Help Calculate Actual Cost of Fulltiming??

[motojavaphil]

This is a great thread!  I anticipate in three years I will be hitting the road with no more house.  I have been debating between the MH and the 5th Wheel for some time.  We have a 37 foot Toy Hauler, the toys to go in it, and a truck to pull it.  The MH's are excellent and a four slide 40' MH could be lived in very comfortably.  It would also mean attaching a trailer to haul the Jeep and the bikes.  Maintaining a MH seems like it will be far more expensive than a 5er and when it comes time to replace it the expense will be significantly less.  The debate rages in my household and there appears to be no firm answers out there.  Beyond that I hope to follow motorcycle rallys around the nation and sell coffee to offset my travel expenses.  During the winter I will go to the local school and be a sub and pay for lot and life expenses from that.  Then again a nice space in Mexico near the beach just might do it!  Thanx for the great advice..

 

[Smoky]

Phil:

You might want to chat with Shayne.  He is here at the QZ rally, tows a 24 foot trailer behind his 40 foot Pace Arrow MH, and also attends many motorcycle events.

 

[Kirk]

If you want to see some actual numbers, we have four years of actual expenses from our fulltime RV living posted on our web site under the Full-time RV Living section. Also, under links there are two other fulltimers who have expenses posted. Just visit Roaming America and See Ya Down the Road from the "Favorite Links" page.

The URL is in my signature. Hope that is helpful.

 

[Scoundrel]

I don't plan to be a fulltimer any time soon but this was a great thread for future reference.

Thanks.

 

[slumbert55]

in 2002 we rented a full time spot at Desert Gold RV Resort in Brenda, AZ

what was it like in brenda and how much to stay, can we use our 49cc scooters?

 

[Ron]

We stayed at Desert Gold in Brenda the winters of 98 through 2004.  In the beginning the park was nice and the seasonal rate we considered reasonable.  However, the park quality began going down hill when they started moving in what they referred to as park models but were actually run down  50/60/s model house trailers that were being kicked out of a Mesa park, and the rates began to raise each year.  More money for a more junky park.  We elected to move to Yuma the last two years.  Much better in Yuma as long as you get out in the foothills area.  I can not recommend Desert Gold any more.  Seems to get worse each year.

 

[Shayne]

If I spent 51K a year I'd really be in a hole.  In 52 yrs of marriage I didn't average 51K a year  And I  don;t cheapen myself by doing without.  If I reallyu want it i find someway ti get it.  But I'm not foolish enough to throw it away either.  Heck I came from a poor family and as we gain stature and things progressed and we haven't recovered since.  If I can't do it on 20 K  I'll go back to misery in ILLinois and pack up and die.

 

[woodartist]

Well, Yuma is a snow bird Mecca and the crime is on the rise. Costs are going up...but if you are spending more than $250 a month you are being ripped off. Any where the snow bird crowd goes, the prices are going up. Hard to avoid them, but there are still some "golden nuggets" out there. Where??? Aaaah, that is the secret

 

[Smoky]

C'mon!  Share your secrets Woody!  We are among friends here.

We love our park, but prices are increasing 10% a year... 3300 to 3600 this current year.  We do not want to move, but this winter we are going to go look for some nuggets and see if there are good alternatives.  The thing we like most about our park are the facilities including their own golf course, and the activities among the members.  We also like that we have an annual rate wich permitted us to build our own 10x14 shed on our lot.  But if we had to we could go with a smaller setting. 

Please share!!  Or anyone else who has some winter park nuggets to suggest!