Monthly costs long term motor homing

[Ian.s]

Sat here working out that question we all go through when motor homing, The big question.... how much is it going to cost me. This is based on being away three months at a time both Uk and overseas. (and Im sure this has been asked more than once)

Ferries
Food
Entertainment
Fuel
Park costs
Phone
internet
etc.............

What would be a reasonable monthly cost.... Is 2k enough, assuming the motorhome is bought and paid for.

 

[Hollyberry]

£2000 a month ?? Don’t know where I went wrong, I lived for 2 years on about a quarter of that
I don’t drink though and don’t eat out ( would look a bit sad on my own) but I reckon the maximum I spent was £600 a month.

 

[Ian.s]

Perhaps Im little out of touch, but thats very encouraging

 

[Skez]

Sat here working out that question we all go through when motor homing, The big question.... how much is it going to cost me. This is based on being away three months at a time both Uk and overseas. (and Im sure this has been asked more than once)

Apart from food, the next biggest expense is likely to be diesel! The further you drive the more it will cost you. We normally spend around £1000 - £1200 a month when away, moving usually every other day.

Almost never use 'proper' campsites though!

 

[Ian.s]

Thank you, We had guessed a budget of £10 a night average over a whole month but only staying on parks half the month and even less where possible , aires etc

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[jwells]

How long is a piece of string?
Impossible to give you an answer to that question! How much do you spend normally?
Biggest expense ferries, site fees, cheapest Wilding and staying put for a while when you find somewhere you like! If you are prepared to spend what you have suggested then you may be in for a very pleasant surprise! Just do it

 

[PJGWiltshire]

We full time. Through France the Aire system is brilliant for free stop overs. You can visit some ideal locations over a seven day period and not pay per night. You will at times have to pay the odd couple of euros for fresh water. So that’s the camping sorted. Only you know your leisure and food shopping expenditure and of course everyone is different, we seldom have beer or a meal out in France as it’s just to expensive. Spain and Portugal we always seem to be eating out. Diesel is another expense. Again work out where you are going divide by the distance travelled and there’s your cost. We set a base figure of £1100 per month and have reserve spending where necessary. That does not take into any account of vehicle insurance and maintence. The costing is simply what we live on from one month to the next Obviously using campsites puts the price up. Only you can decide

 

[9526]

We can do just fine (in Europe) for £1,000 per month, we use Camperstop/Aires mostly, eat out a cpl of times a week, shop locally in markets etc.

The UK costs more and is less “user friendly”.

 

[DBK]

It's not an easy question to answer as there are so many variables. If you used free or very cheap aires your only real costs will be fuel, food and booze. If you are frugal you can live on twenty euros a day and no doubt it can be done for a lot less. If you start using campsites you can more or less double that assuming it is outside the high season. In high season treble it.

 

[Just smiffy]

My thinking is that you can’t include food as you would have to get that wherever you are.... I suppose you would use a certain amount of fuel too but if you are travelling around most of the time then an extra cost would be involved...

if you are a full timer on your insurance then that would be more expensive as well....

in Spain during the winter on a site with long stay discount I have spent around £1000 a month and that would be having a few beers and eating out once or twice a week...

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[Spriddler]

It'll be significantly less expensive in France depending on how far/often you drive. I only use the m/h in U.K. just for a couple of weekends a year (if I'm home) to attend specific family or outdoor events as France is only a 20 mile drive away from my house.
I use mostly aires and drink very little alcohol (mainly because I travel solo), but I do eat well whether at the m/h or at a resto and find £600 a month to be more than adequate.
Obviously, whilst away you will still have the ongoing cost of your residence back home.

In your first post you asked if 2k was enough, but in a subsequent post you said you'd budgeted at £10 a night.

EDIT:
I've just realised that you're in Oban, 700 miles from France (Dieppe).
600 miles would get me to the South of France/Pyrenees.

 

[Lenny HB]

A 6 -7 week trip usually costs us £1500-£2000 but we rarely use sites. The biggest cost is fuel as we do up to 3500 miles on a trip.

 

[Twogirls]

This winter (last), for the first time we stayed on one campsite for nearly four months, every other winter we have toured, mainly using free stops. We were genuinely amazed to find that we spent less this winter than we did the previous year and we used restaurants and bars much much more this year than last. When we looked into it, it was the fuel costs of touring, plus the lpg as we weren't on hook up, plus having to pay for laundry to be dried because you can't hang it out, that made such a difference. This winter we paid £11 a night including 16amp EHU for long stay.

 

[Ian.s]

Thank you every one for your responses, We had taken into to account distances and time of year, In the winter of course we would travel further south as sun worshipers but the summer months would not take us as far again saving diesel, This lock down has shown us how frugal we can be and it seems we will be practicing a while yet. The 2k I posted in original post was after all the maintenance costs insurance, houses costs etc had been taken in to consideration, So it would be 2k of fun tokens. Ideally 1.5k. Buy the responses it is more than possible, the plunge will be taken as soon as travel allows.

