Costs & Mistakes After 6 Months of RV Life [Full Time RV Living]

hello again I'm Shana and I'm Brian welcome to life uninterrupted we left our corporate jobs sold our home and most of our stuff full-time in our RV learn more about our travels our RV life and join our community do that by subscribing today's video is pretty much gonna go over our six-month on the road anniversary well Eve it's already been six months actually we're in our seventh it's actually seven months so we had a heck of a lot of stuff going on in November that we're a little behind and getting to this yeah definitely so we're going to talk basically as we said earlier stick around to the end of the video we'll talk about some of our actuals and we're just going to go through a few of our things you know what we originally planned what reality was and some of the lessons learned from our six-month anniversary on the road and we'd have called this what were we thinking well we were thinking that we budgeted properly for the entire year yeah not a case entirely some cases just a lot of cases a lot of cases no every single month we overspent yeah food and drink is our Achilles heel yeah it was absolutely and a big part of that is because we couldn't get out of vacation we fell into that trap that so many full time our viewers fall into when they first start out and we were warned about it we were absolutely warned about it and we still did it that said I mean we're not hotdogs macaroni and cheese people it's fine I mean no offense if you are right but yeah so you know that kind of helped run up our bill too because we we eat probably more expensive foods we should eat and dining out as well yeah I do a lot of data dining out and going places you know you want to kind of sample the local fare and breweries and those kinds of things you know all things in moderation maybe we'll have to look at it next next few months and do that once or twice a month versus several times a month yeah now we thought you did just for FYI we budgeted $400 a month for groceries and we grossly overspent that grossly well over 800 I think yeah definitely and then that's not even including our dining out right yeah so huge expense one of the other areas that we overspent was in fuel and we did a lot as far as trying to find gas stations by using a gas buddy I'm trying to find stations that were on the lower end right so we use Gas Buddy and also we have a MasterCard through Sam's Club which gives us leave it's 3% back on gas so we have gotten quite a bit of money back on gas rewards through Sam's Club and through Gas Buddy so you know we didn't factor that in our overall gross budget for shield but quite a bit more than we anticipated yeah definitely and that was partly because we're moving so much moving quite a bit more than we did initially thought we were which then drives up fuel costs so yeah good lessons learned so going forward we're gonna make some changes in that area and some of the things that we can do one of one of them is to make sure that we're doing better meal planning we were on keto when we started out 2019 we got off of that just because of all the local fare that we wanted to try and the breweries as you mentioned we're gonna get back on that so met her meal planning yeah should definitely help us with the food expense and then maybe one day out of the week to possibly will will dine out but definitely not throughout the week we're just gonna have to cut that back yes and then also staying longer locations you know when we went east we kind of had a schedule and an agenda so we just moved a lot faster than we'd anticipated which then drove a lot of cost you know fuel food all those kinds of things so definitely going to stay longer reduce the dining out plan our meals better and I think lastly probably take more advantage of memberships that we have yes that we purchased throughout the year to help us cut down on those costs lodging we didn't do lodge we call it lodging but your RV sites we didn't fees we didn't do we didn't do too bad in that area but with the ability to use our memberships a little bit more by staying longer in places I think will help reduce costs and what we think we consider ourselves seasoned our viewers not seasons full timers but we've had a number of RVs and at one point in our lives we would go pretty much every weekend you know we relied on a lot of that weekender experience probably and not the smartest thing to do in terms of setting up and tearing down our sites whenever we would go either you know off grid if you will or staying at campgrounds and that cost us a couple of times that really came back to haunt us and something that we realized as a result of some of the issues that we encountered along the way was that there are many variables that can impact you our setup and your take down some of those can be weather time constraints you may be in a hurry to meet that checkout time and may not be as thorough as you should be there are some cases where one of us may not be feeling well and may not be thinking as clearly communication between the two of us I thought Brian did something Brian thought I did it that type of thing and then as a result of just relying on our past experience we did have some incidents that occurred one of them was as you just mentioned the awning that started to would you say unfurl yeah as we were going down the highway we also had when we have a video on that as well another was on the brakes yes another one is are the brakes are the brakes on one side of the Jeep the brakes were a big deal again I'd hooked up the Jeep to the motorhome many times and I don't know what happened somehow the cable got wrapped around a lever on the brake controller there on the hitch and the brakes were on the front of the Jeep for how many miles and Burke the front of the Jeep up or the brakes and rotors and all that it was about a $1300 hit I think something was very scary yeah I was scared of fire I'll put a link to that video as well we had a fire on the Jeep so I was a little scary we've had pocket doors swing open drawers fly open and that sort of thing and and all of this that were we're sharing with you here could have been prevented it really could have been prevented by something very simple and that's creating a comprehensive checklist you know if we're both set up and tear down so that you have every item specific to to your rig and what you do we use FM CA they had there's an app that you can go online and download that to your iPhone and say it can be a generic checklist with lots of generic things on it or you can modify that checklist specific to your rig like ours I've modified a lot of the checklist items to be very specific so don't get complacent this is a really really important part of RV life is to have that checklist for setup and takedown because complacency can cost you big