Fuel Budget - RV-Dreams Community Forum

SkyJean · RV-Dreams Family Member

Fuel Budget

Luvglass · RV-Dreams Family Member

Fuel expense is almost totally dependent on how much you move around. When we spent the month of June camp hosting in Virginia we spent less than $100 for around town and sight seeing travels. On the other hand, in September when we traveled from the east coast to Wisconsin for a visit and then moved out to Arizona, we spent over $900.

Some people stay in one area for months at a time and others, like us, are always moving. Over many years, we are averaging about $325 a month.

What kind of traveler will you be??

Roz · RV-Dreams Family Member

Fred hit two of the factors with good answers. The other main factor being what kind of RV? The larger, regardless of fiver or MH, the fuel consumption will be greater.

The fact is you can control that cost with how often you travel and the distance you cover. Once you know the fuel consumption of your RV, you can control, how often you relocate and the distance you travel.

Bottom line is that this is a managable expense.

dewwood · RV-Dreams Family Member

Most rigs will cost about $.30 to $.40 per mile for fuel based on current fuel prices. Use that as a guide multiplied by the miles you plan to travel. That is fuel only, no depreciation, maintenance etc.

Old Snipe · RV-Dreams Family Member

I'm budgeting $750/month for diesel in our motorhome, it's kind of a "Padded" figure.

If I use all that money, based on $3.00/gal and 7 mpg, that should take me about 1750 miles a month. I use a conservative 7 mpg figure but I usually average closer to 7.5 to 8.5 mpg depending on terrain and weather factors (When will I ever get a tailwind?).

We don't expect to tavel that far most months, and intend on staying put on weekly or monthly visits in areas we want to stay.

This allows for flucuations in fuel prices and the rare occasional time when we do travel more in a month. We have kids that live on both coasts.

So we'll bank some money on slow travel months and have it available for the few high travel times when we need it.

NorCal Dan · RV-Dreams Family Member

As a rough guesstimate we figure $300/day when on the road traveling. It's not real difficult to put $200 in the diesel tank, we don't boondock so figure $30-40 for a rv space, and who likes to cook after being on the road all day. The fuel is the killer, and prices aren't getting any lower. HTH's...