 

[Ian.s]

This winter (last), for the first time we stayed on one campsite for nearly four months, every other winter we have toured, mainly using free stops. We were genuinely amazed to find that we spent less this winter than we did the previous year and we used restaurants and bars much much more this year than last. When we looked into it, it was the fuel costs of touring, plus the lpg as we weren't on hook up, plus having to pay for laundry to be dried because you can't hang it out, that made such a difference. This winter we paid £11 a night including 16amp EHU for long stay.

Thats something worth looking further into although the nomadic lifestyle has huge appeal

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[PJGWiltshire]

Well go for it as soon as you are able. If it’s not working out change your plans but until you give it a go you will never know. Keep us posted where you head for and if your leaving Oban can you leave the key under the mat for when I pass by

 

[Ian.s]

It'll be significantly less expensive in France depending on how far/often you drive. I only use the m/h in U.K. just for a couple of weekends a year (if I'm home) to attend specific family or outdoor events as France is only a 20 mile drive away from my house.
I use mostly aires and drink very little alcohol (mainly because I travel solo), but I do eat well whether at the m/h or at a resto and find £600 a month to be more than adequate.
Obviously, whilst away you will still have the ongoing cost of your residence back home.

In your first post you asked if 2k was enough, but in a subsequent post you said you'd budgeted at £10 a night.

EDIT:
I've just realised that you're in Oban, 700 miles from France (Dieppe).
600 miles would get me to the South of France/Pyrenees.

Yes £10 a night was an average as more than half would be aires etc

 

[Ian.s]

Well go for it as soon as you are able. If it’s not working out change your plans but until you give it a go you will never know. Keep us posted where you head for and if your leaving Oban can you leave the key under the mat for when I pass by

Will do.......

 

[Twogirls]

Thats something worth looking further into although the nomadic lifestyle has huge appeal

Agree, we loved touring but found it harder and harder to find stops where we didn't get moved on by the police, (I'm talking about coastal areas in Spain and Portugal), hence decided to see if we would enjoy staying in one place and exploring that area in more depth.

 

[Rapido925M]

Some figures from a pair of young OAPs:

DATE	PLACE	MILES	DAYS	COST(£)	MILES/DAY	COST/DAY	COST/MILE	CAMP	FACILITY	Camp/day
Apr-16​	lakes	721​	16​	619.92​	45	38.75	0.86​	£ 300.90	£ 0.60	£ 18.81
Jul-16​	northumberland	930​	10​	408.98​	93	40.90	0.44​	£ 45.20	£ 6.50	£ 4.52
Sep-16​	nc500	1917​	18​	676.28​	107	37.57	0.35​	£ 171.20	£ 1.00	£ 9.51
Aug-17​	Kent
Oct/Nov-17	west country	1169​	25​	907.23​	47	36.29	0.78​	£ 298.45		£ 11.94
Apr-18​	Spain	2495​	27​	1835.63​	92	67.99	0.74​	£ 68.85	£ 14.30	£ 2.55
May-18​	S'hmton	649​	8​	408.33​	81	51.04	0.63​	£ 109.60	£ -	£ 13.70
Sep-18​	Germany etc	2490​	31​	1545.23​	80	49.85	0.62​	£ 196.00	£ 34.80	£ 6.32
Feb-19​	East Coast	388​	5​	223.34​	78	44.67	0.58​	£ 58.25	-	£ 11.65
Apr-19​	East Coast2	807​	12​	478.70​	67	39.89	0.59​	£ 87.45	£ 5.00	£ 7.29
Jun-19​	hebrides	2020​	27​	1419.51​	75	52.57	0.70​	£ 176.50	£ 17.00	£ 6.54
Oct-19​	marches	518​	8​	375.04​	65	46.88	0.72​			£ -
Feb-20​	John O'Groats	1534​	11​	701.70​	139	63.79	0.46​	£ 99.00	£ -	£ 9.00
Feb-20​	Dorset	736​	7​	370.20​	105	52.89	0.50​	£ 64.10	£ -	£ 9.16

"Facility" is primarily EHU but could also include water/waste/shower.
I can't find the cost of camping on our Welsh Marches trip.

We rarely eat out but will support local enterprise by purchasing coffee and cake! This is included in the daily total, along with food, alcohol etc BUT some is brought from home and sometimes we take back more than we started off with (if you get my meaning!).

Ferry to Spain was approx £1000 (v short notice) whereas Germany was approx £150.

HTH - Gordon

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[bigtwin]

The following is a summary of our spend on a 84 night winter trip to Spain & Portugal crossing using Eurotunnel.

