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Thread: Fulltiming Cost

  1. #11
    Site Team Second Chance's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by D2Reid View Post
    Sounds like you have got a good handle on things. Our stuff does not sit still much. When we started out we said we were looking for the perfect place to live out our old age, we gave ourselves five years. At the end of the five years we hadn't found what we were looking for, so we extended the plan another five years. So last February we extended the plan once again. I guess we are stuck wandering around until we can't. In the mean time we are having a lot of fun.
    Dallas,

    That sounds exactly like the boat we were in a couple of years ago. We had spent a year putting together a spreadsheet with all the aspects of life (Best Places, Kiplinger's, etc.) for consideration for places to settle. I had an ache to get a little place with enough space for the RV in my hometown in southern New Mexico. We even looked at places with a realtor. One of my sisters thought the plan was problematic because my wife is a tropical girl (grew up in Costa Rica where it's perpetual spring) and doesn't like the summer heat in Las Cruces. When we left Cruces that spring and headed northwest, we agonized for several months over the decision and choices. One cold, windy evening in Rock Springs, WY, we realized that the only thing both of us could get excited about was staying on the road. So, we upgraded the RV and continued to roll (with a time-out for the pandemic).

    @Steven@147: On cost calculations for full-time living, there are several different approaches. I'm of the school that includes only those costs you would not have in a stix 'n brix in the costs of full-time living - basically what supplanted the costs of owning and living in a home. These expenses would include the cost of the RV and tow vehicle, fuel for towing, maintenance and repair, propane and consumables, camping fees, mail service, etc. These replaced the home mortgage, property taxes, utility bills, lawn care, maintenance and repair, etc. What I don't include are things that we would be spending money for regardless of where we live - food, health care, clothing, eating out, entertainment, and a number of other things. I have used Quicken for years (download all transactions from the bank) with very detailed budget buckets and can provide our general info to anyone interested (pre-full-time and post).

    Rob
    U.S. Army Retired
    2012 F350 DRW CC LB Lariat PS 6.7
    2020 Solitude 310GK-R, MORryde IS, disc brakes,
    Sailun LRG tires, solar, DP windows, W/D
    (Previously in a Reflection 337RLS)
    Full time since 08/2015

  2. #12
    Site Sponsor Steven@147's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Second Chance View Post
    Dallas,

    That sounds exactly like the boat we were in a couple of years ago. We had spent a year putting together a spreadsheet with all the aspects of life (Best Places, Kiplinger's, etc.) for consideration for places to settle. I had an ache to get a little place with enough space for the RV in my hometown in southern New Mexico. We even looked at places with a realtor. One of my sisters thought the plan was problematic because my wife is a tropical girl (grew up in Costa Rica where it's perpetual spring) and doesn't like the summer heat in Las Cruces. When we left Cruces that spring and headed northwest, we agonized for several months over the decision and choices. One cold, windy evening in Rock Springs, WY, we realized that the only thing both of us could get excited about was staying on the road. So, we upgraded the RV and continued to roll (with a time-out for the pandemic).

    @Steven@147: On cost calculations for full-time living, there are several different approaches. I'm of the school that includes only those costs you would not have in a stix 'n brix in the costs of full-time living - basically what supplanted the costs of owning and living in a home. These expenses would include the cost of the RV and tow vehicle, fuel for towing, maintenance and repair, propane and consumables, camping fees, mail service, etc. These replaced the home mortgage, property taxes, utility bills, lawn care, maintenance and repair, etc. What I don't include are things that we would be spending money for regardless of where we live - food, health care, clothing, eating out, entertainment, and a number of other things. I have used Quicken for years (download all transactions from the bank) with very detailed budget buckets and can provide our general info to anyone interested (pre-full-time and post).

    Rob
    Makes perfect sense Rob. There are certain costs that would be "normal"? expenditures S&B or Fulltiming.

