RV LIVING COSTS | ONE YEAR FULL TIME TRAVEL IN A CLASS A MOTORHOME EP76

good morning my name is Marc Sue's man in the camera even though she's a female and today's episode is gonna be a little different than what we've done in the past it's actually been long in the making we've been full-time now for two years and the first year we kind of spent money like drunken sailors because we have already made the commitment to live in our motorhome full-time so at that point what could we do with that major expenditure that we made but then as time went on we could see that just like everybody else we had a budget that we had a live in so we decided to record for one full year what our costs were and we've just come to that point and we're gonna share that with you so once you come along we're out of Keio a journey and we'll take you on our financial journey that we've had for the last two years what let's check check that out [Music] the money on I counted every time [Music] to [Applause] [Music] hi I'm sue a mark is behind the camera and this is our journey and miles this is miles if you're new to our channel don't forget to subscribe hit the notification bell and give us some thumbs up join our family let me tell you a little bit about our style o full-time RVs we're both retired and on the road for two years now and we chose to go the more comfortable way as Mark always says more more into being tourists rather than being campers so we chose one of the bigger rigs it's comfortable and back here we have our tow that we take with us this is our Honda it's a 2013 Honda the reason we chose to use this vehicle is because we love a recumbent bikes and this is perfect it's pretty much the only minivan that actually could hold our bikes we actually love our recumbent so much we're gonna get rid of them this year honey mark wants an electric bike yes we're retired we're getting old but I love our recumbent that'll be another episode and another reason to subscribe to our journey and miles that's right stay tuned let's get down to the nitty gritty the nitty gritty requires sunglasses to come off and regular glasses to come on first thing I want to tell everybody is you know what I have to get pencils and papers on and write anything down because if you last to the end of this video and if you go down into the description I'm gonna actually have our journey and miles email address you can email me I will gladly send you my spreadsheet that I made that is gonna have the basic cost for RVing on our style which is probably one of the more expensive styles not because we're rich it's because I'm old so that really that is something you have to consider is what is your lifestyle we do not do a lot of boondocking we don't do any boondocking we don't go into state parks we're just too big for some parks so because of the size and because we don't want to you know do the the harder part of camping this is a more expensive so this is our version and you got to find yours what's right I'll and and quite honestly you know once again the yin and yang of Sue and mark if it was up to sue we probably would be doing boondocking because we do have a solar system on ours with 1200 watts of solar we bought our rig used and so we certainly could do that we don't go to Walmart's or anything because I'm too intimidated by wheeling 65 feet of machinery in in an unknown parking lot in an unknown neighborhood at an unknown area and the people that can do that I literally tip my hat to you yeah you're a lot braver than me I'm not talking safety brave I'm talking about just you know running into objects and shopping carts and stuff so we just shy away from that literally 99% of our camping is all done in private campsites and we'll we'll get into that so the first thing we'll talk about is the miles driven we have drove a relatively short 5845 miles so we wanted this claim that this is just for one year our second year we didn't really keep track of things the first year the second year now we were keeping track of everything so this is just from June to June June of 2018 to June of 2019 correct and we drive about 250 miles or less per move we use RV trip wizard we highly recommend it it's got a big radius that we can put on wherever our route is going and it'll intersect all of the roads in and around where we're going so it's real easy to do this we do this because we're retired the whole point is to see the United States not to roar through it for directions unknown so that's our particular travel style you know we always say we are not on vacation this is our lifestyle so we're taking in everywhere so we've traveled only ten states this particular lap where we left Wisconsin we meandered around we spent our winter down in the Pacific Southwest we've went up basically California and now we're shooting back across through North Dakota and we're eventually going to end up back in Wisconsin so that's why it's such a low number of states ten states we use TripAdvisor when we get to each of these states and we'll do some googling to see what's to do there sometimes we'll modify the days that we're staying in a particular place if it looks like there's a lot of things the important thing for us is that we still subscribe to a lot of vlogs and you can't beat it when somebody has already been in the area that you're anticipating to be in and especially if