How the other half does it....

[bullfrog]

^^^I agree totally with barleyguy, especially when you consider the average house payment for a sticks and bricks house. They are not building equity but are still well in the range of what a house payment and utilities would be. Actually a full hookup site here at Lake Powell is close to $60 a day which is about the same for a house boat slip but those cost an additional $160 to get the black tank pumped out I believe and for most that is once every week or two. Considering that they are really doing pretty good. We have I believe about 1500 house boats moored on the lake and rental house boats can go for as much as $10,000 a week so yes there are probably another million rich and famous people living some of the time that way but I didn't check on people living on the water. I guess I'm wondering just how much it takes to have health insurance, be able to eat what you want, when you want to, go where you need or want to go and live comfortably on the road. This couple seems to be able to do it I'm guessing for about $60,000 a year. There are many carpentry, plumbing and electrical jobs that are offering on the job training that claim to pay $80,000 a year after 5 years of internship. Something just doesn't seem right to me and like you I was surprised at how little this couple paid to live a pretty care free life style. I'm thinking many young people will be considering paying $200,000 for a motorhome rather than $400,000 for a sticks and bricks house. Their big problem will come like many here when they retire if they have no equity because they have lived on the road and have not saved while doing so.

 

[GotSmart]

When I first started out, I was sleeping in the back of a station wagon.  Back in the 70’s. 

Now we are full timers in something that our broken bodies can be comfortable in. It takes a long time to get life together to be able to have what we do. A lot of it was luck. Now all I want out of life is to be able to transport all the pretty rocks to our home base. A good used class A with enough solar to make Jim jealous. I hope all the surgeries will allow me to be able to drive it again.

 

[bullfrog]

^^^Best wishes! Like many here I feel fortunate to have made it this far and wish I could thank the many that helped us figure it out that are long gone. It is encouraging to see people doing well on the road and hope we can continue to be as well.

 

[ckelly78z]

I guess my wife and I fall into the category of "the other half" with our budget, and rig.

 

[bullfrog]

I'm not sure where I fall as we didn't have many good options when we started out 20 years ago. Now because of lifestyle changes we have many more options. Funny but we have actually not only survived but thrived by finding jobs we loved doing and getting those jobs because we had our own housing. Most of our lives have been that way as luckily everything seem to work for us and fall into place once we quit trying to live up to everyone else's standards.

 

[tx2sturgis]

I'm in the middle half....or is that the middle third?

More than a van, less than a Prevost. Well, a LOT less.

:thumbsup:

 

[ckelly78z]

I guess my wife and I fall into the category of "the other half" with our budget, and rig.

I finally have the time to enlarge on my previous post by giving some history.

I have camped in one form, or another for 50+ years with my parents in a pop-up, and then with my new wife when we married in 1988. We pulled a 15' outboard boat with a Jeep CJ. We would take a tent to put all of our camping gear in, but tip the seats forward, and actually sleep in the back with the tailgate down. We cooked everything over a campfire, and were on a strict budget. We did the same thing with a full sized Ford Bronco for a year, or two, and then upgraded to a Dodge Caravan (it felt like we all had all the room in the world.

We knew when our daughter was born that this style wouldn't be comfortable, so we bought an old Crown pop-up camper, and pulled it all over the country with our Ford Bronco II (the small version). We upgraded to a Chrysler Town/Country pulling a tandom axle Skamper fold down trailer, and camped with that for 10 years while the kids were growing up.

It wasn't until our late 40s until we had a 250,000 mile 1999 PSD F250 pulling a well used 1996 30' Dutchmen hard sided camper that we started camping more. We sold this whole unit to my daughter (she still camps with it now). 3 years ago we upgraded to a 6.0L diesel Excursion Limited pulling a 32' Heartland North Country travel trailer with one big slide that we consider absolute luxury.

I think we have earned the right to pamper ourselves after a long life of slowly upgrading as $$ allowed...perhaps just like the couple in the video that you are all bashing for having a large budget.

 

[RoamerRV428]

ck, yes you do have that right to pamper yourself any way you see fit after a life time of hard work and hard earned money! Cheers!!

---in general so many people do say 'live and let live' and alot of times there is always a BUT after saying that. too bad alot of people can't just say that and stop and comment no more cause after that comment....live and let live ---comes the personal opinions that truly don't expand usually in any good ways about how another wishes to live and spend their hard earned money.

I know I am doing my pampering now to the grave LOL We worked so darn hard thru our years and I know we earned everything we have and how we are gonna spend it is just that....how we want with no intention of listening to others

 

[tx2sturgis]

FINALLY!!! A thread about BAR-B-QUE!

Sign me up!

 

[rvwandering]

I've temporarily closed this thread until I get a chance to read the posts more thoroughly. Looks like we're getting into politics and casting blame.

 

[rvwandering]

Okay, I deleted a lot of posts. Some of them were deleted because they no longer made sense in the thread without the deleted posts, not because there was anything wrong with them. Please do not post anything political or anything that bashes or harshly judges other groups of people.

 

[johnjohn123]

I think that is pretty reasonable considering these people are basically going on a year-long vacation. I know some people that spend 3-4k per month on an apartment so they can have a "view" of the ocean believe it or not.