We have been here in Texas since October 1st, and our expenses are back in line with the previous month (excluding September) which is nice. We are still running several hundred dollars above our initial predictions, but still within acceptable limits. We were hoping our annual expenses might be under $40,000 from reading and watching other full time rvers reports, but it certainly doesn't look like that is going to happen from our 5 months of living the full time RV lifestyle.
Although, our next 5 months will be fairly economical since we will not be traveling many miles at all, and it looks like we will be staying in Thousand Trails campgrounds exclusively through March so that eliminates approximately a Thousand dollars a month from our historical average expense of approximately $3,800. While we may not be buying Diesel, I am guessing our entertainment expenses may increase since we are so stationary. But, I don't know just what type of entertainment we may find in Southern Texas at the Age Restricted campsites we will be in (55 or Over) It doesn't cost a lot to play Dominoes or Shuffle Board.........
No need to redo the entire expense spreadsheet here since you can simply watch the video.
If you have any interest in how Thousand Trails works you can watch the section at the end of the October Expense video for a 5 minute walk through of how Thousand Trails works for us and might work for you if you are thinking about living full time in an RV. In a nutshell, we have spent $4,607 on thousand trails this year, and it will only be $607 per year indefinitely until we sell our membership.
We have currently spent 114 nights in a thousand trails campsite for free, so at a conservative value of $40 per night that would mean we have saved over $4,500 in campsite fees already with two months to go in 2017. Our Savings next year will very substantial since we only pay the $607 for the entire year.
Enough of all that, here is the video and I hope you find it somewhat insightful in what it cost to live this lifestyle.
We sure enjoy these updates. It's really helpful and interesting to see the budget broken down with your spreadsheet. It's also great to hear more about the pros and cons of the Thousand Trails campgrounds. Thanks for another awesome video. Hope that you guys have a wonderful week! Love you!
ReplyDeleteGreat stuff :)
ReplyDeleteIt is good to see everything organized so that we can see all of the costs that are easy to forget.
Question about the RV insurance. Is your insurance based on living in the RV full time and driving the amount of miles you drive each month (compared to someone who just uses their RV every few months). Do you think it will go up next year if you are required to report the current mileage to your agent? Also, does your RV insurance cover all of your belongings in the RV? For instance if someone broke into the RV will you were out for the day and stole your sweet drone, would your insurance cover that like a homeowners policy?
Hope you guys are having a great time.
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ReplyDeleteWe are having a greats week here at Lake Conroe. It has been a little too warm (mid 80s and humid) but that ends today and we are dropping 10 to 15 degrees going forward.
ReplyDeleteGreat question Steve, I called our insurance company (Allstate)before we started out and discussed what they call "Full Time" insurance on our RV which covers the issues you mentioned and things like someone suing you if they got hurt in our RV.
Allstate doesn't offer this type of insurance but I am happy with them and how they handle our claims so we decided to stay with them anyway. We will just assume the risk of having our personal belongings and I think the RV park will have insurance for anyone getting hurt in our campsite and we don't have too many folks come inside the rv, so it is a risk I think I am comfortable with. I think the premium would be about $2000 per year for full time insurance with Good Sam Insurance and we may get it in the future. Since we don't have a actual home anymore, we had to cancel our "Umbrella" policy also as Allstate requires a homeowners policy to issue their umbrella policy.
Many if not MOST full time rv folks go with the Full Time RV insurance so we are in the minority on this issue and may change with our next renewal in August 2018
November 8, 2017 at 4:17 AM