How Much Does It Cost to Live in an RV?

How Much Does It Cost to Live in an RV Full-Time?

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How much does it cost to live in an RV? We’ve been RVing for nearly six years and our costs have actually stayed pretty consistent.

Find out how much we spend on lodging, gas, and more while living full-time in an RV.When Heath and I moved into our RV, we had no clue how much campsites would cost, how high our Verizon bill (AKA what we used for internet would get), or just how many thousands of dollars in gas we would pay to visit all 50 states in a year (learn our exact finances from visiting all 50 states here).

We moved into an RV because we wanted to travel across the country for our honeymoon, but we’ve continued to full-time RV because it’s a cheaper, more freeing way to live. In fact, over a million Americans full-time RV. That’s crazy!

(If you have a million questions about living in an RV, we have a book on Amazon called A Beginner’s Guide to Living in an RV. You can check it out here on Amazon.)

So exactly how much does it cost to live in an RV? Let’s break it down by all the major categories:

The Rig

RVs aren’t cheap. Well, new ones aren’t at least.

For our first RV, we bought a 1994 Coachmen Leprechaun on Craigslist and sold him 48 states and 22K miles later. After buying and renovating “Franklin” for 12K and selling him for almost 10K, we really only spent $2,000 for our home for two years. This is the definition of a steal and probably the main reason why I highly recommend buying a used RV with cash.

Our 2016 Winnebago Brave (MSRP 123K) required a 10K downpayment, which selling Franklin covered for us. We paid $600 a month for our RV, which is fairly high considering what I’ve heard from others who have bought new RVs. Most people I know who are financing rigs pay between $400-$600 a month.

A photo posted by Heath Padgett (@heathpadgett) on

Gas

After your RV payment, gas can be your biggest expense on the road. It is also the expense you can control the easiest, by traveling less or traveling shorter distances.

We average about $250/month in our Winnebago + filling up our tow car. That includes months where are parked in a single RV park and don’t move, as well as months where we drive somewhere new every 3-4 days. Our most expensive month of gas EVER rang up at a whopping $1200, which is when we traveled through California when prices soared to $4/gallon in 2014. It was terrible.

We spend less on gas each month than we expect to. Now we average $2,000-$4,000 per year in gas (that is for our tow car and motorhome combined). Our Honda gets 20-25 mpg and our Winnebago gets more like 7-9 mpg. Expect a few hundred dollars a month, depending on how many miles you’re covering.

Want to save money on gas? Just stay in places for longer and travel shorter distances! If you have a diesel RV, you can save money on gas by getting a TSD Logistics card. I haven’t used one yet, but our friends swear by it! You can also get a Good Sam Club membership to save a few pennies per gallon on both gas and diesel.


What is it really like to RV full-time?

In our latest book, we share what it’s like RVing across America—breakdowns, bear encounters, stunning hikes, beachfront camping and all.


Lodging

We used to spend an average of $400/month on camping fees. That’s roughly $13 a night.

But camping has EXPLODED in the past three years and with it, campground prices. When staying at campgrounds every night, we spend closer to $1,000/month. But this is a really easy number to lower!

To save on lodging costs at RV parks and campgrounds, you can always opt for fewer hook-ups. When we want to save a couple of dollars, we will choose electric and water only sites and use the dump station when we leave the park. Or you can use an RV membership like Passport America or Good Sam for big discounts.

You can also boondock, moochdock, or dry camp for free to save too.

We have a whole (free) course on how to save money on camping costs you can enroll in here.

*Note: The above costs include our electric costs, which are only incurred at some RV parks and typically only on longterm stays.

Grocery Costs

This number will stay roughly the same as what you spend wherever you’re living now. We spent up to $400 a month on groceries for our family of two. We buy mostly fresh foods and shop 1-2 times a week since there is limited cabinet space in RVs. With the addition of our daughter eating real food in 2020, our grocery bill is closer to $600/month.

Eating Out

I do not eat out often. If it were up to Heath, we’d eat out every day. Probably for breakfast. He is a sucker for pancakes and since I am gluten-free, we rarely have pancakes in the house.

