We budgeted $3,200 per month when we started full time RV life in 2023. Our actual average over the first year was $4,800. We were not a little off — we were wildly, embarrassingly wrong about nearly every major expense category except one.
The problem was not that we failed to research. We read blogs, joined forums, and built spreadsheets. The problem was that most budget breakdowns we found were either from people living in $250,000 luxury rigs who pretended their costs were typical, or from minimalists boondocking on BLM land who ate rice and beans for six months straight. Neither scenario matched what we actually wanted our lives to look like.
So here is what full time RV living costs actually looked like for us in 2026, broken down by the seven expense categories that either destroyed our budget or surprised us in the opposite direction.
The Seven Expenses That Define Your Full Time RV Life
Campground fees were the first shock. We budgeted $800 per month assuming we would split time between cheap BLM stays and occasional RV parks. Our actual average was $1,100. The math sounds simple until you realize that moving every two weeks means you are always in transition, always needing a place to park tonight, and always paying for convenience. We stayed at a KOA in Colorado for three nights that cost $59 per night. We stayed at a private park in Florida for a month at $950. We tried to boondock in Arizona and lasted four days before we needed a real shower and paid $45 for a single night to feel human again.
Fuel was the second line item we got wrong. We budgeted $400 per month. Our actual average was $650. We were moving twice a month, sometimes more, and every move over 125 miles cost us $300 in diesel alone. We started adding fuel stabilizer to our truck because we were driving so infrequently between long stays that the gas would sit for weeks. That should have been a clue that our travel pattern was expensive, but we kept doing it anyway because we thought frequent moves were what full-time RV life was supposed to look like.
Insurance went up 22% nationally in 2024, and our renewal in 2025 hit us with a 30% increase because we were spending summers in Florida. We budgeted $150 per month. Our actual cost in 2026 is $210. One of the five carriers we contacted declined coverage outright for our planned route. Another quoted us $340 per month. We took the $210 and considered ourselves lucky.
Maintenance and repairs were the expense category we underestimated most dramatically. We budgeted $200 per month thinking we could handle small fixes ourselves and avoid major breakdowns. Our actual average over three years has been $420 per month. That includes one $4,200 slide-out repair, one $900 roof reseal, and six tires at $950 each plus mounting. RV shop labor rates are $120 to $140 per hour, and nothing on an RV is a quick fix. When our refrigerator died in New Mexico, the repair took two weeks and cost $1,800. We stayed in a hotel for five nights at $150 per night while we waited, which added another $750 we had not budgeted.
Propane, utilities, and connectivity were easier to predict but still higher than we expected. We budgeted $150 per month total. Our actual average is $200. Propane costs more in winter, but honestly, it is manageable. The real cost is Starlink, which we pay $150 per month for because we work remotely and cannot rely on campground Wi-Fi. We bought the standard dish for $599 in 2024 and it has been worth every penny, but it is an expense we did not account for in our original budget.
Food and groceries were the one category where we came in under budget. We thought we would spend $600 per month. Our actual average is $550. We cook almost every meal, we shop at Walmart and Aldi, and we do not eat out unless it is a special occasion. This is the only line item where we feel like we have any control.
The seventh expense is the one nobody talks about: the emergency fund we had to build and rebuild. We started with $5,000 in savings. We burned through it in the first eight months. We rebuilt it to $3,000. We burned through it again when the transmission on our truck needed $4,800 in work. Now we keep $7,000 in a separate account and we do not touch it unless something breaks, which it does, constantly, because RVs are not designed for full-time living and everything wears out faster than it would in a house.
The Three Surprises That Made Us Recalculate Everything
Insurance was the biggest shock, and not because of the premium increase. It was the realization that our coverage could be declined entirely depending on where we planned to park. We thought insurance was a fixed cost you paid once a year and forgot about. Instead, it became a variable that dictated our travel routes. We avoided certain states in summer because the quotes were $400+ per month. We stayed in lower-risk areas during hurricane season because our carrier told us point-blank that they would not renew if we filed a claim for storm damage in Florida between June and November.
The second surprise was how much campground availability dictated our costs. In 2024, 56% of campers struggled to find available sites, up from 45% the year before. We experienced this firsthand when we tried to book a spot in the Smoky Mountains in October and everything within 50 miles was sold out. We ended up paying $95 per night for a last-minute cancellation at a private park that was not even nice. Scarcity drives prices up, and in 2026, scarcity is the norm in any desirable location during peak season.
The third surprise was propane, but only because we underestimated winter usage. We paid $50 per month in summer and $120 per month in winter when we were running the furnace. It is manageable, but it is not the $30 per month we budgeted.
Year Two Cost Us Less—But Not How We Expected
We stopped moving every two weeks in month 14 and parked in one spot for three months straight. That single decision cut our fuel bill in half and revealed which expenses were actually location-dependent. Our monthly average dropped from $4,800 to $3,900, but not because we got better at budgeting or found cheaper campgrounds. We stopped paying the hidden cost of constant movement.