they have good video quality and they'll show you what they did it makes it that much more exciting and you'll have that much more enthusiasm showing up to do exactly what they did when they did a good job of videoing it now where do we stay each and every night well we already said that we stay in private campgrounds and we've stayed at repair facilities that's our boondocking yeah although we do use to get electric yes but nine days out of the entire year we spent in repair facilities that's actually quite a bit lower than our first year how many was it the first year I want to say about thirty about twenty in one spot and that was mainly because we had to wait for them to get parts right so but that turned out actually pretty good because it was in Atlanta there's tons to see in Atlanta yeah we drove into and almost every day just doing our touristy things right so we did stay one day at harvest horse we're gonna try to change that this third year going around because the harvest horse is awesome it's just that when we finally remember to use them we're an area here in the North West portion of the US they seem to be a little light in the harvest they're light plus we're just so big so we do look at the satellite just the view of where the harvest sauce is to see how hard will it be for us to get in there yes and we did stay at one it was fantastic yeah and there's been a couple of times that we actually were going to stay at a place but then under a little bit more scrutiny you have to read the reviews and the different things that people see and then you know you get the oh yeah there was a bridge that had a you know a five ton or ten ton capacity limit so watch that well you know we're 45,000 pounds with miles so I kind of watch bridges that I drive over as well as ridges that I drive under so you got to kind of pay attention to what you're doing so we had a total of 37 stays but six of the stage were one month at a crack so if you do the math which doesn't exactly make a lot of sense but if you do the math on the 31 stays that were not one month we ended up with a stay of average of five point seven days take that for what it's worth do you want to talk about this one the mailing service so we actually do have a an episode on our mailing service we're doing it through the what it's st. Brendan's Isle in Green Cove spring in Florida right we can put a link down to that particular episode yeah it really tells how it works for us and it works fantastic but so the expense we're talking about for that it costs us $20 a month to subscribe to this and then usually on average two times a month for if we're gonna be at a place for at least a week we'll have our mail sent to us so usually twice a month on average will have its end and that comes to about 18 dollars per time so when we figure it out for our budget 56 dollars a month just for our mailing service worth it though very dependable and you know some people that go full-time and they they try to claim a different state as their residency but yet they don't have a mail service there this all gets dicey you know if down the road you end up getting audited so my advice to you is if you're going full-time and if you're changing your domicile you want to make sure that you pretty much clean out everything that you owned in the state that you're leaving we left Wisconsin if you're leaving Minnesota Minnesota has a reputation for really coming after people because they want their money so make sure if you're leaving Minnesota at least that you don't have any property and you don't have a storage response yeah sorry so the next thing that you have to be aware of a cost per month is memberships and who actually runs most of these memberships it ends up being $43 per month on average you want to talk about some well worth membership so we we use all stays to find our different campgrounds we're part of the FMC a the family motorcoach association and we got a discount on tire we had to buy one tire or three actually we belonged to Good Sam another good place to figure out where we're gonna go other places harvest host KOA Passport America and then our RV trip wizard which we use mainly for our planning our travel plans right and we absolutely love it love it another membership that we've used a lot is Costco so we Costco is pretty much everywhere and we'll really load up on that save money that way and then we are bicycle direct riders so we usually wherever we go we like to find where are some of the best bike trails so we also are a member of the trail link and find some fantastic bike trails all over the US so as far as internet and phone we might be a little heavy on these cost here because obviously you know just like you're listening to this video right now we have to upload and download all sorts of stuff to keep this channel alive so we have 2 unlimited smartphone plans that cost us 121 dollars per month we have one AT&T Wi-Fi hotspot that costs us $25 a month we have one AT&T mobely hotspot that costs us 23 a month and a verizon hotspot that costs us 65 per month so you add all this up it's 234 dollars per month now I might add and put a little shot up for techno media Chris and Cherie right I think it cost me $59 to be a member of that per year we pretty much have done everything that they suggested to do if it makes sense for us Internet wise and they