What Did RV Life Cost Us? A 2023 Expense Breakdown

One of the big questions asked about RV life is how much does it cost? This is a great question, however, it isn’t an easy one to answer. It can vary based on many factors such as whether you have a camper loan or not, the age of the camper, how often you move, where you travel, and where you camp. Then you also add in what and where you eat, what kind of excursions you participate in and how often, etc. In other words, it can vary just as much as living in a house.

We’ve always had a budget and usually stick to it pretty well. In 2023, we had a lot of obstacles come at us. We traveled fast. We weren’t as vigilant at tracking and curbing spending as we should have. And it was an expensive year for everyone!

If you watch our videos on Facebook, you may have seen our camping expense breakdown video already (here’s a link if you missed it 2023 Camping Expenses and the chart is below). I also shared on our Facebook page a link to a blank copy of the Travel Tracker that you can access and save a copy to track for your self, so here it is for you, too.

I had some questions about spending in other areas, and so that video is also live (here’s al ink if you missed it 2023 Expense Breakdown or see the chart below). I thought I’d break it down here, as well, if you prefer to to read about it.

We designed this year’s copy of Our Travel Planner to include a budget and expense tracker section, as well, to help keep your finances and travel organized in one place. Here’s the link to our page that always has most current Amazon link of Our Travel Planner for you to purchase for your self, or gift to an RVer in your life.

So, let’s get into how much we spent, and what we spent it on!

CAMPER LOAN We made that grave mistake of financing a brand new camper when we decided to go full time, so, sadly, that means we have a loan, and a loan payment for awhile. Even worse, our first camper wasn’t a good fit for us so we had to upgrade into another new camper with a loan about a year later. That makes this category our most expensive at $9476 for the year, which averaged out to $790 a month since we roughly doubled our camper loan payment (inflation and interest, plus a more expensive coach–we do not recommend this!). We have learned the hard way that this is not a smart way to go financially, as much for the cost as for the imposition since the first year is spent doing lots of warranty work at the dealer. it made travel planning a challenge since we had to stay close by for when they worked us in.

INSURANCE This is a necessary evil for everyone, and since we are on the road surrounded by clueless drivers, it is one we stay on top of. We have only the 5th wheel and our tow vehicle, which helps, but we are Floridians, so we experience high rates. We also have a rental policy for our home base since we keep belongings there that don’t travel with us, or are seasonal. That being said, our truck and rental insurance was $2319 for the year, averaging $193 a month. That went up with our renewal first of the year, sadly, so we are shopping around and looking for ways to cut costs. Our camper policy was $1398 for the year, averaging $117 a month, and we are expecting that to go up with our next renewal, as well. It’s not as easy to shop for insurance as a full timer, so we may just keep it as is.

TECHNOLOGY We have a fantastic plan with Verizon that has served us well. We have a family plan for us, two parents, and our jet pack. Our phones get us unlimited data and calls/texts, with 25G of hot spot data, and our jet pack has 100G of data. So far, this set up has served us perfectly. We’ve had issues at only 2 campgrounds, which we knew ahead of time looking at a map, and twice the towers have gone down for a bit, requiring us to head to a local cafe. We work and do school online, as well as stream movies and our son games with friends. We monitor closely so don’t know how much throttling it does, but we’ve been happy with our coverage. For the year, it cost us $3113, averaging $259 a month. We have a Dish tailgater for when we want TV that has an on/off plan for $75 a month when in use, but we haven’t used it in ages since we usually get over the air TV without issue.

CAMPING EXPENSES This was the one I did a separate video on. We have 2 memberships (maybe 3, depending how you count). We have a Thousand Trails membership that gives us access to all TT parks in the country, as well as the Encore upgrade and park to park ability. The TT membership is a loan we are nearly paid off and still have 3 years of membership left, this costs us roughly $139 a month. Then the Encore package is a separate annual fee of about $86 a month, but goes up annually. We also have Harvest Host/Boondockers Welcome membership for $150 a year.

In 2023, we also splurged a few times. We did a week at Disney’s Fort Wilderness, a week at Camp Margaritaville in Auburndale, then during our travels out west, we had a week in Texas, as well 2 weeks of traveling several national parks and staying with hookups in parks. We stayed at a couple of private campgrounds through the year, camped the Tampa RV show, and then the costs for overnighting at Cracker Barrel or Harvest Hosts (custom is to make a purchase). We also had an overnight at a hotel when we traveled to family without our camper. Since we contribute to the electric bill at our home base, I include that in the camping expenses as well. All this brought our grand total to $9352or $779 a month on average. Since we won’t do the big ones again and plan to boondock more or use our memberships, we expect that to be somewhere around half that this year, although if we pay our loan off early, it may be the same, then a lot lower the next couple of years.

