After reading yesterday’s blog, titled Pay It Or Park It, about rising fuel costs and how they impact RVers, someone wrote to tell me that re-posting a blog from back when fuel prices spiked upward in 2011 has no relevance to the current situation. He said that just because they dropped back down then doesn’t mean they will now. He added that he had purchased a new Class A motorhome eighteen months ago and he’s going to sell the darn thing back to the dealer at a loss this week because he refuses to be “raped by the fuel companies taking advantage of the situation in Ukraine.”
He added that I was giving people bad advice by telling them to just wait and ride it out, because the longer they waited, the less money their RVs were going to be worth and the more they were going to lose when they tried to unload them. He also told me that he bets I regret buying my new pickup truck with its gas hog Hemi V-8 engine.
I’ve got news for you, partner. If you bought a new Class A motorhome eighteen months ago and you’re going to try to sell it back to the dealer now, you’re going to lose a fortune. You already lost a lot of money when you drove it off the lot. The situation in Ukraine, as terrible as it is, will be resolved sooner or later. Fuel prices will stabilize, and we’ll see them come down. No, probably not to what they were before, but I’ve lived a long time and I’ve seen prices go up and down time again, and over the long haul they always rise over time.
But guess what? So does the price of bread and milk, and houses, and anything else we buy. When I got out of the Army back in 1974 gas prices were beginning to go up and people were telling me they were going to park their cars and buy bicycles and be done with it. Except for kids and Mormon missionaries, and those skinny fools who ride around in spandex clogging the roadways on weekends, how many people do you know who ride bicycles on a regular basis?
But you do you, and I’ll do me. Okay? My new truck still gets better mileage than our 2005 Ford Explorer did. Sell your motorhome for whatever you can get out of it right now, and I’ll keep my new truck. Check back with me this time next year and we’ll see who regrets our decision the most. Fair enough?
And finally, here’s a chuckle to start your day from the collection of funny signs we see in our travels and that our readers share with us.
Congratulations Mike Knight, winner of our drawing for an audiobook of Ken Rossignol’s Pirate Trials: Dastardly Deeds & Last Words, the stories of bloodthirsty pirates brought to justice for their barbarism on the high seas. We had 14 entries this time around. Stay tuned, a new contest starts soon. Note: Due to the high shipping cost of printed books and Amazon restrictions on e-books to foreign countries, only entries with US addresses and e-mail addresses are allowed.
Thought For The Day – So what if I don’t know what apocalypse means? It’s not the end of the world.
Nick Russell
World-Famous, New York Times Best Selling Author, and All-Around Nice Guy!
We are getting the same thing Nick. We have friends saying,
“Well I guess you aren’t going anywhere this summer”
Wrong!!! The price if diesel is just an extension of our home. And if you have to ask how much it costs for us to go from point A to point B…..well then you just can’t afford it.
Do I like paying $4, $5, $6 a gallon?? Hell No…..but I think of it as the price if freedom.
❤️
The guy that sells his MH because of fuel cost will never balance out his savings on fuel and expense of the fuel when he unloads his RV. The difference of his sell price will never catch up along with the prices of fuel used. The attitude tells me he is a marginal owner. I’m on your side of the fence on this one
Fellow friend and fulltimer here of Mary Manci who commented also.
We are getting ready to travel from our snowbird location, have a 3000 mile journey to reach our summer destination.
Are we concerned about diesel prices, of course, are we concerned about food prices, of course, we live on SS. Are we letting it interrupt our live, HELL NO!
We worked a lot of years and we are going to enjoy every day of our retirement. There is nothing like the freedom of the open road and increases are everywhere like you stated in your blog.
I remember the last market crash when I only allowed myself one tank of gas a week, if I had leftover on the weekends fine otherwise I stayed home. I cut out the newspaper, magazines, anything to cut the fat, even took a 50% pay cut…but guess what I survived and came out stronger. This too will pass I refuse to let it interfere with my life! Where there is a will there is a way.,.,tough times make for strong people!
Sounds like Bad Nick almost showed himself yesterday.
You’re blog was right on the money. I think the gentleman’s first mistake was to buy a new RV. No matter how much fuel goes up we’ll still be traveling and maybe there will be more open sites if people decide to stay home.
Good reply,