New Member, need your advice!

BisdakYoda69 wrote:
Good day everyone! I just signed onto this site to educate myself and look into options.

I live in Texas but work 6 days in a row here in San Jose California and I fly back to Texas for the remainder of my eight days off. My current rent is $1500/month renting a room and I figure it would be worthwhile to invest that $1500/month on a RV, trailer, camper, or any mobile vehicle I could use as a temporary housing while I work my 6 days here in California.

Thus I am seeking advice and recommendations as to what is available out there. I would need a unit that has a kitchen, bathroom, shower, heating and cooling, fridge, power source, etc.

I currently drive a 2020 Toyota Tacoma TRD Off-Road 4x4 that I do take on overlanding trips and I use a ground tent so I am not new to off the grid lifestyle.

Lets hear it guys! Thanks in advance!

A few questions for you to answer which will help you in your RV world.
1. How long due you plan on keeping your current job and home location?
2. what will you do after your current job stops?
3. will you continue living in your current location?
4. Will you be a solo RVer, if not how many others?
5.Do you see yourself becoming a full time RVer?
6. I would look at Class C RVs to see if it would meet your current needs. If not, then look into Class A RVs.
7. Is $$$ an issue, if so, how much do you want finance?

To the OP - have you looked around the area you need to live for a full time RV space or site? What is the average monthly cost? It might be as much or more than your apartment. Then you need to decide if the extra RV payment is worth it.

Your question about features in the RV is solid, most smaller trailers have a kitchen, bath, etc. What size trailer can your Toyota pull? Is that your question? It would be small, but should be enough for a bed, bath and kitchen.

The advantage of an apartment is no maintenance, vs a trailer that would have maintenance, an ongoing cost for an RV spot, possible electric, gas, etc. You also have to consider safety and storage when you are away. A good RV park should be secure, but it would be sad if someone came in and towed your home away when you are back in Texas for 8 days.

A few thoughts:
- If an apartment is high rent, expect an RV site to be high rent...so much for saving anything plus you have the cost to purchase and maintain your RV.
- If you are working a lot of hours, you will probably want a full hookup site...expect the site costs to be higher as a result.
- Long term sites, you typically pay for electric separately, so add that in.
- Even new RVs require maintenance, so add in those costs.

Living in an RV can be an option but only in specific situations. For example: With Covid, we spent the last couple summers living in the RV that we already had for other reasons. A seasonal site in rural Michigan was about $1800 plus $150 for electricity (expect california to be much higher). It worked out great. Since we already had an RV, the purchase and maintenance cost was incrementally negligible, so it was a cheap option. If we had to buy the RV, suddenly, it's not so great financially.

I see here a few problems with living "off the grid." Water and electricity (fresh, grey and black).

Forget about generating enough solar energy to live a pleasant existence. Even if you could buy solar panels and batteries, you don't have enough room. Running a generator is just not economical.

I see lots of responses about the OP living off the grid. Maybe I missed it, where does the OP say that? His requirements include a power source, that could be a generator, solar, or electric hookup etc.

Anyway, hopefully the OP comes back to provide more details.

Wait a minute. This is not as crazy as these folks are making it out to be.

Expanding on what Wanderingaimlessly said.

A quick google search shows a county park near San Jose for $44 a night including electric and water. If you can plan ahead and get reservations for your stays that is doable. Depending on how you handle travel days that is around $600 per month. There is another RV park that I did not look at for times when reservations are a challenge. It is all in the planning ahead.

Another quick google search shows average rent for outside RV storage in the San Jose area for a 25' RV is $300 per month.

That leaves $600 per month for your loan payment to break even.

Certainly there are many considerations beyond these set costs. Granted I did a quick search, a detailed investigation might reveal other challenges but strictly by the quick numbers I could make it work for me.

tommyznr wrote:
Wait a minute. This is not as crazy as these folks are making it out to be.

Expanding on what Wanderingaimlessly said.

A quick google search shows a county park near San Jose for $44 a night including electric and water. If you can plan ahead and get reservations for your stays that is doable. Depending on how you handle travel days that is around $600 per month. There is another RV park that I did not look at for times when reservations are a challenge. It is all in the planning ahead.

Another quick google search shows average rent for outside RV storage in the San Jose area for a 25' RV is $300 per month.

That leaves $600 per month for your loan payment to break even.

Certainly there are many considerations beyond these set costs. Granted I did a quick search, a detailed investigation might reveal other challenges but strictly by the quick numbers I could make it work for me.

You still have to buy the RV, insure it, maintain it, pay taxes, etc. And either drive from TX (not sure what part) tow it from storage to rv park, or fly in and drive a MH. But that's fuel costs.

I don't think anyone said it was crazy. I think the points made are that it takes a lot of considerations and whether the all-in costs are more than the current $1,500 you can simply walk away from. Let's not even talk about depreciation.

Tom, Perhaps your assuming he'll be driving back to TX (about 1700 miles) after his 6 days at work vs flying as he currently does. I was thinking the RV would remain in the area which is about $1300 per month and not having to find a new site.

CA Traveler wrote:
Tom, Perhaps your assuming he'll be driving back to TX (about 1700 miles) after his 6 days at work vs flying as he currently does. I was thinking the RV would remain in the area which is about $1300 per month and not having to find a new site.

Nope, he said he flies back and forth.

Hard to know what the OP had in mind as he has not come back to clarify.

I estimated by the way I would do it in some order depending on logistics. I would fly in, pick up trailer from storage, go to my reserved site, set up, go to work for 6 days, dump waste tanks on the last morning of work, drop off at storage, fly home.

Final plan would depend on how and when I can set up and break camp and get to/from storage. My plan includes being able to store my truck at the job site while I am away or I would have to plan on additional storage for that but I assume he already has some kind of arrangement there.

tommyznr wrote:
Wait a minute. This is not as crazy as these folks are making it out to be.

Expanding on what Wanderingaimlessly said.

A quick google search shows a county park near San Jose for $44 a night including electric and water. If you can plan ahead and get reservations for your stays that is doable. Depending on how you handle travel days that is around $600 per month. There is another RV park that I did not look at for times when reservations are a challenge. It is all in the planning ahead.

Another quick google search shows average rent for outside RV storage in the San Jose area for a 25' RV is $300 per month.

That leaves $600 per month for your loan payment to break even.

Certainly there are many considerations beyond these set costs. Granted I did a quick search, a detailed investigation might reveal other challenges but strictly by the quick numbers I could make it work for me.

Assuming 25 work days per month, that's $1100 plus your $300 storage plus fuel to drag the trailer back and forth....If he can find an apartment for $1500/month, probably cheaper and certainly a lot easier and more comfortable. Of course, this assumes, they always have a site for him. If the park is full one week, he may be SOL.