FOOD This is the category we got way too carried away in. We’ve always been good about a budget, but last year, we had a lot of things come up that threw us off and we just got complacent–it was easier to go out. When we did grocery shop, we weren’t as vigilant about meal planning and prepping. Add all that up along with the dramatic increase in food costs and it spelled disaster for our budget. We ended up spending $8786 for the year on groceries, and $4235 dining out, which averaged out monthly at $732 for groceries and $353 for dining out. This year, we are back to batch cooking, meal prepping, and eating at home a lot more, planning only a few dining out opportunities a month, so we should see that combined number drop by at least 30%.

FUEL We don’t do a great deal of extra driving, so kind of take the “it is what it is” approach to fuel. We do use the Gas Buddy app to find the best prices in our area, so were happy with what we spent here. We spent $7590 for the year, or an average of $633 a month. We did a couple of high speed cross country trips that brought our costs up for a couple of months, but we will plan our travels better this year so it will average out better.

PROPANE/MAINTENANCE Our rig uses propane for the water heater, the oven/stove, and the heat. We don’t use the propane heating very often, unless we need to warm the floors or undercarriage, opting instead to use electric heat when on hookups. Propane runs about $30 every other month in the summer, and $30 a month in the winter, which is a tank at a time. Maintenance includes oil changes and other maintenance on the truck. DEF fluid, and repairs or upgrades we did on the rig. All in all, we had no major issues, so $1737 for the year, or $145 a month wasn’t bad. This year we are hoping to upgrade our solar and we need to do something with our mattress, plus a few other odds and ends to the rig, so this category may be roughly the same.

ENTERTAINMENT We use this category for our Netflix and Audible subscriptions, Patreon fees for creators we support, books and movies, parks/gardens/zoo memberships and admission fees to parks and other recreation areas. We also include souvenirs in this category, although we keep those pretty low. Our son is in Taekwondo when we are home, so our fees for monthly training and belt testing are included here, as well. We’ve decided to let our Zoo membership and Bok Tower memberships expire since we just didn’t use them as much, and we look for more free activities or use our National and State Park passes when we can, so that will save us money this year. We spent $2256 for the year, $145 on average a month, but that will be lower without our memberships. If we find that it isn’t and we attend those locations, we can easily get another annual membership, though.

PET CARE 2023 was a rough year for our fur babies. We lost Molly, our senior doxie, last year, and she had a lot of issues towards the end as her kidney disease progressed. Shortly after we lost her, Luna had a bladder infection that resulted in an emergency room trip on a holiday weekend as well as a surgery. That resulted in an annual expense of $3000, averaging $250 a month, although most of that was within a 3 month time. We were blessed by a friend that covered some of these costs for us, since someone had blessed her during a pet emergency, so we will pay that forward at some point. Luna is on a more expensive diet now, but hasn’t had any issues in over 6 months, so her food, treats, flea prevention and grooming are the only expenses she currently has. That should be a lower cost for us, this year, as well.

HEALTHCARE/COPAYS 2023 was a rough year for me, healthwise, as well. I have asthma and severe allergies, so some of this is the cost of insurance through my employer, preventative care such as chiropractic and massage, but also includes copays for medicines and dentist, optometrist, and doctor visits. We spent $4500 last year, averaging $375 a month. I also went through a VA disability evaluation last year, which had additional testing, but also increased my rating, which means no more copays and more medical coverage for me. I expect this one to increase this year since our son is getting braces this year. We are saving up to pay cash and save a little on that cost, though.

IN TOTAL So our grand total for the year was $58,122 which works out to $4844 a month. We have created a very realistic budget after analyzing these expenses, though. Some are pretty fixed, some we can definitely improve on. We are aiming to reduce those expenses by $1500 a month, or more, if we can. We are replenishing our emergency fund and saving to pay cash for big expenses, which will save us on monthly costs. Luckily, these expenses haven’t resulted in us being buried in debt since we do still have income from full time work. We are also building our planner business, so there may be investments with that, and with any luck, result in more income.

We hope to be very transparent with sharing this since so many RVers, or aspiring RVers want to realistically know what it costs for the full time RV lifestyle. I’ll be doing monthly expense updates on our Patreon page, for those interested in following along!

If you would like to follow along and support our travels and postings, we’d love for you to become a BOM Squad Member through Patreon (link to our page) for $5 a month and get access to behind the scenes life and real time information that isn’t on our other social media. You can always follow us on social media and support us on Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok.

~Sonya