Save $1000 / month through travel. Caution: side effects may be seeing the world, more time with family and intense satisfaction. ...
You have more time with your kids. In nature. Surrounded by not only beauty, but freedom. The ability to choose where you’ll go, and even more so, your own fate.
You also save $1000 / month compared to the original living in a house situation. Plus all of that savings on utilities, which just get translated into you walking to a water spigot or spending a few bucks on gas or investing in solar. And did I mention the whole traveling part?
Advertisement Even if you’d have spent only $900 or $600 per month on rent, just do the math. And feel free to factor in the benefits of the proximity to something gorgeous and/or fun to do every single day.
I agree with pkennedy, depreciation and maintenance are large RV costs. But it does seem like buying a used RV that has already depreciated a bunch, and then doing some maintenance yourself is feasible for many, and very affordable if you're a DIYer and don't need to have the latest bling bling RV.
I've been exploring alternative living arrangements recently and do believe that living in RVs, whether in a park, or occasional/frequent traveling styles, can lead to significant COL savings. But, I think it's key to compare the RV life cost to the cost of living in a low COL area, and not to necessarily compare RV life costs to the COL of a big expensive city.
Another life style I've been exploring is being a digital nomad. If your job allows remote work, you can move to somewhere very cheap, maybe halfway across the planet, and continue to collect your high COL paychecks. I'm currently attracted to the idea of just travel-working: working remote, but traveling at the same time. Like, maybe live in 2-10 countries per year. This can be VERY affordable.
RV parks are not as cheap as you might think, Perhaps out in the middle of nowhere, but inside cities and even along highways they seem to be pretty pricey, unless you're paying monthly. Like $30-70/night.
Factor in the 6mpg you're getting, and it's costing a huge amount to move this thing around and stay anywhere.
If your plan is to stay in some dumpy city, with 200 people, go rent something instead. Take a small car, drive out to nowhere and see if you can rent a room or a house. It will be substantially cheaper and give you a much better place to live, and a much better location.
In a city, the parks are expensive for day rates and in the worst locations. If you're in a small city, I have no idea what that might even be like. At least with a house, you will most likely end up somewhere better, and possibly have some better options.
Used motorhomes have some horrendous bills. Tire changes are based on age not distance. The appliances are thousands, and the whole frame really isn't designed for a lot of driving around. Basically they're designed for people who think they'd love to travel full time, but do it 3 times a year. So even a used unit can set you back a huge amount of money.
My friend owned a home in CA, had an RV and traveled the states for a few years. Finally sold her home in CA and bought a cheap home way East and south. She was able to go lots of places and see many things. She did find cheap RV parks, and was camped out where I garden for a few weeks, which was free. But maintenance she could not do, think of what all the bumps in the road do to these things over time, bugs are a hassle, you need to tow a car or motorcycle along with you. You can park in Walmart parking lots (not sure if this is still do-able), places like Elk Lodges are friendly and maybe others. The trick I think is to go smaller, and live cheap. I would not go out with pull outs (they can leak water from rain that comes from funny directions), I would have a small contained van with blackout curtains, and a generator if possible. I do see people just using batteries (solar), propane, and kerosene though. We have folks here in my city that live in campers, they just have to follow ordinance and move it every so often.
If you really want to go cheap buy a cheap economy car put a tow hitch on it and sign up with one (or many) of the RV transport companies. No RV ownership bills at all and they pay a small amount to cover your expenses. See the country on someone else's dime.
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