When preparing for full-time travel, financial planning can be really daunting because it’s so different from life in a home. Over the last four years, we’ve come to have a pretty good understanding of the price of life on the road and all the variables that can affect the cost. 

We made an in-depth video on the subject that you can watch here. However, there are a TON of numbers and we move kind of fast though them. Below you can find the cliff notes version so you can really take a look at the numbers!

Operational costs

These are the unavoidable costs of living.

Cellphone/hotspot

In addition to standard cellphone usage, we also use them to hotspot for work. We have a Verizon “unlimited" plan, which isn’t fully unlimited. We get throttled after using 15GB of data for hotspotting. We also have a hotspot so we can have an additional 15GB to hotspot with. In total, our cellphone bill is $170 a month.

Healthcare

We source our own health care plans through Healthcare.gov. We have an extremely basic plan because we don’t need to go to the doctor much. In total, we pay $90 a month for both of us. 

Groceries

We mostly cook our own food on a day to day basis in the rig and thus buy a lot of groceries. For a week of groceries we’ll spend around $120 for both of us, totaling $480 a month.

Eating Out

There is really no rhyme or reason to how much or how little we eat out, it depends on where we are and who we’re with. Based on recent months we spend an average of $150 a month on eating out.

Additional Experiences

Additional experiences such as museums, going to the gym, park fees, and other things of that nature. These average $100 a month.

The varying items

Vehicle choice greatly impacts the cost of living when you get out on the road. For the sake of example and illustrating the difference, we will be using our own rigs to price out and give as examples of two ends of the spectrum. 

A cheap vehicle

Our most inexpensive rig was our 2008 Toyota Tacoma. We purchased this vehicle for $13000 out of pocket. We did a VERY simple $400 dollar build on the interior of the truck bed. Over the nine months that we lived in this rig we spent $340 on a new master cylinder and oil changes. The grand total came to $13740. When we went to sell it, it sold for $12500. Using those numbers the cost of ownership per month was just $137.77!

An expensive vehicle

We now have a 2019 Toyota Tundra with a Flatbed Four Wheel Camper. The total build cost was $100,000. We took out two separate loans to cover the cost. One for the truck and one for the camper. Because we still own this vehicle there isn’t a sale price to help us make the same calculations we have for Tacoma. For the sake of comparison, if we put it up for sale tomorrow we’d ask $90,000. We’ve now been living in it for 13 months, so that gives is a monthly cost of ownership of $769.

A cheap vehicle with expensive upkeep costs

Never underestimate the cost of upkeep! Though our current rig was expensive upfront, it costs virtually nothing in upkeep since everything is under warranty (including our oil changes)! However our first vehicle, a Stock VW Vanagon, was just the opposite. We paid just $7000, knowing we’d have to put a lot of money into it for life on the road. In the end, we had over $50,000 into that van and it still broke down REGULARLY. After selling it we were able to calculate the monthly cost of ownership to roughly $1000 a month. It was also expensive to insure because we had a stated value policy to cover all the upgrades we did to the vehicle. Adding in insurance, the monthly price came to $1150.

Gas

The cost of your gas will always depend on your vehicle and how fast you move from place to place. Though our current rig is the most inefficient vehicle we’ve ever had, we’re also moving slower than ever before so we’re averaging about the same monthly cost in gas. About $400.

Grand Totals

Before writing this video we’d never actually crunched the numbers in this much detail before. It was pretty crazy to see that our Vanagon was STILL more expensive than our current set up. I guess that’s what happens when you go through a few engines, transmissions, and radiators. The difference between the Vanagon and our Tundra really comes down to the fact that we know how much the Tundra costs us every month. With the Vanagon, we’d have months were we didn’t have any major expenses, but then the next we’d have a $10,000 month because of a catastrophic engine failure.

Budgeting

I can’t end this post without briefly touching on budgeting. Budgets are great if you really want to keep an eye on how much you’re spending on a daily basis, but I have to be honest with you and say that Owen and I don’t keep a budget. The reason we don’t is that we work full time and are living well within our means (This was written pre-COVID-19, we’re now keeping a close eye on spending and have reduced down to only the essentials). If you wont be working from the road and are starting with a set amount of money, budgeting is a wise approach to take so you can be sure to do everything you want with what you have.

My advice to you if you’re wanting to go on the road full time is to start simple and roll with what you’ve got! When Owen and I first went on the road way back in 2012 we just had a Honda Element, a hand-me-down tent, and six thousand dollars to our name. Somehow we managed to travel for nearly six months on that. By starting off simple we got the opportunity to go out and have some amazing experiences that would go onto to inform how we travel to this day! 

Just remember that everyone travels differently and places importance on different aspects of life. These examples are purely our own and will take some time to figure out for yourself. We hope this was helpful to you! Enjoy and be well!

Love,

MAK & Owen