I guess it's like buying a used boat..have your cash ready and be patient

also, know what you want

Buddy of mine and his wife did exactly what you are thinking..incidentally their son made it to the majors a few days ago after being drafted 6 years ago..Chris Okey, Cincinnati Reds

pros, you can come and go as you please as long as there is a space to be had. you get to cook/eat what you want. you can use it to camp/fish/travel.

cons, have to have a place to store, pain to pull in traffic (wait till you get to pull it in a high cross wind), fuel will be stupid high cost as nothing gets good mileage pulling one, extra wear and tear on the tow vehicle, have to set up and take down as well as have grey and black water drained and it is best done at the rv park you stay at, have to remember to treat black water tank or the big stinkum comes. there are things I am forgetting but end result is you will have maintenance no matter if you use it or not so figure the number of nights you would use it along with probable mileage/fuel cost for all tournaments, all the minor expenses like storage etc. and see if it actually saves you anything. you will take about an hr. to set up and a little more to get ready to leave (draining tanks takes a few mins.) figure about 3 hrs. a trip for this.

Once I leave the office for the day, take a guess where I go? Yep, straight to the ball fields. So I wasn't able to keep up yesterday evening.
To follow up on a few responses:



The team my daughter is on has one day tournaments at times. But my sons tournaments are always a two-day tournament. Son plays Perfect Game tournaments and those usually pull more teams as I’ve been told they are higher quality ball. Girls just don’t have as much of the participation as the boys do. So their tourneys can be much smaller.


I have. And sometimes you can find a small house for about the same or close to the same cost has the hotel. But then there are the fee’s that they tack on that make it as much as $50 - $75 more a night. Cleaning fees can range anywhere from $50 - $150. And we travel with a dog. Some places will even say no service animals allowed.


I’ll admit it I don’t do a lot of coupons. I just don’t ever have any come my way. But I do have a coupon that I have saved in my phone and have been using now for about 3 years. It is with Pizza Hut and is coupon PQ. It gives you 30% off. My son and I like the wings more than we do the pizza. So 30% off of those helps!





Ya, no interest in going that route. There’s probably already enough maintenance in an RV that I don’t know about yet. To add on mechanical maintenance on top of that, I don’t want to do that.



My parents recently stayed at a hotel in Vernon when they went to go watch a graduation. Dad said his LaQuinta Inn was $130/night. Now that’s probably with his military discount.
Like I told him, for whatever reason Austin & Houston hotel prices seem to be higher.

If you are paying cash and not taking a loan on this one, then I would wait. As most have mentioned, interest is going up for all loans. Usually when interest rises, prices go down because people cannot justify high prices and high interest rates. So demand goes down, so prices drop. Since interest may not be a factor for you because you are going to pay cash for it, then wait til the prices drop with interest rates going up, and you can probably get something a little bigger or better for the same cash amount you are willing to pay today.

Econ 101-

Buyers market = Lower prices, higher interest

Sellers market = Higher prices, lower interest

In both cases, the banks make their money somehow. The question you have to ask yourself is what is more important? Do you want a large loan with super low interest or do you want a smaller loan with higher interest. Personally, I wait for a lower price on the loan and would rather pay higher interest. When the market adjusts out of a seller market, I never like being upside down on loans. I like knowing I can sell anything and at least break even. Seller market buys make sense though if you plan on owning the loan/investment for a very very long time. It is the situations where you need to get out or sell within a couple years where people take losses or get themself in trouble.

STOCKS/ETF/INDEX FUNDS:

Bull market - I invest 50% of what I can afford (every paycheck) into long term investments, and the other 50% I swing trade or day trade (careful with short term investments, I spent over a year teaching myself how to read charts and how to do this with paper trading, but once you get it, there is some serious money to be made doing this).

Bear Market - I invest 100% of what I can afford into long term investments, and if I can scrape anymore cash up, I also invest at this time. When the market comes back, this is when you see exponential return because everything you buy in a bear market is a discount.

Toys - Boats, TTs, ATVs and side pieces are fist to go when the wheels fall off the economy.

What is the deprecation on your side piece?

Here is my opinion and our experience growing up -

Our family had an RV and we traveled for sports. We took the RV for a couple of trips and then abondoned the idea. The RV was just to combursome. It was difficult enough to get out of school or for my parents to get off work and make it to the town in time for the 1st race. With the RV we couldn't travel as fast, had to go to the campground and drop it off because there was never anywhere to park it and then after a long weekend of racing we had to go back and tear it all down before leaving which made the weekend even longer. Then they had the idea of my dad pulled the RV and went straight to the campground to setup and my mom drove us in her car. So now we are taking two cars and one of them pulling the camper - there was no savings there.

I hear you on savings money on food so here is what we did - my parents instead invested in better camping / travel food prep equipment and we upgraded to suite hotel rooms that had kitchens. They had it down to two plastic tubs and a cooler. We had a foldup propane grill, extra plates, grilling utensils in one of the tubs and the other held the dry food stuff - sides, buns, etc. We made it our goal to eat breakfast at the hotel using the kitchen and then one of the other meals from the grill. Sometimes my dad grilled off the tailgate in the parking lot. After a trip or two more parents invested in our setup also. Given this was 20 years ago I am sure the tailgating/camping equipment is much better.

Look at pre-owned models. Brand new RVs always have problems. A used RV will have all of these problems taken care of.

RV market will be in the dumps in 6 months compared to right now. Definitely wait. I've been telling folks for months that when all these covid rv buyers realize they don't wanna do it long term there is gonna be a flooded market. Now with gas prices sky high that is accelerating. Market is wildly different than just 3 months ago. I seen folks putting orders in on units paying full MSRP 2 months ago to take a new unit now...and I just shake my head. Could easily save 30%-40% buying a used market in 3-6 months from now. If money doesn't matter, I guess that's fine. Otherwise, you'd be crazy to buy at this point.