The Budget Breakdown continues

The first thing on today's budget update is Laundry. No big budget buster here, but it does need to be addressed. Some RV'ers won't travel without a washer and dryer in their rig. All of the new RV's we have looked at have W/D hook ups in them. Or is that space better suited for storage? Only you can answer that question.

Myself, I want the storage space. But that's just me. Not right or wrong, just what I want. According to the BOSS, she thinks she can do our laundry for $30.00 per month There's only 2 of us and I'm no laundry expert ( I'm not even allowed in the laundry room here at home) but I think $30.00 a month is a little low. We'll just wait til we get on the road and find out and adjust the budget if needed.

Another easy budget item is postage. If doing your banking on line you don't have any checks to mail, Posting pictures on line lets the family know where you are and where you've been. So why is postage even on the budget? Well, grand kids like to get birthday cards. Even adult kids like to get birthday cards in the mail and they all need stamps. Its even fun to send out a post card once in a while. Maybe you won't spend $5.00 a month on postage, but hey maybe you could send me a card.

OK here it comes.

The no one answer will be correct EVER. Phone and Internet.

We've looked at all kinds of phones and all kinds of calling plans. You can get the latest and greatest phone on the market and pay out the Wazoo for it and it will probably work as your internet hot spot also.

Barb and I both have dumb phones, We wouldn’t know what to do with a smart phone. We went to Best Buy and talked to a salesperson and she told us we could keep our dumb phones and buy a Mifi hotspot and have internet wherever we were going. I guess only time will tell. You can go with a Straight Talk phone or one of the others like it and really put the squeeze on your phone budget. You can also use the campgrounds Wifi if they have it. Most of them do have it and its free.

You could search out the nearest McDonald's or Starbucks and use the free Wifi there if you don't use the internet that much. So for us we will use the dumb phones and a Verzion Mifi Hotspot for about $150.00 a month. Of course rates are changing all the time, they probably changed when I sat down to start typing this. Lets only hope the prices came down and not up

Breaking down the Budget

Camping Fees

   

Camping fees can vary greatly from campground to campground. So how can you stay without throwing the budget right out the window? Well you can join a camping club that will give you discounts usually about 5% to 10%. Some people join more than one club, but just know there is a cost to join and some restrictions about when you can stay and how long.

Passport America is a 50% discount club, and a true 50% discount plus tax of course.

A good site to check out for cheap camp fees would be Allstays.com. If you are just looking for a spot for just one night try Walmart parking lot, Cracker Barrel, Cabela's, the Elks club if you are a member. A lot of these places will let you stay overnight if you will ask first and maybe buy something from them. Some city and county parks will let you stay and some even have water and electric.

Don't forget truck stops, Flying J, Pilot. Most of these now have fuel pumps just for RV'ers and dump stations. Even interstate rest areas can be used to catch a few winks if needed. Just be careful and check out the area, if you have a bad feeling move on. It's never worth the risk.

One of the best ways to save on camping fees is to stay in one spot longer. Just about every campground has a price for nightly stays, weekly stays, monthly stays, and whole season stays. And naturally the longer you stay in one place the less driving you are doing, so more savings there.

Proposed Budget

This is a pretty frugal budget, but I think it will do for a start.  It can always be changed.

	Yearly	Monthly
Camp fees	6000	500/60
Laundry	360	30
Phone	900	75
Postage	60	5
Internet	900	75
Fuel Truck	6000	500/250
Food	3840	320
Dining Out	1440	120
Health Ins.	3600	300
Prescriptions	396	33
OTC Drugs	360	30
Truck Ins.	1560	130
5th Wheel Ins.	550	46
Maintenance
Truck Ins.	1200	100
5th Wheel	1200	100
Membership's	185	16
Propane	180	17
Tags	204	17
		2412

These are my projections, yours may be slightly different or way off from my numbers. Only time will tell.  The good thing is if you are going over in one budget item you can cut back in some other area.

The Budget

   This could get ugly but it needs to be discussed.
Before you even get your pencil sharpened there are some things you need to think about.

• Are both you and your spouse going to be retired living on a fixed income?
• Are only one of you going to be retired and the other needs to continue working?
• Have you heard of Workamping?
• Do you have investments to help you?

   Do you have a headache yet?

   In our case my wife will be retired and drawing her social security, I will still be at least 3 years away from retirement age.  There are different ways for you to live the fulltime RV life.  Notice I didn't say lifestyle.  Everybody has an idea of what kind of lifestyle they want to live.  You just have to figure out how to pay for it.

    I have been researching Workamping and believe this is how we will be able to maintain our livelihood. Workamping allows you to find a job that will supply you with usually a campsite and a small paycheck.  The best thing I can suggest to you  is to join Workamper News. Their website can explain it a lot better.

   The next step is to decide what budget headings you will have and then figure out your monthly expense for each item. For example you do some research and find out the average campsite will cost you $25.00 per night, that's 750.00 per month.  That's just an average, so it could be higher.  Of course there are ways to lower your nightly cost.  There's camping clubs you can join that can cut your cost a great deal.  You might also want to do some boondocking, we'll get into what boondocking is later. 
 
    I have my budget laid out and will put it on here so you can see what we are planning to do.  Of course you need to remember we haven't started yet so it will have to be tweaked quite a bit I'm sure.

