Can you afford your Motorhome....?

I got my MH as a means to an end.
I wanted to continue to travel after I finished work.
I wanted to see a different aspect than that of airports & hotels.

I bought a MH which I consider to be within my budget & practical for its intended use.
I think I can afford to use it as I wish.
I get others to maintain & fix when necessary.
I have neither the skills nor the interest in continually tweaking & modifying...
...because it's just the accommodation I use to be where I want to be.
 
We have paid for our motorhome so no outgoing finance.

When we were working we knew the m/h was a bit of an extravagance although we used it as much as we could. Now we are retired the investment is paying off.

We have downsized to a PVC now so parking is less of a problem. We are never in a hurry so 60-65mph on a motorway and 80kph on French roads gives up good mpg.

Travelling mainly in France we use Aires, both free and paid for, having discovered some beautiful night halts.

When travelling elsewhere on the Continent a combination of ACSI sites/Camper Contact and Park4Night gives us plenty of choice for reasonably priced stops.

We find that we get a good return on our investment. You can’t quantify happiness!

It is only in Britain that we find it can be an expensive hobby with the price of sites and the fact that many close for winter. Even that can be got around by the use of CLs etc.

You only get one go at life. It shouldn’t be measured in terms of what it costs but what you got out of it. Being the richest corpse in the graveyard is no great pleasure, I wouldn’t think.
 
This is the second new motorhome we have bought in the last 6 years, both bought outright.
We live on our works pensions having both worked very hard for many years and retired early but still a few years before the State starts to pay us.
We have no mortgage, loans or any other form of debt and living in France is so much cheaper than the UK, we can afford not to worry about the cost of running the van.
In the UK we generally stay on campsites or CL’s ( tried Britstops but were disappointed in most of the stops, so it isn’t our first choice anymore)
Don’t like adult only campsites, always think they are full of miserable and/ or weird people. :mask:
At home in the EU we use aires, mostly free but don’t mind paying if there is no alternative and they are nice.

So, yes, we are lucky to be able to afford our motorhome and use it as we wish.
 
I have put myself in a position,(through education, 2 professional qualifications and jobs, improving my own properties, not owing money except mortgage) of being able to do what I want, including, if I wished, to go out and buy a new upmarket German MH.

So that answers the basic OP question. The rest of my answer is to help others answer their own question about whether one can afford it.

It is interesting to note that most of respondents on this thread seem to be be people who

a) tend to keep away from campsites

b) have a careful approach to costs.

I think that part of the answer to the question is establishing from what cost/expenditure basis one starts before considering a MH and how much inside one's means one's expenditure was then. I think this is important, because of expectations.

Here I will introduce our history, just to illustrate. I was born in WWII with attendant rationing till 1953. We were not poor but I did not get a bicycle till 9 years old. I never bought anything that I had not saved for.

Basia, my now partner, was brought up in Communist Poland and left a Widow with 2 children - that was tough.

Both backgrounds have lead us to be value-for-money spenders, even when not forced to be.

Most people who answered seem to have bought their MH for cash(HP is expensive). So somehow they had spare cash(downsizing house, pension cash, inheritance etc.?)

Then the discussion turns to running costs, which splits into fixed costs while parked outside the house(Tax, MOT, Insurance, servicing and depreciation, only part of which can be DIY), and touring costs.

Apart from some touring costs like ferries and diesel, the rest are a matter of personal choice.

I doubt whether many MHomers' food and drinks bill for on-board consumption differs much from at home overall.

How much you eat out compared with at home is a personal choice.

So now we are down to costs of overnight parking. I think that this is where costs can diverge, depending on one's choice of venue. Campsites at Euro 20-30 might not be a killer for 2-3 weeks, but for 6 months need a considerable budget. At the other end wildcamping/Free or cheap Aires and some Municipal sites will on average cost 25% of campsites.

I think this question distills down to what income one has and what camping style one wants and for how long each year.

Those of my audience who have not gone to sleep, may do so now.

