IT'S LIKE CHEATING - How We Afford the RV Life

Now if you can find these spots with free RV hookups it's like gold. Let's be honest here, for the longest time the RV lifestyle has been for retirees and those go-getters looking to knock things off their bucket list. However, as of recently it's been more of a lifestyle shift and change in focus for everyone out there looking to just explore more of life itself. Yeah, more and more families are hitting the road but they're doing so in the most affordable way. We're right there with you. Now if your goal with RVing is to see everything, do everything, I have all the money in the world to spend, I'm retired, then this information might not be relevant to you. But if you are concerned about the rising cost of everything and you want to make this lifestyle work for your budget, well you've come to the right place. If this is your first time landing here to Happily Ever Hanks, welcome. I'm Kyle and this is Renee and we're here for you. We're here to help you get out into the RV lifestyle, make that transition so much easier. Listen, we've been through it all and we have so many videos here to help you. Let's just help save you a bunch of time right off the get-go and talk about the two biggest money suckers when it comes to the RV lifestyle. That's fuel and lodging. And maybe you're sitting here watching this video thinking, well my plan is to wait for fuel prices to drop or I'm gonna just boondock 90% of the time. Problem solved, right? I wish I were the case. Now to kick it right off, fuel. It's old news that fuel is super expensive no matter where you go and well let's just be honest, waiting for these prices to actually go the other way, it's gonna be a never-ending road. So how do you actually save more money on the road with these rising fuel costs? How do you plan for these things before getting into the RV lifestyle? We got a new one for you that we just stumbled upon that we're excited to try. Tecno RV just came out with a fuel card. It's for diesel owners only at the moment and what it is, it's a one-time purchase of a little credit card basically and you link that to your debit or your credit card and it can apparently save you up to $1.50 per gallon at fuel stations across the country. The website said over 1,000 fuel stations. Dang. And that's pretty cool. This is great if you have a really large rig because we do. We have a 35 foot fifth wheel and our diesel truck so getting to fuel stations that can accommodate our size is a win. It's all about the height, I'm telling you. Our height of our RV at the tipmost point is the same and comparable to the semi trucks out on the road so we're about 13 feet 6 inches. You could see how quickly you could get into a pickle out on the road, get like really caught up in those like normal gas pumps area. It's tight in there. Or trying to spin around inside. Exactly. Oof. I don't want to deal with that headache. Now if you don't have a diesel, you have a gas truck, don't worry. We're going to be covering more options for you in just a minute. Now something that we personally have been using for many years is something called Open Roads. We really enjoy the program because once again, it is free to get into. You're able to have that both diesel discounts on the road. Utilizing all the truck stops out there. Now the one catch with that is you actually have to put your social security number in to apply for the program. That's basically because they don't do a credit check. They have something to refer back to in case you can't make your payments. Yeah, a way that they can file a claim if needed. Lots of people use it out on the road. We personally know so many people that use the program so we were comfortable going ahead with that. Yeah. But it's at your discretion. Now before we move on to gas, I do want to make you guys aware that we have all this listed in an organized fashion on our website. It's so easy to get to. All you got to do is go to your browser, type in happilyeverhanks.com forward slash fuel and it will have a list of all these diesel programs, all the gas programs we're about to talk about, and it will just be super convenient for you to sign up and just get some more information. Now if you're not interested in the first two options we talked about for bulk diesel pricing, you can always look into Love's, TA, or like Pilot and Flying J. They all have their own rewards programs and I'm sure that can save you a little bit of money. And on top of that, I think you can coincide the use of both the rewards and these programs that we're talking about. And that's something I want to do because we feel up at TA so much. That's where the heavy deep discounts are and they have that program that you can utilize to get like coffees and other things inside of the convenience store. So it's something that we should be looking into. Sir, you had me at coffee. Okay, gas owners, I feel like you guys get so neglected because there's so many programs for the diesel people. But listen, we see you, we hear you. Kicking it off, the one that is most frequently talked about that we hear of personally is called Gas Buddy, another free program for gas owners that they could take full advantage of making the best savings out on the road. Now, when we're disconnected from the fifth wheel, we will use Gas Buddy to see where is the best diesel pricing in the area that we can go fuel up. It's a nice reference point to see the surrounding areas for sure because when you're traveling out on the road, you just, you're not familiar with the area and you don't really know where the best fuel prices really are. So this kind of helps integrate all the surrounding areas and give you that information at your fingertips. To piggyback on that, another program you can be looking into if you're a gas owner is a program called Upside. It's similar to a rebate program where you say, Hey, I'm going to go fill up here. It'll tell you how much you can get off per gallon and then it will eventually build up enough funds and then send you that money as a rebate. My apologies for just bringing this up now. One that just came to mind that I was thinking about for diesel owners, once again, is called Mudflap. That's another program that you can use out there. And one thing that we want to ask you guys, if you're really