Our FIRE Number From the Road: What Financial Independence Looks Like Without a House

Every FIRE calculator on the internet assumes the same thing: you have a fixed address, a mortgage or rent payment, and your expenses look roughly like the average American's. Plug in your numbers, multiply by 25, and that's your FIRE number.

Ours doesn't work like that.

We live in a travel trailer. We don't have a mortgage. Our "rent" is a campground membership. Our address is a mail forwarding service in South Dakota. And our FIRE number is a lot lower than most people expect.

What Is a FIRE Number?

For anyone new to this: your FIRE number is the amount of money you need invested so that your portfolio can cover your living expenses indefinitely. The standard rule of thumb is the 4% rule — if you withdraw 4% of your portfolio annually, it should last 30+ years (based on the Trinity Study).

The formula is simple:

So the game is really about two things: grow your investments and lower your expenses. RV life attacks the second one aggressively.

Our Actual Annual Expenses

Here's what our family of five actually spends, living full-time in an RV. These are real numbers from tracking every dollar over the past year.

That's roughly $32,500/year for a family of five. Compare that to the USDA's estimate of $73,000+ for a "thrifty" family budget in a traditional home.

Our FIRE Number

Using the 25x rule:

Under a million dollars for a family of five to be financially independent. In most FIRE communities, that number would barely cover a single person in a HCOL city.

We're not cutting corners to get here. We eat well. The kids do activities. We travel to genuinely beautiful places. We just don't pay a mortgage, property taxes, or HOA fees. The RV handles all of that for roughly $5,500/year.

The 4% Rule — Does It Work for RVers?

The 4% rule was designed for traditional retirees over 30 years. We're younger than that, so we think about it more conservatively:

• 3.5% withdrawal rate — gives us a bigger margin of safety for a potentially 40-50 year retirement
• At 3.5%, our FIRE number becomes $929,000
• We also plan to maintain some income post-FIRE (freelancing, this blog, small projects) — so true "zero income" withdrawal is a worst case

The beautiful thing about RV life: if the market tanks, we have levers to pull. We can boondock more. Move to cheaper areas. Cut fuel by staying put longer. Our expenses have a flexibility that a fixed mortgage doesn't.

How We're Building Toward It

We're not financial advisors, and this isn't financial advice. But here's our actual strategy:

Investment Approach

• Index funds. Boring, diversified, low-fee. Mostly total market (VTI/VXUS) and some bonds as we get closer.
• Max tax-advantaged accounts first. Roth IRAs for both of us ($7,000 each/year), then taxable brokerage.
• No individual stocks, no crypto speculation. We sleep better this way.

Income Strategy

• Remote work (tech) — primary income
• Melissa's craft business — growing side income
• This blog — not monetized yet, but building an audience

Savings Rate

With our low expenses and decent income, we're saving roughly 50-60% of our take-home pay. That's the real superpower of RV life for FIRE — it's not that we earn more, it's that we need so much less.

The Variables That Could Change Everything

We're honest about the unknowns:

• Healthcare costs — the biggest wildcard. If ACA subsidies change or premiums spike, this blows up our budget more than anything else.
• Kids getting older — activities, food consumption, and eventually college savings will increase our expenses. We're planning for this.
• RV replacement — our trailer won't last forever. We budget for repairs now and will need to plan for replacement in 7-10 years.
• Wanting to settle down — we might want a home base eventually. We'd adjust the plan, but our invested capital would give us options.

Why This Matters Beyond the Numbers

FIRE isn't really about retiring early. For us, it's about options. It's about reaching a point where we work because we choose to, not because we have to. Where a bad month at work is an inconvenience, not a crisis.

The RV lifestyle gets us there faster because it strips away the single biggest expense most families carry — housing. What's left is food, transportation, and living well. And we get to do it while showing our kids the entire country.

We're not there yet. But the gap is closing, and we can see it. Every month of low expenses and consistent investing brings it closer. And honestly, the journey itself — the campfires, the trails, the family time — that's already the payoff.

Want to follow our FIRE journey? Subscribe and we'll share the real numbers, the wins, and the setbacks as they happen.

All photos via Unsplash. Free to use under the Unsplash License.

Keep Reading

• What FIRE Looks Like From an RV Park
• Side Hustle Report: How We Earn Extra Income From the Road
• Teaching Kids About Money While Living in an RV
• Our RV Setup: What We Drive, What We Changed, What We Would Do Differently