Geoff


[Not part of the discussion, but I have been pleased to give my Basia a different life now,with the ability to have holidays in places she never dreamed of(apart from MH in Europe, Brazil, Skiing in Andorra, Greece, Canaries(x2), Madeira). She still goes into Lidl and buys 3 x 'Offers' - but only if quality is good. Bless her]
 
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My time to bore you all.
First MH bought on finance in my early 30's it was used for both pleasure and for travelling the country doing building surveys. It saved a fortune on hotel & travel bills.
We upgraded after a couple of years still on finance but with the backing of a rather profitable business behind us. After the divorce and loss of my half of the business one of my gains was the debt of the MH finance. Through a relatively frugal lifestyle and knowing that it would be paid off i decided to keep the MH and it is coming to the pay off time later this year. I just saw it as an extra mortgage and a holiday asset as i have always hated being in one place for a holiday and sitting doing nothing.
My new partner and i have a nice life, no kids & just a very elderly cat who we rescued 5 years ago age 15. the old sod is still going strong (honestly i think that he has sold his soul to the devil in return for eternal life).

We we go away we drive steadily between 50 & 60mph, it makes for a very stress free journey.
In the Uk we mix sites, pub stops and some wild camping. Abroad we have only ever used one site. other than that It has always been aires and the like.

At the moment i work hard and lots but it is always with the view to the times that we get away & those are getting more frequent. Sam gets to retire early in 14 years & by then i will have made up for the loss of my business / pension and ready to do it too. Hopefully the house will be paid off in 5-7 years and then we can have more time away.

Mechanics, electrics etc, i try to do most of the work but leave some to a reputable local garage.

We love our MH and the flexibility to just go somewhere and move on if we want so is it worth it.......YES every penny

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BobtheBass said:
How many people buy their Motorhomes with finance? I don't see it mentioned a lot so guess the answer is not that many, with the amounts borrowed being high by necessity. Could that be one of the reasons why motorhoming is more of a senior citizens hobby?
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Yes I did, but it was only a small amount. After many months of trying and eventually engaging a solicitor to get our money back on our lousy new caravan last year, this time I thought I'd let the finance company battle it out should a similar eventuality arise.
 
Yes we can, being a Yorkshire man I am pretty frugal and cheap to keep, I do a lot of jobs on our motorhome and around home so can save a bit there, must have saved a few quid taking down and chopping up a 40 foot tree ourselves. I do pay every year for a chassis service and just say to the mechanic do whatever it needs, this year cost over £1500 :LOL: but that was new rear discs pads and handbrake including cables and anyway it's worth it(y)

After saying all that we bought second hand and 7 years on it is worth about the same as we paid for it so I see it as an investment with the interest pain in enjoyment.

We have just had 10 days in a hotel in Madeira and I reckon we could motorhome for a year on what that cost us.

Martin
 
well i had to sell the yacht and the country house to pay for it.............................we was robbed i tells ya........

joking aside, we bought new (our choice, no shooting me pls!) but have had 2 yrs so far of pleasure from it, we get to take the dog away with us instead of kenneling him (hmm, now i say it out loud:whistle:), kidding, he's part of the reason we bought it!!..........

so yes we can just about afford it, paid in full, but still a hefty investment, yes we could have gone abroad 2 or 3 times a year like we used to, but flying is a no no for me now (pussy i know!) anyway. if you weigh up 3 foreign quality holidays, per year, then the mo ho wasnt that dear..........
 
movan said:
I just wish I wasn't so bloomin' useless at DIY, Plumbing, electrics, engines, etc ., etc., :(
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You are not alone Joy.

I would bet I am more useless than you.

I bought an old house many years ago and my Dad bought me a DIY book.:eek:

I never opened it and it spent its life under the corner of an old fridge to make it level on a decaying floor that I never even thought about fixing.

On the plus side I am good at spinning coins, which is always handy.
 
BobtheBass said:
How many people buy their Motorhomes with finance? I don't see it mentioned a lot so guess the answer is not that many, with the amounts borrowed being high by necessity. Could that be one of the reasons why motorhoming is more of a senior citizens hobby?
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We did. It was one of those big decisions, wait until we could afford it (probably retirement age) or bite the bullet and have 15-20yrs of motor homing with the family but pay for the privilege along the way. I do the ROI calculations almost every time we use it and try to convince myself it's cheaper that a package holiday here and there, but of course it's probably not..... but then again on a package holiday you can't take Murphy and Monty with you, nor can you stock up on cheap shopping or just take of/return as and when needed.

