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In this series, we share our costs to live on the road full time in a motorhome. We are through our second month of full time RVing and it’s been quite the adventure. Based on the learnings last month, we slowed down our pace and put fewer miles on the vehicles. We started the month in Pagosa Springs, Colorado and ended in Sedona, Arizona. Total miles driven was 2,600 compared to 3,019 last month. This may not seem like a significant difference, but we drove 600 miles less in the RV.
To view all reports, RV Living Costs: Full Time in a Motorhome for One Year.
Full Time RVing Costs: Motorhome Edition – October 2015:
We did fairly well this month spending a total of $2,686 compared to $3,827 last month.
Here are a few notes about our expenses compared to last month:
- No dog expenses this month compared to $751 last month
- Fewer miles on the RV and Jeep saved us just over $300 on gas
- Miles on the RV: 1,009 – avg mpg 6.9
- Miles on the Jeep: 1,591 – avg mpg 18
- Our food expense went up $42 because we ate out more often
- Cost of RV parks almost doubled because we decided to splurge in a few cities for full hookups
- We didn’t have to buy any RV accessories or pay to dump which saved us $169
- Without the credit on the cell phone bill, it’s back to the normal level
Lessons Learned:
Some things we learned this month that we’d like to pass along.
Gas Buddy saved us quite a bit on fuel ups this month. This free mobile app displays user updated gas prices in an area and has been accurate every time we’ve used it. The best part is we can look up gas prices in cities we are going to compare prices. Check out Essential Apps for RV Life.
Free and low cost camping isn’t always available. We found this to be true going through Colorado and ended up paying for campgrounds and full hookups. Many places we would park for free did not allow overnight parking due to city ordinances. We also found most dispersed camping spots in Colorado were difficult, if not impossible to get to with a motorhome.
Take advantage of free dump stations. We found many free dump stations throughout our travels this month and used them as often as possible. This was a refreshing change to the $30 dump fee we were paying in Los Angeles, California.
Full hookups are well worth the splurge. We stayed at two full hookup RV parks this month for a total of 8 nights. Although we enjoy dry camping, having full hookups gives us the ability to fully recharge our house batteries, take long hot showers, run the heater, enjoy amenities such as spas, laundry, free wifi, unlimited electricity and water.
To view all reports, RV Living Costs: Full Time in a Motorhome for One Year.
Thanks for your expense and income reports. They really are helping me to get a handle on the costs of full time rving. Hubby and I are moving towards putting our house on the market in the next 3-5 weeks. Once house sells, we will be buying our used RV and doing our necessary upgrades. We are excited about getting on the road. Thanks again for your blog.
Kathy – Thank you for the comment and glad to hear you are finding the reports helpful. Excited for you and your hubby to get on the road! Have you figured out which type of RV you’re getting?
Nice post Josan! All great tips. I’m still too chicken to go 100% RV-life.
Rebecca and I are just starting the process of living the RV life and traveling the US for the next couple years. Thanks for the post on expenses and insights on free stays, dump stations etc. we will be working on a similar budget and it is nice to see it can be done.
Thanks Keith and welcome to life on the road! It’s definitely doable and we are learning more every month. If we can help in anyway don’t hesitate to reach out.