you know we know for sure and a lot of other full timers out there even part-timers even weekend there's know that this is true [Music] definitely complacency can get you in big trouble follow that checklist what were we thinking weather all right so where there's one thing that we never really considered other than we wanted to follow the weather fair weather yes yeah and so a couple of times we've gotten into trouble with weather we knew there were some weather prone areas sure yeah it's the areas that we went into that we didn't even consider would be weather prone that really got us into trouble don't get complacent about weather and make sure you know when you study the weather in your area how long are you going to be there what's your you know long term short term forecast is yes lots of tools out on the internet to find that information out so we're not really going to cover that here yeah I mean we we literally went into areas that were tornado groan that we were not expecting and we weren't prepared for it so we did some things we definitely made some changes yeah so in one of our videos you'll find up I'll put a link to it up top also is after the first couple of episodes of tornado warnings and having to bug out where we were to go seek shelter we decided to develop an emergency bug out kit again I'll link that here in the video to kind of put everything together we might need in case we have to bug out not necessarily everything but the essentials just survive a few days we purchased a NOAA radio in addition to our weather apps right NOAA weather radio and you can tune that to the specific area you're in put in the zip code and what will happen is when a severe weather alert is released by NOAA it'll come on to our radio siren will go off usually late at night early in the morning but we that has worked a few times so we recommend that I'll put a link to that particular radio that we use in the description nice ok well what we were thinking was that once we arrived we'd have no problems at all with the site that didn't happen yeah yeah that never never really happens occasionally you might get lucky but yeah there were several occasions where we got to campgrounds that you know a state campground or Army Corps of engineer campground you know we got there and we just couldn't get level no no possible way over thirteen fourteen inches low in the back and the front and site is crazy so you know we had to leave there and go find someplace else so we ended up paying too much at narvi parks we had no other choice it's getting late we knew that the Sun was going down and a storm was on its way so we ended up paying way too much and then just the total disappointment and I remember that one campground state park that we had to leave in South Dakota it was beautiful but we couldn't get level and so that leads into you know make sure that you have enough time and your travel day to account for things like that because they will come up we generally say if we plan on three hours we plan three hours it's going to take a six we just very rarely doubles but we just say to ourselves if we're planning three hour travel day-to-day we're going to expect it's going to take six yes use more than one out that's something else that we have learned along the way we use now let's see if I can remember them all we use compendium all stays Passport America and what's the travel site that you use I use RV trip wizard overall have a plan B so if you're planning to go to a and something goes wrong have a plan B so that you can get on the road quickly get yourself ready to go and you're moving on and a lot enough time for Plan B it's also very important yes exactly we typically arrive before dark and we want to give ourselves a buffer of one to two hours before dark sets right in case we have to move to plan B what were you thinking so we knew that we wanted to get a few different memberships that would help us save on camping fees and different sorts of maybe national park entrance fees and things like that yep and RV needs an RV new yes and so so far the ones we did choose that we'll talk about here in a minute have pretty much paid for themselves yeah I think this is probably one of the best things that we did that we decided to do for a full-time RV life and purchase them when we did yeah I would agree so which ones do we have they asked so I think one of the ones we use most of the time is course Thousand Trails so Thousand Trails we didn't purchase until later on probably what two months ago or so we've had a huge benefit with that membership it's pretty much paid for itself already after about 25 stays another great one is harvest host and we've stated a number of part of this hosts through mostly in the mid part of the country and another great thing you know you get to experience in our case Museum winery farm so keeping with the particles yeah not a great benefit for passport O'Meara again the memberships pay for itself 50% off for the most part for the first night sometimes second night but yeah it's so far it's paid for itself my passport America's there all through the u.s. yes definitely America the Beautiful Pass or some people refer to it as the National Park Pass excuse me get you entrance into national parks for free and a lot of times those entrance fees are pretty pricey well we primarily use it for though is to camp at Army Corps of engineer campgrounds 50% off we've stated a number of those now this $80 a month for the past 80 dollars a year for the past and we've far surpassed what we paid for the past so FM CA is family motorcoach association and you don't just have to have a coach or a drivable RV like we have they now allow 5th wheels and tribal trailers if I'm not mistaken double check a website for that FM CA not com anyway they have a number of benefits for being a member huge savings on tires class replacement lots of other things they have a roadside risky which our last video we kind of highlighted that particular benefit definitely paid for itself and the trip interruption benefit that they have you know stellar super helpful and FM C has been absolutely wonderful to do it yeah I'm super happy with them you can see the theme throughout all of this is it's all about having resources right can you our memberships all of them that we have mentioned and if you have any interest in any of the memberships that we've mentioned we have on our blog we have information for each one of the harvest hoes passport in America and in some cases you can also get a discount so we have a discount code so check this out definitely check that out are we thinking so going into this life we knew that we needed to have internet and strong internet connectivity and we're on 95 percent of the time we've had great connectivity and so we have a couple of different plans we have AT&T unlimited and of course we both