We paid it off last summer (was a 5 year deal) so it's now ours hence we got itchy upgrade feet, but we decided to get some more life out of this one and perhaps change to something smaller once the children have flown the nest, i could be in for a long wait:whistle:

But i think the post above is correct and it is the main reason why the average age of a motorhomes is officially 97.4yrs old:sneaky:
 
Well I bought my first vw camper at 17yrs old ....I've pretty much had a camper or caravan in my life ever since. I wheeled and dealed with my vehicles and I've done most of the maintenance on them myself over the years , restored and customised all of the vw ones I had which was many ...When kids got bigger I towed a caravan with vw caravelles and multivans, moved on to motorhomes and had a few and then when kids got older and stopped coming I went back to a vw t4 autosleeper. Then when I decided to do a years travel last year I sold up everything including the house and bought my Frankia. It was the most expensive vehicle ive ever bought ....I used it for a year and managed to resell it for the same I'd spent on it including the maintenance and modifications I did on it. And I bought my hymer for less than half the price. I still tend to do most of my maintenance myself so that helps with running costs. Mpg is much the same as I got with the choice of cars I used to run so no probs there.
I don't use campsites I never struggle to find free places to park and stay so I don't have that expense.
I've never smoked , I don't drink a lot , never gambled etc and I don't buy anything I don't think is worth the money ....some would say tight I prefer to say I'm careful ...money has never come easy to me I've worked for it and not had highly paid jobs so I tend to be frugal than a big spender.

I can afford it if I do it my way , if I had to rely on campsites and garage repairs etc then probably not.

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We stared with an old Autosleeper on a Commer base buying it from savings, the repairs etc cost more than the camper and these were paid with from savings too, it was wonderful though and as we only used it for the odd weekend away at a car show (we had a Bond Minicar) it did us proud, but eventually we wanted something more comfortable (the double bed was only 3'6" wide!) so bought an ex-ambulance which I converted - I'd never done anything like that before but was fairly handy at DIY. Loved it but when we were unexpected in the situation where we went down from having 4 dogs to 2 dogs (we had 5 at the same time ... twice!), it meant we were no longer reliant on others to come and dog sit so allowed us to have 'proper' holidays away so we bought a 10 year old Elddis, using our savings and borrowing a few £k from my Mum and paid her back within 6 months with interest. From then on we've used cash, never bank/vehicle loans etc. We keep our MHs/campers 3-4 years usually and only change if our way of using them has changed or we want a different layout which suits us better.

We can afford our motorhome, and have been able to afford all of those in the past, if not we wouldn't have got them, whether they made 'financial' sense is another matter but we made money on the Commer, ambulance and Elddis especially (4k more than we paid for it after a few years' use) and have always bought carefully, doing jobs on them ourselves in most cases (ie installing solar etc). Even though we could afford to pay for others to do stuff I prefer to do it myself so I know how it's been done and that it's correct.
 
movan said:
No ..I can't afford it now. Treasure each trip as don't know how long the pleasure will last. :(
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Hi Joy. Can you afford not to have it ? Some things defy cost, and surely your van is a way of life for you. Don’t give it up, that’s an order.
Phil
 
kelpie said:
I'm 66 this year , THINK I would feel strange doing a CBT with a group of spotty youths , don't know:D. My son runs a Bmw motorbike , the one the Police use , 12-1300 cc. He's currently in America for three weeks on a hired Harley going from east to west with some north south detours. Never been the jealous type but I am on this one.
Next year he's talking about Vietnam or Cambodia by bike , oh to be young and carefree again
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Then you'd better do it this year, otherwise you'll be another year older before you do!!

Seriously, most motorcyclists are older anyway, so you'll fit right in & anyway young people aren't all bad

Many on here moan about todays young people (as did every generation before them!) I doubt many of the moaners spend time with teenagers/young people
When I first retired, I did some voluntary work with young people. Sure they are growing up in a very different world to the one we grew up in and yes that comes across in thier attitudes & ambitions. But, I'll tell you something, I never heard any of them say anything derogatory about another's race, religion, sexuality, colour, creed, country of origin, etc which is a lot more than can be said of some who post on this forum

Now book that CBT
 
movan said:
I just wish I wasn't so bloomin' useless at DIY, Plumbing, electrics, engines, etc ., etc., :(
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You need to nurture a few useful friends and trade favours - much better than cash.
I sure you must have some talents if its only cooking them a free meal.

I have many friends when I need a favour and they know they can count on my returning the favour at some time in the future.

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Nasher said:
Then you'd better do it this year, otherwise you'll be another year older before you do!!

