Cost of Motorhome Ownership - Per Night Stay [Gulp!]

I'm glad at times that I am so thick and maths is what I wipe my feet on, if I had calculated what the costs were I'd not have bothered and missed out on some truly wonderful trips away.

Money is made round to go round.
 
marchie said:
5% investment return over the last 10 years for cash savings would be an overstatement. My cash deposit was around 20% of the M/Home purchase price, and my net interest for the 2 years+ of ownership, had I retained the cash would have yielded a touch less than £2,000 in total, and that ignores the depreciation of the cash savings purchase value.

I prefer to focus on the actual costs incurred/accumulating, ignoring 'opportunity costs', and I keep the data for my own amusement and/or a source of information for debates about vehicle running costs/total cost of ownership etc. One of my old bosses in the Bank used to say, 'There's no place on a Balance Sheet for gut feeling' [when customers would attempt to paint a rosy picture of the mythical 'hidden asset value']

Steve
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Of course, if part financing the purchase with a loan the finance costs will be significant.
As far as the lost investment income goes I used 5% just as an example and in fact without taking undue risk I’ve achieved over 8% pa over the last decade. Impossible to come up with an actual cost per night without considering these sums.
 
We bought our first van with a AA loan, extended it for the second one, then I made enough to pay it off and almost build the self build when we sold it, not had finance since then just buy cheap, fix and sell high a few times.
 
Pudsey Bear said:
We bought our first van with a AA loan, extended it for the second one, then I made enough to pay it off and almost build the self build when we sold it, not had finance since then just buy cheap, fix and sell high a few times.
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good trick if you can manage that :)

I have kind of done that with my cars .... Bought a pretty expensive (for me) car back in 2011 - treated myself to a birthday present for a 'big' birthday - and it was stolen 18 months later.
But I didn't mind too much as I was thinking of selling anyway AND I had GAP insurance, so got back what I paid which was handy.
And since then when I have changed my car (3 times since), the cost of the new car have effectively been paid out of the proceeds of the insurance payout - so each time bought a newer but smaller car (last one was a nearly new Vauxhall Corsa, which cost me my 3 years older DS5 as PX plus £250)
 
2cv said:
Of course, if part financing the purchase with a loan the finance costs will be significant.
As far as the lost investment income goes I used 5% just as an example and in fact without taking undue risk I’ve achieved over 8% pa over the last decade. Impossible to come up with an actual cost per night without considering these sums.
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I was thinking in terms of ready access absolutely no risk cash investments where interest rates for savers have been appallingly low. Accelerated repayment programmes reduce finance charges significantly [slightly under 50% recoup after yesterday's additional repayments, and should pass 50% in the next few weeks]

To counter the 'interest you could have earned' argument [switches to Jim Bowen mode], you would not have earned the interest on your investment by purchasing the Van, because of the capital depletion to finance the acquisition. And, if you had decided to not to buy the Van, you would not have received the interest [depreciating value against inflation], because you would have needed to buy another form of holiday. In our case, we took 3 almost back-to-back cruises that gave us about 75 days away over a 3 months period [Cuba & Caribbean, South America , and Yokohama to Seattle via Alaska] at around 50% of the purchase price of the M/Home [over 50% when the de rigeur Excursions are added to the Cruise Costs!]

Steve
 
IT was a case of having too, I got made redundant in 2009, had 6 points on my licence so zero chance of a job, no other marketable skills, DWP said take pension credit when you hit 60 so I did, not worked a day since, we had enough money between us for normal living, we only lost the pension credit last year when Liz hit 66 and her small Coca Cola pension kicked in, I built the Self build in 2010/11 sold it two years later at a good profit, and started buying and selling, it was great as it basically gave me a paying hobby, bought it back a couple of years ago for peanuts as they had not looked after it, fixed it and sold it again for silly money, it is still on the road running around Doncaster unchanged.
 
This post is exactly why I was always at loggerheads with the accountants when I was at the quarry lol
 
Only once did i buy a car from where i worked on the never never, pile of sh one t vw 1303, since then i pay cash for everything, if i cannot aford things i do without.
 
Pudsey Bear said:
I'm glad at times that I am so thick and maths is what I wipe my feet on, if I had calculated what the costs were I'd not have bothered and missed out on some truly wonderful trips away.

Money is made round to go round.
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I was just thinking the same. Not having been as adventurous as some and with health issues getting in the way if I could (but can't) work out the cost of running and using Leo I would have given up long ago. I just realise how incredibly lucky I am to be able to have a van and use it to go away in even if only a short distance; many OAPs are struggling.
 
trevskoda said:
Only once did i buy a car from where i worked on the never never, pile of sh one t vw 1303, since then i pay cash for everything, if i cannot aford things i do without.
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At the individual level, Trev, the spiralling costs of Motorhomes, especially during the pandemic, meant that prices were rising much faster than savings could accumulate; and, at a nation level, if everybody waited until they had the cash to make a purchase, the economy would be much smaller, far more peopl would be out of work, and the smaller economy would have less scope to pay Benefits to the extra unemployed. And public services in the wider sphere would be further impaired

So, I'm not polluting the planet in my Euro 5 m?home, I'm reflating/expanding the economy and expanding public services .... (y) :rolleyes:

Steve
 
B J McKay said:
Why is everyone obsessed with the cost of owning and running a MH , its simple if you can afford it do it if not sell it and find something else
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I never said anything about affordability, and I really do not need your approval or otherwise to pursue my hobby, be it motorhoming or cruising [I can afford both], or anything else

Steve
 
B J McKay said:
Why is everyone obsessed with the cost of owning and running a MH , its simple if you can afford it do it if not sell it and find something else
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To point out the obvious, it's a Motorhome forum and we are happy to discuss all aspects of motorhomes, and while some folk are properly minted some of us are not, so like anything else cost comparison comes into it, obsessed is an overstatement though, we're just interested.
 
marchie said:
I never said anything about affordability, and I really do not need your approval or otherwise to pursue my hobby, be it motorhoming or cruising [I can afford both], or anything else

Steve
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Cruising? is that akin to kerb crawling?
 
marchie said:
I have measured the cost of every vehicle I have owned since 1987 .................