Resources

A great source of information is RV forums. There are so many out there. All are easy to join and the members are very helpful. Some I check daily are

http://www.rvnetwork.com/

http://www.rvlifestyleexperts.com/

http://www.irv2.com/

http://forums.workamper.com/

http://forums.trailerlife.com/index.cfm

Another source of information comes in the form of books. Both print and E books are available.

The Frugal RV'er Written by Nick Russell

So you want to be a Fulltime RV'er By John & Kathy Huggins.

Support your RV Lifestyle Jaimie Hall Bruzenak

Choosing your RV Home Base   Roundabout Publications

Living Aboard Your RV by Janet & Gordon Groene

These are just a few of the many books available but a word of caution, don't go buying every RV'ing book out there a lot of them just rehash everything that's already been said. Good Luck and
Enjoy your Reading.

$$$ For Sale CHEAP

    Part of planning to go full time is trying to decide what to do with all of your stuff. No matter what type of RV you choose you will NOT have enough room to take everything. So what do you do with it all. You can give it away to friends and family, store it, which can run into a whole lot of money. Or sell it, thats the route we are taking. We've had 2 yard sales so far and though I feel we did pretty well, you can't even tell we've made a dent in what we have.

    Don't think you will get top dollar for your stuff, its not going to happen. That's not the idea anyway. You need to downsize so you can take only the items you need when you go. Remember your RV will have a weight limit and you don't want to go over that limit. And speaking of weights, that's a whole other kettle of fish. We'll talk about that later, (in other words when I can figure it out myself). Now back to the yard sale. Deciding what to sell is going to be one of the hardest things you will have to do. But it has to be done, it just won't all fit in the RV. I have a large book collection of my favorite author. No way it can go with us, so I'm giving it to my daughter. No I won't have my collection but I know it will be enjoyed and taken care of.

    It can also be quite funny as you start going though stuff. I was pulling tools out to sell and found I had three heavy duty staple guns. Not just three but all three were the exact same model number. Now how did I ever come to own 3 of the same staple gun.Who knows, anyway two of them went into the yard sale.

    Well we plan to have plenty of yard sales until everything is gone. Here's hoping you have much success in your sales.

Research

Research

    When starting your research you will want to request brochures from many different manufacturer's. Trust me they will be more than happy to send them to you. Also pick them up when you visit the dealers. Don't be afraid to ask questions, but be prepared to learn salepeople will tell you what you want to hear not what you need to know. That's why YOU need to do your own research. In other words know the answer to your questions before you ask them. This way you will know if you can trust the saleguy or not.

   Manufacturer’s websites have all kinds of information for you. You can look at every floor plan that the company makes and take a virtual tour of a lot of different models. 

Eating an Elephant

GETTING STARTED

Where to start??? Now that's one heck of a question. There's so much to do and so many questions to ask. But just like eating an Elephant, you take one bite at a time

Step One-BOTH OF YOU COMMIT

As I said earlier my wife jumped in 100% and I'm at 100%, so that's 200% willing to do this Full Time adventure to see our great country. But you see that’s just the thing, if both of you aren't willing to commit to this way of life you are wasting your time. I can't imagine bopping down the road trying to enjoy the scenery and my partner is fuming, it just won't work.

After we committed we had to decide what kind of full timer we were going to be. Travel everywhere in this great land or Snowbird (North in Summer, South in Winter) Since neither of us is of retirement age yet and we have so much we want to see, we'll be traveling and Workamping across the USA.

You will need to start looking at RV's, lots of them, every kind. Class A's, Class C's, 5^th. Wheels, Travel Trailers, OK look at Class B's, but I don't recommend them. That's just my opinion. They are just too small to full time in. Now when I say look at them, really look at them. Pretend you are living in it. Sit down at the dinette, kick your feet up in the recliner. Lie down on the bed, act like you are cooking dinner in the kitchen. Can you get into the shower without banging your head? That's what I mean by LOOK at the RV.  And look at dealers everywhere you can.  Now don't drive across country to look, but set a limit, say 150-200 miles from home.  Go looking.

A little about us

   My wife Barb and I have always liked to camp.  But as we get a little older each year the ground becomes a little harder.  So after having our tent blown over and having a pole snap in high winds last year in Tennessee I made the declaration I will never sleep on the ground again.  If we go camping ever again it would be in a camper.
   So began my research.
I started looking on the Internet for campers and soon found these blogs by people that actually live in them full time.  The more I looked the more I believed we could do that also. I watched YouTube video's by the hundreds, I read blogs, I found forums devoted to living full time in a camper.  Then in January the Atlanta camping and RV show came to town.  Up until now I had kept my full timing  dream quiet so as not to scare Barb with my crazy thoughts of living on the road.  She still thought I was looking for a weekend camper.
   Well was I ever surprised how quick she jumped on board after the RV show.  She was all in and wanted more information on how it would all work.  I was ready to jump in feet first, she on the other hand and more sensible of the two of us wanted more choices, options, and answers.
   So until we can take off on our full time adventure I will attempt to keep you informed of what we learn and decide as we continue our  DREAM.

The dream begins

   As the title of my blog says I've been dreaming of becoming a full time RV'er for awhile now.  About one year to be exact.  I feel for the dream to become a reality it needs to be stated publicly. The more people that know your plans the more determined and focused you become.

   The purpose of my blog is to let others know what I've done and found out on my way to becoming a fulltimer.