Retirement cost Motorhoming

[chaser]

We were thinking £700 per week for two people - that's only £50 per day each.

Any chance of telling us what you would be spending it on,

 

[GWAYGWAY]

I would do it on a lot less unless you take in financing the NEW motorhome as a figure to add in. I would hope 700 a month for costs including food bought locally an fuel and gas. Aires and site add up slightly if you use them. I do not use sites. In the UK we just pay for fuel and gas filling when we get there and again coming home, sod all else to pay for the supplies on board are the same from home and cost nothing that you would not use anyway.

 

[wigster]

Any chance of telling us what you would be spending it on,

Good question id like to know as well.

 

[busby]

We were thinking £700 per week for two people - that's only £50 per day each.

Only,,only ,,are you in the real world,,,,,Are you retired? BUSBY

 

[Bailey58]

Did you go to Copenhagen and st Petersburg? Our friends were on the same cruise I think! Said it was slightly cold and abit choppy, lovely food though.

St Petersburg was the main objective and it was wonderful. Amsterdam, Copenhagen,Tallin, Helsinki and Aarhus we did on foot as we don't do ship tours**, that's where they cash in. Never managed Stockholm as the offshore mooring at Nynasham (30 miles away a la Ryanair)) was too rough. Everywhere was pretty cold given it was on the coast, windy, north and October, but dry so never stopped us enjoying the trip. It was a bit choppy a couple of times and we noticed it at dinner with many deserted tables.

Should you ever decide to go:
** The cruise ships will tell you to book their organised tours in St P. as you'd otherwise need a visa. Not true, as long as you book with an approved tour company the ticket acts as your visa for up to 3 days. We did much more for the same cost as Magellans offering on the 2 day Classic Tour with SPB Tours, and in a Merc mini bus.

Peterhof Palace

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[JJ]

As a veteran fulltimer, I live happily on less than €150 a week.

JJ

 

[ChrisL]

You might like to take a look at the ourtour website, Jules and Jayson have been touring Europe full time for a number of years and have a lot of info in there blog, i've found it very informative, the money page is here Link Removed

Hope that helps.

 

[Kevan]

how many pensioners do you know on £700 a week? load of old tosh.

 

[gus-lopez]

how many pensioners do you know on £700 a week? load of old tosh.

I do know a lady on another forum & has lived here as long as I have & fails to understand how anyone lives on less than £1000/week & that is the equivalent they transfer ,per year, to live on.

 

[Peter & Elaine]

we have done 4 extended runs of 3 months each in to Spain Croatia France and Morocco
We seem to spend around 3.5 k per trip
Eating out twice a week and a mixture of Aires and sites
I do recon if we did pull the belt in hard we could get it down to under 2k
And still do what we want within reason

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[BobtheBass]

Great thread. Shows how different people obviously have differing opinions on what is needed to maintain their standard of living whilst away in their vans. Canapés and champagne under the chandelier anyone?

 

[Badknee]

Hmm, were budgeting for 2018 and it's looking like a maximum of £1000 a month were going to have and out of that we will be paying the running costs, tax, ins, repairs, fuel etc. on the Moho as well as every living expense.

 

[jnn]

No real idea of motorhoming costs yet but that's doable in terms of general living, BadKnee. If we assume rent is exchangable for motorhome specific costs (£650 a month + bills) I and two big dogs with expensive food tastes have lived reasonably comfortably on about that for years. Not affluent but happy so long as keep an eye on costs

 

[Peter & Elaine]

I do know this year we spent 8 days on 3 free Aires close to each other on Gironde river and canal and spent less then £70 and that was just in food the weather was just incredible so we just got bikes out and peddled up side of canal side to a shop and cooked for our selfs every day
We where talking to a old (mid seventys) Belgium couple who spent all summer round the central and mid Pyrenees area and including fuel they had a budget of €500 a month
But they never dined out
They just moved every 4 or 5 days one free Aires to next
they knew the area well and had done it for over 15 years
And best of all they where a very happy go lucky couple

 

[Peter & Elaine]

Hmm, were budgeting for 2018 and it's looking like a maximum of £1000 a month were going to have and out of that we will be paying the running costs, tax, ins, repairs, fuel etc. on the Moho as well as every living expense.

If that's excluding fixed cost at home it is very doable so long as you don't get a major expensive breakdown

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[GeriatricWanderer]

Just the cost of fuel and site fees. So it much depends on how far you plan to travel and what sort of "sites" you stay on.
That's easy for you to calculate.
Virtually all other costs are the same as at home.

 

[Manic]

We did 41/2 months in France using mainly Aires ( only used 3 campsite, with offers) and we spent an average of £1.62 per night on camping, food wise I think was similar maybe a bit dearer and fuel was cheaper.
I think the overnight camping is the biggest saving over the uk, oh and the wine- never payed more than €2 a bottle.

 

[funflair]

Well having been "early retired" for a couple of years now we wanted to know what was going out against what comes in from investments and draw down from pension.

We run 4 bed house and two cars plus motorhome @about 22mpg, 8k miles in the MH in three trip over the water using expensive North Sea crossings, living in the MH for about 7 months staying on a mix of aire/stellplats, camp sites or rallies, we do what we want and eat out when we want to but it's usually coffee and cake or a lunch not fancy expensive evening meals.

Two people £30k.

