Compare Cost of Mobile Home to Cost of Hotel
Cost Ratio=Cost(Motor Home)Cost(Hotel)
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This cost comparison equation will help you see if it makes sense to buy a mobile home by comparing the cost of purchasing and maintaining a mobile home to the cost of staying in a very nice hotel room. This equation will compute the ratio of the cost you would incur if you purchase a mobile home and use it for a specified period or stay in a plush hotel room for the same period.
The cost of staying in a hotel includes flights between hotels and the cost of an auto if you drive your car between hotel locations. You can estimate living exclusively in hotels and flying between every destination if you zero out the auto cost. Similarly you can compare against staying in hotels and using a car exclusively for transportation if you zero out the airfare costs.
You can see all the costs in any currency you would like.
There are a lot intangible costs to be considered in both the hotel case and the motor home case:
- If you drive a motor home, you will need to do a lot of packing, cleaning, laundry, maintenance, parking, and driving that will take away from available time to experience your travel destinations. There will be some limitations on where you drive and where you park. You will be tired often from driving. On the other hand, if you drive a Motor Home you will have more opportunity to experience the country in between and you will be able to take many things with you that you would not be able to pack in flight luggage.
- If you stay in a hotel, you will not have a lot of your own personal artifacts along with you. On the other hand, in a hotel there will be clean towels in the bathroom, mints on your pillow, fresh sheets, hot breakfast waiting for you in the morning, a gym, a pool, wifi and a lot of other amenities. If you fly between hotel locations you will have more time to experience the destination.
We assume this comparison is being done between a plush Motor Home and up-scale, high end hotels. If you make the same comparison with budget hotels, the Motor Home will lose hands down.
These intangibles are not part of this equation. We're just trying to make an apples-to-apples comparison of the costs alone.
Inputs
| Cost | Explanation / Directions |
|---|---|
| Cost of a Motor Home | Enter the full amount you paid for the motor home, including taxes, fees, licenses, etc. Most average motor homes have a sticker price between $100,000 and $300,000 -- which doesn't include taxes and fees at the time of sales. If you're financing the motor home, you enter just the amount you paid at the time you purchased the motor home -- so downpayment, taxes, fees, etc when you purchased. Then you will enter the Monthly Payment on Motor Home in that separate field. |
| Use Life of Motor Home | Enter the period you believe you will realistically continue to use the motor home at same level of use. In other words, if you're 50 years old and believe you will realistically continue to use your Motor Home as much in future years and until you're 75, you would enter 25 years. "Realistic" implies if you're not the healthiest guy on the block, it is unrealistic to think you'll be doing all the work on long trips to pack the motor home, clean the motor home, maintain the motor home, etc. |
| Mobile Period | Enter the period for which you'd like to compare the cost of using the motor home to the cost of staying in a hotel. |
| Monthly Payment on Motor Home | If you are financing the motor home, enter the monthly payment here. If you are not financing the motor home, enter zero here. |
| Cost of Hotel Night | Enter an estimated average cost of a hotel for a night. Given on-line booking and bidding that can be done on sites like Priceline, I have personally seen nightly reservations made routinely in the $50 to $75 range for 3-1/2-star to 4-star hotels. I've also seen these bookings made at the last minute, so no need to book far in advance. So, if you learn how to "use" the system you can routinely get top-end hotels for under $90/night. You can get room rates even lower that far exceed the comfort of an average motor home, with fresh towels and neatly made beds and other amenities. A good conservative price for a 3-1/2-star to 4-star hotel you could easily find would be around $90 with no bidding required. If you bid on a 3-star hotel room you can probably routinely get a room for $50 to $60 dollars per night, including breakfast. And if you're booking this often, you will probably receive a frequent-stay membership that will provide additional discounts, extra amenities and free upgrades. |
| Price of Motor Home Gas (cost for a unit volume) | Enter the price in monetary amount for a unit volume of gasoline (or diesel fuel if your motor home burns diesel) for your motor home's fuel. So, if you are purchasing in the US, this is the dollars per gallon amount. In Europe it is Euros per liter. The price may vary so this will be dependent on the market and the season. |
