Recently, I got my annual text message from my brother Terry asking, with gas prices so high, was I going to take the motorhome on the road this Summer?
“Sure”, I told him, and explained that fuel is an incidental cost of RV’ing.
That’s hard for someone to believe if they don’t own and travel about in a large motorhome.
We pay about $2,000 per year just to store it, $1,700 to insure it, and another $800 for license tags in Nevada. So, we’re down $4,500 before we head off on vacation. Let’s call those our “fixed costs”.
Every year since we have owned The Beast, we have put substantial money into repairs and improvements. The rig was ten years old when we purchased it and we’ve now owned it for another seven years, making it seventeen years old. Our Monaco Windsor was a luxury coach when it was new, costing over $325,000 in 2005. Lots of gadgets, expensive furniture, giant tires, and such wear out over time; we’ve replaced a lot of stuff. We’ve also upgraded the floors, the window coverings, and replaced the refrigerator/freezer and washer/dryer. This past year we’ve replaced the exterior roof ladder, put in a new slide motor, replaced the compressed air system manifold, fixed the front door, replaced window screens, etc. I would guess that we’ve put over $30,000 into repairs, replacement items, and upgrades since we bought it. Let’s just say an average of $5,000 per year in “repairs/upgrades”. (That doesn’t include repairs that were covered by insurance.)
So, “fixed costs” of $4,500 plus “repairs/upgrades” of $5,000 equals $9,500 in cost… before we head out on our 3,000 mile journey. That’s about $3.16 per mile in non-fuel expense.
Last year, we used about 350 gallons of diesel fuel. At an average of $3.80 per gallon, we spent around $1,350 for fuel. If fuel cost increases to $5.00 per gallon, the additional fuel cost to travel this Summer will be about $400. Even at that rate, we would be paying about $0.58 per mile in fuel expense, or less than 20 percent of our non-fuel expense.
That’s why I say that fuel is an incidental expense.
Of course, we don’t “dry camp” in the boondocks or in Wal-Mart parking lots. Oh, no. My wife expects our overnight stays to be in very nice RV resorts which cost plenty. Our average nightly rent expense for the entire 3-month trip is about $70 per night, so we can anticipate another $2,100 in “rent” expense.
So, our total anticipated expense for this Summer’s jaunt along the Oregon and California coasts is around $13,350 ($4,500 + $5,000 + $1,750 + $2,100).
Yes, that’s a LOT of money, an ungodly waste of funds. We should probably be reprimanded for blowing our fortune in this way; we’re taking money out of our children’s mouths. Smoking $100 cigars would be cheaper.
However, it’s our money, we have enough to spend on extravagances like this, and we will do it for long as we can physically manage it.
So, to get back to those godawful fuel prices, even if fuel hits $5.00 or even $6.00 per gallon, that cost is an incidental one and we’ll bear it. (Hopefully, it will thin the herd at the popular RV resorts and National Parks which are hard to get into!)
By the way, I hate to hear crybabies moan and groan about fuel prices. The average price per gallon for gasoline in the United States is yet to reach $5.00, while European countries have been paying that much for the past thirty years. The average price per gallon right now in France is $7.94 and in the U.K. it’s $7.72.
The solution to this problem, adopted decades ago in European countries, was a shift to small cars that get 30 to 45 miles per gallon. Americans refused to go there, insisting on big cars with powerful engines (“gas guzzlers”). Even now, thirty years late, the average new car in the U.S. probably doesn’t get 30 miles per gallon.
I’m sure that, in ten years, virtually all new cars will be electric powered and Joe Consumer can give the middle finger to Big Oil.
That, of course, will not help the fuel-guzzling 400 H.P. Turbocharged Cummins diesel engine in my 2005 Monaco Windsor. Fuel will probably be $15.00 per gallon by then. Big Oil will have me bent over a log, so to speak; fuel cost will then be incidental.
The only solution will be to park the mo-fo in Mexico and live in it full time.
Dios Mio!