When it comes to your RV’s cost of ownership, is it what you expected?

Many RVers freely share worksheets showing what it costs to live on the road, but the elephant in the room is the long term costs of maintaining your RV and support vehicle.

This is my first post dedicated to long-term costs of towing our 2007 24′ Arctic Fox fifth wheel trailer with our 2006 Dodge Ram 2500 diesel 4×4 SLT quad cab.

Why We Chose This Combination

• You only deal with repairs on one engine
• The cost: we didn’t have to mortgage it.
• The Dodge Cummins diesel engine is the best EVER.
• Arctic Fox trailers are renowned for quality (there are exceptions, of course)

Dodge Pickup Cost of Ownership Revealed

With that being said, the Dodge pickup isn’t exactly known for a low cost of ownership. Edmunds says our 2006 model should be expected to cost about $56,561 over five years to own (including everything from taxes to repairs), while our dream truck, a 2011 Dodge with a built-in exhaust brake will cost $65,159 over five years.

So, how accurate are their numbers?

According to my records, we’ve spent a grand total of $29,513 on our Dodge since we bought it with about 24,000 miles on the engine in April, 2007. For numerically challenged people like myself, that’s $7,378 a year.

This figure includes everything including fuel, registration, insurance and repairs. Buying used probably helped reduce Edmond’s figure, assuming they include the hefty licensing and registration fees that accompany buying a new vehicle.

That makes me feel good! Especially considering the kind of wear and tear we put on the truck by hauling the house around. As our odometer hits 100,000 miles in the next season and our Cummins engine warranty expires, let’s hope we can keep this low cost of ownership up!

Arctic Fox Cost of Ownership Revealed

Here are our facts and figures for our Arctic Fox 24-5N fifth wheel.

Since we purchased it in 2007, we’ve spent $8,662 on everything from trailer brake repairs to solar upgrades to general maintenance.

That’s $2,156 a year.

RVers are left by the wayside when it comes to the real cost of ownership.

There are no sites like Edmunds (that I know of) which show RVers what to expect over the long haul for their make and model.

Maybe this is because RVs come with so many options and variables, some with more duct tape, some with less, some get hauled up, down and around the country, some hardly move at all.

This RV.net article is one of the best I’ve found when it comes to analyzing RV ownership facts and figures over a year, but it still doesn’t consider long-term variables.

One thing RVs all have in common is their rapid depreciation rate, which, like a car, is all the more reason to buy a slightly used model.

I confess that we didn’t buy a used trailer: at the time of our purchase, we weren’t living the debt-free lifestyle, and neither one of us had ever owned any brand new vehicles. We felt that a brand new trailer was our reward for knocking ourselves out over our business for the last decade. Even though debt-free guru Dave Ramsey would think we were morons for buying new, we both still agree that we made a good choice. I’m certain we wouldn’t do it again, however.

Our Choice Still Works for Us

Owning a RV isn’t cheap for anyone, but it’s the overall lifestyle itself that costs less than when you live in a stick house. Some RVs like ours are cheaper to own than others but they all have necessary repairs, which although they shouldn’t be a surprise, are always painful and happen when you least expect them to.

Most of our road ripping friends have gone through at least two different RVs since they started, but we still love our house on wheels.

The main reason for staying with what we have is also about money; getting into anything newer would require financing, which we just won’t do.

Our fifth wheel – truck combo has worked well for us and and while I would love to feel like a rock star in a Prevost or a Foretravel, I know I wouldn’t love the cost of paying for a single tire on one of those beasts, unless I could pay for every single related item in cash.

That ain’t gonna happen today, but hey, that’s the goal!

Our time in Arizona has come to an end, just in time for the heat to set in.

We arrived in Elfrida in mid-February, already knowing that the caretaking job we had agreed to do at one property had morphed into a caretaking job at another property just down the road. Long story.

Unsure of what to expect when we agreed to that job, we went with the flow and gave it a shot.

“At it’s core, adventure is a willingness to commit to an uncertain outcome with an open heart and an open mind.”

Our situation ended up being much different than we originally envisioned, but it was still a positive adventure. We connected with some great folks who we plan on staying in touch with for future winter caretaking opportunities.

Just as we were getting ready to go, a very dear friend of ours from Eureka passed away. He was young and vibrant and should never have left this earth so soon. The unfairness of it all is upsetting beyond words.

