Some Thoughts on Full-Timing - Budget
Now that we’ve been full-time RVing for over a year and are heading into our second winter, I’ve had time to reflect and come up with some thoughts on going full-time. I'll be releasing these thoughts in a series of posts. First up is Budget!
Unless you are wealthy and cost isn’t an issue, you have a limited supply of money and need to develop a realistic budget for your full-time RVing life. In my case, my wife and I decided to retire early and try not to work, at least for a few years, and focus on seeing as much of the country as possible. Of course, seeing “everything” is impossible in a single lifetime but we are trying to hit as much of the highlights as we can. We have a lot of friends and new acquaintances that continue to work full-time though. We know others who work camp and get free or discounted sites so long as they work a certain number of hours at the campsite. All of these affect your budget.
Another consideration is how often you move. Kim and I, trying to see all we can, tend to move between sites every few days which is the most expensive way to camp because you can’t take advantage of weekly and monthly rates. In the future, we will have to slow down and change to weekly and monthly rates and maybe even work camp at some point just due to being on a fixed income. It would be easy to blow our whole nest egg on expensive campsites (resorts!) everywhere we go but we just can’t do that. For us, that means we seek out cheaper alternatives like Harvest Hosts, State Parks, County Parks, and other boondocking options occasionally, especially on travel days.
We have met a lot of people who full-time that don’t move much at all. They stay up north in the summer at the same park all the time and then move to the same park every year for the winter. For them, this lifestyle is about escaping the weather temperature extremes and they make friends and meet their friends every year at the two locations! For them it’s not about going and seeing the sights around America. Others don't move at all, having found a location they like and they settle in permanently.
Still others we’ve met live in an RV to keep their costs down. They may be young and saving for a house someday or don’t want to own a house with all the expenses that go into that. Some don’t want the maintenance costs of a house or the mortgage that comes with it or may have downsized to an RV as they have gotten older.
Another consideration when full-timing and traveling a lot, is that you are going to be tempted to treat every day like a vacation because you are visiting these amazing places but that’s not practical for the average camper! Before retiring, most of the time we traveled to awesome destinations, we were on vacation and we normally had saved up a certain amount of money that we expected to spend on experiences, souvenirs, clothing, etc. We might have saved $1000 or $2000 for the trip and didn’t expect to have any left when we returned. We didn’t have any issue buying shirts, hats, mementos or go to amusement parks, rides, tours, etc. Now, in retirement, we have limited funds and that changes our attitude when we visit places like National Parks or Gatlinburg, etc.
For instance, as I write this, we are camping in Pigeon Forge near Gatlinburg, Tennessee, for 10 days. Mentally, we don’t consider ourselves “vacationing” here, instead we “live” here temporarily! We don’t feel like we have to go, go, go every day, browse all the shops, and go to all the shows. We take days off and stay around the RV to do normal living things like maintenance or laundry. We might decide to go out for a few hours in the afternoon or evening seeking out free or less expensive stuff to do. In this case, the towns near here go all out decorating for Christmas so we drive around and look at all the decorations. We don’t even go in most shops since we have limited funds and limited storage in the RV! We have become very selective in what businesses we frequent just due to cost considerations. It really changes how we visit every location especially for my wife who used to love browsing through ALL the shops!
These are just a few of the considerations that affect your bottom line budget. For me, the most significant change we've seen is the change in mindset!