have not led us astray at all they're there on a must check out if you're not aware we're clueless on what to do so we just pretty much are like a sheep and do what they say to do and it's worked out really well and we recommend them our tow vehicle costs now we as sue mentioned we told a Honda Odyssey minivan we told that so we can use it basically as a garage for our bicycles my bicycles are real long they're kind of specialized they've got all sorts of gadgets on them you know when you're driving around all year long with your bike on the back all of the dirt and gravel and rain you know you name it they would they be totally trashed so whatever we drive is always going to have to be covered we have no loan on the car we just have insurance fuel and maintenance and that comes to a hundred and ninety one dollars per month and that insurance is through national general now we used to have progressive they gave us our great rate the first year but then like all insurance companies they Jack it up the next year we had no claims know-nothing have totally illogical I rewarded them for their efforts by dropping them and getting someone else we drove 592 miles then yeah that was driven we've probably pulled it another four five hundred miles that month now we're into the RV costs and this is where it really starts to get jacked up in our chart we've that you're welcome to get if you send your email address to our journey and miles dot-com email address which I'll have down in the description I will send you these this excel chart and you can fill in the different things that you have we do not have a loan on it so that's a real saver for us our diesel costs averaged two hundred and sixty three dollars per month we have an all-electric coach so on our Excel spreadsheet we have an empty space for propane but you'd be able to fill in your propane costs our RV insurance is two hundred and fifty five dollars per month now why is it so expensive well we bought our coach used for two hundred and thirty thousand dollars it's about a four hundred thousand dollar list RV so when you're at that end of the RV spectrum of what you're driving of course you're gonna pay a lot more because if you would ever have an accident the insurance company's gotta lie a lot lotta liability there well what about being full-time that really affected us good points too I'm glad you mentioned as well there are certain states that are certainly more user-friendly to full-time people and there's only so many insurance companies that allow you to be full-time I don't want to have any issues if I ever have a problem and I have an accident or a fire or a disaster so honesty is absolute must in how we're operating here our RV towing insurance averages us about $20 per month were members of FMC a roadside assistance and coach net now I want to caution people that only have FMC a roadside assistance it's just that it's roadside assistance if you're in an accident and you need your rig towed they will not pay for it don't believe me give them a call you'll be surprised that's why we have on both coach net is the real McCoy they're used to hauling around big giant monsters like this so it's no surprise to them when you give them a call and you might need a flatbed our RV repairs and maintenance costs this year were actually on the low side they were five hundred and eighty four dollars of that per month that's that's per month yes and so if you wrap up the entire RV cost it was eleven hundred and twenty-two dollars per month to keep that jalopy rolling next year we're anticipating it to be much more because we're gonna end up buying six tires and there are almost eight hundred bucks a pop and plus I'm more than likely gonna get some something called retro bands which I highly recommend people look at it's only sold exclusively by national indoor RV it's the absolute utmost in safety for your front tires in case of a blowout right now I actually have tyronn tire bands inside they were about seventeen hundred dollars they have installed we've successfully had them in for two years I have no issues with them but I'm gonna move on have them take it out carefully I'll sell those on Craigslist and I'm going to the next generation this retro band our monthly campsites expenses now this is the climax of the whole video I guess here we saw all over the place yeah we spent teen hundred excuse me we spent 15219 dollars on rent or if you want to call it campsite fees which comes out to about twelve hundred and sixty eight dollars per month or forty one dollars and 63 cents per day so and actually if you want to compare that to renting an apartment or something this includes all your electric all your water all that so that is the expense right but I guess the fallacy on that thinking is that when you rent an apartment for twelve hundred and sixty eight dollars you get the apartment whereas here are twelve hundred and sixty eight dollars it's just a space to put our apartment we bring our apartment so it's it's really a tough analysis and quite honestly that's why we're doing this I mean it's a little bit strange and embarrassing to be putting your whole financial life out on the internet but I can't tell you how many times I've looked at different sites talking about how cheap and thrifty it is to do this lifestyle when in fact if you want to actually enjoy yourself