BUT my wife you tell you "he is from Yorkshire you know"

Martin

Oops edited

 

[Clarky]

Just looked back on my blog to September 2014 where I had listed costs of a four week trip round France:-

I thought it might be of interest to some people who might be thinking about a similar sort of trip to give a rough idea of the likely cost of four weeks touring in France. I have not included food and drink as we would have to pay for that whether we were at home or away.

Basic Costs

1. P&O ferry (return) £100
2. Fuel (2150 miles £438
3. Sites & Aires (28 nights, 6 on sites, 8 free) £165
4. LPG gas £28

Total basic costs £731

Extra optional costs

1. P&O Club Lounge (return) £48
2. A16 motorway toll (south) £14
3. CC Red Pennant insurance £135

Total optional costs £197

Overall costs £928.

Obviously in 2016/7 some of these costs will have increased but I also listed the cost of sites and aires after our six week trip to Portugal and Spain in spring 2016:-

In 42 nights away we only spent four on a ‘proper’ camp site, nine at ‘Pedro’s’, five wild camping and the rest on Aires. Although we didn’t particularly select aires for that reason many of them were free. We would have been very willing to pay for some of the wonderful places we stayed.

Our total spend on site and aires was only €196.50, an average of €4.70 over the 42 nights. What a bargain!

Hope that gives the OP some idea of likely costs.

Richard.

 

[teensvan99]

Hi.
We full timed for over 7 years and our last years cost was £13,600. This included everything except personal expenditure. This can be trimmed back at least 35% by using french aires and german stellplatz.

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[Badknee]

If that's excluding fixed cost at home it is very doable so long as you don't get a major expensive breakdown

There are no costs at home as our youngest and family are renting out house and any unfortunate breakdown costs will come out of savings.

 

[Peter & Elaine]

There are no costs at home as our youngest and family are renting out house and any unfortunate breakdown costs will come out of savings.

In that case load up set off and above all enjoy
Any idea on destination yet
Our is looking like Portugal and Spain from just after Easter home by mid October
With the possibility of renting a place for kids summer holidays somewhere around Gandia

 

[Khizzie]

I haven't costed my three weeks in France exactly but spent approx €750 of which €100 was on toll costs have not incl ferries. So reckon could get away with approx €200 per week and live in comfort . When Ispent three months touring the UK using c&cc campsites it was costing me an average of £13 per night plus food and fuel the cost of overnight camping was low because of being over 60 yrs old and a solo camper . So my costs for my camping in both uk and France were very much of a muchness . .

 

[PhilandMena]

Having been told I'm being laid off this Friday got me thinking just how much I would need to do some continental traveling and still have a house in the UK.
Im in the building trade and its not the kindest on the old body

So what is the least amount you would need to get by on for say 6 months of the year maybe split into a couple or 3 months at a time.

No pension is available as I'm too young, mid 50,s.

SWBO says we must have a house in the UK

Happy to wild camp for at least 50% of the time away even some time spent in the UK.

Just looking for a rough idea really

Thanks

Your no going to get a straight forward answer to your question because we all do motor-homing differently. Some people stay on camp sites, other wild camp, different countries have different costs, some people eat out often and other do not. How long is a piece of string.
A budget of £1000. per month is reasonable if you limit the amount of restaurants you use. Use a combination of low cost Campsites and free Aires (see Camper Contact) and spend much of the time in Spain/Portugal.
You will figure it out.! Safe Travels.

 

[Lenny HB]

@MH 55 FUN is either winding us up or very well healed, we have only recently retired and consider ourselvels reasonably financialy secure and have what we consider a reasonable income that more than covers our needs but the total of both our private & state pensions is not even 500 quid a week.

As for trips in the van £200 - £250 a week providing we don't eat out too often, gives us a good lifestyle. As we spend more time away we will reduce those costs but at the moment treating trips like holidays and doing what we feel like paying for visitor atractions etc. Also probably won't be averaging so many miles a week last 8 week trip was 3500 miles.

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[Badknee]

In that case load up set off and above all enjoy
Any idea on destination yet
Our is looking like Portugal and Spain from just after Easter home by mid October
With the possibility of renting a place for kids summer holidays somewhere around Gandia

Ah, slight problem there. Mrs Badknee is still toiling for the NHS and will be till Dec 2017 then early in 2018 we are off to all points south on the mainland, Spain being high on the list as we have family there. We plan to be home for the summer where we can hide from the hoards of kids at our static behind tightly closed gates.

 

[Harco]

I took early retirement when I was 62.
Had no income such as pension etc.
I was lucky in regards to having no mortgage.
My wife and I decided to work in France on campsites, where you were paid by the way of free pitch, electricity and wifi.
Our work was for two, yes two hours a day, 10am till 12 miday.
Working for 14 days than getting 6.5 days off.'And we were away from Blighty for approx 4 months
We did this for 2 seasons and found we only spent our money on the usual food expeditions which you would do at home. The only time we spent more was on our allotted days off wher we would travel to other parts of France to explore.
It's a great way to live cheaply & of course reduced utility bills at home also.

 

[Mousy]

From the travel blogs I've read people seem to spend between 8k - 15k per year.

 

[Khizzie]

From the travel blogs I've read people seem to spend between 8k - 15k per year.

Even 8k is more than it costs me to spend 4 months in uk and a month in France last year . I reckon sensible cost for me to be around the 5-6k

 

[MC 55 FUN]

Any chance of telling us what you would be spending it on,

Yep . . . fuel, site fees, food, drink, gas, taxi & bus fares, - but our lifestyle & budgets are obviously very different from some others.

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