We’re not ready to share his story just yet, since a life like his deserves so much more mental bandwidth than I can dig up right now.

When word came of his passing, we knew we had to be there for his memorial service in Eureka. So instead of pointing east to Texas, we turned and went the other way.

After a too-brief visit with family in L.A., we’re now driving north and will be in our old stomping grounds, Humboldt County, for a short stay. Time to dig up the winter clothes that I had just put away.  Brrrr….

Good, bad, boring, adventurous, whatever; there’s never any telling what will happen in life. All we can do is live as best we can and try to make a positive, lasting impact on others in this world, just as our friend did.

Snowbirds like us head to Arizona for its warm winters, but for some reason, Mother Nature thinks that this entire continent should experience a real winter this week.

I know we should be thankful we’re not in the Midwest tonight. But that’s why we do what we do, to get away from awful winter weather!

Since we’re boondocking with solar and our Honda genny isn’t really ideal for running the heater, we’re really, really cold, and testing the limits of our heartiness.

Our Wyatt Ray doesn’t seem to mind.

NuRVers Gather

We arrived here after a week at the Slabs, just in time to catch the last week of the NuRVers meet-up.

Since the end of December, various members of NuRVers have taken over a small patch of dirt here at La Posa South.

The cool kids told us we missed out on a lot of the fun, like the fireside sword swallowing show, but the crew wasn’t too spent to save some for us.

Along with nightly potlucks and good eats, there were copious amounts of cocktails consumed while sharing crazy stories about life on the road.

And in-between the raucous evenings in front of the campfire, we worked hard at our creative endeavors to fund this ideal lifestyle.

From accountants to graphic designers, we all embrace the technologies that allow us to live without boundaries. With Internet access on the road, anything’s possible.

Are you Nu?

NuRVers is a group specifically for RVers who break the mold.

Forget the stereotype of a crotchety, decrepit old couple cruising across America in their golden years.

We are singles, couples and families who choose to break from convention and live our lives on the road, enjoying all that this great big world has to offer.

You don’t have to own a certain type of RV to belong, and nobody will judge you based what you drive or how you look, whether your straight or gay, twentysomething or beyond.

Nobody will tell you how you “should” tow your toad or dump your load, and there’s no know-it-alls who are allowed to run the show.

The only criteria for joining is having a free spirit attitude that welcomes diversity, fun and spontaneity.

Some folks, like Trippin’ with Stanley, have just embarked on their road trip lifestyle. While others are veteran road tripping warriors who’ve been doing it for years. There’s no end to the different ways we all reached the conclusion that life on the road is just more fun!

As Jim and I head into our fourth year of this slightly unconventional lifestyle, it feels great to be connected with such a great group of people who we have so much in common with.

The Nu party is over now, and everyone’s gone their separate ways. But we’ll stay in touch in the Forums, and probably meet up again this spring, somewhere in the Texas Hill Country.

Tonight, as the mercury drops to the lowest temperatures this state has ever seen, I’ll dream of the day when the weather becomes more civilized, and the umbrella drinks will start flowing once more under big starry skies with the NuRvers crew.

The fulltime lifestyle is always a good time until something goes wrong. From spent brakes to getting stuck in the mud, if you’re going to make it on the road you need to be comfortable being self-reliant and making decisions on your own.

RVing lifestyle challenges can bring couples closer together if they learn how to navigate these challenges . . . or they will end up killing each other and calling the road trip done.

We have faced our share of road trip calamities. We’ve always survived, but oftentimes at the cost of out of control emotions, expensive repairs and a sad sense of feeling like we were all alone in the world.

At times like that, even this tough chick will admit it’s lonely being out there without friends or family to call and bail you out.

Up here in the mountains, we have neighbors, but they’re not close enough to see from our property. We get the impression that people live up here for a reason . . . they don’t want to have neighbors. They’re hermits. I guess that might make us hermits too, but really, we aren’t. We just like the scenery.

Stranded on the  Mountain

Last week our trusty Dodge died (which Jim will eventually write about). My worst nightmare came true; we were stuck on our mountain without a vehicle (other than Jim’s motorcycle). Although Jim made a valiant effort to fix the problem the previous week, it returned last weekend, leaving us stranded again.