Total expenditure was £4,200 with only a handful of meals out (included in the ‘cash spends’ total below).

We had 29 nights with zero site fees and had 47 nights with EHU.

Total mileage was 3,750 with an average mpg of 22 (2.8Jtd, MGW 5,300 and running at, or close to, max weight for a good proportion of the trip).

Ian

 

[JJ]

These days I get €150 per week and I save up to half of that most weeks unless there has been an emergency... (latest one was needing two new tyres costing €70 total).

But I live most of the year on my own... when I have R oyal French Princesses visiting I do spend a little more...

I consider myself to be a wealthy man both in spirit and cash terms.


JJ

 

[hymerman]

Like most things ,you have your fixed costs ie depreciation ,tax, mot, insurance etc, and variable costs ie fuel food, etc. so there is obviously no real answer to the question,we all do things differently.
On a newish van the biggest cost will be depreciation whether you use the van or not.

 

[PhilandMena]

Once you become an experienced FLT, as I and others are, you can keep your costs to a minimum. My average monthly spend is roughly 6 euro's. That is until I arrive at Cullera where my favourite one euro bar is then my average monthly spend is roughly 80, 000 euro's.

 

[Ian.s]

Some figures from a pair of young OAPs:

DATE	PLACE	MILES	DAYS	COST(£)	MILES/DAY	COST/DAY	COST/MILE	CAMP	FACILITY	Camp/day
Apr-16​	lakes	721​	16​	619.92​	45	38.75	0.86​	£ 300.90	£ 0.60	£ 18.81
Jul-16​	northumberland	930​	10​	408.98​	93	40.90	0.44​	£ 45.20	£ 6.50	£ 4.52
Sep-16​	nc500	1917​	18​	676.28​	107	37.57	0.35​	£ 171.20	£ 1.00	£ 9.51
Aug-17​	Kent
Oct/Nov-17	west country	1169​	25​	907.23​	47	36.29	0.78​	£ 298.45		£ 11.94
Apr-18​	Spain	2495​	27​	1835.63​	92	67.99	0.74​	£ 68.85	£ 14.30	£ 2.55
May-18​	S'hmton	649​	8​	408.33​	81	51.04	0.63​	£ 109.60	£ -	£ 13.70
Sep-18​	Germany etc	2490​	31​	1545.23​	80	49.85	0.62​	£ 196.00	£ 34.80	£ 6.32
Feb-19​	East Coast	388​	5​	223.34​	78	44.67	0.58​	£ 58.25	-	£ 11.65
Apr-19​	East Coast2	807​	12​	478.70​	67	39.89	0.59​	£ 87.45	£ 5.00	£ 7.29
Jun-19​	hebrides	2020​	27​	1419.51​	75	52.57	0.70​	£ 176.50	£ 17.00	£ 6.54
Oct-19​	marches	518​	8​	375.04​	65	46.88	0.72​			£ -
Feb-20​	John O'Groats	1534​	11​	701.70​	139	63.79	0.46​	£ 99.00	£ -	£ 9.00
Feb-20​	Dorset	736​	7​	370.20​	105	52.89	0.50​	£ 64.10	£ -	£ 9.16

"Facility" is primarily EHU but could also include water/waste/shower.
I can't find the cost of camping on our Welsh Marches trip.

We rarely eat out but will support local enterprise by purchasing coffee and cake! This is included in the daily total, along with food, alcohol etc BUT some is brought from home and sometimes we take back more than we started off with (if you get my meaning!).

Ferry to Spain was approx £1000 (v short notice) whereas Germany was approx £150.

HTH - Gordon

Thank you thats very helpful. Very much appreciated

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[Ian.s]

These days I get €150 per week and I save up to half of that most weeks unless there has been an emergency... (latest one was needing two new tyres costing €70 total).

But I live most of the year on my own... when I have R oyal French Princesses visiting I do spend a little more...

I consider myself to be a wealthy man both in spirit and cash terms.


JJ

And indeed you are

 

[Puddleduck]

Sat here working out that question we all go through when motor homing, The big question.... how much is it going to cost me.

How long is a piece of string?

If you are staying on club sites or commercial sites in the summer it will cost quite a lot in just site fees, less in the winter.

It also depends on your lifestyle.

 

[Smudger55]

How long is a piece of string?
Impossible to give you an answer to that question! How much do you spend normally?
Biggest expense ferries, site fees, cheapest Wilding and staying put for a while when you find somewhere you like! If you are prepared to spend what you have suggested then you may be in for a very pleasant surprise! Just do it

Ha..... jwells..... not quite impossible to answer as it is twice as long as its halfCheers Smudger55

 

[ryan_flea]

Expensive when stuck at home and the van aint moving-deliveries are forcing me to purchase more and more things. Cheaper being away haha

 

[Two on Tour]

Don't really care what it cost, it cost what it cost.

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