Monthly Expenses for Full-Time RVing – October 2016

We created a monthly budget before our RV trip, and we share our monthly expenses against our projected budget to share with others how much it costs to RV around America.

We’ve shared our monthly expenses for March, April, May, June, July, August, and September.

Below are our expenses for October.

We managed to come in under budget this month by -2%. This is great, since usually we exceed our budget.

There were some factors contributing to our coming in under budget.

We spent September traversing the country, and in October we just didn’t drive as much since we camped longer in the parks we visited, the parks and attractions weren’t as expansive as out west, and the places we visited were closer together.

Also, costs appear to be less in the east than the west. Campground fees and fuel costs are typically lower than out west.

The best news is that we didn’t incur any major expected or unexpected expenses like we have in previous months, such as replacing stolen generators, replacing tires, or staying in an AirBnB.

As we have in every month, we’ve basically exceeded our budget for food and dining by 2x. This is a category I grossly underestimated before we left, and we have consistently spent $1800-$2000 per month on food and dining.

Below is a table breaking down our costs to RV for the month of October 2016.

Note that this breakdown of expenses for our RV trip excludes any financials related to real estate and other financial investments, where we do incur costs. We’re trying to convey the day-to-day lifestyle expenses of an RV trip around America, and that other stuff muddied the waters.