when you're out there and stay at reasonably nice places and go and do things and travel you know and and move a certain amount I mean we only moved fifty two hundred miles so that's not a lot so we're doing it pretty slow and that's what keeps your costs down but yet this whole adventure that we're on is expensive now I think at this point I want to put a shout-out to a channel called next exit Bob and pearl have done an excellent job every single month documenting what they've been spending for the better part of well over a year in fact I contacted Bob and way back when probably over a year ago he sent me his spreadsheets and that was kind of the basis on which we started now his are so detailed that I actually dumbed it down a little bit because it was just a lot of work for us and we'll leave that work to Bob and pearl because I believe as of the taping of our episode here next exit is still publishing their monthly class a Motorhome cost so check them out so I took out in the chart if you order them from us for free we'll just send you these xrail spreadsheets I took out the month of me because the month of me was when we spent predominantly all of our time in one area but also in a couple other expensive areas of California California was by far was even more expensive to rvn than the Florida area during high so it was expensive so if I take me out on cost drop to eleven hundred and sixty-eight dollars per month for campsite fees which puts us at thirty eight dollars and seventy cents now we mostly stay at Koh so we only get a ten percent discount and we get a tional free night because we accumulate so many points by staying in Koh but why do we stay in Koh oh because we can book so easily so it's like 11:00 at night and we're like man we really need to book something down the road here and we can go right online they have an awesome online reservation system but also they're pretty consistent if you're gonna be at a KOAT journey you know that it's gonna be usually one people you know one night stays and then you're on your way or if you're at a holiday you can expect a whole lot more going on as far as amenities right so we can kind of anticipate what the place will be like and what they have to offer but it's mainly the the reservation system online yeah it could be two o'clock in the morning and you can be having a panic all of a sudden that you have to go a different direction and you can be assured that you can have a place to store your 65-foot a contraption that you're bringing along now other people that are more manly man than me they'll just end up in a Cabela's or a Walmart or somewhere and and they're perfectly fine with that maybe on our third year here I'll finally man up and try something like that but I'm not promising that's gonna say it's public now so I want to mention two other things there's another blog out there called RV love guy you know anybody that does any reasonable amount of vlogging searching around on the internet would know that but they have an excellent series and write-ups on the thousand trails membership I think Bob and Pearl at next exit also say different things about it because they are members we're certainly going to investigate that to see if we could drop our cost but I'm 67 we've been at this two years we actually see no end in sight so based on that we really should look at that because that could really drop our cost the problem is is when I look at where these places are there almost predominantly all stacked on top of each themselves over on the East Coast and over on the west coast and there's just like this big dead zone in between you know if any of you out there have really good experience with Thousand Trails and you would want to give us some recommendation one way or the other we'd really love to hear that we already know that you should buy a secondary membership through a membership if I end up going the Thousand Trails way I will buy the most SuperDuper plan so that I have the best shot at being able to stay wherever I happen to be so what is it the super duper opens up more campgrounds yeah yes and there's different zones and there's it's a real complex system and it seems to be getting more and more complex every time they work on it okay so then the last thing that I've included in the chart here and RV love actually talked about this at a big expense that everybody just kind of sweeps under the carpet but really shouldn't be is the cost of depreciation and I have a line on that in our cost sheets and I think I think maybe in my cost sheets that I would give you I would actually fill in it would be I've left a little spot in there where you can put in the price that you paid for your RV and then it's multiplied by 8% and it's put in as a cost for every single month you can see that if you were to buy an RV for $400,000 and you have an 8% depreciation cost every month or excuse me every year and you divide it by 12 it is a real cost at or on your monthly cost certainly that money isn't coming out of your wallet every month but there's gonna come a time further down the road where you're finally gonna get hit for it and you need to have that in your exit plan when you're finally done doing this and you either go to a tiny home or you go to a water park my model or you go back to an apartment or stick and brick but it's a cost that is lurking