    We met an 83 year old guy at one park that fulltimes in an older small 5th wheel. We was having trouble unhitching and i noticed he had the RV nose too high and it was binding the pin and hitch jaws from releasing, helped him out and we got to talking about fulltiming. He just has his SS to live on and said he has to count every penny. Really nice guy, a little slower moving around but still going pretty good. But it got me to thinking when I put our cost of living spreadsheet together so I added a lot more in it for like a total budget kind of thing.

    We tend to spend a little too much on our Captain Morgan, Disaronno, mudslides and the like. Also we buy groceries usually around once a week because of our smaller fridge, then eat out too much lols. We kind of over did it while staying in Galveston a couple months back, man that sea food was great! For dinner last night we grilled up some fillet mignon we got at the grocery, baked potatoes and salad with a nice bottle of Berringer zinfandel. Beats the heck out of hamburger helper!! Fulltiming Life is Good!
    Steve & Tami Cass - Escapee's, FMCA Members, Texas Fulltimers Since July 2020
    2019 Solitude 3350RL S-Class, 2018 Ram 3500 DRW, Laramie Longhorn, B&W Companion, Texas Class A Non-CDL Drivers License
    Sharing the Fulltime Lifestyle - www.youtube.com/@tsrvadventures3219/videos, Nonprofit Channel

  3. #13
    Fireside Member Band1t's Avatar
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    I love hearing everyone's tips and ideas on budgeting. You have to have a game plan. Just for fun, here's our plan.

    Will be full-timing come 2026 (not soon enough).

    1. bought a lot on the Oregon coast in 2019, that is zoned for RV living. Built a 26' by 45' RV cover on it. Expected property taxes and utilities, $350/month.
    2. just ordered a new 2021 Ram 3500 DRW, to be paid off by retirement.
    3. retire
    4. purchase the 5th wheel if we have not replaced our current TTL by then. Current favorite floorplan is the 390RK, or Beacon's similar floorplan.
    5. sell the house.
    6. no DEBT
    7. full time with the coast as home base when we are not snow birding, or traveling the nation.

    61 months to go......

    Jim

  4. #14
    Setting Up Camp
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    Quote Originally Posted by Steven@147 View Post
    I'm sure a lot of folks wonder if they can make it fulltiming and what the costs might be. Well I created an excel spread sheet to track our cost of living since we went fulltime last July. Just to be clear we live well, are not living on a shoestring budget but we like to know where our money is going. Maybe some would get a kick out of our Q4 Q1 cost of living data.

    Our spread sheet is broken down by category then sub category costs per month and then by Quarter average three month total divided by 3.
    RV Expenses - Loan, Repair & Maint, Insur, Propane, License Plates & Road Service
    Camp Expenses - Site and Electric
    Club Expenses - Good Sam, GD Forum, Trip Wizard, Escapee's, Mail Forwarding, Harvest Hosts, KOA
    Truck Expenses - Diesel Fuel, Insur, License Plates, Repair & Maint (No Loan)
    Health Care Expenses - Premiums and Co Pays
    Communications & Internet - Cell Phones, Visable Internet, Netflix, Amazon Prime
    Food & Entertainment - Groceries, Entertainment, Tourist, Amusement, Dining Out,
    Misc - Laundry and anything that doesn't fit anywhere else.

    ---------------2020 Q4 - 2021 Q1
    RV Expenses $992--------$1056------------(still have a loan and had some RV repairs Q1)
    Camp ---------$649--------$691 (or avg 21-23 per night. (mostly private grounds staying by month, but some state parks and short stays or over nights)
    Clubs ----------$36---------$18 (Escapee's mail forwarding service USPS deposits in Q4 and club yearly fees prorated)
    Truck ----------$467------$545 (includes 3500 mile trip in Q4)(truck windshield replacement in Q1)
    Health Care---$1317-------$16 (we had a Cobra policy in Q4 to get us to the end of the year and then went to the health exchange in Q1 BCBS HMO Policy)
    Comm Internet $196------$196
    Food Enterta---$828------$1217 (We eat well, went to Moody Gardens, bought new Roku)
    MiscLaundry---$428-------$165 (we bought a generator in Q4)

    You have to be diligent about inputting the data from your receipts but its nice to know where your moneys going. If you have excel you can you see our spreadsheet and break down. On the summary page I can input fixed cost in the white cells. There is a data page for varying expenses that are transferred to the summary (yellow cells)and totaled red cells.
    Very detailed spreadsheet. Thanks for sharing!

