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Selling an appreciating asset to purchase two depreciating assets? Hmmm......
Upstate NY is losing population. It took us a yr to sell our other house ($150K on 9 1/2 acres). We have our current farm/ house for 4 sale for 7 weeks- not 1 person looked ( a farm with 103 acres, 4 brns, Victorian farmhouse). Our friend moved in with her boyfriend and wanted to sell her house- couldn't sell it ($135K) for 2 yrs, now rents it out, another friend has their vacation house in the Berkshire Mts in Massachusetts for almost a yr. Hubbie's neice has a condo on Long Island, bought it for $350K about 10 yrs ago, now it's worth about 1/2. Every one of these examples are in a different area of NY, both upstate and down state, and 1 example in Massachusetts, but within commuting distance of both Albany, NY and a little farther to Boston.
In many places, a home is not an asset anymore. A truck or car you always need, except living in LA or NYC, etc. with good public transportation, taxis, etc.
We have no heirs, so there is no one to leave money too. If we need to (as we age)- pensions and SS will pay for assisted living, if we get too ill or disabled for that, the assisted living MUST place you in a nursing home, and if you have no money, you go on Medicaid. (both of us were a state dept of health inspector- we did this as a job).
We are only researching FT RV'ing. May not end up doing it. May only get a trailer and newer truck, and travel to find our place to retire.
I do appreciate what you are saying, and understand. I would never have thought of doing the RV thing if the housing market was better. Maybe if we settle in a different state, we will find things better.
Where do you live now? I can't interpret your income info. How much do you spend on your housing now? do you have a house to sell???
Yes we have a house (farm actually) to sell. We live in upstate NY, North of Cooperstown. Our Mortgage (P & I) is $1094/ month and property taxes are about $7K per yr. We are hoping the taxes go down this yr (they'll still be about $5-6K) because we now rent out our hay fields.
You can read and plan all you want but until you buy something and get on the road and get some experence you will not know what rv is best for you. I suggest you buy a used rv and start doing some camping/rving now even if it's just at the local campground to see if this lifestyle is actually what you want to do.
As far as cost I believe most people will find that they do not want to change from the social status/lifestyle that they have been used to living.
I find that the full timers that I meet that are not enjoying being on the road and are wanting to go back to their old lives are the ones that tried to dramatically change their financial lifestyle. It's simple, if you are use to eating at 5 star high end restaurants every single night and then switch to eating at crappy fast food places nightly sure you are going to save on your monthly food bill but you are not going to be happy or enjoy the experence. So why do it?
Rving is the same way, you may change the materialistic items that you have in your life, sure that is easily done. But trying to change your financial lifestyle voluntarily really does not work for most people.
So after reading this whole long post, what is the answer to the question. How much does it cost to full time rv? I think you will find most full time rvers spend prerty much the same every month living in their rv as they did living in their stick and brick home.
What we want to do mostly is seeing the nat'l parks, etc
and help us decide where we want to settle down for the big downward slid.
I thought we could do guerrilla RV'ing for a year or 2.
If you go into it PLANNING to sell the RV within two years... maybe so.
You might even be able to justify (er rationalize) buying a nicer/newer unit.
Just plan your route well to not waste the fuel/wear duplicating.
otoh... you probably KNOW the 3 or 4 spots you would like to retire in. Right?
Assuming so I say to forget the RV and instead look for sublets and other
similar furnished short term rentals (3-6 months).
Really dive into the day to day of those (3 or 4?) places.
Use that experience to make a truly informed decision on which is the best.
One of the red flags I think I saw was that OP wouldn't even be considering the full-time lifestyle if the housing market were better. The full-time RV lifestyle is a big commitment and not to be taken lightly unless you have lots of money so that if it is a mistake it won't matter financially.
Right now, the market is overloaded with used RVs which drive the prices down. The two things that I see that hold value are 1. fiberglass molded like Scamp, Casita, Escape, etc. pretty small (Fiberglass RV - Powered by vBulletin) 2. Class B - van campers like Roadtrek. They hold their value. I can't think of any others that would be a good bet.