out there and if you aren't thinking about it then you're gonna have a real yeah it's definitely definitely not investing in a house where usually with the house to sell it down the line you're gonna make some money you're not with an RV usually so I want to thank sue for all of the work all of the work that she put in this because I can't tell you how many times I would flip her a receipt on something that we've bought or we'd go into a campground and we're buying fuel or whatever and then I might think oh I bet you she forgot that and I'd quiz her on it and I'll be darned if every single time she had it we've been as accurate as we could on this I will tell you that when I finally assemble this a few days ago it was an eye-opener for even me I knew this was going to be expensive we're pretty much right at the end of our affordability on this we are certainly not complaining after coming up with these costs and seeing how expensive it is we're still only gonna change still we're still going so now with what you documented though that's you didn't put like our personal things like groceries and stuff like that well good question sue yeah because everybody is so different we tend to buy organic which is gonna be a lot more expensive we shop at Costco which you save money when you buy in bulk but even like entertainment when we were in Las Vegas we had friends visit entertainment price went really up but when we were in Yellowstone National Park I mean we packed our lunch every day and had picnics so our entertainment and our restaurant expenses were way down right so we didn't include any of that on this stuff did we but we do know that the channel our journey and miles is all about value so I did actually include it in the second chart that I'll give you so the first chart is a stripped-down one that you're welcome to just fill in all your things and they'll kind of give you your rock-bottom cost for the RVing type thing but then I included this a lot of channels don't but I thought you know what if you don't particularly have a handle on what your groceries are use our handle until you get your handle likewise some of the other things on here we shop different yeah so you I see that you've got like the medical expenses the medical insurance dental doing this Invisalign thing right now trying to fix my bite that's an expense end right everybody's going to do and I can tell you that if you ask me how much we eat out and how often were in restaurants it's not much at all I mean when we're going to Costco all the time and dropping 400 bucks every time there obviously we're not anytime but yet when you're traveling and you're in awesome places and you have to make decisions do i quick run home so I can save five bucks on a sandwich or are we gonna sit down come on some of eating oh it actually is the experience the area where their local food their local like we just hit a little coffee shop here in Miles City Montana fantastic in full coffee shot it is so cute and fantastic coffee so you want to experience and we literally might walk back to that same city because there was another place that was like a thrift antique store but they had a giant Woolworths dining hall the original so those vehicles oh so we might go there we may or may not take our cameras but we've got to experience there yeah so you got to pull your wallet out so restaurants for instance we spent an average of three hundred and eight dollars per month a month that's not a lot you know if anybody that eats at a restaurant entertainment wise you know we had a couple of months there where it got jacked up but entertainment Vegas 384 months we're not going to bore you with the details that's all available for here just to help you guys to come up with the sad but true final and it's the price of admission that's what we always say I mean we want this lifestyle we love this lifestyle and we know it's gonna cost us the way we travel and stuff but we work so hard all our lives saving and stuff and it's like it's time to uh spend good money fun and we're gonna see chance for our kids each each kid so don't worry guys you'll get your ten bucks okay well if you like this video and you appreciate the effort we put into it please hit the subscribe button hit the like button hit the notification bell do whatever join our small family of subscribers and let's get a little bit a little bit bigger and no more people around the country if you don't subscribe we don't know anybody's watching we know you're there so we all appreciate anything watching yeah okay we'll see you guys next time alright huh good jump real good job yeah I hope the camera was I know and I hope the microphone work oh geez did we check it yeah we did yeah we did

Channel: Our Journey In Myles

Views: 772,764

Rating: 4.8803134 out of 5

Keywords: RVing, RV Life, RV Living, RV Retirement, RV, RV Camping, Camping, Full Time RV Living, Full time RV, US Travel, Motorhome, Travel Trailer, 5th Wheel, Our Journey In Myles, Our Journey In Miles, How much does it cost to RV?, Cost to Full Time RV, How much does it cost to full time RV, RV Budget, RV Budget Spreadsheet, Cost to RV in 2019, Cost to RV in a Class A Motorhome, Full Time RV Cost Review, Monthly Costs To RV, The RVers, @JourneyByTheMyles, @ Journey By The Myles

Id: QM8XDmjNDpQ

Length: 32min 28sec (1948 seconds)

Published: Sun Aug 04 2019