Happy New Year to all my friends, family, readers, fans, and to everyone I've crossed paths with. Far or near, you make my life complete, you make me smile, even if you don't know it, and every one of you make life so much better! Here's to 2025, may we all survive: a little wiser, a bit more creative, and with more love than ever because we'll need it. Instead of a resolution, I'm going to give you something completely different!
It's the end of 2024! Yay? I just wanted to pop on here to say I've personally had a great year. I made it through 50 years of life, Maria and I have survived living together in the Mothership for the third year in a row, and I still love everyone in my life more than anything! Living in Maryland and exploring D.C. was a blast, attending a concert in Hershey, PA with our middle daughter was an adventure that I never thought I'd experience. Meeting our new fur-grandbaby was precious, and taking in a deep breath to count every blessing in my life, I'm a happy man, and Maria a happy woman. Below I break down the fun parts of RV life: Camping Costs, Propane Costs, Fuel Costs and Repairs...
Anyone who visits this blog knows that Maria and I live full time in our Mothership, a 35' Class A Newmar (no, this is not bragging, this is a choice we made to downsize, minimize and be free, that is all). We've been travelling across the United States, close to twenty thousand miles, and over three years have learned a lot of new skills like: Fixing a leak, repairing a hot water heater, getting an oil pan tig welded, a spa line leak repaired, etc. etc. Most of all, we've learned how to financially navigate everything this lifestyle throws at us, good, bad and ugly.
I've gone through the expense breakdown on our monthly bills, and have done some videos on past expenditures. I want to break down the few things that go hand in hand with this lifestyle and give you an idea of what we've spent living full time in our Class A in 2024 as compared to 2023.
Camping Expenses: Owning a home you have a mortgage, home repairs, utilities, etc. Full Time life you have a campground to pay for instead of a mortgage, because you need a place to live. I workcamp, and save loads on "rent" for the Mothership. In 2023 we spent $1115 on camping expenses. That seems like a lot of camping, but it's really not, because in 2023 we drove over four thousand miles. In 2024 we drove half that mileage and cut our camping down, by boondocking or dry camping and spent $585 in total camping expenses this year, that's a win!
Propane: A house comes with gas/electric/water, camping in the Mothership has two utilities that we keep a close eye on, the first one is Propane. This lets us cook and heat the RV and it allows us to get heat from our furnace when in the cold arms of Michigan during our spring visit. In 2023 we spent a total of $225 on propane, since then we have evolved our propane usage by supplementing heat with a small electric space heater, which cuts some of the furnace usage down, we also turned the thermostat down to help not burn as much propane. Our 2024 propane usage was significantly cheaper coming in at $125. That's a decent jump that we are going to try and keep.
Fuel: To get from point A to point B, we drive the ship all those miles, and believe me a Chevy Workhorse Chassis loves to drink gasoline! Keep in mind that in 2023 we drove to the west coast (over 4k miles), and spent $4500 on fuel. In 2024 our travels were more localized on the eastern and midwestern states driving only around 2700 miles, here's our fuel cost, $1526. Not too shabby, and as you know I donate plasma on the regular so this cash comes out of my veins! LOL.
Repairs/Maintenance: Last but not least, I always recommend setting a pretty large budget for repairs, both vehicular and RV related and this last category is the eye opener to some of the expenses in this lifestyle. Early in the year the Mario Kart (2010 Hyundai) needed major front end repairs and two tires that cost me $1100, a welded oil pan and oil sensor on the Mothership set us back $1500, some slide out cover upgrades, shades for the windows, and a spa line later we rang 2024's repair costs at, please hold your breath, this one hurts, but this is our home, and homes come with repairs.....$4500. (I don't have 2023's repairs, but they were much, much lower.)
I hope that I helped push you into the full time life and that I see you on the road in 2025! Here's to many more miles, memories and connections!
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As always, thanks for stopping by!
Tim Eagle
Tim Eagle is an author of the novellas Stolen Seed, Life Ship, and the Vasectomus Collection. He lives full time, on the road, with his wife, Maria and their dog, Cocoa. He grew up in Michigan and is inspired by the dysfunction of America. His books are available on Amazon, godless and this site timeaglefiction.com
