The Honest Cost of RVing for a Year: What the YouTube Videos Don't Tell You


Happy Sunday fellow travelers,

I've been an Emmy Award-winning journalist for more than 30 years. My whole career was built on asking hard questions and not accepting the pretty version of a story when the real version is more useful. So let me apply that same standard to something a lot of RV content creators never do: the actual, honest cost of RVing for a year.

Jennifer and I have been living the RV lifestyle for more than 15 years. We've logged nearly half a million miles across all 48 contiguous states. We've owned pop-ups, travel trailers, Class A and Class B motorhomes, and now we tow our 35-foot Brinkley fifth wheel with our Ford F-350. We've spent a lot of money doing this. We've also learned, sometimes the hard way, where the money actually goes versus where people think it goes. And those are two very different lists.

The Honest Cost of RVing for a Year: What the YouTube Videos Don't Tell You

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RV Lifestyle TIP of the Day:
Sanitize Your Fresh Water Tank Every Season

If your RV sits for more than a few weeks between trips, bacteria can build up in the fresh water tank and lines. A simple bleach flush at the start of each season takes about an hour and costs almost nothing. Mix one-quarter cup of household bleach per 15 gallons of tank capacity, fill the tank, run the water through every faucet until you smell bleach, then let it sit for at least four hours before flushing.

After flushing, fill the tank with fresh water and run it through the system again until the bleach smell is gone. If you use a water filter, replace the cartridge after sanitizing. This is a basic step that most new RVers skip, and then wonder why their water tastes off or upsets their stomach on the road.

This is what Mike mentioned in today's blog post:

RV Trip Budget Buddy

Here's what veteran RVers figure out eventually. The per-night or per-mile number doesn't tell you what you need to know. The number that matters is: what did this trip actually cost, start to finish, compared to what you planned to spend?

That's a hard number to know if you're not tracking it in real time.

For years we kept rough notes. Trip to Florida. Spent about this much. Vague. Not useful for planning the next one more accurately. What changed things for us was actually tracking every expense category against a budget we set before we left, updated as we traveled. Fuel by fill-up. Site fees per night. Groceries. Meals out. Activities. Everything. You start to see patterns. You find out which categories blow up your budget and which ones you consistently underspend. That knowledge makes every future trip cheaper and less stressful to plan.

That's exactly what we built our RV Trip Budget Buddy to do. It's a $19.99 web app, one time, no subscription, that lets you set your total trip budget by category before you leave and then log actual expenses as you travel. It updates your running totals in real time so you know exactly where you stand at any point in the trip. No end-of-trip sticker shock. No vague sense that you went a little over. Actual numbers that make the next trip's planning sharper and smarter.

You can get it at the link below. It works on your phone, tablet, or laptop, no download required, and access is instant after purchase.

--> Get the RV Trip Budget Buddy for $19.99 (one-time, no subscription): https://rvlifestyle.com/budgetbuddy

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