Hi Everyone. Well, after 15 years the RV-Dreams Community Forum is coming to an end. Since it began in August 2005, we've had 58 Million page views, 124,000 posts, and we've spent about $15,000 to keep this valuable resource for RVers free and open. But since we are now off the road and have settled down for the next chapter of our lives, we are taking the Forum down effective June 30, 2021. It has been a tough decision, but it is now time.
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I have looked at many fulltimer's budgets, one line item that I don't see is money to cover costs of entertainment; park fees, museum admissions, tickets for movies or even tram rides and canoe trips with Linda and Howard.
What do you set aside for those great things you see and do as part of your FT living?
Best Regards!
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Paul D 2007 Winnebago Journey 39K, Cat C7 AKA "R-SANITY III" 2003 Honda Element 4WD Toad AKA "JRNYZ-END" www.rsanityrvtravels.blogspot.com
I have wondered about that myself as I looked through many fulltimer budgets. Some seem to have a bit extra buried in several other budgets like gasoline, diesel, campgrounds, travel, etc and then they use any left overs for entertainment.
Although we aren't quite full timers yet we have a miscellaneous that serves for I wants and entertainment of about $300 a month. If the I wants are to big then there is no entertainment budget for the month. It is kind of a checks and balances. We also give ourselves a small allowance to spend carry or just blow if we feel like it. And then there is the eating out budget which doubles for entertainment in our way of thinking.
Other responses should be interesting.
Larry and Jacki
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Larry and Jacki-belle Linley with Taiga our minature dachsund - 2011 34 ft Montana towed by a 2014 Silverado Durmax Allison 4x4.
But if you haven't, ours is $200 a month to cover golf, park admissions, fishing licenses, fishing gear, guided canoe trips, movies, etc. There is no overlap with our $400 a month food budget (which includes groceries & dining out), but we know lots of folks that include "dining out" as entertainment.
We don't get too hung up on the category budgets during the year, just the monthly totals. So we "borrow" from categories just as long as we stick to the monthly budget. But the categories do help us analyze where the money is going so we can re-adjust each year if necessary.
We put eating out in entertainment and last year averaged $550 a month. Our food averaged just over $600 a month. We do a lot of sightseeing and eating out, as you can see.
Since we had no experience with this lifestyle and wanted to make sure to give it a good chance of sucess, we made the concious decision to "live large" with food and entertainment for the first few years, and just draw down on our asset base.
We don't feel it will be too dificult to cut these numbers back drastically when we decide to finally slow down and not move around so much. It's evident to us that at it's core this can be just about the least expensive, and most relaxed way to live.