I sure do hope you are settled in somewhere comfortable with a mug of your fav beverage cause I’ve got a lot of info to share! You won’t want to miss a single number! That’s right folks! This is our yearly number filled post!

Year 5 Campgrounds

First up is how much did we spend on campgrounds this last year? How many nights did we park for free? What was our average cost per night? To make you aware, we try to keep our costs as low as possible, we are not your $50 a night kind of people.

Private Campgrounds

*Clearwater RV Travel Resort, Clearwater, FL Total 40 nights @ $28.96 per night average (30 nights @ $875, 3 @ $29.16 (monthly per night rate, and 7 @ $28 per night Passport America rate)

*Hickory Hollow Campground, Rockwood, PA Total 141 nights (in this year, season overlaps into next year) @ $10.37 per night

*Country Oaks Campground, Dorothy, NJ 13 nights @ $25 per night (former employee discount)

National Forest Campground

*Baker Hole National Forest

3 nights @ $23 per night total ($16 per night for site + $7 per night extra for car)

State Parks

*Buffalo Bill Campground, near Cody, WY

4 nights @ $23 per night total ($17 per night for site + $6 per night extra for car)

*Henry’s Lake State Park, Island Park, ID (near West Yellowstone, MT)

6 nights @ 33.62 per night

County Parks

*Juniper Campground, Ririe, ID 3 nights @ $25 per night

*Lithia Springs Park Campground, Lithia, FL 11 nights @ $24

COE (Corps of Engineer) Park

*Tuttle Creek COE Park

12 nights @ $20

Elks Lodges

*Pensacola FL 1 night @ $15

*Perry FL 1 night @ $20

*Atlanta GA 1 night @ $0 (told us not to pay as electric wasn’t working)

*Ephrata PA 18 nights @ $8.33 per night (3 separate stays of 6 nights each)

Escapees

*Livingston TX 1 night @ $28

Family and Friends (Free or Barter)

Pam & Red – 7 nights

Cori & Greg – 47 nights

James & Cindy – 2 nights

Pat & Bridget – 2 nights

Maeve & Derek – 44 nights

Tony & Ulrica – 4 nights

John & Susan – 7 nights

Misc Boondocking

*Big Eddy/Rainey Bridge, Driggs ID 19 nights – FREE

*Walmart – 6 nights (1 night each x 6 times)

*Chris & Frank – cul-de-sac – $0

*Hard Rock Casino, Tulsa OK – 1 night

Average Per Night

For sites we paid for our average per night was $16.38

Average per night for all nights was $10.09

Favorite/Least Favorite Place Year 5

Our favorite place to stay in year five was Big Eddy/Rainey Bridge in Driggs ID. We loved it because of the amazing four peak view of the Grand Tetons. We loved the small town of Driggs. We loved the people we were there with! We loved that it was FREE! We don’t need anything more than that!

Our least favorite place was the Atlanta Elks. You stay in their parking lot, right next to cars parked there. We’ve stayed there before, so we knew what to expect, but this time the older couple (who’ve lived there for 3 years) were monopolizing the electric and we couldn’t use electric. We only stayed one night, but a longer stay would have meant pulling out the generator for air conditioning. The lodge did make good by not making us pay, which was a nice gesture. For the record, I understand why the older couple did what they were doing, but made staying there less desirable. We probably will stay again, if we wanted to visit my cousin, but probably not in the heat of summer.

5 X 365 Nights – Broken Down

Below you will find a five year summary on what type, how many nights and how much we’ve spent on campgrounds, etc. Ready?

Private Campgrounds

We’ve stayed at a total of 32 different private campgrounds for a total of 668 nights. Of those 32 different campgrounds, we’ve stayed at four of them twice, one of them three separate times, and one on six separate occasions.

The total we’ve spent on private campgrounds is $16,945 for an average of $25.37 per night.

National Forest Campgrounds

We’ve only stayed at a total of five of these type campgrounds, one of them twice, for a total of 54 nights. Total spent $719, for an average of $13.30 per night.