| Price of Auto Gas (cost for a unit volume) | Enter the price in monetary amount for a unit volume of gasoline (or diesel fuel if your motor home burns diesel) for your auto's fuel. So, if you are purchasing in the US, this is the dollars per gallon amount. In Europe it is Euros per liter. The price may vary so this will be dependent on the market and the season. |
| Average cost per flight | Enter the averags price for airfares. In the domestic market the prices can be found on bid sites and often you can get prices for domestic flights for as little as $75 and more like an average around $300 to $500. |
| Number of flights | Enter the number of flights between destinations that would have airports. Airfare costs flying to major airports are almost always a fraction of the cost of flying to smaller regional airports. |
| Estimated Mileage for the Mobile Period | Estimated mileage for the Mobile Period. If you're planning to do a lot of traveling with no real breaks, this can easily be 100,000 miles a year. If you plan to stop for weeks at a time, this could be much less. Be conservative, because unless you are towing a vehicle, you will often do a lot of side trips. |
| Distance per Unit Volume Gas - Motor Home | Enter the average distance per unit volume of fuel that your motor home will achieve. Usually this is around 6 or 7 miles per gallon. In the US this is given as miles per gallon. In Europe this is given as kilometers per liter. |
| Distance per Unit Volume Gas - auto | Enter the average distance per unit volume of fuel that your car will achieve. Usually this is around 25 or 35 miles per gallon. In the US this is given as miles per gallon. In Europe this is given as kilometers per liter. |
| Estimated Maintenance | Enter the estimated cost of maintenance per year. Remember tires, oil changes, maintenance on the motor home exterior, maintenance on the motor home interior, engine adjustments. Any big ticket item has a lot of maintenance costs. The numbers estimated for mobile home maintenance around the internet that sound like they're coming from standard maintenance costs seem to be in the ballpark of $2,000 per years. Number below that I believe are from people who neglect many standard maintenance items until a problem is encountered and then they pay the higher repair costs. And that comes from people doing their own maintenance primarily. If you don't do your own maintenance, I'd double that amount. If you want to cover unexpected maintenance, I would triple that amount, because unexpected maintenance and repairs are usually much more expensive than routine maintenance. |
| Annual Licensing | Enter your annual licensing fee. The whole cost of the licensing fee is added into the cost of motor home use because you pay a flat fee regardless of how many months of the year you use the vehicle. Typical licensing costs quoted on the web were around $1,200 to $1,400 per year but that could be much more if you you purchase fuller, more comprehensive coverage with lesser deductibles. |
| Cost for Campground or Parking | Enter an estimated average for campground fees per night. Typical values seen on the Internet seem to be around $20 per night. |
| Period Parked | Enter the period you'll be parked in a spot where they will charge you. Typically this is if you stay in a location, other than a campground, for periods at a time and have to pay just to park. You can add-up partial days in your estimate. |
| Motor Home Insurance | Enter the annual premium for insurance for the motor home. This is prorated to the Mobile Period because you can get pro-rated insurance back for periods you're not using the Motor Home. |
| Auto Insurance | Enter the annual premium for insurance for the car. This is prorated to the Mobile Period because you can get pro-rated insurance back for periods you're not using the car. |
| Hook-up Cost | Enter a monthly fee for hook-up that would cover power, water and sewer. This fee is only applied for the period you specify you will be located someplace where you'll be hooking-up continuously for some period. |
| Hook-up Period | Enter the combined period over which you will be using a paid hook-up. If you are going to be in two locations for whole months, you would enter two months in this field. |
The Math
There are lots of costs we could go into in great detail trying to estimate all around this question, but we'll keep it "relatively" simple and look at the major costs of owning and spending time in a motor home versus flying or driving your car to hotel destinations.
Example
For a theoretical comparison of the costs, let's start with the assumption you're going to take a year long trip in your newly purchased motor home. Let's see how many cost equivalent years you could stay in a hotel for the price you lay out on the mobile home.
So, the you input the cost
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