How much full-time RV living really costs: 6-month update

Full-time RV living is a wonderful way to spend more time with your family, travel the country and explore places you’ve never seen. There’s not a “one size fits all” budget for the full-time lifestyle since costs can vary dramatically based on how much you travel, the area of the country you are in, how many nights you spend at Thousand Trails campgrounds and the size of your family. 

This full-time RV living budget update post will give you the high-level numbers for how much we’ve spent since we hit the road in early February and a detailed monthly breakdown for the past three months. We use an app called Wallet to track all of our expenses which allows us to categorize each expense we, schedule recurring expenses and run a variety of reports.

The video below will walk you through all the numbers, but we’ve compiled them in the post as well for those who would rather read than watch. We also have a 3-month full-time RV budget update video if you’d like to see how much we spent the first three months on the road. 

6 months of full-time RVing (FEB-JULY)

YTD Total Expenses: $17,071.20

During the first six months on the road, we spent $17,071.20. That number isn’t small, but it’s in line with what we were expecting. We are a family of four, plus one dog and our goal is to travel and see the country along the way.

There a many families who undertake full-time RV living with kids on a much leaner budget, but our goal isn’t to live this lifestyle to save money. That being said, we try to keep our spending in check.

One of the best ways to keep costs down is by joining Thousand Trails and finding free camping options. During the past six months, we managed 38 nights of free camping, 86 nights of paid camping and 54 nights at Thousand Trails campgrounds. 

Q2 full-time RV living expenses

Q2 Total Expenses: $9,371.62

We were initially expecting our second quarter of full-time RV living to be cheaper than the first, but that didn’t play out as we expected. Overall, our expenses were 21% higher in Q2, but our spending was mainly driven by where we were. 

May Expenses: $2,692

We started the month of May with a week-long stay in Rachel’s hometown to celebrate the Apple Blossom Festival.  During this time, we parked the RV in a storage lot and stayed in her parents’ house. Then we stayed in four Thousand Trails parks in Hershey, New Jersey, New York, and Cape Cod which saved us a significant amount of money in our housing budget.

June Expenses: $3,418

During the month of June, our camping fees increased as we only used one Thousand Trails park. We stayed at our first KOA and mined for diamonds in Herkheimer, New York before making our way across the border into Canada. Toronto is where we spent most of our money for the month on attractions like Niagara Falls and the Ripley’s Aquarium. We also spent more than usual here on food and gas in Canada. After crossing back into the US, we driveway surfed with family and friends for two weeks in Chicago and Minneapolis. Then we moved on to a regional park where we stayed for two weeks and hosted friends for cookouts.

July Expenses: $3,226

In July we had two families camp with us for a few nights at two different campgrounds. One was a great Thousand Trails park, the other was a campground that we thought would be an exciting place for the kids, but it turns out it wasn’t as fantastic as the website made it out to be, plus all amenities cost extra money. Finally, we moved along to South Dakota after two nights of boondocking at Walmart and Gander Outdoors. We wrapped up the month officially “out west” if you count crossing the Mississippi as heading west.

RV living monthly expense breakdown

If you have any questions about our expenses, feel free to ask them in the comments. Hopefully, this information is helpful for you if you’re trying to decide if the RV living is right for you.