National Park Campground

Amazingly, we’ve only stayed at one National Park Campground, for a total of three nights, for a total of $84, or $28 per night.

State Park Campgrounds

Our State Park Campground total is 11 different campgrounds. A total of $1,223 was spent on 53 nights, making the average per night $23.

County Park Campgrounds

We hadn’t heard of County Park Campgrounds before becoming full-timers, but once we stayed at one, we were hooked! We’ve stayed at eight different ones, and one of them twice. We’ve spent $1,421, which paid for 58 nights, for an average of $24.50 per night.

C.O.E. (Corps of Engineers) Parks

This is another type of park we hadn’t heard of, but they are nice! We only stayed at two different ones, one of them twice. 20 nights cost a total of $408, which makes the average just over $20 per night.

National Recreation Areas

Another “new to us” type park. We’ve only stayed at two of these for a total of 12 nights. Total cost was $156, bringing the average per night to $13.

Colorado River District

Our 14 night stay at our one park of this type was $300, which averages out to just over $21 per night.

Escapees

Some Escapees Campgrounds are for members only, some are not. Bill and I first joined this awesome organization before we closed on our home. We’ve stayed at four of their parks for a total of 32 nights. The total for these stays was $527, the average per night $16.50.

Fairgrounds

An interesting note is two of our three stays at a Fairgrounds Campground was for rallies. I bring it up because we may have gotten a special deal on those stays. Our total of 21 nights at three different Fairgrounds cost $365, or an average of just under $13.50 per night.

Military

You’ve read that right, even though we aren’t a military family, we stayed three nights in one military campground that was open to the public. Total cost $90, dividing through to $30.

Canadian Provencial Parks

Five nights is how many we stayed at two different Provencial parks. Our total spent was $71.76, which averages out to $14.35 per night.

Thousand Trails

We had two Thousand Trails “zone passes” for a year when we were still new full-timers. We opted not to renew and we’ve never missed having it. We stayed a total of 49 nights. Figuring out what we spent on that gets a bit complicated, but keeping it simple, we paid a total of $689 for the nights at Thousand Trails, averaging out to $14 per night.

Elks Lodges

These are the newest type of overnight places in our arsenal. A lot of them are donation only, but they do have a suggested amount. Even considering we’ve only been members for just under two years, we’ve stayed at 18 different lodges, for a total of 106 nights. We’ve only stayed at one lodge more than once, and we’ve stayed there five different times. It’s not fully fair to give the numbers, only because someone else may not give the same amount on places that don’t have a suggested donation, so please be aware this is our experience only. We’ve given a total of $1382, or an average of $13’ish per night.

Boondocking

In five years, we have utilized many different spots when stopping along the way, for quick overnight sleep-overs. We’ve stayed at Walmarts a total of 28 nights, Cracker Barrels eight nights, and casinos four nights. We’ve also stayed at “Other” places (including gravel lots, gas stations, Love’s, Fred Meyers, Visitor Centers, etc.) for an additional 19 nights. Total 59 nights.

We’ve also stayed in free boondocking places for extended stays, such as Quartzsite AZ, near Borrego Springs CA, Williams Fork Reservoir, near Granby and Kremmling CO, Stillwater Pass, near Grand Lake CO and Big Eddy/Rainey Bridge near Driggs ID. Our total nights for these type places was 63.

Family/Friends

We have been very lucky to have been able to spend quite a bit of time with friends and family over the past five years. 181 nights to be exact. Thank you to all who have opened your hearts and driveways/yards to us!

Workamping

Bill and I have worked at three different places since becoming full-timers. We worked at one of those places, Amazon, twice. I did summaries for each of them where you can read more details if you’d like, but I will give a cliff-notes version here. Amazon 1 Alaska/Renfro’s Lakeside Retreat NJ/Country Oaks Amazon 2

To summarize those four experiences, all our workamping positions included a FHU site as part of our compensation and we spent a total of 430 nights. It’s difficult to put a dollar value on these nights since there is no way to know where we may have gone if we hadn’t done the jobs. Our gross earnings for the four jobs was $45,668.

