To be honest we bough the RV 2 years ago. I have shared it a few times on Instagram, but never on the blog. To be honest, I was worried that I would met with a lot of criticism, judgement, and “meanness”. I know that it sounds pretty silly dumb, buying a motor home, when you are up to our eyeballs in student loan debt, but I want to talk to you about it – why we did it – and the truth about if I regret it or not.
I thought I would answer some of the questions, I was so concerned about.
So, What kind of RV? Why an RV over a travel trailer?
We bought a motorhome (RV). Class C. We bought an RV because we do not own a truck – we we do not have any vehicles that could tow a trailer of 5th wheel – and we really enjoy not having a car payment. We did not want to trade in one of our paid in full cars, for a truck plus a trailer.
Features of our Motorhome:
- Queen “master” bed
- Bunk Beds for the boys
- Second Queen bed above the driver and passenger seats
- kitchen
- dinette
- bathroom
- It is 32 Feet long, and has two slide outs.
We (By “we” I mean Scott, my husband) had been looking at RV’s for years. It was always his dream to own one, and even though I am certainly no camper, I could get behind supporting him with this dream. (More on that later). We knew right from the get-go, having bunks for the boys was very important to us.
As a mother, it is important to me that I am able to care for my children, at all times. I want them to be able to go to bed and have a comfortable, quality night sleep. If my children are outside playing in mud, sand, forest all day – I need to be able to give them a bath, and put some clean jammies on them before sending them to bed. In addition, to those “needs” for me as a mother, and a wife – I “need” to have a clean home for my family. Whether it be our house, or our house on the road.
I know without a pinch of doubt, that not being able to do that – I would not be able to enjoy our camping vacation at all. I need to be able to take care of my boys, in a way that I see as necessary.
So, why would you want an RV?
As I said above, I am not a camper. Prior to buying the RV, I had camped a total of two times. Both of those times were with Scott, and we were in tents. It was fun for a night or two, but it certainly was not “easy”- “quick” or comfortable.
The thought of tent camping with two little kids, is not something that interests me at all. God bless parents that do it. You are stronger, better, than me! In fact, you are a freaking superhero!
It might sound snotty – but the thought of sleeping on the hard ground, without easy access to a bathroom or running water, or an easy way to heat up some food, sounds like a terrible time to me (Now that I have kids). For the first few hours during the daylight, it could feel like a fun adventure, but the novelty would quickly wear off for me.
However! The reason I was able to get behind Scott’s dream of camping as a family – was because he sold me on the image of being together as a family, enjoying nature, spending serious quality time together, having s’mores every night around a campfire, then heading off to our heated or air conditioned, comfortable bed – sounds amazing, right?
Both Scott and I spend a lot of time on the computer and our other devices. “Work” is 24/7/365. As soon as my phone dings, my attention is pulled. I have emails to answer – customers to respond to, etc. And Scott has a whole hospital to keep up and running. It is really hard to step away. But we both truly need to, for ourselves and more importantly our boys!
We want to go a day without our child asking if he can play on the Ipad, or phone. That sounds blissful – not because the constant request and constantly telling them “no” is annoying, but because I want him to be so happy with living a fun and active life with their family, that they do not even think about the dang Ipad!
Spoiler Alert- So far camping has given us that dream of tech freedom~ and yes, it is total bliss!
Okay, but you have a ton of student loan debt – how could you be so foolish / dumb / irresponsible?
Trust me, I get this. For a few days after taking the plunge both Scott and I felt physically ill. We were possibly setting our Debt Freedom Back back by 16 months. That idea was truly sickening. But just like when we got that first letter about our student loan repayment – I got to work. (I did crunch the numbers before we bought the RV) – so I knew that technically we would be able to afford the payment along with our bills, our debt snowball, and the extras that come with life. But I needed a plan, a plan of attack to make this massive purchase sit right with me.
Here is what I came up with to make this purchase “okay”
- My income is considered an “extra” All our bills are paid for by Scott’s paycheck
- I insisted that the RV cost would have to come out of my income. Which meant I had to make a consistent amount of money to cover all of its cost.
- ^^ That was not enough though.
- If I was able to come up with the money for the RV, I needed to double it, to be able to contribute to the Debt Snowball, so we were not just setting our debt free date back by 16 months, but so we could reach our debt free goal even sooner, than we had planned before buying the RV.
Okay, that makes some since, but why not wait just a few more years and pay cash?
So, this was the biggest deciding factor for me: My kids!!
Everyday I realize that my kids are growing up so much quicker than I could ever possibly have imagined. I already have a 6 year old. It is not cliche, or a joke when I say that it feels like he was just born. In 12 years, he will be a freaking adult. Before I know it, he will be in high school.
The truth is, I feel like time is slipping through my fingers. Now that I work from home – it is even harder, trying to find that balance. So if we waited until Scott turned 40, like the original plan – we would have lost years of time with our boys – and at that point our oldest may not be interested in spending time with his parents. We are still in the stage of life where our kids think we are cool, and love spending all their time with us. (And we truly love it too!)
The short and the long weekends away in our RV, with the boys have been truly priceless. Both Scott and I are willing to take the consequences of the extra debt, to be able to raise our sons the way we have always dreamed of.
BUT YOUR DEBT?!?!
I know, trust me I really do. This is going to sound absolutely crazy, but one of the reasons I did not wait (Beyond what I just said above) was because of the amount of student loan debt we have. And no, it is not because it is just a tiny bit. It is because we have so much. I told you it was going to sound crazy. But hear me out.
As of writing this, we have over $130,000 in student loan debt. It is such a large number, that unless we find a pot of gold, we have years of debt repayment ahead of us. If we had lets say $40,000 (which is still a lot, please don’t think I am saying anything otherwise!) – we would have waited. We would have worked our tails off to get it gone in a year, and then reward ourselves, by saving up cash to pay for an RV.
But we are already working our tails off – the hours, the side hustles, the meal planning, coupon clipping, etc – it will still take us years to pay it all off. Even with thousands of dollars extra a month in our debt snowball. So with the sand slipping through our hour glasses, Scott and I decided that for our family it was worth it.
It is worth the extra late nights once the kids are in bed – working our tails off to provide what we think is best for
So that is why we bought an RV.
I am excited to share more of it with you – the floor plan – camping activities, sharing our camping hacks, our favorite places to stay … and what I am most looking forward to sharing is how I am setting up the RV this year, to make it more beautiful, organized, comfortable, and more enjoyable to stay in. After two years of camping, I definitely have a few tweaks I would like to make, to make this specific RV “better” for our family.
Scott J. Weaver, Sr. says
Young lady, I came to your website via Yoast SEO work with you. I enjoyed your article. As a grandfather of 60 years of age, I say bravo for you for making this purchase. Money is not everything! Time spent with your boys and your husband Scott ,good solid name for a man :), will forever be treasured.
I still remember the times I spent with my 2 brothers and parents on the many vacations we went on, especially when we went to Major League Baseball games. The money will always leave you, but the memories stay forever. Cherish them and keep them as only a parent can. Great article! Great job with your blog!