We have full-timed and I am planning to return to the lifestyle. I never want to live in a sticks and bricks again and plan to do this on a limited amount of income, so my way would probably not be suitable for OP. I just want to be "free of it"!
Yeah, the biggest thing about those Class A's is parking within a city, and I rarely see them parked within cities. THEY ARE "WHALES!" To be constricted within $50+ a night campgrounds really hurts unless you are rich, and you might as well forget an RV then and just stay at hotels around every city in America. And aren't Class A RV's too big to camp in Yellowstone National Park?
If you want to "urban stealth camp" in style, the latest 2016 - 2017 Chrysler Pacifica [a hybrid version is coming out too, - Really awesome] is one hot number that will tow a "Stealth Cargo Trailer." The two best cargo trailer brands I have seen so far are the Continental Cargo brand [by Forest River] and Legend Trailers [all aluminum, expensive, lightweight, but high class!]. If you don't want to consider RVing FT or permanently maybe the vehicle / towing a cargo trailer would be a better option [but you sleep in your customized modified vehicle or cargo trailer - I have seen other people do this already]. But a Winnebago Rialta or a Roadtrek towing a Legend or Continental Cargo trailer would be an awesome RV combo to go everywhere.
Yeah, sometimes I am doubtful about my lifestyle... Living in a minivan... But the terrible jobs market for engineers and the decline of America forces me to consider this very money saving option. At least I am figuring out optimized techniques of seeing America on the CHEAP! The money I save not paying for hotels or a campground fee [$50+ a day] goes towards enjoying FOOD! But I tell you truthfully, the one thing that does break my budget is that I go shopping or thrift shopping nearly everwhere or every city I go and I get tempted to BUY STUFF, hence I truly am breaking my budget this way!
What the OP can do is move every possession they have in their house into a storage lot [that's what happened to me]. Then they can rent or sell their house easier. You don't have to abandon or sell all of your possessions to live an RV lifestyle, you can temporarily store all your possessions in storage!
Last edited by PJSaturn; 07-28-2016 at 09:00 PM..
Reason: Orphaned (reference to post which has been deleted).
Thanks everyone. Wanted to see what others say, get ideas we may not have thought of. Have lots of pros and cons to weigh. Still have time to do a lot of thinking and research. Thanks again.
JTE1969 your last two post show just how inexperienced you are at rv'ing. Normally I try to read post like yours, shake my head and move on without replying but this time I think I will break my own rule and make a reply.
For someone that lives in their car in and around Chicago you seem to know very little about the rv options in the city because if you did you would know that Chicago offers some of the cheapest downtown rv parking of any major city.
Rv's can legally stay at McCormick Place, they have three seperate parking lots to choose from. These lots are gated and controled by security 24 hours a day. Last time I was there it was 17 bucks a night to park my "WHALE" which is about what you would pay to legally park your van in a parking lot in that section of the city for just one hour.
Oh and the Yellowstone National Park comment, I have stayed at YNP several times in my class A also with no problems (again its painfully obvious you have never been) so let me give you a little advice before going which is you can not camp in your rv or sleep in your car or "stealth camp" as you like to call it within the gates of Yellowstone unless you are at a designated campground (and the rangers are strick about enforcing that rule) so you are going to be paying the same nightly fee to stay at a campground that everyone else pays.
Never got around to FT'n... but we have done a lot of RVing since Feb 2000. It has been a blast. I would love to full time and we both have pensions and SS. I see no problems making it on $85K per year or even half that. It boils down to how you want to live. BLM lands are available for limited time for free. The senior park pass will help reduce some fees for parks etc.
A search of the Internet via Google will bring in a full library of info. Read, read, read and study up before you jump. It is not always what it seems. That being said life is short, do what makes you happy, worry about the rest later....... enjoy
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