In August of 2011 we made a decision to downsize, we were motivated by several factors including the fact that with all of our travel due to art shows we were leaving a house empty 25% of the time, but still paying the mortgage and all the bills and hiring someone to do the yard, etc. etc.  Another big motivating factor was that we felt the house we had was too big for us, something smaller, more centrally located on the west coast would cut down on travel and expenses and allow us to give more to charities of our choice.  Plus we also wanted to save more, try to achieve a dream of early retirement and finally we wanted more time for life, not just driving up and down the highway between art shows, rushing home to catch up on the house, yard, etc.

 Through the decision to downsize, researching various states and what it would cost to move and where we would want to live, the decision to FT RV evolved and in March of 2012 we made the decision to RV vs. buying another, smaller house at this point in our lives.  Then the research began and I found this site that has been a wonderful find and I’ve had great fun in contributing to this site, learning from this site, asking those “dumb newbie” questions and for the most part feeling like this was a very friendly, very fun community.  In December of 2012 we bought our used 2010 DRV Mobile Suites and in April 2013 we bought our lightly used 2012 Ford F450, got the house ready to go on the market in late May, finally closed in mid-July.  For anyone who thinks it sounds like everything went really smoothly, you’re welcome to go back and read some of my posts during that time, to say anything went smoothly from January – June of 2013 would be a laugh, we had several BIG challenges during that time.  But you were all here, supporting and encouraging us and for that I am very thankful.

 Another thread that got hijacked yesterday, tried to discredit that fact that this life can be a cost effective way to live while being able to enjoy a little more out of life.  So, I thought I would try again in a more factual way to state that this is our experience, your mileage may vary, but here are a few facts and figures that might help.  I’m not comfortable disclosing on a public forum what our income is, so let’s just start with the fact that we’ve been blessed and have worked hard to be in the upper end of the middle class and I’m going to use percentages to explain how and where our income / expenses / savings / giving has changed once we’ve gotten stabilized a bit in this lifestyle, I’ve totally excluded the first 8 months of 2013 because at that point we had the house and RV, the truck payment for part of it, until the house closed and we were able to get out of debt and get past some of the one-time expenses associated with things like installing a hitch, etc.

 Life in our S&B:

20% of our income went to pay for mortgage, insurance, utilities, trash, cable, internet, home phone, security

 FT RV Life:

Slightly less than 10% of our income pays for:  Campground fees, propane, data plan, laundry, storage room expense and mail forwarding expense

Expenses that haven’t really changed:

• Fuel – we used to have 2 gas vehicles, now 1 diesel, our average cost per month is just over $300 (varies by season) and is close to what we used to spend for 2 vehicles when we had a house and traveled a lot for art shows, we’re actually traveling less miles a year now since we’re not heading “home” after every art show.

• Food – eating out and groceries – while we’ve had a few higher or lower than average, it’s about the same, we really haven’t changed our eating habits, we enjoy grilling a nice piece of fish or beef, enjoy wine and other good beverages, Dale’s going to continue to drink his micro or craft brews as his beverage of choice, etc.  I will say that I thought at first this would go up because I was buying smaller quantities, the small jar of mayo is more expensive per serving than the large, but fits better in the RV fridge.  What I hadn’t factored in is that we rarely have anything go bad any more.  I rarely throw away fresh produce and we’re much better at remembering what leftovers we have in a smaller fridge and actually eat them instead of them becoming science fair projects.

• Vacation – we usually took mostly driving / camping vacations and splurged on a cruise or flyaway (ex. Hawaii for our 20 year anniversary) trip every 3-5 years, but was not an annual high expenditure

• Gift giving – we have grandkids, what more can I say?  Grandma loves to spoil them

• Cell phone – still on the same plan, nothing there has changed

• Pet – still have food, vet bills, litter, etc.

• Personal care – we still have our haircuts, I no longer get my nails done every 2 weeks but we now indulge in a few massages a year

• Health and life insurance costs – stayed the same since I maintained my work from home job on the road.

• Vehicle maintenance costs – again, trading 2 vehicles for one, while the diesel truck is more expensive for oil changes, etc. we’re spending about the same to maintain one truck vs. a truck and  car that was getting a little old and was starting to need more repairs.

 Expenses that have decreased:

• RV/vehicle insurance, annual license fees, overall for us has decreased by about $50/mo.  Yes, we have a bigger RV and truck to insure, but we had a car, truck and TT before so our insurance and annual licensing is slightly less and we moved from WA to SD where annual licensing is less.

• Home décor - I don’t feel the need to change my household décor seasonally and therefore my expenditures at JoAnn’s and Michael’s have gone way down, did anyone hear Dale breathing a huge sigh of relief?

• Clothing & shoes – we just buy a lot less, nowhere to store tons of seasonal clothes so we layer a lot more and wear that same articles of clothing until they are worn out.  After 2 years on the road, and a recent purge of our closet, we found that we were getting rid of stuff that had actually worn out instead of just going out of fashion. 

• An intangible that I really didn’t track before and don’t really have a way to quantify is how much we’re not spending on “stuff”. 

  • Examples:

    • We no longer buy cookbooks, we both love to cook but have learned to look for recipes online

    • Magazines  - very seldom buy magazines any more unless I’m getting ready to board a plane, but they also don’t get carried around as long

    • Household cleaning supplies – much smaller house, we don’t need as much as did in a large house and we don’t have a large variety of cleaning supplies

    • NO YARD expenses, no fertilizer, no moss killer, no annuals, etc. etc. 

    • Kitchen gadgets – no room to store them

 Expenditures that are hard to quantify:

• RV maintenance compared to house maintenance has been a little more, but I find this harder to quantify. We spent almost 10K in the 5 months before our house went on the market painting, repairing, etc. plus we had to replace the furnace.  Now, if we had stayed in the house we would have had to replace the furnace, we also wanted to replace the carpet in part of the house but just hadn’t gotten around to it until it was time to sell, but we were happy with our paint colors and I never would have painted the entire house the ugly neutral look if it were my choice.  And to be honest, before we decided to sell,  I didn’t do a real good job of tracking all the Home Depot, Ace Hardware and Lowe’s expenses between home maintenance vs. yard care.  However, I do know that our RV maintenance has been less over a 2 year timeframe than all my receipts from the hardware stores on an annual basis if I exclude the expense related to just getting the house ready to sell.

Our end result on the 3 goals we had after we made the decision to downsize that eventually became a decision to full time RV:

• Income – has actually gone down a bit, we’re doing less art shows, but enjoying more life and I have not had any raise or pay adjustments in 3 years.

• Savings – We were putting about 12-15% of our income into long term savings (401k, IRAs, etc) and usually had a bit of a nest egg.  Now we’re putting ~35% of our income into savings and we have a nest egg that could support us for 2 years if needed and is growing.

• Giving – we were giving about 10% of our income to charity, that is now close to 15% and we’re very happy about that

• Expenses – have decreased, end result our savings and charitable giving has increased

• Debt – decreased our debt by 100%, btw, I don’t mind sharing that what we had left owing on our house was right at 50K so our selling the house, paying off the RV and truck helped fund the larger nest egg.

• LIFE – and best of all, we’re happier, enjoying more life and have experienced the benefit of being able to be flexible to help family or friends out when it was needed, even if that meant we spent 7 weeks in Dallas last year that was never planned. 

 Everyone’s experience will be different, thought I would share ours, your mileage is sure to vary.  We weren’t making other drastic life changes such as retiring or quitting our jobs to find new income streams on the road, so I know our experience is different than many of yours.