We had two options; either fork out serious cash for the 80 mile tow to the great diesel mechanic we found in town, or call our newly relocated friends, Lisa and Sean Purcell, who just planted roots here in Fort Collins after fulltiming with their kids for nearly two years. Suspecting that we had an electrical drain on our batteries, we knew that their Ford F350 could jump our Dodge 2500.

After a quick text to Lisa, she and Sean and their kids were on their way without hesitation. Instead of enjoying their new life in town on a beautiful sunny day, they drove the 80 miles to get us started and escorted us back to town to make sure we got there safely.

The Purcells saved us the towing fee, but their help was worth so much more than that. They gave us the emotional therapy we needed to get through a stressful situation. They made us laugh, got our truck started, then saved our day from crumbling into catastrophe. The two of them, their great kids and their dog Sophie turned a lousy morning around into a really nice afternoon with friends.

Thanks guys!

Life on the road is fantastic, and we’ll still keep snowbirding, but this proves there really is a lot to be said about a place you can call home.

We’ve always wanted to go RVing in Mexico. I have a long lost cousin in the beautiful small town of Cuernavaca, and I know other RVers who’ve spent long beautiful winters in Mexico. But when the border violence started escalating, we heeded warnings from friends and family and stayed away.

This year we tempted fate, and on a whim headed to Organ Pipe National Monument in Arizona, which is spitting distance from the Mexican border. It’s a beautiful park, much like Big Bend in Texas, but with more plant diversity (in my un-scientific opinion).

Being the low-budget travelers that we are, we camped at a remote free BLM campground outside of the park, and saw this warning as soon as we pulled in.

While we’ve heard rumors about immigration and drug running routes going through this park, we took this sign as more government hype.

That is until about 11 pm on our first night, when we saw a truck speeding through the campground, cruising around, obviously looking for someone.

While there were at least 5 other RVs in the park, it was a little disconcerting to think that really illegal activity was actually going on right outside our trailer. But with the swarms of border patrol agents hanging out in the area, we slept OK.

The next day we went on a long walk out into the desert and saw tons of beautiful plants and flowers. Later in the afternoon, I read about the murder of a prominent Arizona rancher that happened the previous day, about 200 miles from us in Douglas. The rancher’s murder has inflamed the anger of locals in the area who want more security. I can’t blame them.

The was the first border murder on U.S. soil since park ranger Kris Eggle was killed in 2002 while on duty near the park.

At the border town of Lukeville, we saw many RVers coming back from Mexico. I was partly jealous, partly thinking “those guys are NUTS!”

So what I want to know is, just how much of what we hear about the violence in Mexico is exaggerated by the media, and how much is real?

I want to talk to other RVers who’ve gone there in the last year, and find out what their experience was. Traveling south is something we really want to do, and I’m getting antsy to make this trek, possibly next winter.

Anyone with any feedback on recent RV experiences in Mexico, I’d love to hear about it.

When you RV, you always learn something new. Whether it’s about how to avoid dropping weird stuff down the toilet,  or learning new boondocking tips, you’re always growing.

When we met Kelly and Al last winter in New Mexico, I couldn’t believe we had been on the road almost two years and didn’t know about the Escapees Day’s End Directory. We were on our way to Texas to join Escapees because we knew about all of their perks, but we didn’t know about this one until Al and Kelly (aka The Bayfield Bunch) told us about it.

The Day’s End Directory is a comprehensive collection of practically every low cost and free boondocking spot in North America, compiled by the folks who know best, Escapees members. For just $5, you can join this private Escapees group, the Day’s End Yahoo Group, and gain access to the directory. It has literally thousands of locations of free and cheap campsites, and members update the information regularly.

The only downside to the Day’s End Directory is that it’s created in oldschool format. The book is available as a CD or .rtf file only, and you need to rifle through about 500 pages to find locations by state and city. It’s laborious and time consuming, and cost-prohibitive to print. To get around that, I created a PDF of the Western states we are visiting this year, and sent the file to Kinkos for printing. It cost me $12 to print CA, AZ, NM and TX.

I hope some day the Escapees powers that be will pay a young geek to  take over the project and convert the listings to some kind of searchable database like our friend’s Jenn and Johnny’s FreeCampsites.net.

But until then, this behemoth book is still the best money you’ll spend if you like to get out into the wild, or just need an approved, safe place to crash for the night.

