Sadly most people spend what ever amount they get, it doesnt matter how much it is.

What most people lack is a plan (a map) and a budget is part of the plan.

Rob and I too travel on our pensions only. We have a very small mortgage repayment, and no other bills save for electricity, phone, rates and rego. Before we go we put money into a petrol fund. This doesn't last the whole trip but helps heaps. Living on the road to us is no hardship as we have to pay certain things whether at home or not. We try and freepark most of the time. If we find ourselves a bit short one fortnight then we stay until the next pension day. We have just come back home after 2 mths away at Inland Queensland. Hope this works out for you. It is very successful for us. Val and Rob

Hi Rainy,
Excellent comments from the above experienced "G.N."
Due to the home loan your situation is very different to many of us who have cleared our heavy debts eg home and car loans.
Rod is virtually on the right track. Free camping and your only additional costs would be running costs for the car, gas etc. As on the road costs are as cheap or cheaper than living at home.
agree.... never sell your place of residence. You will always need a place to throw your hat.
Stick to your budget and you will make the dream happen.
If you are not totally set up for free camping... you can still free camp for a couple of days and then recharge all of the system at the C.P for a night, then off to free camp again.
Like they say.... plan your work ( trip) and then work your plan.

today is the first day of the rest of your life, so live it to the fullest.
Cheers

Jay&Dee.

thankyou all for explaining it all to me ,I understand it much better now ,we have a budget which we try to stick to
and yep we are still paying our home off ,but have also just bought a new caravan ,so will be a little while till it all gets cleared ,so in the meantime ,I will take all the suggestions on board and we will keep plodding along and when we save a bit we can take off for short trips ,knowing that one day we can go longer
plus we also have a free camps book ,courtesy of a lovely forum member ,so thankyo so very much for it too ,I will leave the person nameless as they might get embarassed to see their name up in lights ,but thank you all so very much
rainy

Wouldn’t a older second hand van be more sensible financially, you could put that money into the home loan to pay it down sooner and still get away in an old van just the same as you can in a new one.

sorry hawkie I missed your post
yes and older van may have been better ,if we could have found what we were looking for ,we looked at everything available at the time ,we had had vans before so knew what we were looking for

ah well we bit the bullet and had one made and so far its living up to all expectations

we will get there eventually

rainy the little camper in my avitar is 40 years old and cost $940 0n ebay last November, plus a tyres, brakes and wheels bearings, we are currently away on our second trip, Adelaide, Great ocean road, melbourne, Cann river and then 100 kms up into the Snowies, currently about 2 days from home after 14 days on the road.

The first trip last April/ May 2010 was 4,500km so it can be done very cheaply, I see the van as nothing more than some where to sleep.

We survived last weeks Melbourne storms and flooding, the little thing kept us dry and warm.

you did well hawkie
we had a camper first off a few years ago and they are great ,but the boss got sick of putting it up and packing it down so it did become a hassle for him at times ,then we had a poptop again nothing wrong with them either ,but this time we wanted a full van
we seem to spend a bit of time in ours apart from sleeping ,though if the weather is good we are out and about
oh yeah the weather was pretty rough in melb recently , it was where we were too

we havent even turned to tv on in it as yet as we tend to sit and talk or read

Hi,i am retireing in early march 2011 i have joined Help Exchange.Now we are planning trip from sydney to Darwin where we will be working on farms for free in return for free power and food my email [email protected] for more info.we will be staying long periods so we can save our pension for petrol for our next stop.