Anyway, we average about $120 a month in eating out, which is mostly restaurants and Starbucks. From people that I’ve talked to, this is extremely low. Many full-time travelers are super into trying local restaurants when they travel, so they obviously spend a lot more on restaurants. But if you’re moving into an RV to downsize, pay off debt, or build wealth, you’re in control of spending as little eating out as you want. If you’re moving into an RV because you want the full experience of all the places you visit, you’ll drop a few hundred on eating out each month. It’s your call.

Phone & Internet

We pay roughly $300/month total for unlimited data on our two phones (through Verizon) and on our hot spot (through an off-market AT&T plan).

If you’re planning on working on the road, you can’t plan on “just using the RV park wifi” to accomplish anything. They are notoriously slow or non-existent. You cannot RV full-time without purchasing a hotspot that is not your phone. You can also buy wifi boosters and other techie products to make a “meh” signal strong enough to use for work.

Maintenance

Always, always, always expect to incur maintenance charges each month. Expecting to pay each month for maintenance will save you many headaches and knots in your stomach when you inevitably break down, blow a tire, shatter a brake pad, or have a propane leak—all of which have happened to us. You’ll need to be changing your oil and refilling propane regularly anyway, so it’s best to just count this as a guaranteed expense.

Our biggest maintenance occurred when our fuel pump gave out just south of the Grand Canyon. We paid $600 to get it replaced and get back on the road. We are probably pretty lucky that our biggest maintenance expense was that low, but I’ll take it!

We typically spend around $1,500 in maintenance annually. Based on our experience, I’d budget $100 a month for this so you are prepared when bigger fixes arise.

RV Insurance

This number can vary wildly depending on your rig. Nicer rigs like diesel motorhomes will be more expensive. Inexpensive rigs like travel trailers will be cheaper to insure.

For our 1994 Coachmen RV, we paid between $700-$800 a year for RV insurance.

For our 2016 Winnebago Brave, we paid just shy of $2000 a year for RV insurance. And for the record, my husband is the guy who is on the phone with the insurance agent always saying, “Oh yeah, I want that covered. An extra $200? Sure no problem!” We are ridiculously over-insured, I’m sure.

Our car insurance is closer to $500 a year since we pay for the lowest possible package and have an old car. Plus, our RV insurance should also cover our tow car in case of an accident. I say “should” since insurance companies have terrible reputations for telling you things that aren’t true.

We found our car + RV insurance through Good Sam, which connected us with National General and Allied, respectively.

Pro Tip: Even if you don’t insure your RV through Good Sam, you should spring for their Roadside Assistance service. It’s $80 a year and completely worth it. Plus, if they can’t get to you in time for roadside assistance, they will pay for whoever does end up coming out to save you from the side of the Interstate. After getting a blown tire outside of Coalinga, California, I’m a HUGE fan of Good Sam’s Roadside service. Getting our tow dolly tire replaced billed us $150, which Good Sam promptly reimbursed us for. I’m a huge fan of any service that pays for itself. (PS They don’t pay me to say nice things about them)

Health Insurance

I cannot give you an estimation of costs for health insurance. It changes too rapidly! But we pay about $250/month.

For a full explanation of healthcare for RVers and our experiences on the road, check out this post. 


Those will be all of your big-ticket expenses. There are always other random expenses: Spotify, Netflix, taxes, fees, movies, books, clothes, etc.

So let’s see, for two people living full time in an RV, that gives you a monthly breakdown of that looks like this:

  • The Rig: $600 (or less!)
  • Gas: $250
  • Lodging: $750 (splitting the difference here!)
  • Groceries: $600
  • Eating Out: $100
  • Phone/Internet: $250
  • Maintenance: $100
  • RV Insurance: $2000 for the year, or around $150 a month
  • Health Insurance: $250

That rings up to $3,050 a month, living comfortably. In our ’94 rig, we paid as low as $1,400 one month. When gas cost $4/gallon and we spent two weeks driving the coast of California, we spent over $4,000.

These numbers are all approximations and averages based on our 6+ years of experience. Every RVer is different, but if you’re planning to start full-timing in the future, keep these numbers in mind as you budget.

If you liked this post, you might also like: 

29 Reasons Living in an RV is Better Than a House

21 Questions Everyone Asks Us About RVing 

14 RVing Essentials: What You Need to Buy AFTER You Buy Your Rig

24 Responses

  • Agree with all of your insight here. We also found our (motor)home through Craigslist! It’s good to note that diesel RV costs tend to be higher than gas, from the purchase price down to regular maintenance. I guess the one exception right now is fuel!