  5. #15
    Site Sponsor Steven@147's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by [email protected] View Post
    I love hearing everyone's tips and ideas on budgeting. You have to have a game plan. Just for fun, here's our plan.

    Will be full-timing come 2026 (not soon enough).

    1. bought a lot on the Oregon coast in 2019, that is zoned for RV living. Built a 26' by 45' RV cover on it. Expected property taxes and utilities, $350/month.
    2. just ordered a new 2021 Ram 3500 DRW, to be paid off by retirement.
    3. retire
    4. purchase the 5th wheel if we have not replaced our current TTL by then. Current favorite floorplan is the 390RK, or Beacon's similar floorplan.
    5. sell the house.
    6. no DEBT
    7. full time with the coast as home base when we are not snow birding, or traveling the nation.

    61 months to go......

    Jim
    You got a plan. Our plan was a lot like yours. We started to get really serious about 12 months before RV day. Getting rid of all our "stuff" was the biggest part of it. Sometimes we thought the day would never arrive. Then our house sold in one day, had 30 days to get out.

    We are by no means experts on going fulltime, but for people reading along, some things to keep in mind.
    Buying the RV an or tow vehicle you plan to go fulltime in is easier before you retire or sell your house. You still have your financial and property foot print so qualifying for financing is easy. Then if you want pay off the RV after you sell your house.

    Health care was the biggest challenge for us to plan because we both retired and went fulltime before age 65, before Medicare. It can be real costly, our advice is to plan well that part of it. If you will be traveling a lot PPO type health plans that are good in any state can be really costly. It could be your single biggest expense. A lot of people find they can't go fulltime because of this expense.

    Think about vehicle insurance, your RV and or tow vehicle is your only haven, if you lose one of them or both because of a failure, loss of use, total loss, what then?

    Also plan well your fulltime state of residence. If you still have property in a state you don't have to be concerned about it. But if you are not going to have property any where then you need to think about establishing a domicile in some state favorable to RV Fulltimers. We had lived in Texas for 19 years so it was easier for us to transition and keep our Texas residency, we own no property. Texas residency has some good points and some not so good points. Read up on maintaining a domicile.

    Also plan for the financial institutions that you will be using. A lot of banks and investment companies do not like working with fulltimers, just be aware of it. There are lots of banks that will have no problem with it.

    Escapee's is a good place to get information. https://www.escapees.com/

    Steve
    Last edited by Steven@147; 04-22-2021 at 08:10 AM. Reason: additional content
    Steve & Tami Cass - Escapee's, FMCA Members, Texas Fulltimers Since July 2020
    2019 Solitude 3350RL S-Class, 2018 Ram 3500 DRW, Laramie Longhorn, B&W Companion, Texas Class A Non-CDL Drivers License
    Sharing the Fulltime Lifestyle - www.youtube.com/@tsrvadventures3219/videos, Nonprofit Channel

  6. #16
    Rolling Along
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    We're just celebrated our one month anniversary full timing last week. We spent about two and a half years planning and prepping for the transition.

    One thing that I struggled with trying to predict the cost of full timing is separating the cost of living and the cost of life. It's hard to keep all those apples and oranges separate sometimes. What I mean is that some things are easy to see the difference with and some things get a little foggy. In my mind, expenses like food, entertainment, cell phones, etc are clearly unrelated to the roof over your head so they should not me part of a comparison. But there are other things that are needed in both the sticks/bricks and the RV. One thing is vehicles. The cost of a tow vehicle to pull the 5th wheel is a significant expense, but in the sticks/bricks you still need a car. So how does one nail down the difference in cost/use when going full time. Another thing is the house itself. You can't just use the mortgage payment as a cost of the sticks/bricks because the property still has value. With an RV, there will be a time when it depreciates to zero so again, there are some parts of the comparison that don't work. I'll wrap up with this one. Just couple thoughts to complicate things 😁

