This page is here so that you can see some of the original estimates that I made during the planning stage. I wanted to keep these available to show some of the things that I was right and wrong about when planning for my extended trip. Remember that the original estimates were done early on in 1997.

When I decided to go fulltime, I needed some idea as to the cost of life on the road. I did a little research, and came up with the following estimated costs. A lot of these estimates were based on very little hard data, but the numbers sounded good at the time.
 

I realize that it's only been a couple of months, but I'm beginning to get a feel for what it really costs..... I missed the boat in a couple of areas on the estimates, and will have to adjust them upwards to match reality. First, some explanation:

• Gas .. I figured on only 10,000 miles a year. So far, I have been averaging 2000 miles a month or so. Obviously the country is bigger than I expected! This estimate should probably be revised upwards by at least 50%. And I don't travel every day: I try to stay put at least 2 or 3 nites most everywhere I stop, and rarely travel more than 200 miles in a day. Well, If you do the math, that's 200 miles every 3 days.... or 2000 miles a month. Shazam! I suspect that as I spend more time out here, I'll probably travel less and stay put more, so for now I'll bump the estimate up to 17,000 miles a year, or about $10.00 / day or $3650.00 / year at the calculated rates of 7 MPG and $1.50 / gal.
• Camping .. I hit this one pretty close... I'm currently averaging about $12 a night, and some of the costs will be higher down south during the winter season, so no changes here.
• Food .. I missed this one by a mile! I was estimating a little over $6.50 per day for food, which is pretty low. What I failed to consider is that most of the non-edible items needed to conduct life-as-we-know-it always wind up as part of the trip to the grocery store. Things like cleaning products, plastic bags, bug spray and paper products all get added in. I guess it makes sense why my ACTUAL food bill is running closer to $13 per day! I think that this one will come down a little, but we'll just have to see. New estimate will be $10 per day, and I'll see if I can meet that....
• Bills .. No surprises here.... only the addition of $240 / year for the satellite TV service, and coverage for vehicle registrations, which I plumb forgot! New estimate is $4216 / year.
• Admissions .. I'm staying well under the original estimate on this one so far.
• Misc. .. Ouch! I'm running almost 3 times over my original (and admittedly optimistic) estimate of $2.35 / day. Part of the reason is that when you just start out living in an RV, there are bound to be a lot of little things that you discover that you need to make life more comfortable. This figure should drop over time, but for now I'm going to re-estimate it at $5 / day

 

 

Here's the revised information:
 

Revised Schedule of Estimated Costs

Bill	Basis for Estimated cost	Yearly	Daily
Gas	17,000 miles/year @ 7 miles/gallon @ $1.50/gal	$3650.00	$10.00
Camping	$15.00 per nite average	$5475.00	$15.00
Food	$300.00 / month	$3650.00	$10.00
Bills	Health insurance... $178 / month - $2136 / year  Trailer insurance... $350 / year  Truck Insurance... $300 / year  Mailbox and forwarding ...$200 / year  Cell phone ...$360 / year  Internet access ...$300 / year  Club dues (Elks, SKP) ...$130 / year  Medications ...$100 / year  Satellite TV ...$240.00 / year Vehicle registrations ...$100.00 / year	$4216.00	$11.55
Admission	Entrance fees for various attractions.. $2.75 / day	$1003.75	$2.75
Misc.	Assorted non-repeating costs... $5.00 / day	$1825.00	$5.00
	Grand Totals	$19,819.75	$54.30

Looks like I'm gonna have a little trouble getting by on that $16k / year I was planning on.... As more time passes, I will keep updating the revised cost schedule. But for now, I need to get busy and print up some more $20's!! ;-)

Here's a snapshot of my current costs with 46 days of data:



---


11/1/97

After over 100 days on the books, my costs are running pretty close to $50.00 a day. I have modified the database I'm using to allow for unplanned large expenses, such as parts and maintenance on vehicles, medical expenses and whatnot, to be tracked separately. Here's a snapshot of the current situation:



The unplanned expenses will be paid out of a separate fund that is there for "emergencies" until the fund starts to run low..... hopefully the unplanned costs will be few and far between. The major unplanned costs so far were a brake job on the truck, and a new muffler (expensive!) for the motorcycle.

---


OK, now you can see how my 'best laid plans' turned out. I'm happy to say that as I continue to travel, I get better at keeping my costs down and am actually getting closer to that original $16K a year figure. As with anything like this, YMMV. (your mileage may vary)


---