enjoying this information, we need your help. Please consider subscribing to our channel. It's absolutely free and it guarantees that every single Thursday when we release a new video, you're made aware and you can get first access to it. What else can you do to just save on your miles per gallon or your towing, your fuel in general? I'm so glad you asked. We have that information for you. I think one of the most overlooked and simple ways you can improve your fuel economy out in the road is checking your tire pressures and really staying on top of it before hitting the road. It's amazing how much these tire pressures will actually influence how many miles per gallon you're actually getting in the end. Another one is just to slow down in the fact that you want to keep your speed around 55 to 60 miles per hour. We try to never go above 65 miles per hour, but I'm wondering if we should now reduce that to 60. It's so hard to take you seriously. If you don't know Nay, she has something called a lead foot and every single time she drives, she's pushing 70 miles an hour. But I'm just wondering, are you taking notes on what you're saying yourself? Maybe though we shouldn't get the free coffee at TA then. So just try to keep your speeds under control as much as possible. It will really help that fuel economy. Weight considerations. If you're going to be boondocking and you want to fill up water for the trip, maybe consider filling up at the end of your trip. Also think about the water that ends up in your gray tanks. All the like dirty sink water, the dirty shower water. If you're about to go on a big trip, get rid of that excess water because it adds up. Yeah, so if you're at an RV park and you're settled with full hookups, get rid of that gray water. Or if you're at like a state park, make sure you take advantage of those dump stations before hitting the road. Make sure you stay on top of the regular maintenance of your truck. Oil changes, fuel filters, things like that. Air filters, those all add up and can impact your miles per gallon. So just making sure you're up on that regular maintenance, you'll be good to go. And when it comes to planning a trip across the country, take a look at where the fuel prices are lowest and where they're highest. For example, when we're about to cross into California, you best know it that we're filling up in Arizona before we hit those high fuel prices in California. We have noticed when we are driving across the country that the best fuel prices kind of hang out in the Oklahoma, Texas area. So when we're passing through Oklahoma or Texas, even if we don't really need to fill up, we're filling up. Some places that you can actually fuel up across the country where you don't need any savings programs are places like Buc-ee's. They're mostly located in the south, but they are huge. They are known for actually the largest gas station in the world. So if you've never heard of a Buc-ee's, look into it. It's a really fun place to make your stop along your travels and fit your RV in a safe location to fuel up. Other places I wanted to mention were the Murphy USA. Are they accommodated with Walmart? Yeah, we've noticed that whenever a Walmart has a fuel station, it's usually a Murphy USA. And most of the time they have gas and diesel. I guess I just caught myself in a lie. The one that you can also use on the road that you do need a membership for are like Costco and Good Sam's. But if you already do have those memberships, take advantage of some of those nice deep discounts that they offer. Wait a second, do you though? Like when you go fill up at Costco, does it ask for your card? Yeah, I have to scan my membership card to take advantage of it. So don't go signing up for those just to get the discount. But if you already have it, you might as well use it, right? Now we're about to get into saving money and getting the best bang for your buck when it comes to RV parks. But first we need to have a conversation about trip planning. And this section I like to call beggars can't be choosers. A lot of people get into RV lifestyle and RV travel because they have all these bucket list things they want to do. They want to be able to go where they want, when they want. But if you are on a strict budget and you have a plan where you're trying to pay off debt and you're just trying to take it easy for a while, go visit some places that aren't very well known. Some places that you can save a lot of money but still have a great time. When we recently traveled to Alaska and Canada, we considered that a vacation. In my mind, if you're jumping into the RV lifestyle, you're entitled to vacations as well. So make sure you treat really high priced travel areas as a vacation. You save up for it, you have a great time, you make some memories, but then you go back to being able to afford monthly stays somewhere where it's much cheaper. And that's how we like to play it. We like to play a lot of defense. So you guys may have noticed in the past with our previous videos where we break down a yearly basis and you guys are like, how do you spend that much? Well, you're not seeing the opposite side of it where we're playing so much defense by taking full advantage of these tactics. So we'll find a location that we'll talk about like more later on this video, but we'll find these locations that are like hidden gems where you could stay for an extended period of time, make that savings, and then go back to living that fun, exciting life. One of the biggest questions I see on RV Facebook groups when someone's getting into this lifestyle is, what can I expect to pay for monthly rates at RV parks across the country? It's such a hard question to answer. Sometimes we've been to places where we spent three, $400 in the middle of Kansas, which is great. But then we go to places like San Diego or Key West and you're spending upwards of $2,000 a month. So it's very tailored to your travel plans and how much you're willing to budget for. So if you're visiting family in the Northeast and it's very expensive because it's the season, maybe consider going somewhere where off season, it's not as much. And that's where that balancing act comes into play to help offset those expenses. We recently did a video where we broke down our RV expenses over the entire year of 2023. And I think we spent