How do I know what I'm looking for?

Unless you plan to pay something on the order of $150,000 to $250,000 for a fiver, as a permanent living unit it might be a big step down from a mobile home permanently planted in a trailer park. It will also be relatively cramped, because the HUD rules that let RVs be built substandard relative to permanent housing also limit the size (nominally 400 sq ft). Within that space, unless you have something custom built to carve an additional bedroom (not just a bunk) out of the living area, either parents or adolescent are going to find themselves without a private place of their own. Look at New Horizons as an example of fivers that are custom built, and built closer to permanent housing standards than are most mass production RVs.

The largest fivers, and most complete with respect to standards for permanent housing, will usually be too big for the kind of truck most people consider as a daily driver. Minimum might be Ram 4500, F-450, but more often people hauling large fivers move up to Class 5 (like F-550) or Class 6 (Freightliner Business Class, International Durastar) or even larger trucks. My cousin uses a Freightlined M-2 to move his fiver back and forth between Michigan and Florida, lives in it about 6-8 months (has house on a lake in Michigan).

But then, you don't actually need the truck until retirement, when you start moving the fiver around. Truck technology, and market conditions, will be changing quite a bit in the next 8-9 years, driven by progressively more severe fuel economy standards already scheduled for that time frame. A big enough truck bought now could very well be functionally obsolete by the time you start using it.

I do not expect similar technology changes in the RVs, there are no mandates on the books (at least for towable RVs) and the industry has been pretty conservative about construction basics since changes in how RVs are built often require extensive new investment in the plants that build them.

An alternative to the fiver would be a home built into a 45-foot motorcoach, but the prices could go up by a factor of 5X to 10X compared to a high quality fiver, and you would have a motorcoach sitting idle for five years, which is not good for it.

Dgwheeler,

I am former Army, did my time for 6 years. Your husband is at Fort Brag, NC. Fort Brag traditionally is known for its Ariborne division, Armored division, and Infantry division. Unless your husband is an administrative type occupation assigned specifically for the post, more than likely he's going to get deployed somewhere, sometime. Even if he is a trainer, those assignments are usually short term (a year or two at the most) and then the soldier moves back into their normal duty.

What I'm saying is, if your husband gets deployed (even short term, as paratroopers and infantry often do), you're going to be alone with your kids while your husband is off to another country for a while. Frankly, that's not pleasant for the family left behind.

Now, your husband is deployed and you are living in an RV. You have the responsibility for everything. What if something happens and you have to move the camper? What if you have to do a repair? Are you prepared for extra expenses, care, maintenance, upkeep, dealing with frozen water lines (It does get cold enough in NC to freeze water lines). Are you going to be able to deal with it all. Plus, you're now living in a campground or an RV park. Where's your military support system, you know, those other families that REALLY understand what you're going through while your husband is away?

If you are currently living in off post housing, say an apartment or even a rented house, you've not had to deal with real world maintenance issues for a home or an RV. It can become very frustrating when you've become accustom to calling the apartment management or post housing for whatever just broke.

My wife and I considered buying a mobile home when I was stationed in Virginia. The deal went "belly-up" and actually, turned out to be a good thing in the long run. We would have been tied to a piece of property that was way more than either of us could handle, or sell. 3 years later I was out of the Army, and completely FREE!

My daughter made the terrible mistake of purchasing a house near Norfolk, Virginia when she was in the Navy, assigned to the USS Eisenhower. She thought home ownership was great, until she left the Navy! Bottom line, she couldn't sell the house, didn't have the money now to make necessary repairs to make it sellable and ended up lost everything because the house went into foreclosure. Her credit has been dittily-squat ever since.

If you are hoping to apply your Variable Housing Allowance to the cost of an RV as a money saving approach, it won't work! You're going to find out the loan on an RV is going to cost you, and then the cost of the campground-RV park, and you'll need to be located somewhere permanently, and chances are you'll have independent electric meteroring at your camp site.

Sorry, if I sound so "down" on your idea. As former Army, I've "been there - done that". I can understand why you would want to do this, but you really have no clue what you are up against either.

I just had another thought, from a woman's perspective as opposed to a man's perspective. If you have the "need" for ownership, so you feel you have a sense of belonging, a sense of permanency, a sense of "security" as most women have this need, an RV is NOT going to give that to you. You may find yourself even more "insecure" with an RV than not, because you will always have to deal with the possibility of moving. Now you have a huge loan on a vehicle, and no where to park it. It can become scary.

One more point. You will need a tow vehicle adequate to move the camper. If you have a dealer put the camper on a campsite, what happens when you need to move (and you will), and you don't have a tow vehicle? So, going right out the gate, you'll also need to consider an adequate tow vehicle in addition to the cost of an RV. I really don't think Variable Housing Allowance is enough to cover that, even for an officer!

My opinion, if you really want the RV experience, rent on from on post AAFIS. We rented pop-ups from Fort Belvior several times, towed with a Chevy S-10 pick-up. It worked out great for vacations, and I didn't have the responsibility of loan payments!

Just a hard-nosed reality check. Sorry if I'm so "down" on your idea! But former Army to current Army, please consider what experience has taught us "old soldiers".

Here's my opinion as a military brat growing up and having been in the military myself and now an RV owner...I agree with the others. If you are able to be in base housing, then do so. Not only for a financial standpoint, but for your and your kids social life. Don't give up everything that the base can give you.

Getting one for your PCS moves and vacations is a great idea!

Sorry but the math isn't wrong... we are looking to buy one in 1-3 years... Then move into it. Se we'd be buying/ moving into it in 2017. Then... (ah I see the mistake)... its 6 years (not 5 as I said) later that he would retire in 2023. He retires 9 years from now :/

By the time we would buy it and move in, the teen would be gone and we'd be left with just the (then) 9 year old.

Yeah as much as he keeps talking about wanting to move into one he said last night we'll wait to move into it. But that we'll stick with our plan of looking into one to go ahead buy, but just use it for PCS moves and vacations for now. We will be PCSing 2 times in the next 2 years, so it will be nice to be able to just load up and go.

For what you are talking about doing, it will cost you a minimum of $2,000 per month ($24,000 per year) to run the 5'er and truck and everything that goes with it. (Payment, insurance, maintenance, license). Then you can add camping, gas, oil, etc. Not a good plan.

Once we purchase it we are looking to live it in until my husband retires in 2023.... So for about 5 years.

My math says if you buy this year you will be living in it 14 years. Buy one three years from now and it will be 11 years. This is a big difference from 5 years.

As others have suggested, stay in base housing for now.

This seems like the best way to go to save yourself some heartache and possibly buyer's remorse down the road:

You could rent for holidays for a few years to get a feel of what type of RV you may like.

I know absolutely nothing about military housing. I would think it may be hard for your teen to adjust to living full time in a RV and therefore staying in provided accommodation may be best. You could rent for holidays for a few years to get a feel of what type of RV you may like.
If you get one with a bunk house, from what I have seen the rest of the living space is quite small in a 5th wheel. Also, what about when your other children are home for school breaks?
If your mind is set, you should star going to as many RV shows and dealerships as possible and look. Start taking notes and pics of what you like. It is impossible for anyone to suggest something when you really don't know what you want. There are so many options.

Enjoy looking, don't make a rash decision.

You may not want to hear this but if it were me I'd stay with base housing til retirement, especially with a soon-to-be teen.