That may seem like a lot of money just sitting there in total like that. Uncle Sam got his portion. 430 nights is about 14 1/2 months, or $3,149 per month if we had worked straight through. However, we started our first position in September 2015 and ended our final job in December 2017, or over the course of 27 months, or said another way, $1,690 per month.

Since Bill has been installing for RV Solar Solutions, I have not had a job, although I do help out some with the solar, helping prep panels, running errands for Bill, etc. I contact the clients and get them on our calendar and send them all the information they need to get reservations, etc. I pass along suggestions of things to do in the area if they are interested. Since many of our clients are new to RVing and/or be new to boondocking once their solar is installed, I also pass along helpful hints on electrical and water management. Ideally, I’d love to get a workamping job where we get a site and the owners don’t mind Bill doing installs. We considered Jersey Shore again for next year, but nothing has panned out yet, so we are currently planning to return here to Hickory Hollow.

Memberships

The only memberships we still hold onto is Escapees ($39 per year), Workamper News ($39.95), and Elks (yearly dues $68). I am seriously considering not renewing Passport America, as the only campground we have used it at now gives us their monthly rate for any nights over the month, which they didn’t use to do. It comes out to almost exactly the same. We will get America the Beautiful when we find ourselves somewhere we need it.

In our five years on the road, we’ve spent a total of $2040 in memberships, which includes our roadside assistance, Coachnet. The only ones we still keep are listed above, and we will never be without Coachnet.

To Keep Or Not Keep the Car

We decided early on to keep my 2006 Honda CRV, in spite of having a truck/5th wheel combo, and not any type of motorhome. Some found this odd, as it meant we would have to drive separately on move days. We came to this decision after reading Howard Payne’s (of RV Dreams) blog post about how he and his wife, Linda, had gotten rid of her car and they regretted it and then replaced it. Bill and I decided since I loved my car, it was paid for in full and was still in excellent condition, that we would keep it. If after some time passed and we didn’t like having it with us, we could always sell it later. After 5 years, we are still very glad to have it, even though it is much older now and beginning to show its age. Since there are a lot of personal preferences that go into the “keep it or not keep it” decision, beyond sharing our reasons, it’s really up to you. I can show you, with 5 years of recordkeeping, that it has been a financial wash, but that it has saved our truck from a lot of extra miles is undeniable.

My car is a 2006 Honda CRV EX. When we became full-timers, it had 131,302 miles on it. In five years, we have added 81,246 miles, for a total of 212,548 miles on it at the end of year five. Of those miles, 43,371 have been on move days, meaning 37,875 have been just in local driving, miles that have been kept off the truck. As a reminder, that number of miles was actually only in 4 years, as we left my car in FL the year we went to AK. That’s a LOT less wear and tear on the truck! Our 2011 Ford F350 Diesel DRW XLT had 30,964 miles on it and now has 98,590, and increase of 67,646 miles. Let me give you the financial pictures of both scenarios.

What the Numbers Tell Us

*for purposes of this exercise, we will be using $2.51 per gallon of gas and $2.75 per gallon of diesel fuel; we will also be assuming 26 miles per gallon for the car and 16 miles per gallon for the truck (not towing) and 10 mpg while towing. Bill uses an app on his phone (Fuelly.com) that tracks this information.
All amounts are averaged from our actual numbers.

Figuring Out Depreciation

In order to accurately determine the “cost” of keeping the car, we need to determine the depreciation on both vehicles. Some people don’t consider this to be a “real” number, but I assure you it is. We had looked into how much we could have sold the car for before we left, and that amount was $7,275. Today, it’s worth about $4525, so a loss of about $2,750 in value. The truck was worth about $32,500 at that time and is now worth $22,820, so it has depreciated about $9,680. If we hadn’t kept the car and it had an additional 37,875 miles on it, it would be worth $19,241. Said another way, our truck is worth $3,579 more today due to us keeping the car.

