Yellowstone/Suburban Trip Costs

We're extremely fortunate to be able to do this. We afford it because we saved for a long time and I continue to work on the road. At the same time, people are usually surprised at how little it costs to live this way. When we were plainning this trip the people who posted their finances were invaluably helpful for calculating how much we needed to make this work so in the spirit of (hopefully, maybe) inspiring someone else to get out there, here is a rough breakdown of costs.

Upfront Costs

Initial Investments
Category Amount
1969 Yellowstone Trailer $900.00
1969 Chevy Suburban ??
Yellowstone rebuild $2020.00
Suburban rehab $300.00
Inverter
Solar setup $81.74
DMV (taxes, title, etc)
Insurance (1year)
Total $???
*Some expense

The intial investment is nothing to sneeze at and does not include the hundreds of hours of sweat equity invested as well, but then, I like to restore things and I take pride in doing it myself. Of course when I bought the trailer a few years ago we were $30K in consumer debt and it was arguably a very dumb purchase, but sometimes you have to gamble on a hunch. Or at least I do.

Practically speaking, do not buy an old trailer if you do not want to fix it up yourself. Hiring someone to do the work for you will be far more expensive than buying an already restored model. Also, restoration is not for the feint of heart. You can do it, even if you have no clue how (I didn't) but it does have its overwhelming/discouraging moments so be prepared for that. I wrote several articles about the process if you're interested. If that's not your bag you might be able to get a nicer rig for not much more money.

Here's how much we've spent each month we've spent on the road since we left in June 2016.

Monthly Expenses

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