Truck Camper Cost
Ok now that my truck camper experience is concluded I'm reflecting on costs and other things. 2004 Lance Lite 915 purchased in November 2003 for About $15,000 Sorry don't remember exact price. 2...
Forum Discussion
This is an interesting thread. Economists will tell us that we can justify anything based on what assumptions we use. I never looked at RV ownership (three TC's and one TT so far) as an investment or a money pit. If we try to calculate what it costs we will most likely miss the other beneficial aspects of RV ownership that have value but perhaps harder to put into dollars and cents. If I am not mistaken the RVIA statistics indicate that the average RV is used less than twenty nights a year. For that occasional use looking only at cost the Rvers might be better with a Prius or VW diesel Jetta and stay in motels. But, that is not the purpose of having an RV and looking only at costs is missing the many benefits of being able to not have to sleep in motels/hotels and being self sufficient where and when you want. While most Rv's are not much of an investment, perhaps worth around 50 percent after five years when purchased new; every dollar you spend on a hotel/motel is never coming back.
You may be finished with Rv's for a time, but after seeing that the hotel/motel grass is not necessarily greener, you may be back.
I wonder if your calculations and thoughts about RV ownership would have been totally different had you purchased an Airstream trailer thirty five years ago and kept it all this time and then compared that one time late 1970's cost to continually increasing hotel and motel costs over the years. A ten year old TC and truck is just about the worst case for depreciation especially since you purchased new. How many folks will pay much for a 10 year old truck with high mileage? Or a ten year old truck camper that most buyers would want to get for a bargain. Had you kept a truck and TC twenty years your costs would likely have been very different since both would have been almost totally depreciated. In ten years you lost $29,000 in depreciation on the truck, if you kept it another ten years the most you could lose would be the remaining $9000 even if the truck was worth absolutely nothing!
I am sure if you calculalted registration, insurance, maintenance and opportunity costs of using the money for other things, your numbers would be even worse. You provide a good example of why Rvers should never look only at dollar costs. It just doesn't pencil out. Neither does the values of camping with kids, being where you want to watch the sun set over the ocean, using an RV for base camp for motocross, horses, boats, or other avocations/hobbies, having a place for times when the house might be unusable, floods, fires, etc. Those are benefits that are harder to put a hard dollar value on but for most of us they are just as real and important as the cost to own an RV.
As you go into the future with a new Jeep, it will be interesting to see what you think in ten years about the Jeep/hotel travel costs. Most nice motels and hotels in the west are now at least $100 a night with the nicer hotels closer to $200.
You may be finished with Rv's for a time, but after seeing that the hotel/motel grass is not necessarily greener, you may be back.
I wonder if your calculations and thoughts about RV ownership would have been totally different had you purchased an Airstream trailer thirty five years ago and kept it all this time and then compared that one time late 1970's cost to continually increasing hotel and motel costs over the years. A ten year old TC and truck is just about the worst case for depreciation especially since you purchased new. How many folks will pay much for a 10 year old truck with high mileage? Or a ten year old truck camper that most buyers would want to get for a bargain. Had you kept a truck and TC twenty years your costs would likely have been very different since both would have been almost totally depreciated. In ten years you lost $29,000 in depreciation on the truck, if you kept it another ten years the most you could lose would be the remaining $9000 even if the truck was worth absolutely nothing!
I am sure if you calculalted registration, insurance, maintenance and opportunity costs of using the money for other things, your numbers would be even worse. You provide a good example of why Rvers should never look only at dollar costs. It just doesn't pencil out. Neither does the values of camping with kids, being where you want to watch the sun set over the ocean, using an RV for base camp for motocross, horses, boats, or other avocations/hobbies, having a place for times when the house might be unusable, floods, fires, etc. Those are benefits that are harder to put a hard dollar value on but for most of us they are just as real and important as the cost to own an RV.
As you go into the future with a new Jeep, it will be interesting to see what you think in ten years about the Jeep/hotel travel costs. Most nice motels and hotels in the west are now at least $100 a night with the nicer hotels closer to $200.