Keeping the Car

One of the first numbers we need to acknowledge is we have carried insurance on the car these past five years. The total cost for that has been about $3,352.64. We’ve already established that we’ve put a total of 81,246 miles on the car in 5 years, so we’ve spent $7,845 in gas. $1,450 is how much the car cost in maintenance and repairs. Adding in the $2,750 in depreciation, and the total cost of keeping the car has been a total of $15,397.

On the truck side, we have put 67,646 miles total on the truck since pulling out of our former driveway. It has cost $16,099 in fuel (43,371 miles @ 10mpg x $2.75 per gallon; 24,275 miles @ 16mpg x $2.75 per gallon); $3,765.30 maintenance, and repairs.

Not Keeping the Car

Without the car, our insurance costs for the truck would remain the same. It is fair to assume that we could add 37,875 miles to the truck, meaning we would have spent $6,509 (37,875 @ 16mpg x 2.75 per gallon) more on fuel for the truck. Along with that would be additional maintenance and repairs. Bill figured repairs and maintenance at about $.056 per mile, so we have to add an additional $2,121 in maintenance and repairs. Taking into account depreciation, the truck would be worth $3,579 less. The total additional cost to the truck of $12,209.

Getting to the Point

Simple math reveals it has cost us an additional $3,188 over the five years to keep the car. Has it been worth it?

There is way more to this than the numbers though. The convenience of parking the car instead of the dually is a consideration. Having the car to pull ahead and scout out situations, either in traffic or potential boondock sites or even in campgrounds, are considerations. Being able to get behind him to check on things, or hold a space so he can move over a lane more easily on move days is a consideration. Since Bill has started doing installs, having my car for getting out for errands while he works (he likes to have his truck on-site since all his tools are in it) is probably the most important reason now. Before installing solar, we used to think we wouldn’t replace the car, but now we most likely will.

Other 5 Year Figures

Groceries

In five years, we’ve spent a total of $26,457.79, which averages out to about $441 per month. (note: this number does not include adult beverages-HA!)

Dining Out/Entertainment

This is another very subjective category. We’ve spent a total of $21,808 or $363 per month. We try to do inexpensive fun stuff and also try to eat out more for breakfast or lunch instead of dinner. When we do splurge on a fancy dinner out, we generally save it for being out with friends or family and/or a special occasion.

Laundry

I’ve talked about laundry before, kind of like the car debate, is it financially worth having an onboard washer/dryer. As with the car, it is also a largely personal preference, but having some numbers to think about is always a good idea. In our five years, we’ve spent a total of $1,040 at laundromats. This number does not include the detergent or fabric softener, as we’d need to have that either way. For me, even though $1,040 is getting close to how much a washer/dryer would cost to buy, we haven’t had to deal with them flooding our RV, or breaking down in the middle of a cycle, or taking up a closet and adding weight. Our personal choice continues to be not to have them. Something else to note is that even if you have a washer/dryer on board, you will still need to go to the laundromat at least occasionally, either when boondocking or even just to wash large items, such as blankets. A friend who has a washer/dryer posts on her blog that she spends about $80 per year at laundromats.

Generator Gas

In five years, we’ve spent a total of $81.56 on 25.4 gallons of marine/ethanol-free gas for our Honda 2000 generator.

Dump/Fill Stations

When boondocking we need places to take on freshwater and also dump our grey and black tanks. Sometimes you can find free places to do this, but most of the time there is a fee. During our five years, we’ve spent $74 total.

Metered Electric

Sometimes when you stay at a campground as a monthly or seasonal, you will have metered electric. Generally, if you are paying the usual nightly rate, your electric is included. The total amount we’ve spent on metered electric is $547.78.

Propane

Our furnace and stove are the only things in our RV that always need propane. Our water heater can be run on propane or electric. We have a residential refrigerator, so no propane there. We’ve spent $556.56 for propane on 978lbs. The average per pound is $0.57, or $2.41 per gallon.

So, there you have it, 5 years of numbers. I did warn you it would be a lot, didn’t I? It is our hope you found this helpful. Please feel free to ask any questions and/or leave any comments below.

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