I'm a software engineer and my wife is a geographer for the US Gelogical Survey. We live in Georgia and our living costs here are quite a bit less than other parts of the country (one of the big reasons people are migrating here at such a rapid pace) so that helps. We have maxed out 401(k)s and our combined gross adjusted income is in the low six figures. I am 28, my wife is 25 and we have no kids...just a dog and a cat. Here are some of our financial stats & the way we are funding the RV.
0) We started a savings account for the airplane. We are currently putting $600/month in the account and $600 dollars/month in our regular savings account. Our paychecks are direct-deposited into the checking account and the money is sent to the savings accounts by automatic transfer. If our checking account is over a certain amount every month, we split the remainder and put half in regular savings and half in 'airplane savings'. This way, I know that for every dollar that I save each day, half of it goes into the airplane account and I don't have to justify it to my wife. Plus, our regular savings is being built up and the airplane project doesn't interfere.
1) We have a modest house that we paid $168k for three years ago. (5 bedrooms/airplane parts storage rooms, 2.5 baths, 2 stories -- I told you living here was cheap!). Although, most new neighborhoods you're seeing now around here have $500k+ houses in them....our friends are scrambling to be able to buy one of them...but we see no need.....we've gotta fly!
2) We cancelled our cell service and signed up for Virgin Mobile. It's pre-paid service and it's the best that's out there. It's $0.25/minute for the first 10 minutes of any day and $0.10 minutes for every minute after. And your minutes never expire! It sounds expensive...but do the math on your service (on only the minutes you use!) and see how much you pay (taxes/fees included) for your service. My Sprint service was $0.80 cents a minute!). We've had the service now for 6 months and our average monthly charge has been $15 for both phones!!
3) We cancelled our BellSouth landline and went with Vonage. If you haven't heard of it, it's VOIP internet phone service. It requires broadband access (we have a cable modem -- considered mandantory by use computer nerds). My phone bill for the last 1.5 years? $16.94 a month, taxes included. I have the 500 minute/month plan which includes long distance to all 50 states and Canada, plus any option (Callwaiting, Caller-Id) you can think of. Most minutes we've ever used is about 300. With Bellsouth service and NO options, our phone bill w/ taxes was about $35 dollars a month. Yeah...you're saving only $18 dollars a month, but over 1.5 years this has saved me $325.00. I probably won't fly my RV for another 1.5 so It's going to save me another $325.00. That's enough for a couple of instruments from Van's.
4) We refinanced our house. You'd be surprised how many people don't do ths. We went from 7.125% to 5%, removed PMI (don't ever pay PMI! big mistake on our part) and saved ourselves almost $500 dollars a month. A friend of mine is paying 7.5% on his house 'cause he's too freakin' lazy to go and refi his house. When the RV is done, we're going to refi to a 15-year if market conditions are still favorable.
5) We bumped our satellite service down to the cheapest available. I would have gotten rid of it completely, but my wife LOVES those goofy home renovation programs on TLC.
Besides, she needs something to distract her while I'm out in the garage!
6) I took on projects in the house that we otherwise would have paid someone for. For example, I installed a couple of french doors and a transom that I built. The RV has given me the courage to tackle these kind of projects.
7) I traded in my older, more expensive vehicle w/ a bad finance rate for a cheaper one (a 2004 Tundra @ $18.5k!!) with a fantastic finance rate. It's almost paid off now. My wife's car is paid off and since it's a compact car, it's fuel efficient. We try to take it places whenever possible.
8) I started using the garage to do our oil changes on our vehicles. I prefer doing this anyway because it gives me an excuse to check the vehicles over for other problems.
9) We don't think we have to go shopping all the time. I'm a technophile, BIG TIME. Before I started the RV, I was all about having the latest and greatest television/stereo/computer/whatever. Now, I don't even care about those things. My entire focus has changed. I don't even go into Best Buy/Fry's/Sears/whatever because I know I'll be tempted. I suppose I'm *very* lucky in this respect because my wife does not like to go shopping! Can you believe it? There is one out there, and she's mine....all mine!
Some of our friends' houses are piled full of little doo-dads and trinkets and crap from the mall. Ours isn't! We say that instead we're going to decorate our house with pictures that we take from all over this great country as we explore it in our airplane. And BTW, my wife *loves* to fly! She gets into it soooo much and she trusts me entirely with the construction of the RV. She wants to go places! We have a US map of all the places we want to go marked with white push-pins. When we visit each place, we're going to replace the white pins with blue ones. It's a great motiviational tool.
So far, I've paid cash for my tools, emmennage, wing and fuselage kits. I have enough saved now for my finish kit (although I'm not ordering it yet because I don't have anywhere to put it). If everything stays on schedule, I'll be able to pay cash for my VFR panel and I'll probably have to finance the engine (I want a good, new engine since I'm not an engine guru) and prop (I'm thinking CS).
I'll shut up...err...quit typing now...but my main point is that most folks can afford to build a decent RV if they make an effort to save money in other parts of their lives. Hang in there, folks! It's good to see that there are other people out there that have average jobs and average incomes building these airplanes! This thread has been very refreshing and encouraging!
Nothing is going to stop me now...I've come too far on this project.