A few people have been surprised to learn that we came to Nevada because I took a job for The Great Satan*. Yes, a J.O.B. It’s true; I’m working for the man again. I’m another cog in the machine. Punching a clock, drooling over that carrot they dangle over our heads called a “paycheck.”

A few months ago thanks to our friends at NuRVers, I learned about the seasonal job opportunities available at Great Satan locations around the country. Everywhere from Delaware to Las Vegas, thousands of little elves spring up out of nowhere and take over the company’s million-square foot warehouses to fulfill all of those holiday season orders for consumers.

The hours are grueling and so is the work. But the money is great and I’m really thankful to have this opportunity during such an awful economy.

Originally we were going to Kansas,where most fulltime RVing workampers go. But a few weeks ago, thanks to Jenn at HiTek Homeless, I learned about the Satan gig in Fernley, Nevada, just outside of Reno and south of the road to Burning Man. So we pointed West instead of East, and will be here until Christmas.

I’ll be punching a clock, while Jim stays home to run our Internet endeavors and babysit Wyatt the Wild Dawg. Tomorrow is my employee orientation, and then I start working ten-hour days next week.

Meanwhile, as all of you consider your holiday purchases this year, remember all of the bargains that Satan has to offer! And when you shop, please help us out by starting here with our link, so we can get an additional cut on the action!

*Recently I was told that I signed a Non-Disclosure Agreement which stated I cannot disclose anything about the Great Satan’s company or work conditions. Therefore, the real name of this company has been changed in all blog posts.

A few weeks ago we jumped the gun. In our excitement to actually commit to something tangible again, we told you about a fixer-upper house we were in escrow on.

I’d like to apologize for our premature announcement. We didn’t get the house.

Instead, we pulled out of that nightmare-waiting-to-happen, but only until our offer for a better property was accepted.

We haven’t wanted to say anything, fearing that we might jinx the deal. But now it’s safe to spill it, since we are closing escrow Monday at 11 am.

What Really Happened

We are now the proud owners of a 3 bedroom 2 bath mountain home, on 4.98 acres in Red Feather Lakes, about 50 miles northwest of Fort Collins.

A few weeks ago we learned that our fixer-upper had a very questionable foundation lying underneath it. Cosmetic repairs are one thing, but buying a house with bad foundation can be a horrible mistake. The heartbreaking news brought back bad memories of our previous money pit, of which we had to put a $23,000 foundation underneath. I cried as we debated whether or not to move forward on the deal.

That’s when we received a beautiful statue of St. Francis, from our friend Heather.

St. Francis was sent in honor of the 9 month anniversary of our Jerry’s departure, which happened on the Feast of St. Francis. Heather sent this to us on Jerry’s behalf, with an encouraging message essentially telling us to hang on to our dream. She had no we were already in escrow for the fixer-upper. “It’s out there,” she said, don’t give up.

Days later, as we were just about to give up on our search here, we saw the listing for something that sounded too good to be true.

Why We Bought It

Priced way below market value, the sellers are divorcing and just wanted to dump their weekend getaway. As soon as we saw it, we knew this was the spot we’ve been looking for.

It fits our criteria perfectly. It’s a simple, affordable property that won’t get us into debt. It sits on manageable mountain acreage near a town we love. And it’s almost within 2 hours of a major airport (Denver). The house is 9 years old and has hardly been used. It’s in perfect working order; it even has running water and heat! Other than the ugly kitchen cabinet doors, we love it.

The house lies in a beautiful mountain subdivision with exorbitant HOA fees, but they get us year-round road maintenance, and all the fishing Jim wants on about a dozen private lakes and river frontage. We could live here all year if we wanted to.

At 8400′ above sea level, Red Feather Lakes is a cool summer escape and a winter wonderland for Fort Collins residents. There’s a small community nearby with a couple of restaurants, a bar, a convenience store, gas station, and a post office. Many people live here year round, as Fort Collins is an easy drive to make. What more do we need?

It’s as close to perfect as we can get, but there’s just one problem:  Unlike the last place, which had a big flat space for RVs, this house sits on top of a gradual slope. and the driveway isn’t big enough for more than two RVs, at least until we do some grading. But, the good news is that the subdivision runs a nearby private campground with full hookups ($20 a night) for property owners’ guests.

So, with many thanks to Jerry and his pal St. Francis, and everyone who encouraged us to hang in there, we can safely say that we have found our dream property at 21 Hopewell Court, Red Feather Lakes Colorado.

