We want to know: At this very moment, do you own your RV outright or do you make payments on it? If you do make payments, will you share in the comments below the poll how much longer you’ll be making payments (if you don’t mind sharing, of course)?
If you’re curious about RV payments, this article by The Savvy Campers is very informative and answers a lot of questions. Check it out. (Mind you, the article is from 2019 and prices have gone up [did someone say WAY up?!] since then, so keep that in mind.)
As always, thank you for voting!
Bought the previous 3 outright. This one has payments and putting extra principal on the balance each month. Current DP came at an unexpected time.
I selected “other” because we own our RV outright (have the title to our RV), but we are also making payments due to owning it. We took out a home equity line of credit (HELOC) to pay what we did not pay in cash when we traded RVs last summer. We are paying down the HELOC by liquidating investments earning at a lower rate than the HELOC’s interest rate.
3 yrs to complete the total pay off much to the chagrin of the bank. The loan was purposely scheduled as a 20 yr loan to have small payments just in case I needed a light payment 1 or 2 months in the whole plan
Made payments for a year, and then paid it off
We own our pristine 2011 5th wheel camper. I have a question about polls here on the website. I can never figure out where the polls are located, and how to participate.
Hi, S B. I’m sorry I didn’t respond sooner. I got sidetracked and forgot to get back to you. The poll should show up right in the post where you’re reading about it. If it doesn’t, it could be because sometimes script blockers and ad blockers interfere with our polls since they are from a 3rd party site. If you have one of these, try and turn it off and see if that fixes the issue. Good luck! And have a good night. 😀 –Diane at RVtravel.com
Thank you, Diane! You’ve solved a long-running mystery for me. I use Brave browser and that is blocking the poll somehow. When I switched to Edge browser, the poll was visible.
Thanks for letting me know, S B! I’m glad that’s what it was.👍 Have a great day! 😀 –Diane at RVtravel.com
Not only have we always paid cash (and bought used), we wouldn’t keep an RV if we had to pay to store it.
I voted own, paid with cash. I wish RVTRAVEL would specify what they call an RV’s. Travel trailers, fifth wheels, pop ups and Van campers are also considered RV’s.
Let’s not assume everyone owns a Motorhome!
Hi, Bob. I don’t see any mention in there of motorhomes. I think the reference to RVs is all-inclusive, i.e., travel trailers, fifth wheels, popups, van campers, truck campers, motorhomes, etc. Have a great day. 😀 –Diane at RVtravel.com
My father told me many years ago that a RV falls into the “toys” category and you don’t finance toys. Later in life I attended a Dave Ramsey “Financial Peace” seminar where he repeatedly stated, “if you cannot pay cash for something, then you can’t afford it.” Everything I own is paid for.
I follow Dave Ramsey, too. My motor home IS my home, and everything I own is in it. So I think Dave would give me a pass on financing it. It’s my mortgage. 😊
Military service, including Combat Tours, and then a career as a police officer, raising 3 children did not allow our financial situation to enable a cash Motorhome purchase upon retirement. We have few bills other than our house mortgage and easily could qualify and handle our RV Payment. It is no worse than a car payment and both our cars were paid off long ago. So we enjoy the ability to travel to see friends and relatives and see wonderful sites. It is our desire to enjoy our golden years, and certainly do so well within our budget. Happy trails to you all!
If we have to make payments on anything, we are not buying it!
I probably did everything wrong when I got my present MH, and I will still be paying for it for another two years. But it is very much a part of me and how I live. I just look on the payments as rental on the kind of life I want to live.
Paying cash to an RV dealership ([new especially] car dealership for that matter) is frankly the most difficult part of the sales transaction. And as a former banker, I can tell you that dealerships can at best skirt the edge of consumer finance laws when applying pressure.
Worse, dealerships will try to add all kinds of vastly overpriced fees to the financing – title & registration services especially. On my last purchase, the dealer wanted to charge me almost 50 times what the actual fees are in my State.
My suggestion? If this is truly THE unit you wish to purchase and are willing to finance: the finance related junk fees are not extravagant (no more than $100-$200 bank finance charge) plus title & registration fees no higher than actual cost plus postage. And this is the big kicker: no pre-payment penalty. Pay the balance way down on your first payment and pay off the load in six months.
Most of all, be prepared to walk away. And if the dealer is obstinate, so so.
Bought a new TT this spring at the RV show. It was a kind of “loss leader”. They were throwing in lots of goodies until they realized that I was paying cash. You should have seen their faces fall! Their profit margin just evaporated.
Always have paid cash. When I could afford $500 I bought a used $500 trailer in 1994. All the way to the current RV purchased new in 2018. The family memories are just as good regardless of the price tag.
Cash. Always love the “It’s an investment” line from RV sales folks at RV shows on a depreciating major purchase. Gold is an investment. A house. Your 401K. Stocks. We pay cash for everything. Actually for monthly purchase we’ll use a credit card then pay off the balance each month. The accumulated points are used to make “bonus” purchases. Car, truck, house, RV, home improvements all on short term interest free or cash. We also buy in a buyers market and sell in a sellers market. Sold our last camper trailer for the same amount we bought it for after 6 years use. AND NEVER buy a new RV. Let someone else pay for that HUGE depreciation – you know, for that “investment”.
While I was reading your comment I had to look twice to make sure I wasn’t the one that wrote it. It’s word for word what I would write. We both decided decades ago to retire without debt and without paying interest. It was much easier than most people would think.
Cash is king.
Not anymore, some places won’t take cash. When we bought our house the realtor didn’t seem to know how to handle a cash purchase.
Heck, I went to a restaurant where the server did not know how to accept a cash payment. I used to have a stash of cash in case a credit card would not work. Now I carry a credit card in case cash does not work.