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".
