RV Annual Ownership Cost Calculator

This calculator adds up the recurring costs of RV ownership -- loan payments, insurance, storage, and maintenance -- into an annual figure, a cost-per-night figure (assuming 30 nights of camping a year), and a five-year total that also folds in estimated depreciation. Purchase Price has the largest effect on every dollar figure in this calculator, and by a real margin over every other input: it's a pure linear multiplier of the loan amortization formula -- a 10% higher price raises the monthly payment by the same 10%, dollar for dollar -- while Loan Term only reshapes that formula's structure, moving the payment by a real but noticeably smaller amount for a comparable change (roughly 7.4% for that same 10% swing). Annual Depreciation responds only to Purchase Price -- it's a flat 10% of the purchase price every year in this model, with no connection to Loan Term, Interest Rate, or any of the recurring annual costs.

Total Annual Cost and Cost Per Night deliberately exclude depreciation from the total, since it's a paper loss in resale value rather than money actually spent each year -- only the Five-Year Total Cost folds depreciation back in, which is why Purchase Price has an even larger relative effect there than on the annual figures: it drives both the loan payment AND the depreciation line at once. Annual Insurance, Monthly Storage Cost, and Annual Maintenance never touch the Monthly Loan Payment or Annual Loan Payments figures -- those are financing costs, calculated independently of the ownership-and-upkeep costs. This model uses a flat 10%-of-purchase-price depreciation estimate and a fixed 30-night usage assumption -- both are simplifications, and real RVs depreciate faster in the first year or two than this average suggests.