Motorhome Touring Costs
How do people calculate their costs of touring in a motorhome, do you just look at the costs of sites or do you include the cost of diesel, LPG, insurance etc. to get a true cost.
This isn’t an opportunity for scrutiny or criticism of how much people spend or how they spend it, as that is personnel choice, but a question on how you count the costs of our hobby.
As an example, I personally include the cost of site fees, diesel, LPG, insurance, storage fees, road tax, MOT and service. In nearly four years of touring my avg site fee is £31.71 per night and my true cost is £87.67 per night.
I don’t include the purchase cost of the MH as that is an asset and you won’t know the cost of deprecation until you come to sell it. Nor do I include the cost of food or drink.
For any caravanners reading this how do you calculate your true cost?
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I don’t calculate the costs as I see no point. I think if we all calculated every single cost we'd probably frighten ourselves.
If I can afford a MH, I buy it. If I can afford to stay on sites, buy diesel, eat out, then I do so. If I can’t afford it, I don't do it.
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Until this year I never bothered. Even then it was only the cost of the holiday itself. Ferry, insurance, sites, fuel autoroute. That was only because we had treated ourself to a new computer and it was a lot easier to devise a spreadsheet than on a pad, just a bit of practice really. I shall do it again for our UK tour just out of interest, to compare / contrast.
We holiday as we do because we enjoy it, how much it costs isn’t really that important. As long as we can afford it we will continue.
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We don’t calculate costs, other perhaps than the average pitch fees per night when we get home from a tour. We didn’t buy any of our vehicles because of their running costs, we bought them for a specific purpose and to enjoy. We know roughly how many mpg we get for each, depending on how it’s used, type of journeys done.
We have toured for the last 40 years, in all sorts of vehicles, all sorts of sleeping/living accommodation, all sorts of Sites, and managed to enjoy ourselves thoroughly, even if when younger, money was a bit tight. The only thing I might do nowadays is look at what a week away touring might cost us in Winter, and compare with what I can get a cottage stay for. That’s more about value for money than price.
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GE you say your “true cost” is £87 a night but with depreciation it is probably nearer £150 a night
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We paid £2000 for our caravan in 1986. It owes us nothing. It’s no longer insured either. MH was significantly more, and does have to be insured of course, but last time we looked, I think models like ours, in similar condition were around £1000 cheaper than what we paid for ours. We have owned ours coming up eight years in November.
You can sort of see why costs don’t really interest us. It’s all about the enjoyment and value to our lives.
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There are many things we may calculate costs of and investigate economising, but holidays are for enjoyment and costs have never been a factor for us. I think, as others have said, if one starts calculating total/average costs you'd be so shocked you'd never go anywhere!
I well remember, on a holiday to, I think it was Cyprus some years ago, a chap asking us and just about everyone else where we'd come from, how much we'd paid etc and then spending the whole time complaining about others getting a better deal than him. No way to spend a holiday (IMHO!)
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I do keep a record of fuel costs and campsite fees but not overall costs purely from an interest point of view. When I get the sense that things are getting too expensive for us we will sell the motorhome and look for alternatives, or just buy a new pair of slippers
David
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Again never calculate anything before or after just book and go (that's copyright btw) and likewise for anything we fancy doing while away.
Actually I could ask Mrs C as she's the family accountant who looks after all the money but this is more to do with checking statements for everything to see nothing untoward has happened like being charged twice which has happened, but apart from that she never tells me or discusses it.
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Don’t calculate cost at all. We know how much we are prepared to spend on sites dependent on location, facilities etc. we know whether we are going local or a long way, so we know diesel will cost a lot or not so much. That’s it really. We might work out an average site cost, but that is usually in response to some post on a forum and just idle curiosity. I certainly have no idea how much we spent last year, for example.
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I have had my current motorhome 11 years and I did work out the cost of ownership over the first 6 years of use but I have not looked at the latest cost but I do have a record of these. I used the same cost as the OP and over the first 6 years of use it came to £56 per day or £1 per mile. The last couple of years have been quite expensive, 6 new tyres and renewal of rear brake pads and of course site and fuel cost have increased greatly, so if I recalculted what it has cost, I am expecting it to now be significantly higher.
I only ever bother to look at the cost of trips if they involve a long time away and significant travel. For short trips in the UK we just wing it and tailor expenses according to our pockets at the time but I generally don't pay anywhere near £31.71p.n.
peedee
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Me neither. With judicious use of mid-week stops, CLs etc, my site fee average is generally around the £14-15 mark. Adding fuel costs into the equation is a bit pointless as it will be so variable depending on your destination/route. The costs of a week on a CL twenty or thirty miles from home will be a lot different to a five star site in school holidays at the far end of the country.
