Tuesday, October 1, 2013

Living in an RV frugally

One of the biggest cost in your RV will be propane. It runs your hot water, stove, and in some cases refrigerator and oven. Propane thanks to Bush Jr is not cheap. Embrace electric! It will mean some upfront cost but will save you a ton in the long run.

In our RV we don't even have a gas stove anymore. We ripped it out and put a washer dryer combo there. More about the money saver later. On top of the washer dryer we put plywood that we will later replace with counter top. This has given us room to use an electric skillet, hot plate, and griddle. Why are these cheaper? Because in a lot of RV parks electric is included in the rent.

When we bought our RV the table and benches were gone but that's fine too! We put a collapsible table there and it holds our toaster oven. This cost $90 at Walmart and it's a toaster oven on steroids. It is also a convection oven. The table also holds a larger microwave and coffee maker.

One thing I should mention about all these electric appliances is that you can't use them all at once or you will blow your breakers like crazy. To help with this problem we ran extension cords to the power pole because besides the main plug in for the RV it also has two standard house plugs. In these two plugs we plugged in the washer dryer combo and the window AC unit.

Now that you have a way to cook it you need to learn to shop cheap. If you have a computer use it. All grocery stores now list their ads online. One of the biggest ways to save money is to shop around. If you don't want to travel all over town that's not a problem either. Just copy the ad and shop at Walmart. They will match other's ads and save you gas money. Also look at special one day savings. For example every Wednesday Harvey's Grocery here in Brunswick will have a list of things they will sale for dirt cheap on that one day only. Food lion tends to have 3 days sales once or twice a month.

Also know the power of coupons. You can still get them in the paper but there are even more and better ones online. If there is any one named product that you like then go to their web page and look for printable coupons. If they have a sample then request it because the sample usually comes with a coupon. Also sign up for their emails and they tend to email you more coupons. Also look at their page on Facebook. It's crazy how many products now have pages on a social website. Make sure you like their page and every now and then you will see links to coupons show up on your news feed. Some grocery stores also have pages and will do the same thing.

Other money savers in an RV: One of the biggest costs I've found is the laundry mat. In this RV park the machines only cost $1.50 a load which is cheaper then I've seen elsewhere but it still adds up and you will find yourself looking in the sofa for quarters on a tight week. When we used the laundry mat it usually cost us $18 a week in laundry. When we bought this RV we saved money by buying an older RV and fixing it ourselves. With that savings we bought a washer dryer combo that was designed for RV's and runs off of 110v. Below is a link to where you can find them for sale but this isn't where we bought ours. We found ours used on Craigslist for $400 and it was only 6 months old.

http://www.campingworld.com/shopping/item/splendide-2100xc-washer-dryer-combo-white/37344
http://www.craigslist.org/about/sites look under appliances or do a search

Another GREAT money saver for us is making our own laundry detergent. All the supplies cost around $20 (depending on where you shop) and our washer only takes one tablespoon an load. This laundry detergent lasts us about 6 month. Try that with Tide! Here is a link to how to make the laundry detergent and another for fabric softener.

http://www.howdoesshe.com/cheaper-and-better-diy-laundry-detergent/
http://www.onegoodthingbyjillee.com/2013/07/homemade-fabric-softener-finally.html

If you haven't yet you should really check out Pinterest when you can. There are amazing DIY's for most everything from home made shower cleaner to home made shaving cream.

Another thing that will save you a lot of money is buying in bulk but there is a drawback in the fact that that requires more storage. My husband and I are lucky in the fact that we have to bunk beds in the back to stack things like bulk toilet paper and paper towels but not all RV's are that lucky. There is also the little used storage under the bed. The problem with that is it's a bugger to pick the thing up. A helpful thing, if you can afford it is bed lift kits. These are rods that you mount under the bed that help raise it. They look like what you would find on a hatchback car.

http://www.campingworld.com/shopping/item/large-bedlift-kit/66716


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