

If we had spent $100/night for a room = $584,000 for 16 years.

With the RV we averaged $10/night = $58,400

We stayed in public parks or boondocked on national forest or BLM lands or volunteered in public parks so a lot of our stays were FREE in our own house in our own bed in awesome surroundings. Food is a lot more inexpensive if you cook it yourself. RV maintenance evens out taxes and home maintenance.

RVing CAN be very inexpensive but not everyone does it like us. :)

To that, it's an investment.

I didn't see the cost of your MH, gas and maintenance in your calculations. And a lot of hotels don't cost $100/night. Plus who would full time in hotels? Your comparison is a little slanted.

Gas and maintenance are no greater than in a s&b. In fact, it can be less. Once one adds up electric, gas, water, property tax, interest on loans, repair and maintenance on a s&b, and repair and maintenance on a second car, the MH comes out ahead.

The cost of our MH was $102,000 including tax and tags. We got a really good deal. The current value of our MH is $100K. But, considering wear and tear, mileage, etc. we will say it is worth $85K. So, we are in it right now at about $17K. We have lived in it for 725 days. That works out to $23/night. Add to that the average cost we have paid for campgrounds over two years: $24, living in the RV is costing us $47/night. That works out to $1410/month for 'rent' and utilities. Where we used to live, that would get us a studio apartment, which is a fair comparison. So, living and traveling around the country in our MH has cost us the same as renting a small apartment and less than staying in our s&b.

In the two years since we sold our house, the value has gone up less than 2%. That 2% would have been spent buying a new water heater and a/c, so it wouldn't have been 'profit.' Meanwhile, the money we invested from selling the house has increased more than 7%. So, we have a bigger nest egg for an exit plan than we would have had, had we kept the house and lived in it.

We spent the summer in Alaska. It cost us about $4000 over and above our typically monthly costs, mostly for gas and increased food prices. Five years ago, when we lived in a s&b, we went to Alaska for two weeks and spent $9800 for the experience. So, for half the cost we got 10 more weeks of fun.

In our experience, the more one uses an RV, the cheaper it gets. But, the benefits of owning an RV can't be calculated solely by cost analysis. If that is the only criteria for doing something, maybe one really needs to get outside more.

So, per the OP's question of whether or not an RV is an investment - Your RV lost 20% of it's value in a year and your sticks and brick house gained 2%. Pretty much sums it up.

I am not trying to be a jerk. I bought an RV, I know where the "value" is. And it's not in the financials. Facts are facts and numbers don't lie. Rv's are not a solid financial investment. We can try and convince ourselves otherwise with unlike comparisons all day. But the fact remains, RV's depreciate. They lose value. They do not offer any increase in monetary return. They offer joy and freedom. Which is worth a lot. But financially, not an investment.

Effy wrote:

2gypsies wrote:
You can look at the 'investment' in many ways.

We full-timed and traveled constantly for 16 years = 5,840 nights.

If we had spent $100/night for a room = $584,000 for 16 years.

With the RV we averaged $10/night = $58,400

We stayed in public parks or boondocked on national forest or BLM lands or volunteered in public parks so a lot of our stays were FREE in our own house in our own bed in awesome surroundings. Food is a lot more inexpensive if you cook it yourself. RV maintenance evens out taxes and home maintenance.

RVing CAN be very inexpensive but not everyone does it like us. :)

To that, it's an investment.

I didn't see the cost of your MH, gas and maintenance in your calculations. And a lot of hotels don't cost $100/night. Plus who would full time in hotels? Your comparison is a little slanted.

Gas and maintenance are no greater than in a s&b. In fact, it can be less. Once one adds up electric, gas, water, property tax, interest on loans, repair and maintenance on a s&b, and repair and maintenance on a second car, the MH comes out ahead.

The cost of our MH was $102,000 including tax and tags. We got a really good deal. The current value of our MH is $100K. But, considering wear and tear, mileage, etc. we will say it is worth $85K. So, we are in it right now at about $17K. We have lived in it for 725 days. That works out to $23/night. Add to that the average cost we have paid for campgrounds over two years: $24, living in the RV is costing us $47/night. That works out to $1410/month for 'rent' and utilities. Where we used to live, that would get us a studio apartment, which is a fair comparison. So, living and traveling around the country in our MH has cost us the same as renting a small apartment and less than staying in our s&b.

In the two years since we sold our house, the value has gone up less than 2%. That 2% would have been spent buying a new water heater and a/c, so it wouldn't have been 'profit.' Meanwhile, the money we invested from selling the house has increased more than 7%. So, we have a bigger nest egg for an exit plan than we would have had, had we kept the house and lived in it.

We spent the summer in Alaska. It cost us about $4000 over and above our typically monthly costs, mostly for gas and increased food prices. Five years ago, when we lived in a s&b, we went to Alaska for two weeks and spent $9800 for the experience. So, for half the cost we got 10 more weeks of fun.

In our experience, the more one uses an RV, the cheaper it gets. But, the benefits of owning an RV can't be calculated solely by cost analysis. If that is the only criteria for doing something, maybe one really needs to get outside more.

The only investment the RV is, is in the memories and good times you will share. Otherwise, there is no monetary investment to them, unless you can buy one at a heavy discount and resell it for more than what you paid for it. Otherwise, it's loss money. Like renting an apartment. The longer you keep it and the less you put in it and spend, then the cheaper it will be for you over the long run. But you can't compare staying in hotels, eating at restaurants, and etc. We eat out at restaurants when we travel with the rv. Sometimes when we stayed at hotels, we ate in, especially when a kitchen was provided or the hotel provided free food (breakfast and dinner). Can you save on travel costs? Yes and no. We spent way less money on gas when traveling in a car than we do in an RV. We spend 4-5 times as much gas on an RV than a car. So you really can't compare it all....

An investment is an asset purchased with the hope that it will generate income or appreciate in the future.

In an economic sense, an investment is the purchase of goods that are not consumed today but are used in the future to create wealth.

In finance, an investment is a monetary asset purchased with the idea that the asset will provide income in the future or appreciate and be sold at a higher price.

In life, an investment is something you acquire to enhance your living experience. Returns on this type of investment are happiness and a greater sense of well being which overflows to those who you share it with. This is where investment and RVing go together.

I'm reminded of a quote, supposedly from Albert Einstein:

"Not all that counts can be counted, and not all that can be counted counts."