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Have your expenses gone up faster than your income? Is your retirement in jeopardy? Have you been downsized or lost your job and wondered what you will do next?

The RV lifestyle allows many people – retired or not – to live a more frugal lifestyle. Not only are expenses less, but you can move whenever you want. You can visit places you have only dreamed of seeing.

AN RV AS ALTERNATIVE HOUSING

In this choice, before retiring or traveling full-time, you move into an RV in an RV park or mobile home park and reduce your housing expenses. Usually, the rent is much less, there are no property taxes, and utilities are much lower. At some point traveling may be in the picture or you can get involved in the community where you live. Mobile home parks and RV parks that cater to long-term residents have amenities and activities. They can vary from basics like a laundry room, possibly a pool, to full-blown activities, craft rooms, and courts for tennis and other sports.

This is also an option if you are a full-time RVer who is ready to hang up the keys. Rather than moving into a house or apartment, you continue to live in your RV or a mobile or manufactured home. You can choose a location with your favorite amenities and activities, close to family or doctors.

THE RV SABBATICAL

Taking a few months or a year off to travel when between jobs or when you want to relocate can maximize your dollars and time. Rather than pay for a furnished apartment or stay in hotel rooms, your house goes with you. An RV sabbatical is a good way to see if the full-time RV lifestyle is for you.

FULL-TIME RVING

As a full-time RVer, you are in control of your expenses far more than in a stick-n-brick house. Costs for an RV site have gone up over the past couple of years but they can be reduced by using directories, belonging to half-price clubs, boondocking, or volunteering for your site. Fuel costs can be controlled by how often you move from one location to another. Following mild weather reduces utilities. Your choice of domicile or tax home also affects your expenses.

GETTING STARTED

At RV Lifestyle Experts, we recommend you start with a used RV unless you are one hundred percent sure of what you want and get a smoking deal. But Make sure that it has no pests, you can use Orlando Pest Control. New RVs depreciate as much as thirty percent when driven off the lot. A used RV gives you the chance to test out the lifestyle and also lets you see what you want and what you don’t want in an RV before investing a lot of money.

For RVers, the benefit of working for a few months is not only some extra cash in pay, it’s also the freebies and perks you get and the money you save.

Perks and freebies you may get working or volunteering are:

1. a free or low-cost RV site. Volunteers at public agencies, employees at RV parks, and employees of concessionaires are examples of RVers who can expect this benefit.
2. additional perks such as free laundry, discounts, a free meal, and free or reduced-cost propane.
3. area businesses may offer courtesy or discount tours or entertainment so workers are familiar with what they offer. At Branson, Missouri, for example, if you work with the public you get free and/or reduced admission to all the shows.
4. a special excursion as an additional incentive or reward from the employer. One RV couple received a free glacier flight-seeing tour in Alaska.
5. training such as a new reservation system or other skills or training about the area. Employees and volunteers at national parks often go through a two-week training learning about the park from specialists like historians, natural resource specialists, geologists, and others. Learning a new reservation system at an RV park can help you get a job later on at another park.
6. a chance to do something you would consider playing while “working.” One volunteer couple at a national forest spent their “work time” kayaking to remote camping sites and taking the GPS coordinates. A solo woman RVer got “paid” to hike in the Chisos Mountains in Big Bend National Park. One summer, I was helped to get my boat license then spent one day a week out on the lake picking up trash, totally on my own.
7. an end-of-season bonus may be given if you stay the whole season. Ask ahead of time so you know exactly how to get it.

You can save money too:

1. When area businesses offer free tickets to seasonal workers in the area you save money on entertainment.
2. If you like to hike and take photos and work in a national park or national forest, you don’t have to spend money to have fun. And you don’t spend money on fuel to get there.
3. If you stay in one place while you work or volunteer for a few months, you are saving money on fuel. If you do explore, you probably use your toad (towed car) or your tow vehicle, getting better fuel mileage than your RV or than when towing your RV.
4. Staying in one place saves wear and tear on your RV.
5. Stores in some tourist areas give local discounts to residents and seasonal workers. Ask at restaurants and stores.

Working or volunteering on the road does help with your income, either directly by providing cash or indirectly by helping you save. You also get a richer experience. You may get to do things for free that you never would have done otherwise. Would my friends have paid for a glacier flight-seeing tour? Probably not. But they now have a video of the scenery from the plane and piped in music directly from the plane as the background! Would you go to 20 shows in Branson, Missouri if you had to pay full price? I know RVers who have seen that many at no cost while working there for a month or two. You may be missing the boat (or the plane) by not working or volunteering as you travel!

Do you track your spending and use a budget? Whether preparing to RV or already traveling on the road, a budget is a useful tool. It will help you decide if RVing is feasible and also help you stick to your spending plan while traveling.

Before RVing

Can you afford to full-time RV or even a snowbird? Completing an RVing budget, while not exact, will help you make realistic choices. If you do not have an RV yet, you can get a rough estimate of fuel by using 6 mpg for motorhomes; up to 10 for a diesel motor. The main insurance companies that provide insurance for full-time RVers will give you instant quotes or an overnight quote on their Web site to use as a ballpark figure. And you can use camping directories to get a rough idea of campground costs. It seems like campgrounds are charging an average of $25-30 a night, though you can certainly pay more. You can also use discounts and membership camping to decrease your costs.

The domicile you choose will also impact your budget. Your domicile is your tax home. If you travel full-time, you can choose a domicile more to your advantage. Taxes, insurance, and vehicle registration can vary immensely from state to state so this is an important decision.

On the road

RVers are fortunate that they can much more easily adjust their budget than can stick ‘n brick dwellers. Here are a few examples:

Housing or RV park costs: If you find yourself spending too much, you can stay in less expensive RV parks and stay in a water/electric site rather than one with full hookups. You can park overnight in a Wal-Mart parking lot where allowed. Boondocking (camping without hookups) on public lands or rest areas, where allowed, can be free. Many RV parks offer discounts for long-term stays. Stay for a week or month in one location and not only do you get a discount but you save on fuel costs too.

Propane: Adding a more efficient catalytic or ceramic heater to your RV and using that instead of the installed heater saves on propane costs.

Food: Food costs can be controlled by eating out less frequently and in your food choices.

Other purchases: Purchases are usually fewer because of space considerations. Some RVers stop exchanging gifts with family members or reduce what they spend. Unique items from your travels make nice gifts that don’t have to cost much. Or, the family may appreciate frequent postcards or phone calls instead of gifts. With a more casual lifestyle, jeans/shorts and t-shirts are suitable for most occasions.

Prepare for emergencies inevitably there are repairs and other emergencies that take a chunk out of the budget. If possible, have a rainy day fund or spend a little less than the allotted amount and put that aside.

A roadside assistance program comes with a monthly fee, but it more than pays for itself if you need to be towed or a tire changed when far from civilization. Read the fine print to make sure it covers such eventualities.

Set aside money for rig replacement too or for when you can no longer travel.

Control spending

Develop a method for tracking spending. A spreadsheet on your computer is a good way to keep track of and analyze your data. You can set up your spreadsheet by category and then sort to get totals for each one.

Tracking your spending will bring some insights. We don’t think of the little amounts like stamps and laundry and Starbucks. For example, when you see your cell phone and Internet access totals each month, it may prompt you to see if you can reduce that expense – or not. Since spending is all about choices, you can see if your spending is matching your values. Keeping in touch, for example, may be high on your list of priorities while eating out could be low. You can more easily make adjustments when you know where the money is currently going.

One method that has worked for me to stay within spending limits in each category is the envelope method.