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Hi,

I worked out yesterday that it has cost us 2.5K to keep our caravan on the road this year. That doesn't include actual site fees or spends, this is just the usual storage fees, insurance, servicing and 2 really hefty repair bills.  I work for the NHS and my husband works in the motor industry, neither of which are flush at the moment and we are going to see our salaries plummet by a whopping 10K next year.  It will be a make or break year for us.  If we can't pay the mortgage the caravan will have to go.  It will break my heart but paying to keep my kids inheritance is more important.  Am I on my own on this? Before anyone asks we spend approx 7 weeks a year away in the caravan and I know that I would never get 7 weeks of holidays for that price, but even so....

Alison   

Tentz, I know.  But I would have to have a trailer too.  There's now way that I could manage with everything in the boot of the car

Alison

Agreed.  We are thinking along the same lines.

The kids don't want to come with us any more (one hopefully off to Uni in September anyway) and the younger one will be in College, so it looks like just me and the OH in the van next year, which does make it something of an expensive hobby.  

We work it out that it's about £1000 before it moves, with the cost of storage, insurance and servicing.  What we also take into account is the fact that we are running a relatively large car for towing it with, which we have to run 12 months of the year regardless.  I know we would have to run a car with or without a van, but we could get something much more tax/fuel efficient if we weren't.

Yet I have sat here typing this and I know, deep down, I still won't get rid of it.  I know it's costing a lot but there's nothing to beat taking your own holiday accommodation with you, pulling up on site, winding the legs down and putting the kettle on.   I keep telling OH I'm low maintenance.

This is the reason we sold our van couple of years ago, we just didn't use it enough for it to pay its way. We then brought a trailer tent, then a tent - my thinking was that for 2 weeks in the south of France, a tent would be all we needed, its cheap and wouldn't need to tow anything. But we have since sold both, as after having the comfort of a caravan, its hard to come back down to basics! lol.