What percentage of your pre fulltime earnings. Do live on after you start fulltiming.

[Cat]

I know this subject has been beatup and talked about before. But people usually talk about a amount like $25,000 or more than this or less than this. Or I spend so much on this or that.
What I was curious about is. Are you living on 50% on what you were making before you started full timing or 90% of your income before you started full timing. Just give a % 0 to 100 not a dollar amount. I'm not full timing yet but hope to in a couple years. Thanks

[DonnaB]

Cat,

Not sure it you are trying to decide if you can afford to do it, or if you are trying to assess how much money to arrange on a 72t in advance. However, it is a tough issue for one to assist another on as we are all so different in our views about money and how we spend what we have.

Even when I tell you that we spend between 75-80 percent of what we used to you must temper that with the fact that we have no payments now and that used to not be the case. I can tell you that when I lived in a house and totalled up the mortgage payment, the utilities, property taxes, and maintenance costs.....I spend less in campground fees, annual license renewal and maintenance costs. Any of the leftover, we have figured out how to spend it elsewhere.

[Cat]

I agree. Everybody has different spending habits. I have seen all sort of spread sheets giving all kinds of break down and what the costs are. But they dependent on how much money a person was making before and after starting full timing. If you are spending $75,000 a year fulltiming that is alot of money, but not if you were making $300,000 or more a year. And the same if you are spending $ 20,000 full timing but you were making $25,000 before fulltiming, $20,000 would be alot of money. So I think % it is a better indicator than dollar amounts.
Thank you for replying. I think it will interesting to see what the % are.

[mfire1339]

Since retirement we receive about 90% of original income. We do not full time but, really use our rig. Still have stick house to maintain. We do fine.

Mike

[Jim Stewart]

My DW and I fulltimed for about 4 years. We spent about 150% of what I made before we fulltimed. We did more, traveled more, ate out more and spent more on entertainment, we were on a 4 year vacation.

[saydiver]

I'll say about 50%, even though we spend about the same amount as we did when we were working, if you exclude the amount we spent remodeling the house. The difference is now we're in a low federal tax bracket and no longer pay state income tax, plus we no longer defer money to retirement.

Sue

[Barbaraok]

I think you are asking the wrong question. We currently spend about 30% of our pre-retirement income. That doesn't mean our current income is just 30% of our pre-retirement income, but that is how much we spend. And we didn't spend all of our pre-retirement income either. So trying to gage what it takes to full time based on pre-retirement income and/or spending is really not a valid measure.

There are so many variables that it really requires a person to sit down, look at what they currently spend money on, decide what will continue in retirement and what won't, and then start doing spreadsheets to see what is possible. We no longer have a mortgage on a 3000+ sq feet home, nor the huge property tax that went with it. I no longer spend $$$ on clothing for work - some new underwear and a new pair of jeans does me for a whole year. We no longer eat out 3-4 nights a week like we did when we were working. You get the idea - you can live on substantial less and still enjoy doing a lot of things when you retire.

Barb

[RickO]

So you know all the pitfalls of these kinds of numbers and measures... for what it's worth, we are now full timing on about 65-70% of our pre full time spending. That's probably the number which will be most meaningful for your purposes.

It should be noted that we ARE NOT attempting to full time economically. We could make do spending far less but are fortunate not to have to.

[phishboy]

We live on about 35% of our pre-FT income. We also have 80% less "stuff" because we have 80% less space to store it. Our rule is that if you buy something new, something old has to go. As for the other bills and such (medical, life insurance, auto insurance, etc) they're pretty much the same. We still have "house" RV insurance too but it is slightly less than a stick house.

We also supplement our income by workamping. We work summer and winter, roughly 9 months of the year. So we have free rent, basically for that time. For three months we travel back and forth to So. Ill. for doctor appt and family. Sometimes we work for pay and get a monthly site on our own hook too. This summer the wife worked at a local grocery store, brought in $3K for four months. That helped defer some expenses we had.

We pretty much live on what we get from our sources - SS, AF retirement, and now 401K withdrawals. This allows us to build up some funds for big purchases and repairs. For example, last spring we needed new tires on the MH. That was $4000 but we don't have to do that for another 8 years, with luck and good care. This fall we needed a new water heater - $1400. It's really just like a real house in some respects - you got to have $$$ for home repairs and ongoing maintenance.

In planning your next step, just know that the biggest expense is moving the coach. Daily/weekly campground fees are more expensive than monthly fees. Moving our rig is 7 miles/gallon; moving the car is 30 miles/gallon. So when you consider the cost of RVing, do you mean living in it like snowbirds or traveling in it like gypsies or a bit of both.

[Cat]

I just wanted to say thanks for all the replys. It seems most people so far do not spend what they were spending before they retired. Some do not have all the expenses they had before they retired. Some even though they still have the funds to do so, they just do not spend as much.

Just don't need as much to have fun, cool. They are having fun just traveling and looking at the sights. Thanks again.

[read & learn]

As phishboy stated when we keep moving, staying no more than 2 nights to 2 weeks in 1 CG our % is much higher than when we park for 2 months. As I have said in the past we belong to Coast to Coast-Passport America and try to take advantage of Army Corp of Engineer parks by staying at these type of CG. Do these type of CG pay for themselves, in our case they pay the annual fees within the first month.
Now for your question 80% of working salary--RVing on 90% of pensions.
This year [our year starts in Sept.] we are trying to reduce the % to about 70-75%. Reason so a Alaska trip does not cut into savings.
So far have been to 2 local rallys and a rally at the Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta and have not had to hit up saving, but was close.

[grayelk34]

We live on all of it dince we were retired before we began fulltiming.

Neil

[tigersharkjd]

I think a great deal of the expense is controllable as many have mentioned, even MH maintenance. I think its a state of mind and a lifestyle. No matter what each person's situation may be, you adjust, work PT/FT, conserve and do what it takes. It is not a goal its a path. We love the lifestyle and having as much fun as you can have with your clothes on.....................etc.

[RVDude]

Here's a fulltimer couple (Howard and Linda Payne) who left the work-a-day world in their early 40's and publish ALL of their financial details - in detail. RV-Dreams Financial Information

Both left full-time working for full-time RV'ing several years ago (he was a successful attorney) and publish every financial detail. You might find what they are doing pretty amazing - in the sense they successfully violate most of the well taught "what you need for retirement" rules.

Howard & Linda (besides being fantastic folks) are exceedingly interesting to read about - ESPECIALLY if you want real answers to how much money does it really take!