The three-month stay was in a small town in New Mexico where monthly rent was $600 and electricity was $100. We paid $700 total for lot rent and utilities, which was less than we had been spending on campground fees alone when we were moving constantly. We also stopped needing Starlink for a while because the park had decent Wi-Fi, so we paused the subscription and saved $450 over three months.
The lesson was not that staying put is cheaper. The lesson was that our original budget assumed we would be nomadic, and nomadic full time RV life is expensive in ways that have nothing to do with the RV itself.
Where We Actually Bleed Money (And Where We Pretend To)
We tried every cost-cutting trick we read about. We joined Harvest Hosts for $129 annually and Boondockers Welcome for $79 annually, thinking we would save thousands on campground fees. We used Harvest Hosts exactly four times in two years. The locations were either too far off our route or too restrictive about generator use and slide-outs. Boondockers Welcome was better, but most of the properties were in rural areas where we had no cell signal and could not work. The memberships saved us maybe $300 total, which means we are still $208 in the hole after two years.
We also tried staying at cheaper campgrounds to save money, and that backfired spectacularly. We stayed at a $30-per-night park in Texas that had gravel sites with no leveling pads. Our jacks sank into the gravel, our slide-out scraped the ground when we extended it, and we ended up with a $1,200 repair bill for a bent slide mechanism. The cheap campground cost us $90 for three nights and $1,200 in damage. We have not stayed at a gravel site since.
The one genuine win was cutting our National Parks pass. We bought the $80 annual pass thinking we would use it constantly. We used it twice. Most of the places we stayed did not have National Park access, and when we did visit parks, we were usually passing through, not camping. We let the pass expire and have not missed it.
But the expense where cutting corners is impossible is maintenance. We tried doing our own repairs for the first year. We replaced a water pump ourselves and saved $300 in labor. We also cracked a fitting and flooded the bathroom, which cost $800 to fix. Now we pay the $140 per hour shop rate and sleep better at night. If you are dealing with similar repair decisions, check out our RV maintenance resources and guides to help you figure out what you can tackle yourself and what needs a pro.
Full Time RV Life vs. Staying Put: The Math Nobody Wants to Admit
Our RV cost $60,000. Our truck cost $25,000. We have no mortgage, no rent, and no property taxes. On paper, we should be saving a fortune compared to living in a house. In reality, our monthly expenses are roughly the same as they would be if we rented a two-bedroom apartment in a mid-sized city.
If we had stayed in Florida and rented an apartment, we would be paying around $1,800 per month for rent and utilities. Add $150 for internet, $200 for groceries, $100 for car insurance, and $150 for gas, and we are at $2,400 per month. Our actual RV costs in 2026 average $3,900 per month, which is $1,500 more than staying put.
The difference is that $1,500 buys us the ability to wake up in a different state every month, to avoid winter entirely, and to live in places we could never afford to rent. We spent October in Vermont, January in Arizona, and April in the Outer Banks. If we had tried to rent short-term housing in those locations, we would have paid $3,000+ per month for rent.
So the math depends entirely on what you are comparing it to. Full time RV life is cheaper than renting vacation homes in desirable locations. It is more expensive than staying in one place and living a normal, stationary life. It is absolutely not cheaper than boondocking full-time on BLM land and living on $900 per month, but we are not willing to live that way, and most people are not either.
The non-financial reason we choose this anyway is simple: we like our life. We like the flexibility, the lack of a lease, and the fact that we can leave a place the moment we are tired of it. That is worth $1,500 per month to us. It might not be worth it to you, and that is fine.
Before You Quit Your Job and Buy an RV, Actually Do This First
Spend one month tracking every dollar you spend in your current home. Write down rent, utilities, groceries, gas, insurance, subscriptions, eating out, everything. Then add 30% to three categories: transportation, insurance, and maintenance. Subtract 20% from two categories: food and entertainment. If the resulting number is higher than your current income, do not quit your job yet.
If you cannot stick to a budget on land, you will not magically become disciplined in an RV. The RV will give you more expensive ways to fail. We have met dozens of full-timers who went back to stationary life within a year because they ran out of money, and every single one of them admitted they never actually tracked their spending before they left.
The other thing to do is build a $5,000 emergency fund before you leave, and have a plan to replenish it when it gets drained. Because it will get drained. We have rebuilt ours three times in three years, and we consider that normal. If $5,000 sounds impossible to save, full time RV life is going to be a financial disaster for you, and you should wait until you are in a better position to absorb the inevitable repairs and surprises.
We thought we would save money when we started full time RV life. We were wrong. But we are still here, still moving, and still figuring out how to make the math work. That is the real cost of RV life full-time: not the dollar amount, but the constant recalculation of what you are willing to pay for the freedom to leave whenever you want.