  7. #17
    Left The Driveway
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    For us it's less expensive to full time in the RV vs living in the house, even though there were no longer any mortgage payments. The log book shows where & how we spend the money and that's fine to help keep these things in mind, sorta like getting on a scale now and then to check your weight. A quick glance at the bottom line, either monthly or annually, really shows the difference however. In the house the bottom line was going in the wrong direction, and even after making some adjustments we realized that we had come to a crossroads. As for how we live, nothing really changed. The house simply has wheels now.
    295RL & 2X4 F250 XL Ext Cab LB w/3880 CCC

  8. #18
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    We just started full-timing this year. I did a lot of research in forums like this and elsewhere to get a sense of what other people are paying and what my expenses were going to be. I took accounting in college and have been involved with accounting in some level at every company I owned or ran, so at home I've been using personal accounting software for 30 years.

    I used the software to create a Full-Timers Budget. My truck and trailer are paid off, no payments. I no longer own a house and am not paying for any storage. So my budget includes only income and expenses, it does not include monthly savings goals. It also doesn't include any 'indulgences' like going to Disneyland next month. That said, my monthly expense budget is $3,500. Most of this year my income was well above that. The surplus every month goes toward savings and investments. I know that at some point I'm going to need to replace the truck and trailer. I do have a monthly maintenance budget but don't have a monthly budget for big maintenance such as an emergency or replacing the trailer tires as those are not monthly expenses. They come out of savings.

    We mostly prepare all our meals on board, and maybe eat out once a week. I've budgeted $400 for groceries and so far have not gone over that. We eat a lot of rice and vegetables and chicken. For us meat is an accent to the meal and not the main part of the meal. We get eggs, dog food and a few other things at Costco whenever we can. Mostly we end up doing a grocery shopping about once a week. We also don't drink so we're not buying alcohol. I'm paying $200 for internet because we have both AT+T sim card in our router plus Starlink Mobile.

    When we are not on the road we mooch-camp on a pad we built on my sons property in Vancouver/Portland area. We have water and 50amp electric, will be installing sewer probably next summer. You'd think that would save me money but I end up spending money on the kids and grandchild almost equal to what I pay for campgrounds and gas!
    2023 Reflection 150, Model 280RS
    Tow Vehicle - 2022 Ram 2500

  9. #19
    Site Sponsor Steven@147's Avatar
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    This is reaching back aways, but its always good to have a plan. Problem is we end up not following our plan!
    In tracking our expense we can sure tell when we are traveling + Diesel. This year we went to Big Bend TX, Williams AZ and the Grand Canyon South, through Albuquerque NM, Tucson AZ, Las Cruces NM and site seeing on our way back East on I70 and are planted in Indiana right now.
    We have been stationary here in Indiana since July - family emergency. If everything gets worked out, we head to Galveston right after Christmas. That will be expensive once I get near sea food!

    This years expenses to date averaged monthly. The graphs generated by the numbers are bouncing around like a yo-yo. Our repair and maint fund took a hit this year with buying tires for the truck and RV. Plus leaf springs, equalizers and shackles for the RV and replaced the microwave/convection oven. Then we decided we couldn't live without new bicycles! We have no will power!

    Grocery - $538
    Dining Out - $489
    Entertainment - $73
    Diesel - $377
    RV Maint & Repair - $279
    CG Site + Elect - $716 or $23.56 per night
    Truck Maint & Repair - $209
    Misc Expenses - $511
    Last edited by Steven@147; 11-16-2023 at 05:24 AM.
    Steve & Tami Cass - Escapee's, FMCA Members, Texas Fulltimers Since July 2020
    2019 Solitude 3350RL S-Class, 2018 Ram 3500 DRW, Laramie Longhorn, B&W Companion, Texas Class A Non-CDL Drivers License
    Sharing the Fulltime Lifestyle - www.youtube.com/@tsrvadventures3219/videos, Nonprofit Channel

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