Costs that go away, costs that stay

Ironically we sold our 3 year old at the time 5er for more than we paid for it which is definitely an anomaly. OTH, our A series Gas has lost us when averaged out over 12 years around $11,000 per year from purchase - of course it depreciates less each year, but it's gone from being six figures at purchase to mid five figures.

Not sure that our unit would last us for the rest of our days, so one might depending need to consider a replacement fund for future use???

I feel non-depreciation of a home is overrated. Two weeks after we sold our house in 2006, the value dropped $163K literally, overnight.

It will take years to recover, if ever.

Investment in real estate is not the sure thing it used to be.

To the OP, you list is pretty accurate. The insurance costs could stay the same, go down, or go up. When we switched to a full timers package with Progressive the RV rates went up, but we had them quote our 2 vehicles and those went down about 40%. So, for us overall the insurance costs went way down.

You would need to add for mail fowarding service monthly fees and postage unless a relative will be handling that for you. I personally prefer not to burden others with that, and pay $10 per month and actual postage charges for the service.

Laundry expense? or will you have an onboard washer/dryer.

I think if you can keep your house and rent it out, you will be much further ahead in the long run. No one is capable of predicting the future but real estate is still a very viable investment. You can always rent a room or a floor if you need to make extra money. If you have equity, continue to let it grow. I am sorry but I think selling your house to buy an RV does not make good financial sense. Depeciation is very real. UNLESS your house is strangling you financially and it is not feasible to keep up your payments easily. It would be ideal if you could rent it out for a year or so and then re-evaluate after you have been on the road for a while. Let someone else make your payments if that is at all possible.

tsetsaf wrote:

mayo30 wrote:
And the big one that most folks ignore or don't think affects the long term financial picture.Rv Depreciation.Stick homes vary up and down but long term appreciate in value,Rv's never appreciate.It starts as soon as you sign the bill of sale.

Not true. Our previous 5TH wheel sold for a 5% appreciation value after 4.5 years of use.

That is great, mind sharing the facts.There are exceptions for sure,glad you were part of one,certainly bucks the industry norm that appears when looking at values.So to understand you made 5% on your original investment after 4.5 years.Wow.

mayo30 wrote:
And the big one that most folks ignore or don't think affects the long term financial picture.Rv Depreciation.Stick homes vary up and down but long term appreciate in value,Rv's never appreciate.It starts as soon as you sign the bill of sale.

Not true. Our previous 5TH wheel sold for a 5% appreciation value after 4.5 years of use.

Don't underestimate RV Maintenance. There is routine maintenance, oil & fuel filters, brakes. At some point you'll need new tires, a blown injector, A/C repair, microwave, frig, awning replacement, etc.. Tires can be estimated when they will need replaced based on years or miles. Other items may or may not pop up. We just had an unexpected $1500 bill. Fortunately, we purchased extended coverage insurance 3 1/2 years ago, but if something pops up when that coverage expires, we just bite the bullet and pay the bill. Point being, unexpected costs can be high; but if you keep that in mind going in you'll be fine.

We still hope to vacation even after we switch to full time. We still want to take a cruise and visit places that you need to fly to get to.

Our income will be based on years of planning and then years of praying.

My exit plan is to die. Its simple, to the point and highly achievable by almost anyone standards. :)


Another option for us would be to rent our house and use that money to finance our FT-RV. Our house is a 2 family and the rent would more than cover RV payments. The benefit of this is that we could come off the road at any time we wanted to. The downside of this is that we have to maintain a house from far away and you have to deal with renters and inconsistent rent.

I still think that buying a crappy single wide in Florida sounds like a good idea for us. WE can scrap the camper and then use the property as our base camp and or exit plan. The property would have septic, power and water already. Just add a cement pad and I'm good to go.

mayo30 wrote:

Lol.Pretty innovative accounting.How do you know your net worth when you do any accounting or taxes and investing?That can be a pretty big write off.At any rate just a comment of mine that may be totally irrelevant to anyone else.

I've never been asked our net worth when paying taxes, nor when I invest or sell an investment. What are you doing that require you divulge your net worth to the tax man or investment broker?

If you are so worried about a depreciating asset and how it figures into someone's net worth you might not be a good candidate for fulltime RVing - at least not in terms of someone who is retired.

Barb