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Never plan, never book, never count the cost.
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I must admit to doing my share of planning and calculation, but this does not determine whether we go away or not.
It just gives me an idea what to expect when the credit card bill comes in a few weeks after getting back.
As I'm retired it gives me the option to switch days around a little earlier or later, stay a little longer on one site etc to get a better day cost.
Narrows down the choice of crossing to the Continent.
In France helps me decide whether the toll roads are worth taking.
Makes the decision for me when it's a toss up between two sites that both look good.
Overall it helps me book in advance. Why pay extra when you do not need to for the same holiday?
In my ignorance I thought a lot of members would do similar.
Colin
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We seem to be getting away from the OP about record keeping into the realms of budgeting which isn't the same thing.
I doubt anyone spends more than they need to but that's different to recording and calculating the cost per night which I consider to be a pointless exercise. I'm with Meth there.
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Yes, agree. I think if large changes to income and outgoings generally are involved, being prudent, taking stock of some costs, is just common sense, it’s certainly what we did when I decided to finish work. And if you are interested and like to keep records, then nothing wrong at all with doing that.
I do recall one Spring, we were considering taking our caravan away to North Wales. We looked at a few CLs, and it started to dawn on us just how pricey they seemed. So I rang the owner of some cottages we like and love up in North Yorks, near Rievaulx, and she gave us a price we couldn’t refuse for a week. We actually had a few more nights, as we kept adding them on. The period away came out at around an extra £2 per night over the CLs had we gone to Wales, with nothing like the fuel costs and dragging the van along. So much better value for us at the time. It’s just what suits at the time.
We don’t keep records for any of our hobbies. I did start with the horse, but gave up after a year😱 Ditched the records, kept the horse for another 21 years😂
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The OP has asked about calculating costs but, for us, life's too short. My OH used to keep an unbelievably detailed spreadsheet of our finances but I said it would be one of the first things I'd delete if he popped his clog. He did eventually stop doing it and nobody has died and the world is still turning. As others have said, providing we can afford it we do what we want, when we want and don't keep records.
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I hope those who are recording every additional cost while away are including the savings of being not at home - less electric, water and gas, no wear and tear on appliances and furniture, fixtures and fitting, etc.
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I'm more interested in actually being able to get away which is something we can't always do, so an escape, if possible, is more important. As we've already forked out for our "accommodation" it's just a case of where to take it. We wouldn't be doing it if we couldn't afford it and will stop if we can't.
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Spot on Brue👍 None of us know what we have coming to us, one way or another, so best to just get on with things and enjoy, rather than sit at home when it’s to late, thinking “I wish…..”
Mum and Dad were savers. As I used to say to my Dad when he’d ask me how much this or that cost……knowing the price is easy, but understanding the value is priceless.
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Perhaps for somebody a lot younger the overall cost of ownership is more important, as they need to know if they will be able to afford it going forward. Things like depreciation have a lot more relevance when it’s not the last MH you are going to buy. At our age there is really little point, we are likely to be able to afford it for as long as we are able.
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We've never calculated any costs, although out of interest OH sometimes calculates MPG.
Other than that, nothing. I personally don't see the point; we're fortunate enough financially to be able to afford to go away when we want and, at the moment, healthwise we're able to go when we want. But some years ago, not long after OH retired early, he had a serious health scare, which fortunately turned out well; but that has shown us that money can't buy everything, but it's there to use, not save. What's the point in knowing how much you've spent last year, or the year before? Once you've spent it, it's gone, to me, it's the memories that are worth far more. IMHO of course.
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Spot on InaD. I mentioned yesterday about a friend of mine who has never ( or at least the last 20 years) never been on holiday. When I made an educated guess as to what we have spent on foreign holidays and caravan holidays in the last 25 years he was horrified.
However, we believe that those memories are priceless and especially those when the children were young, as they can never be repeated.
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All that has been said, applies to caravanning too. We wouldn't want to account for the real cost of caravanning.
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Being a bit of an obsessive 'number cruncher and record keeper', over the past twenty years I reckon we must have spent around £100K which when looked at in isolation is a bit scary. That has included 15 years of Spanish holiday home ownership, ten cruises and eleven years of LV ownership. The old adage of "the price of everything and the value of nothing" comes to mind when assessing its worth. If I'd spent that £100K back then on a Ferrari, what would it be worth now and could I afford the fuel for it? "Lay not up where moth and rust doth corrupt" and all that.
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