For those that follow our blog and are planning to fulltime in the future, I thought I would publish some statistics to indicate what we did this year and our expenses in major categories that would have some commonality.

2009 was our 4th year on the road and the Wandering Wishnies haven't slowed down a bit. At the end of every year we say we have to slow down and smell the roses, but seem to constantly find interesting things to do and places to go the following year. This year was no different. Guess we like to smell a lot of roses :)

We visited 21 states and stayed in 59 campgrounds, so we still average moving once every 6 days (even though we had an extended stay of 5 weeks in one place when we camphosted in Wisconsin). We spent $7333 for campground fees for an average of $611 a month, or $20 a day (again skewed by the camphosting gig which gave us 5 weeks of free rent). We also stayed in more public campgrounds this year (i.e. county, state and national parks) which are cheaper and discovered the pleasure and low cost of Corps of Engineer parks where we pay only 50% of the already cheap fees with our Golden Age Passport. (Age has to have some benefits :)

We towed 8121 miles and our average move was 137 miles. We spent $4359 for diesel fuel, or $363 a month. We don't keep track of regular driving miles each year, but after 4 years we have 90,000 on the truck, so are averaging 22,500 miles a year.

Some other common expense categories are RV and truck registration and insurance at $2090, or $174 a month. Propane at $233 - $19 month, mail forwarding service (this includes the annual service fee plus postage) $265 - $22 month and maintenance at $2109 or $175 a month. Maintenance has been about $125 a month historically, but we had some special work done when we visited the factory in July.

There you go – see how inexpensive this lifestyle is? Throw off your chains and come out and join us. You won't believe how much fun it is.

If anyone has any questions or wants additional information, just let me know.

Fred <!-- @page { margin: 0.79in } P { margin-bottom: 0.08in } -->

Fred - this is great info!  I always enjoy reading your insightful posts.  The chains are loosening - one house gone, one business to go and we'll be joining you on the road fulltime!  For now, part-timing in AZ and WI has some great advantages, especially in winter and summer respectively  and I agree this can be an extremely economical lifestyle.

Fred ~

Thanks for sharing.  Although we've studied Howard's budget and a couple of others we've found online, it's always good to see different perspectives.  We don't expect to be on the move as often as you are, but it's nice to get a feel for what the expenses might look like if we eventually get to that point.  Do you track other expenses too, such as groceries, dining out, entertainment, insurance, etc?  We plan to keep a detailed budget - we pretty much already do anyway. 

I've been reading your blog too.  It's very well written and I enjoy following along.  I think Jo does most of the writing, right?  Give her my accolades!

-Connie

Hi Connie, We track everything, but I only posted those categories where I thought there would be some commonality. I left off food/entertainment, communications, health insurance and loans, because individual expenditures will be wildly divergent. I think most of these personal categories will probably be the same on the road as they are for your life in a S/B.

I follow your blog and many of your post here too.  Not trying to change the topic of your post here...I found the expense info very helpful.  I called my wife over to the computer and said "see they spend less in a year than we spend in 3-4 months in the S&B." She is ready to go full timing too but all of the positive post do help ease both our minds a little.

My question is about your truck.  In your blog you stated that the truck now has 95,000 miles and I wanted to know if you have had any issues with the truck.  I know most of the miles have been towing miles and I guess you have the 6.0 or 6.4 liter diesel....right.  I am a die hard Ford man but I have heard some negative comments about the diesel engines in the Super Duty trucks.  I presently own a 2004 F-250 with the 6.0 liter but it only has 24,000 miles and I have seriously considered trading it for 2009 F-350 with the V-10 gas engine.  HP is about the same but torque is no where near the diesel.  What are your thoughts?  I don't want to get off topic here so send me a PM if you prefer. 

Mark

Fred,
Thanks so much for sharing this info.  It's always helpful to see what real expenses are like on the road.

Cindy T

Thanks for sharing, now if I could just find a way to make those amounts or less on the roads I would be GONE !!!! We are ready and have the itch.

azrving wrote:

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I know most of the miles have been towing miles and I guess you have the 6.0 or 6.4 liter diesel....right.  I am a die hard Ford man but I have heard some negative comments about the diesel engines in the Super Duty trucks.  I presently own a 2004 F-250 with the 6.0 liter but it only has 24,000 miles and I have seriously considered trading it for 2009 F-350 with the V-10 gas engine.  HP is about the same but torque is no where near the diesel.  What are your thoughts?  I don't want to get off topic here so send me a PM if you prefer. 

Mark

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I've been told by relatives to stay away from the 6.0L engine (didn't say why other than the EPA junk).  Don't know about the 6.4. 

Still researching though so I have time to let things sort out.