Seriously, most motorcyclists are older anyway, so you'll fit right in & anyway young people aren't all bad

Many on here moan about todays young people (as did every generation before them!) I doubt many of the moaners spend time with teenagers/young people
When I first retired, I did some voluntary work with young people. Sure they are growing up in a very different world to the one we grew up in and yes that comes across in thier attitudes & ambitions. But, I'll tell you something, I never heard any of them say anything derogatory about another's race, religion, sexuality, colour, creed, country of origin, etc which is a lot more than can be said of some who post on this forum

Now book that CBT
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Just done mine at 65
 
For us there were always (and still are!) "better" (i.e. more sensible) things to spend the money on. But, the 3 kids were growing up fast, our old trailer tent wasn't getting used that much, time to do it before the kids want to go off & do their own thing.

Eldest was 9 at the time - now nearly 15, and just getting to the "getting a bit bored on holiday with Mum & Dad" stage. So did we do the right thing - Yes, without doubt. Give it another 3 years or so and I'm sure she'll want to be off with her friends.

Van was 8 years old when I bought it (privately and out of season), now 13 years old and they still sell for a bit more than I paid. It gets looked after well as, barring any major issues, I won't change it until the layout no longer suits us, new vehicles for the sake of having a new vehicle don't really attract me. It's not an investment of course and costs me every year, but they do seem to get to a stage eventually where the actual residual value only drops by a very small amount each year, and it's condition that matters.

Staying away - tends to be sites with the kids, and aires for stop overs en route only. Kids need the safe space a site gives, and there are normally other kids for them to make friends with, which is important for my youngest especially - who is the rare breed of modern child who isn't too fussed about computer games or phones, and wants to be outside playing on his bike.
 
We bought new after two earlier 2nd hand outright buys, the dealers face dropped when we said we didn't want finance! Was worth its weight in gold!
 
Stealaway said:
You need to nurture a few useful friends and trade favours - much better than cash.
I sure you must have some talents if its only cooking them a free meal.

I have many friends when I need a favour and they know they can count on my returning the favour at some time in the future.
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Alex

Very good advice. I as a foreigner in Poland have not myself got the contacts, but Basia was a teacher and between the parents of her pupils and the pupils theselves(now adult) she has contacts for almost everything.

We reciprocate with dinners, pick-your-own fruit from our garden etc.

One of Basia's best friends is our lady Dr. and I am not entitled to free healthcare but never pay, including C1 licence medical. However, I was able to pay back last year when they wanted to join us in Brittany for a MH holiday - I found them a good hire MH, flights, met them at Beauvais, accomodated them for a night in our MH, drove 150 km to hire place and generally tutored them in MHoming, including finding sites, parking etc. We had an excellent holiday together. Offering cash to them would be an insult as she has a very profitable surgery, with research contracts, so giving them MHoming help was more appreciated.

Geoff

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PepnKook said:
We bought new after two earlier 2nd hand outright buys, the dealers face dropped when we said we didn't want finance! Was worth its weight in gold!
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It can be worth doing to get a better deal, but check the small print. My in-laws bought a new caravan, as part of the overall deal they agreed to take it on finance, so the dealer got his commission. They only had to make one payment and then they could pay off in full without penalty, so one month in that's exactly what they did.
 
Feltwell said:
It can be worth doing to get a better deal, but check the small print. My in-laws bought a new caravan, as part of the overall deal they agreed to take it on finance, so the dealer got his commission. They only had to make one payment and then they could pay off in full without penalty, so one month in that's exactly what they did.
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Just a word of caution though for anyone thinking of doing this ... sometimes there are up-front and settlement costs included in the finance deals with aren't always apparent (or mentioned) when they are selling it to you.
 
Feltwell said:
It can be worth doing to get a better deal, but check the small print. My in-laws bought a new caravan, as part of the overall deal they agreed to take it on finance, so the dealer got his commission. They only had to make one payment and then they could pay off in full without penalty, so one month in that's exactly what they did.
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Did that on my current car, Santander gave me. £1000 towards the car.
 
Can we afford ours? Probably not but what the hell, life is too short to keep trudging round the shows and wishing.

Some savings, a small inheritance, and dosh from selling the old VW camper privately meant we could buy a new one so we took the plunge.

Better than spending it on a fortnight's holiday abroad 2 or 3 times a year and have nothing to show for it except photos and tacky souvenirs. Besides, air travel has become rather unpleasant and often inconvenient or unreliable.
 
We are at a lovely site this weekend, I work hard and long hours, this is the only time we really get to spend together chilling.
It takes up a fair bit of our cash but we’d not change it, being able to get away at the last minute is great.
What we reckon the motorhome will cost us this year for being out nearly every weekend, is still cheaper than what we paid for a weeks cruise last year.

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