How Do You Afford Living On The Road?

9:29 AM Unknown 1 Comments

This is the question I'm most often asked. There is a huge assumption that only retired people or "DINKS" (dual income no kids) or trust-fund babies can afford the luxurious "RV lifestyle."

Here's the thing: There is NO "typical" cost of living on the road just like there is no typical cost of living in S&B (sticks and bricks). 

You probably know people who rent tiny appartments and people with 80k houses in the city or 1.5 million dollar houses on the lake. Even in houses of the same price range one family might have a $400 budget for groceries while another spends $500 just on eating out. Some people have expensive shoes but drive an old car while others drive a Lexus but buy their shoes at the discount store.

Budgets are less about "cost" and more about priorities. I know people who own homes, love owning their home, and prioritize their home. They put capital into landscaping, redecorating, fencing, pools, additions, new kitchens, etc. To do so they may or may not need to be frugal elsewhere - maybe they never vacation. Another family might take extravagant vacations but choose to have a modest yard. They prioritize vacations.

If you live on the road the same applies. The budget needed to live on the road will depend on what you need, what you have, and what you want. If it is important to you to always have full-hook-ups your monthly camping fees will be higher than if you don't mind dry camping/boondocking.

If you want your RV to have all the luxuries of a S&B you will probably buy a big rig with slides so on rainy days you hardly know you're in an RV! RVs can come with leather furniture, granite countertops, fireplaces, big screen tvs, etc. Some RVs have washer/dryer, dishwasher, and 2.5 bathrooms.

Other RVs have the basics to function - beds, shelter, water, toilet, maybe a refrigerator. Some people live in vans and don't have water, toilet, or a refrigerator.

Why Live On The Road?

This range means you have to make decisions by answering 3 key questions:

1. Why do I want to live on the road?


2. What do I need to make that happen?


3. If I want something that I don't need to make that happen does it provide enough pleasure to warrant spending resources on.

For example, our reasons for living on the road are here. We make decisions based on that. Do we need a washer/dryer in our rig? It would be convenient but it is expensive enough to possibly limit our travel, it requires more expensive hook ups, and it deprives us of the chance to meet people at laundromats. So, we decided to go without.

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When we were first looking for RVs I actually became frightened that we would make this change but still fall into the same bad habits. I knew I DIDN'T want an RV that was so comfortable inside that staying inside would be comfy. I wanted my RV to be a shelter. I wanted to live our lives OUTSIDE the camper. I was so worried about it I actually thought about doing this instead:

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.(I still think that would be super fun)

There is nothing wrong with wanting your RV to be comfy. Maybe you are living on the road to see different cities and museums. Maybe mosquito bites and poison ivy are deal breakers. Maybe the time you'd waste at a laundromat would deprive you of enough pleasure to take away from your life. That's ok! But, knowing this deeply is necessary before you can even tackle the question of budgets.

Our Life On The Road

Given our purpose, we could then budget how we wanted to live. Since we hope to slowly decrease our dependence on capitalism and consumerism we kept that in mind. Our overall goal with money is to make as little as humanly possible to live the life we want. The life we want is less work and more life. So how little can we live on? This is what we hope to explore on this journey.

Here's our monthly budget for May:

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Fuel: (includes gas for Pete to go to work and propane and firewood) $100
Campsite with full hook-ups: $280/month (this rate is lowered by paying for the season in advance: $1450 May-Oct)
WiFi: $25
Electric (metered): $50
Groceries: $400
Insurance (Car/RV and registrations): $80
Phones: $135
TV (netflix/Amazon prime/hulu): $30
RV and Tow Vehicle Maintenance: $50
Laundry: $30

Monthly Total: $1180
Annualized: $14,160

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Now there are some expenses that are MUSTS: Groceries, Insurance, and Phones. The others we plan to be flexible.

Hook ups and Electric can be lowered by boondocking and staying in state/ntl parks instead of "rv parks". By workamping we can also put this at zero sometimes. For example, this fall Pete will be working at Amazon who is paying for a full hook-ups campsite.

Fuel will depend on how much we use and/or where pete is working. Travel will affect this cost as well. This month it is low because we aren't leaving north east Ohio. When we head west there will be a month where we'll need MUCH more gas for the tow vehicle.

WiFi is a must for us be we are willing to use public wifi at libraries and coffee shops when needed or if it is unavailable. This is less about money and more about location. We don't want to be limited to places with decent wifi.

On the other end of the spectrum we might want to visit a place like San Francisco where RV campsites are $100 or more per night. Or the Florida Keys. On those months our campsite budget will soar and we'll have to adjust in other ways.

Debt Free

Note that we don't have an RV payment or car payment in there. If we did it would limit our freedom to go where we want. We would be more tied to a certain type of job and we didn't want that.

Our RV cost $5500. We paid cash. We know we'll need to upgrade eventually and we want to do so without debt.

Living on the road with debt is doable but you will need a higher income which might limit where you can stay and those places might be pricier. For us, being free of debt was important.

Other Money Savings

We have chosen to drop out of the 'rat race' in more than one way. We decided that what clothes we wore was not important. We shop at Goodwill (which perhaps has horrible employment practices but we won't shop at the Salvation Army due to their funding of marriage discrimination lobbying). We buy groceries at Aldi's. We buy organic when we can and for certain things.

We want to explore ways to be greener. Less showers, less clothes washing, less water use. These things save money and the Earth.

Things we hope to explore outside of the monetary economy in the future: coops, barter, eco-workamping, woofing, and off-grid living. I'll be sharing all the gritty details as we go!