Showing posts with label Nomad Philosophy. Show all posts

How Do You Afford Living On The Road?

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:

[caption id="attachment_8614" align="aligncenter" width="300"]rooftop tent rooftop tent[/caption]

.(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!
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On Living "Counter" Culture

In the months leading up to our departure as Fulltime RVers we had many naysayers. Most were worried about the unknown while others were just sure we'd taken leave of our senses. That's ok. Living in a counter culture way can cause people to feel uncomfortable.

I've said before that I think people get upset about the choices of others because they see them as reflecting poorly on their own life choices. This is false and comes from guilt and shame that society trains us to carry. My choices and my path are mine and not a comment on on your choices or your path. No, really.

Like I said in my article about WOHM vs SAHMs we are all really the best people when we are authentic and fulfilled. The journey we should all be on is to find that authentic self inside of us and live it OUT LOUD. Finding yours has nothing to do with what others are living.

Anyways. I did have one person who lashed out and called our lifestyle "child abuse." I think this is a term we need to stop throwing around. Like using "rape" in sports, throwing the term child abuse around belittles actual child abuse and I think reflects more on the insulter's personal problems than on the insultee's. To that person I'd like to respectfully snarkily present this:

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Don't they look sad? ha!

They are flourishing like all kids do in nature. Fishing, hiking, playing at the park and around the campfire - it's just been perfect.

I didn't realize how much I took on other peoples' negativity about us living in an RV. I spent many tears and sleepless nights on the opinions of these people. It was draining to say the least and hard to counter when we didn't have first hand experience at our chosen lifestyle.

Now that we've lived this for a while I feel like a reptile that has shed that heavy skin of negativity. Our daily life is now aligned with our inner passions and the extreme RIGHTNESS of it makes all the worry about the naysayers seem silly.

I never imagined myself as "counter culture." I'm just a regular girl from middle America. If you know me in person I'm pretty normal, right? Ok, eccentric...but normal. We're just trying to take our one life and the one childhood of our children and use it most wisely - in a way that aligns with our ethics. I don't want to tell my kids "live like this" I'd rather just live it and let them live it.

I don't think that is counter to our culture but a product of it - of the freedom to choose how we live. Calling it "counter" implies it is "against" what others ("culture") are doing.

Calling us eccentric. A hippie. "Alternative." Counter culture. It just disconnects us from each other. It makes an Us and a Them. It creates Other. I've really come to believe that "other" is the concept at the root of all violence and hate in this world. When we realize there is no "other" it is impossible to hate or do violence.
When you call yourself an Indian or a Muslim or a Christian or a European, or anything else, you are being violent. Do you see why it is violent? Because you are separating yourself from the rest of mankind. When you separate yourself by belief, by nationality, by tradition, it breeds violence. So a man who is seeking to understand violence does not belong to any country, to any religion, to any political party or partial system; he is concerned with the total understanding of mankind. ~Jiddu Krishnamurti

So, just call us The Stannard5.
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A Healthier Lifestyle

In my post about 7 Reasons to Live in an RV Fulltime I didn't mention a healthier lifestyle. We are doing this for a healthier planet and healthier relationships but an off-shoot will be living healthier too.

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I woke up this morning and could hardly move! The lifting, pulling, hiking, etc. is new to my body. Before Aellyn was born Pete and I were hiking up to 9 miles a day in training for doing the Grand Canyon. Now my life is so sedentary.

You don't have to uproot your whole life to get healthy but there is nothing like having an ACTIVE LIFESTYLE rather than adding activity, like exercise, to an actually sedentary lifestyle, which is what most westerners do. Like homesteading, farming, etc., living in an RV fulltime is just going to REQUIRE activity. I'm really excited about this aspect!
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7 Reasons To Live Fulltime In an RV

On May 1 we finally move into our new 192 square feet of RV! We'll be local and Pete will keep his same job through the summer. So, we'll be staying at a beautiful park near the Mogadore Resevoir.

People, of course, think we're nuts. Unfortuantely when you make decisions outside of the mainstream it can be judged as an indictment of their (more mainstream) life choices.