..............Anyone got the Reservations number for Premier Inn? :ROFLMAO:

Steve
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If you were doing a spreadsheet in 1987 it would have been on your employer's mainframe computer, maybe a Univac 1110?

And if you go to Premier Inn you will have to get there by your own car or Public Transport (EEEUUUUGGGHHH breakdown, crash, deaths - at least that is my experience of trains), and when you get there your English Breakfast will cost £9.50 each instead of £2.40 for both, from Aldi. Then there is your expensive lunch - £4.50 in Greggs and evening dinnah - £20 in Weatherspoons. Paddling around town in the rain.

I know that my motorhoming experience is VERY Expensive, because I have been quickly getting fed up with the one I have, and changing it. The dealers make on average £10,000 profit when you change your 3 year old one for a one year old one. In fact with the last one I had, we discovered two days after we bought it that the dealer had a sister model in the same make and length. I asked the dealer how much to change and they said £15,000. Same make, different model number, same length, same Transit Automatic, same colour, same year. That is SMC Motorhomes in case you want to know. Brownhills is about the same, I think they all are.

As for site fees, getting back to the subject, we spent 5 weeks last year going down Germany to Switzerland, Austria and Italy, and if we hadn't spent two nights on a camp site (we had to, in Oberammergau because it is the only place to stay to see the Passion Play) our average nightly site fee would have been 30 cents. That is for occasional €1 fees for 100 litres of water, or toilet dump.

Unsurprisingly having changed motorhomes on average every 18 months we have now run out of money for newer ones so what we are getting now (A/S Bourton) will have to be the last one. We figure we need some cash in the piggy bank to pay for health care, the way the NHS is going. That is to say that our future health care may well be flights to Turkey or India for hospital treatment there, which my daughters have found is cheaper and quicker than waiting around for the NHS, or specially cheaper than going private here.
 
That seems like a very expensive way to run a motorhome/s.

They do say the fastest way to make a small fortune is t start off with a big one :( :(
 
gasgas said:
If you were doing a spreadsheet in 1987 it would have been on your employer's mainframe computer, maybe a Univac 1110?

And if you go to Premier Inn you will have to get there by your own car or Public Transport (EEEUUUUGGGHHH breakdown, crash, deaths - at least that is my experience of trains), and when you get there your English Breakfast will cost £9.50 each instead of £2.40 for both, from Aldi. Then there is your expensive lunch - £4.50 in Greggs and evening dinnah - £20 in Weatherspoons. Paddling around town in the rain.

I know that my motorhoming experience is VERY Expensive, because I have been quickly getting fed up with the one I have, and changing it. The dealers make on average £10,000 profit when you change your 3 year old one for a one year old one. In fact with the last one I had, we discovered two days after we bought it that the dealer had a sister model in the same make and length. I asked the dealer how much to change and they said £15,000. Same make, different model number, same length, same Transit Automatic, same colour, same year. That is SMC Motorhomes in case you want to know. Brownhills is about the same, I think they all are.

As for site fees, getting back to the subject, we spent 5 weeks last year going down Germany to Switzerland, Austria and Italy, and if we hadn't spent two nights on a camp site (we had to, in Oberammergau because it is the only place to stay to see the Passion Play) our average nightly site fee would have been 30 cents. That is for occasional €1 fees for 100 litres of water, or toilet dump.

Unsurprisingly having changed motorhomes on average every 18 months we have now run out of money for newer ones so what we are getting now (A/S Bourton) will have to be the last one. We figure we need some cash in the piggy bank to pay for health care, the way the NHS is going. That is to say that our future health care may well be flights to Turkey or India for hospital treatment there, which my daughters have found is cheaper and quicker than waiting around for the NHS, or specially cheaper than going private here.
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Sorry, I knew what I meant when I started the Thread [although nobody else could have done, unless they had ESP! Or is that an electronic braking system? :ROFLMAO:]. From 1987, I kept a paper system, but nowhere as detailed as the current spreadsheet. When I bought my first PC in 1992 [Amstrad 5086 running DOS 3.3!], I made the first version of a spreadsheet and uploaded the paper-based records and developed it over the years until 1993 when I needed to produce a series of Spreadsheets for my new employment. I used the vehicle spreadshheet to test new functions, data sets etc and then added them to my employer's spreadsheet. I had graduated to a 80386 Desktop 'Tank' [about the size of a desk drawer!] that I bought for about £15 IIRC from a business that was going to scrap the machines [I bought 3 and sold the others to my then brothers-in-law]. My Xmas present was an 80387 Maths Co-processor that I fitted on Christmas Day and played around with so that I could add a VLookup function to the employer spreadsheet that I was running in LOTUS1-2-3 [pre WYSIWYG!]

Steve
 
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