around $16,000 on RV stays. And if you're blown away by us spending $16,000 in one year on RV parks, that's just the cream on top of the cake. Is that the saying? Basically what I'm saying is we spent so much more money and we broke down every budget in a separate video that you can refer to. So we'll leave that one linked up here. If you want a full breakdown of how much we paid last year, it was quite a bit. So go check out that video after watching this one. There is one program that you guys email us a lot about that we are going to touch on. And that is Thousand Trails. Yeah. Isn't Thousand Trails that program where you pay an outrageous amount of money in anticipation to save a little bit, have places to stay for an extended period of time. I feel like we've met a lot of people that use it, but they're not like crazy satisfied with the program. It's the program where it's been so 50-50 on whether people like it or hate it. And I'm not an expert on Thousand Trails, but here's what I know about it. There's many, many packages starting at like just a few hundred dollars for the year, ranging all the way up into a one-time price of like $14,000. Basically it gets you access to all the Thousand Trails campgrounds, depending on what level you get. And a lot of people are saying that it's not worth it because they can't even get a site. I think it's funny when we always say it, because I feel like we're all guilty of it. We'll just skip the RV parks and go boondocking all the time. That will solve all of our problems. Yeah. And this reminds me of a funny story. When we first started RVing, because we had expectations and then there was a reality check for us. We were leaving Pennsylvania and we were driving all the way to California for our first travel nurse assignment. And we had our cute travel trailer and we're like, oh, we're going to be camping. So we assumed that we would just stay in Walmart parking lots along the way and boondock because we wouldn't have to pay for RV parks. But it was the middle of June and it was hot and it was humid. And I'll never forget that second night in a Walmart parking lot. We opened every window we could. We tried everything we could to stay cool. And it was so hot. How does this apply to boondocking? Well, there's a lot of hidden expenses and investments you need to make in order to get off grid. It's not as simple as just taking your camper out for like seven nights and just figuring it out as you go. Boondocking and dry camping go hand in hand. If you're at an RV park and you disconnect from electricity, the water, the sewer, you are officially dry camping. You are running off your internal systems. Boondocking is dry camping, but basically you're out in the boonies. You're out at a desolate campsite and the goal is to pay zero dollars. Here's some hidden costs for you to consider. There's certain things you got to invest in. We're talking about solar, and you could use the natural resources to help replenish those batteries, or you can use something like a generator. But that's an extra expense you got to go out and pay for to have on hand for that convenience. We got the electrical side covered, but now what about your water? Well, when you use water, you have to have somewhere to store it. And that is personally something we found is the most important thing when considering getting off grid. It's not how are you going to cool down your RV? It's lugging enough water to get you out in the middle of the desert and having that water to sustain you over the amount of time you're going to be boondocking. So when your tanks fill up, where are you going to put that water? Well, you have to go to a dump station and dump stations can be outrageous in prices as well. Sometimes, yes, you can find a dump station for 5, 10 bucks, but we've also had exposure to dump stations that are like 20 bucks for a one-time use. A KOA we called one time to see if we could just use your dump station and they said that $25 please. So you could see how quickly this is adding up with all the investments you have to make, the offloading of the water. It's just extra hidden expenses you may not have thought about initially. Did you know there are places that have dump stations for free and we have stumbled across them before, but a great free resource that we use all the time is sannydump.com. Now here's the catch. Sometimes it will say there's a dump station that's free. You get there, it's closed or it's overflowing. So just take it with the grain of salt. Have a plan B. Now this is the part of our story here, our little discussion between us, where the rubber really meets the road. We're going to help share some locations with you and some go-tos for us where you can find that beauty, the natural peacefulness and some really good savings. The first one I want to tell you guys about is called an Army Corps of Engineers campground. It's also referred to as COE campgrounds. Now these are federally regulated campgrounds. They're all really close to lakes out there just to kind of preserve the area, but wow can you get some great discounts on staying at these places. We're talking like $14 a night for water and electric. The other cool thing about them is you could stay up to two weeks at these places. Two weeks of $14 a night. I challenge you to look down in the comments below because I'm sure there's hundreds of people down there like yeah love COE campgrounds. So if you didn't know about it, look into it. The other type of RV camping that has been a game changer is city park camping. Now this isn't camping in like a major city. This is more of like a park in a small town where they have RV pads, there's electric, there's water, there's sometimes sewer also. There was this one spot, I think it was in Chanute, Kansas where they had electric and water at this city park campground. It was free. Free for the first two nights and then it was $10 a night after. Now if you can find these spots with free RV hookups, it's like gold. Now how do you find these places? Well we have the perfect video for you. Make sure you click this video and watch it next because this is going to have a full breakdown of those spots, how to find them, and the best resources that we use as well as many other RV overnighters much better than Walmart. We'll see you guys next week. Bye guys!