have iPhones with Verizon we use those hotspots when we need to and I did install a cellular router with a booster which most of the time this great connectivity great upload and download speeds and so I really can't complain we certainly haven't expected it to be perfect it's been frustrating me a few times but other than that pretty happy with that we might consider a third backup like sprint just to ensure that we're covered in all areas especially for upload I think it important if we do go to the sprint option it'll be a standalone hot spot instead of trying to use our phones or you know again the cellular router that we have in the rig definitely a like a jet pack or something yeah what were we thinking did you make the guys oh my gosh so this last one is about our Jeep and we did purchase the Jeep to tow behind our motorhome you could probably see it all right back there that's a jeep 4x4 we wanted that so the we could if we wanted to go off the beaten path you know trail ride or yes I mean the reality is but and we have done that we've done it we have done that mm-hmm the reality is that we don't use that near as much to do that as we do just to take long distance jeonse to someplace like to drive from here to a another spot of you know sightseeing or whatever the Roasterie store or yeah go check on another campground you know whatever that might be primarily what we use it for what we do find we use more often than not he bikes ah before purchase ever and able to go to places that we couldn't necessarily go to with their Jeep we've seen some really cool things that we couldn't have necessarily seen with our Jeep a good example of that is the great Allegheny Passage yeah in Pennsylvania we rode that for a pretty fair distance and it was one of our first rides big rides on the bikes when we bought them so it's just an example of value know being able to get off the beaten path and here in Arizona it's a great there's just tons of trails everywhere so it'd be a great opportunity to get those out here too yes the second place that we went was Daytona and being able to provide our bikes from our Thousand Trails park to the beach and then down the beach oh my gosh that was I will never forget that that's gonna be probably 20 20 miles on great Oh Nadine Oh yes at least yeah or so on right on the beach right next to the ocean so very cool so it was one of the best purchase that we have made in the last six months I think so really enhanced our our experiences yeah plus they fold up go right in the back of the G a recommendation to you is get off the beaten path with some other form of fun whether that is a regular bike and ebike a kayak a paddleboard there is so much out there for you to see and to experience doesn't have to cost anything go out get out there and do it once we get out of the sort of the vacation mode you know we'll get into more more of the routine of full-time RV life but definitely no regrets doing what we've done we don't miss I don't miss any of the stuff we had yeah it cluttered us cluttering our minds cluttered our ability to go and do and enjoy life do you miss the house don't miss the house I miss all the major no don't miss the yard guy not showing that to do your work right messy pool don't miss any of it none of it and I don't know if that's surprising to people but we don't miss it and we feel very very comfortable in our 200 square feet it feels like home at this point is kind of profound so we lived in our home let's just use the last one for what five years hardly ever saw any of our neighbors other than going in and out of the garage we have made more friends and we've had more interactions with our friends and with other people in six months yes in the sixth month of RV life than we ever had in our sticks and bricks your ability to meet people on a different level I think for us has been kind of cool yes and you have that immediate connection for so many full timers that we met we've all been through similar we all have very similar challenges we have similar reasons for getting into the slaves and you just have this immediate connection which is so so cool like-minded people yeah we don't have any plans to stop doing this you don't have a plan B we haven't yet decided what we're going to do for 2020 and I would imagine as we are sitting around with relatives and friends over the holidays we'll probably come up with a plan and what we would like to do is our first ever live stream and talk a little bit about our 2020 plans and have an opportunity to actually interact with our subscribers I am really looking forward to that yeah that'll be fun yes yes believe it or not in six months we travel through 17 states plus Mexico for a total of five thousand four hundred sixty nine miles on the motor home and 4367 on the Jeep listed below is a sampling of some of the more common expenses that our viewers have please keep in mind this list is not all-inclusive looking at our actual expenses compared to our budget starting from the top we overspent in two areas highlighted in red fuel and food the other area of concern would be repairs and maintenance we budgeted five thousand for the year and have already spent three thousand and six months plus we still have that annoying engine issue that still needs to be fixed we were so curious to calculate our average lodging costs and when we did we found we averaged twenty dollars per night when staying in RV parks and campgrounds and just thirteen dollars a night when we factored in boondocking lot docking in Thousand Trails we expect this number to be even lower as we take advantage of more Thousand Trails parks and boondocking in the next six months in summary we obviously have some work to do to lower our food drink expenses and will likely exceed our repairs and maintenance budget for the year we're curious how our budget and expenses compare to yours leave us a comment below and let us know well that about wraps it up for this video I think if you haven't already consider subscribing enjoying the loot crew we'd be happy to have you along love it get the notification bell so you're notified when we release a new video give us a thumbs up if you liked the video leave a comment to share their ideas with us in our community until then we'll see ya [Music]

Channel: Lyf Uninterrupted

Views: 440,821

Keywords: rv lifestyle, rv lifestyle full time, rv living, rv living expenses, 6 month rv living, 6 months rv living, monthly rv, monthly cost of rv living, rv living monthly expenses, full time rv living expenses, full time rv living mistakes, full time rv living costs, rv newbies, full time rv, full time rv life, how much it cost to full time rv, cost of full time rving, full time rv living, rv travel, 6 months full time rv living, rv life, LYF uninterrupted

Id: Fcy8kcQ2abc

Length: 21min 48sec (1308 seconds)

Published: Mon Dec 09 2019