It’s hard to believe that we’ve been full timing for the past 15+ months. Time sure does fly when you’re having fun.
At the start of 2018 we were in Savannah Georgia touring the Bonaventure Cemetery. Our travels in 2018 took us south to Florida, north to Michigan, East to New Jersey, south to Virginia, west to Missouri and OKC, South to Texas (to escape the cold weather), and finally west to end the year in Las Cruces, New Mexico.
Total miles traveled = 5,705
Average miles driven between stops = 184
Total number of stops = 31
Notable places we’ve visited:
- Savannah
- Bonaventure Cemetery
- Tybee Island
- St. Augustine
- Lake Tohopekaliga (Florida)
- Lake Dora Florida
- Carrabelle Florida
- St. George Island
- Montgomery Alabama
- Selma Alabama
- The Rosenbaum House (Frank Lloyd Wright Home)
- U.S. Space and Rocket Center
- Jim Beam Distillery
- Mammoth Cave
- National Corvette Museum
- Pink Elephant in Fortville Indiana
- World’s Largest Ball of Paint
- RV/MH Hall of Fame
- Silver Lake Sand Dunes
- Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
- Kent State Memorial
- Cleveland Ohio
- Fallingwater (Frank Lloyd Wright Home)
- Kentuck Knob (Frank Lloyd Wright Home)
- Polymath Park (Frank Lloyd Wright Homes)
- Rt. 66 Eureka MO to Cuba MO
- St. Louis
- Carthage MO
- Fantastic Caverns
- World’s Largest Fork
- Oklahoma City National Memorial
Total miles traveled = 5,705
Average miles driven between stops = 184
Total number of stops = 31
Total costs for campgrounds = $14,983.91
Average cost for campground (per day) = $41.28
Cheapest campground (not counting boondocking) was Montgomery South RV Park at $15.79 per day. Most expensive campground was St. Augustine Beach KOA at $87.51 per day. (We rated both campgrounds with three stars out of five)
Financials:
I’ve been using Quicken to track our financials for almost ten years now. When you total all of our expenses this year, it seems as though we spent a lot of money to live full time. However, that’s not the case, compared to our previous lifestyle with a house and two cars, etc. etc., our household expenses were 71%, So compared to today we are spending 20% less living full time. Surprisingly, the costs for food, clothing, general supplies, and liquor remained about the same as before we went full time. In fact, we’ve only spent about $100 more in liquor in 2018 then we did in 2017.
The vehicle expenses in 2018 is a little misleading. $5,000+ spent for service and repair on the coach was actually for the Blue Ox tow bar, base plate and supplemental braking system, and installation. The actual amount spent for service and repairs is still double what we incurred in 2017, which is not surprising since we really didn’t travel much until we went full time in September 2017.
The costs for “fun stuff” increased fivefold in 2018, but that was mostly due to pre-paying for the cruise we are taking to Hawaii this year. Taking the cost of the cruise out of the equation, we actually spent about $1,200 less on fun stuff in 2018 versus 2017.
So, what are our goals for 2019? (There’s really only two)
- Stay at better campgrounds – increase our per day expense to $60+.
- Spend more time and money doing “fun stuff”
Seems logical to me.
Until next time
Y’all have had quite a ride. Thanks for taking me with you. I hope our roads will intersect at some point in the future. Safe travels. Dawn
looking forward to some day meeting on the road. until then safe travels to you and Mike!