I think the important thing here is to remember that my decisions are made from my values, goals, and dreams and my weaknesses, fears, and circumstances. They have absolutely nothing to do with anyone else. When I say I want out of the capitalist economy it doesn't mean I think you are evil for staying in it. Everyone makes the world a better place as best they can at the time. You're doing your best and I'm doing mine.

With that in mind - here are 10 reasons we are becoming Nomads:

1. Find a New Human Dream.

We played the "American Dream" game well. I had a job at NASA and a mortgage and 2 cars and a bunch of debt. I worked to pay my debt and went into further debt to survive the monotony of my life. Since leaving my job I've become a so much happier person. I'm healthier, sleep better, and just feel JOY. All. The. Time. When I was working so much and then spending my non working hours working on my "stuff" I didn't have any free time to grow as a person or contribute to the world meaningfully.

That's the problem with the American Dream, in my opinion. It keeps us navel gazing and blind or helpless to the reality of the world around us. We wanted to find a way to acheive our dreams that made us better citizens of the Earth. (This reason is #1 because it guides all of our other reasons.)

2. See New Places.

The most amazing experiences in my life have been visiting new places. I've been fortunate to live many places and visit some wonderful and beautiful things. This reason also falls into the "stop living for your next vacation" things. If you are lucky enough to be one of the few people making enough money to travel on your vacation...are you working so hard to afford a vacation?

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover. – Mark Twain

3. Meet Virtual Friends.

One of the best parts of living in the age of social media is that I have truly wonderful friends all over this globe! How wonderful to get to share a s'more with them around our campfire? Oh, btw, internet friends...prepare, lol.

4. Meet New People.

I am a white woman married to a white man living in just about the whitest small town imaginable. That's ok. I was raised here and learned to respect and love all people. I don't think living in a mono-culture precludes soemone from being a social justice advocate but it sure is easier when you experience cultural differences in a relationship instead of in a book.

Now, RVing is a predominately white past-time so, that's not what I mean. I mean by going out into the community where we are staying and getting to know the locals - local people, local food, local customs, local problems and successess. In my "homeschool" the number one most important curricululm is what I call "Poverty, Inequality, and Money: Causes and Solutions." My kids will get to experience this in living color.

5. Meet the Earth.

If the poverty and inequality lessons are the number one goal of my parenting then the second is "Amazing Earth: Plants, Animals, and Symbiosis. (lol, I'm loving my course titles. Of course, in case you don't know, I'm a "un"schooler so there won't be any curriculum at all). You simply can't ignore the needs of our planet when you strongly realize that WE ARE OUR PLANET. We aren't separate. We are one. The love of one is the love of the other. The health of one is the health of the other.

I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. – Henry David Thoreau

When you think of environmentally-friendly living the word "RV" probably doesn't come to mind. And yes, RV's are gas guzzling hogs. Especially if you use one on vacation to travel 3000 miles in two weeks! There are fulltime RVers that live very "on the grid" and may have an equal or larger carbon footprint than someone living in a traditional home. But, there are others that live a decidedly "off grid" life in an RV. I'll write more about the "Green RVing" life we'll be persuing!

6. Escape the Monetary Economy.

This is not the space to get into this in detail but we believe that the current monetary economy/capitalism is incompatible with human-honoring goals. We hope to experience things like communes, ecovillages, barter/borrow economy, and cooperative living. Check out the resources on this post for more info.

In our rich consumers’ civilization we spin cocoons around ourselves and get possessed by our possessions.
- Max Lerner
7. Family Centered Living

I've always been fascinated by the Amish. (Right, Zoe?). It isn't the religious aspects I like but the family-centeredness of everything they do. We see them work 1478954_10102028271020644_1208691901_nso hard to make food without modern conveniences like tractors or washing machines and think "yuck!". What I love about the life of the Amish though is every task they do is in service to their family and community. They (rarely) wake up and leave all day to work for someone else. They wake and work hard with and for their family. I want this for my family.

Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is not safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing. – Helen Keller

I could think of more but this sums up the primary philosphy that's guiding our path right now. It is our path for our family. Yours may be different and that's ok! That's better than ok. It's what makes our world so rich: diversity.
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