I know my thoughts about the homeownership myth seem contradictory to what Jim and I are doing right now (buying a house), but hear me out. . .

For too long, Americans have been shammed into believing in the homeownership myth. We have been fooled by our banks, our lenders and even my financial guru, Suze Orman, into believing that buying a home is the greatest investment we’ll ever make.

It’s a lie. Over the years there have been studies that show that if you take the amount you spend on a home and put that same amount into the stock market, even in horrible markets like we have now now, the stocks will always yield a greater investment over the long term than the house will. So, why have we always been so convinced by financial “experts” that overextending ourselves to buy a show home is such a great investment?

Now that people are waking up to the fact that buying a house isn’t going to get us on the Forbes Who’s Who List, could we be entering a new era when people finally understand the true cost of home ownership?

I just finished reading John Steinbeck’s Travels with Charley, his classic road trip journey into the heart of 1950s America. In one section of the book, I was pleasantly surprised to find Steinbeck’s musings about the exciting new era of trailers and mobile homes in the 1950s. He was captivated at the thought of a home on wheels, and interviewed trailer park dwellers to ask them about their choices to live in a trailer instead of a stick house. One of them explains:

“Who knows that is in store tomorrow? . . . If a plant or factory closes down, you’re not trapped with property you can’t sell. Suppose the husband has a job and is buying a house and there’s a layoff. The value goes out of his house. But if he has a mobile home he rents a trucking service and moves on and he hasn’t lost anything. He may never have to do it, but the fact that he can is a comfort to him.”

Steinbeck goes on to say that even if the homes are financed through a lender,

“the payments, even if high and festoned with interest, are no worse than renting an apartment and fighting the owner for heat. And where could you rent such a comfortable ground-floor apartment with a place for your car outside the door? Where else could the kids have a dog?”

And so, I ask you, dear reader, when was it that trailer parks started getting such a bad rap?

Steinbeck asks a father living in a trailer court: “One of our most treasured feelings concerns roots, growing up rooted in some soil or some community.” How did they feel about raising their children without roots? The man answers him with:

“How many people today have what you are talking about? What roots are there in an apartment twelve floors up? What roots are in a housing development of hundreds and thousands of small dwellings almost exactly alike?”

Steinbeck wonders, “Don’t you miss some kind of permanence?”

The father answers::

“Who’s got permanence? Factory closes down, you move on. Good times and things opening up, you move on where it’s better. You got roots and you sit and starve. You take the pioneers in this history books. They were moovers. Take up land, sell it, move on. . . “

He adds: ” . . . suppose the place I work goes broke. I’ve got to move where there’s a job. I get to my job in three minutes. You want I should drive twenty miles because I’ve got roots?”

Even back in the 1950s, being able to go where the money is just made so much sense. I’d like to know when this ideaology fell by the wayside, and we started believing that being a chained to a mortgage and a big house was the smart thing to do. Everyone wants a nice place to live, but what’s the real cost of that lifestyle?

So, why are Jim and I buying property? Because there’s got to be a happy medium, dontcha think? For starters, it’s nice to have a break from campground fees. And we also need a place for our stuff! We think we can reconcile our need to roam with property ownership, because we’re only buying what we can afford, and won’t be indebted to a bank. Without that threat hanging over our heads, we’ll still have the freedom to live on relatively little income, move with the seasons like snowbirds, and go where the work is, if and when we need to.

At least, that’s the plan.

I was bad last month and forgot to post our road trip expenditures, so here’s two months worth, April and May, check our a PDF of our RV Road Trip Expenses for April and May 2009.

Some of our biggest expenses in those months weren’t really suprises, just the unpleasant realities of what it costs to maintain a fulltime RVing rig, such as $823 to repack the trailer wheel bearings, four new tires, a water heater repair and $111 on truck maintenance.

April also included paying taxes and our CPA, and $200 to join Escapees. Our phone bill went up, because we dropped our Virgin Mobile account after getting sick of their poor coverage in rural areas. Now we have Verizon, which gives us better service, but at a higher cost. Finally, all of these expenses seemed to have led heavy drinking because we overspent on booze again!

With these hefty spending months behind us, we’re hoping for some low budget months ahead. The plan is to find some land, get our remaining stuff out of storage in CA and bring it to Colorado, and then camp for “free” on our own property until the snow files.