    • That’s a good point! And a key reason why we didn’t want to buy diesel. The engines are so much more costly, but last longer!

  • The 2 of us full time in a travel trailer. 2014 Chevy and a 2016 Rockwood 2604ws.
    Our expensives:
    Truck and trailer payment. $550/month
    Insurance for both. 100/month
    Food. 400/month
    Phone and Internet. 151/month
    Gas. 200/month
    Wine. 100/month
    RV parks. 50/month. We boondock and stay at relitives a lot
    Maintenance 50/month
    Eating out. 50/month
    Total. $1551/month

    So it really is not to expensive to full time. The only expense to add to this is health costs. We are of Medicare age so that expense is not to bad.

    Jim and Dolly

    • Thanks for sharing Jim! I love your $100 a month on wine. Y’all definitely keep it cheap! I love it.

    • Hi Jim & Dolly,
      My husband and I are planning to embark on over-the-road living in about a year and a half. Currently living in Honolulu. My husband Charlie can’t wait to be able to drive further than 30 miles in a day! Anyway, we’ll both be solely on Medicare by then and wondering if you’ve found any issues with coverage as you travel.

  • Alyssa,
    I am enjoying SO much your blog. My husband and I are traveling the US for 11 weeks to find our new home. We don’t have an RV, just a tiny, tiny car…but we’ve been talking how we’d love to do this full time! Thank you for giving us something to ready and consider! ❤️ Alyssa (yep, my name too)

    • Thanks Alyssa! 🙂 Hopefully we’ll bring you over the dark side of full-timing!

  • Love your blog and podcast! My husband and I are plotting our escape from corporate life to start full-timing this fall (2017) and are trying to figure out what a good price should be for a live-in camper. We would be working from the road, so our budget would include at least one full-time income.

    We’re looking mostly at travel trailers and some fifth wheels (so we’d also be upgrading to a truck for towing), but were curious if most people buy outright or finance their camper/truck. We’d prefer to own our home-on-wheels, but looking at older campers we’d definitely gotten the hibbie jibbies from all the work that they need. We’d love to have a project but don’t want to be stuck on the side of the road without a working fridge from day two…any insight would be helpful!

    • Everyone is different! We owned our first rig and then got a loan for our current one. There’s pros and cons to each. We do have a whole guide on our site that helps go through the process for buying an RV! You can download it free here: heathandalyssa.com/guide

  • I am curios about getting an RV. I am wondering if people who do this full time use a PO box or how you get your mail since that is an extra cost as well. Thank you!

    • Hey VS! Getting mail on the road is really easy and pretty cheap. We have a post on it here: heathandalyssa.com/mail

      • Oh great thank you! I just found your site so I will have to browse it some more 🙂

  • Thanks for posting this, very useful info.

    FYI, if you ever want great homemade gluten free pancakes, use Pamela’s pancake mix, but substitute in milk instead of water. The best! And super easy.

    • Thanks Mark! I’ve been using Pillsbury’s GF flour blend and it makes pretty good pancakes!

  • https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/bd575168d4b713c027223a17f3aec623556a3b66a19e424b02aabe9401bd42f3.jpg I can’t thank you enough. You put my mind at ease. Safe travels. Selling our business next year and hitting the road with 6 cats and 3 dogs!! 🙂

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  • I like how you mentioned how RV insurance covers the tow car in an accident. My parents are wanting to get an RV this summer so they can travel the country during retirement. I’ll be sure to share this with them so they can find the right insurance for their RV. https://www.millers-rv.com

  • It makes sense that the gas for the RV is probably going to be one of the biggest expenses. My brother is trying to get a new trailer for his family this fall. He wants to be comfortable when traveling for long periods of time so it’s worth doing a lot of research. https://www.parklandrvcenter.com/inventory/v1/

  • I really like that you touched on how you have an older car so you only have to pay a few hundred dollars a year for insurance. My brother is trying to get a new RV for his family this fall. He wants to make sure it’s perfect for their needs so they are comfortable. https://designergatesllc.com/rv-gates

  • I love your idea to simply stay in places longer so that you save money on gas. My brother is trying to plan out a long RV trip next year. He wants to make sure he plans properly so that they have an enjoyable experience. He needs to figure out where the best camping spots are as well so that they have a great time. http://drydockdepot.com

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