Year one, by the numbers

A couple months ago, in our anniversary post, I mentioned I would go into a bit more depth at some point on the types of places we stayed at and how much we spent on gas and repairs and campground fees during our first full year on the road.  Well, today is the day.  Get ready for some data; it’s time to play with numbers!

Before I get into the details of our year one expenses, I thought I’d start by sharing our startup costs.  As you all probably know, when Lauren and I decided to take on this adventure we didn’t own a truck or an RV (we hadn’t even ever spent a night in an RV before!).  This whole undertaking started as the spark of an idea during a road trip in May of 2022.  But by November we had bought a truck and a 5th wheel and on April 29, 2023, we hit the road.  Everything happened so fast, but step one was getting the truck.

The Truck (Betty)

Our tow vehicle is a 2019 Ram 3500 DRW.  We bought the truck used with about 50,000 miles on her and I think the sticker price was somewhere in the $70k range.  We traded in my Prius so the loan we took out was only for $50k.  We are paying about double what our minimum payments are on that loan and the balance is currently down to just over $27k.  We should have the truck completely paid off by May 2026 (a little over three years from the start of the loan).  As soon as we bought the truck we spent an additional $3k getting a bed liner, hitch, and tonneau cover installed.  So the total startup cost to purchase the truck and get it ready for towing was $53k.

The 5th Wheel

Our 5th wheel is a 2020 Grand Design Solitude 310GK.  We also bought this used and saved a ton of money by doing so.  When we started looking, the RV industry was still at the peak of its post-COVID, inflated-price bubble and a brand new 2022/2023 version of the model we wanted was going for about $125k, but we bought our used 5th wheel for $70k and we paid cash.

One of the things we really wanted in our new home was the ability to be self-sufficient so we could boondock and camp off-grid as much as we wanted.  So before we hit the road we hired an amazing local solar expert in Portland who helped us build out a substantial solar system.  We have twelve 220W panels on the roof (for a total capacity of 2,640W) and three 24v 200Ah lithium batteries with a 3,000W inverter and all the other cables and charge controllers and whatnot.  It has more than met our needs and we have never had to cut a boondocking stay short because we were running low on power.  All of the solar equipment and the installation cost us right around $19,500.

We’ve also spent about $9k on other upgrades and supplies, such as a washer/dryer, generator, re-doing the flooring on one slideout, buying the Starlink dish, miscellaneous tools, etc.  Combined with the cost of the truck, the 5th wheel, and the solar install, our total startup costs were $151,500.

And then we hit the road…

Above is a map of everywhere we traveled during our first full year on the road, from Portland, OR, to Terlingua, TX.  As I mentioned in the previous post, we drove 5,626 miles and spent time in 9 different states.  And we had a lot of expenses along the way. I’m not going to cover things like food and entertainment, but below is a breakdown of what we had to spend to have a home for the year.

Repairs & Maintenance

The truck held up pretty well but we did have to replace the front tires, repair the exhaust system, fix an issue with the wheel hubs, and take care of all the usual stuff like oil changes and tune ups.  In total we spent $5,576 on truck maintenance in year one.

The 5th wheel also had a few repairs to deal with in year one: the black tank repair, two new tires, new leaf springs, a new front hydraulic jack, and a hot water tank check valve replacement (that one we fixed ourselves for only $40!).  The total for 5th wheel upkeep was $4,059, bringing our total year one maintenance costs for both the truck and the 5th wheel to $9,635.

Gas (Diesel)

A big expense for us is gas for the truck to get us from place to place.  During year one we spent a total of $5,732.97 on diesel for the truck.  That bought us 1,371.9 gallons of fuel with an average price of $4.26 per gallon.  The most we spent on gas, per gallon, was $6.10(!!) at a Shell in Arizona, while the cheapest price we paid was $3.05 at a King Soopers in Denver.  When towing the 5th wheel on a travel day, the truck has been getting about 8-9 miles per gallon.  When we’re unhitched and using the truck to go explore national parks or get groceries, it gets about 15 miles per gallon.

Propane

Another fuel cost we have is propane.  Before we replaced our old fridge, propane was used for cooking, heating, and running the fridge when we were boondocking and wanting to reduce our solar energy use.  I thought this was going to be a fairly significant expense for us, but we actually only spent $342 on propane for the full year (roughly $23 per month).  And now that we have the new fridge that only runs off electricity (and way more efficiently), I’d bet our year two propane costs are going to be even less.

Lodging

Finally we come to our biggest expense which, as I’m sure you can imagine, is paying for places to stay. During year one we spent a total of $12,266.30 on campground and RV park fees but if you include our membership costs for the various clubs we joined the grand total comes to $13,524.40. Below is a breakdown by lodging type.

Our Thousand Trails memberships were the most expensive (a total of $940 for the two different plans) but both saved us a decent amount. Good Sam and KOA also came in useful, but we never used the Escapees or Boondockers Welcome memberships. After year one we cancelled our memberships for Thousand Trails (no TT campsites where we are staying this year), Passport America, and Boondockers Welcome. We did extend our Escapees membership because that comes with more than just campsite discounts.

In general we try to avoid campgrounds that are going to cost more than $60 per night and my hope was to end the year at right around $30 per night, which was pretty close to our final tally. KOA campgrounds are some of the most expensive we stay at and those campgrounds are kind of like a Walmart or a McDonald’s – they aren’t the most amazing campgrounds but they are all so similar you always know what you’re going to get and sometimes that convenience and familiarity is worth it.

Our year two lodging expenses should be lower since we’ll be spending a significant amount of time staying for “free” on our property in Texas throughout the winter. It will be nice to see more than just 67 nights of boondocking in the year two breakdown.

All told, bedsides the startup costs to buy the truck and 5th wheel, we spent $29,234.37 to have a home on the road for the year.

Repairs & Maintenance – $9,635.00

Gas (Diesel) – $5,732.97

Propane – $342.00

Lodging – $13,524.40

Obviously the startup costs (plus the money we spent to buy the property in Texas) should be factored in, but compared to how much we were spending in Portland at the house we were renting, we actually saved quite a bit during year one. Just our rent alone for the house in Portland was $30,000 per year, and that doesn’t include utilities or other basic living expenses.

There are plenty of challenges to full-time living on the road and we’ve had to make sacrifices moving from a 3-bedroom house into a 250 sq ft living space, but to be able to have all these adventures and save money? I think we’re okay with that.

4 thoughts on “Year one, by the numbers

  1. Terry

    Good summary! If you don’t take time to carefully monitor these expenses you have no way of knowing where all the money goes – hence great job in keeping tabs on all the expenses. I would expect the next few years will be easier as you’ve now got most of the startup issues and problems solved. The sunk costs in the vehicle, 5th wheel and land also have future value which hopefully you’ll be writing down a portion of that as business expenses on your federal taxes.
    Always enjoy your updates and look forward to each chapter of your adventures!

    Reply
    1. The Duck Post author

      Thanks!

      And yeah, before we took off on this adventure we were really curious to know if this lifestyle was going to be more expensive than living in a “sticks and bricks” house. Lots of other full-time RVers posted their typical expenses online, so we had a general idea, but everyone’s spending habits are so different we knew we wouldn’t know for sure until we actually got on the road.

      The 5th wheel and truck won’t appreciate the way buying a house would but we were renting in Portland so it’s not like we we’re building up equity anyway. The way we look at is, we traded 5 years worth of house rental payments for 5+ years of living on the road. That’s also why we wanted to buy the land in Texas as quickly as we did, so we could start building at least a little equity while we’re off exploring the country.

      Speaking of property, we wanted to thank you for a comment you made in your last reply. We were very close to buying one of the properties in Lava Hot Springs even though they were only good, and not great. But your comment kept poking at us – “Hope you find something that you just can’t live without – then you’ll know it’s the right decision.” In the end, those properties were not ones we couldn’t live without so we decided to keep looking. And, now that we’re up in Montana, I’m glad we waited. As soon as we got into the forests near Missoula we both felt like we were home – this area feels a lot like the mountains and forests of Oregon and Colorado. I don’t know if we’ll find the perfect property on this trip, but I think we’ve found the part of the country where we’d like to own some land.

      Reply
  2. Terry

    Very proud of both of you – intelligent thinking based on data and not just emotions. Great memories are made of a million little things in the journey of life experiences.
    Your journey was certainly rich last year!

    Reply

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *