Avoiding the weight creep

[RJS3791RD]

We have been full time for the last two years. We winter in one location but travel March through October. I am diligent about weight management and weigh the unit (TV loaded and RV loaded) before we head out after the winter. I always weigh steer axle, drive axle and trailer axles as well as weighing TV separately. I always weigh with full load of fuel and empty tanks plus me, the hounds and the wife. Not surprising we get some weight creep during the winter. But I have also noticed we get some weight creep during our travel time. I thought we may get some conversation going about any tips and tricks that you may want to share for weight management

I’ll start. We have added a triple filter to the water system and have totally elemented bottle water. In the past, it would not be uncommon to have 2 or 3 cases on board. We have also trimmed down the dog food from 4 bags (40lbs each) to 2 bags.

Any others?

 

[AZ Traveler]

If in doubt, throw it out! Don't be a "what if packrat".

Your credit card is light and one of the few things you need.

 

[DutchmenSport]

Considering we are doing much more long term camping, working as camp hosts, we find ourselves traveling only a few times a year now. This year, we are "home" only twice. But, during that time we take a re-evaluation of everything in the camper and toss out the stuff we are not going to use over the next few months.

Fortunately, we still have our house so we can rotate items. We currently at home right now and I'm doing some repairs on the camper that have been postponed... like slide alignment and cable tensioning on the slides. But, in the process of having available all my tools and equipment when home, we will be leaving at the end of September for Louisiana again for another 3 months.

So, I know once I'm there, "they" want me to build some historic style looking furniture that would have been used the field during the Civil War. I know their limitation on the available tools and a make-shift carpenter's shop, so I'm planning on taking a variety of my own tools.

Well, that means getting rid of all the stuff in the camper I needed when I was doing camp hosting in North Carolina, and it means re-packing all my books and information about 1800 Louisiana Plantation life.

Meanwhile, it forces us to evaluate everything in the camper. Moving from 95-100 degree high humidity weather to more winter mild 50-70 degree weather, and then planning on returning back to frozen Indiana in January where it could be zero degrees again and a foot of snow on the ground, well.... the daily clothing needed takes on a different form.

What this does though, is to force us to re-evaluate everything in the camper. We purge out remaing food items, actually empty out the refrigerator and give it a good defrosting and cleaning when home, and then re-pack and start all over. Clothing, equipment, entertainment items. My wife loves to read and she collects a zillion books. They collect in the cabinets and they get removed once home. Well.... it's stuff like that, that we end up purging.

Having annual cycles of travel and a little planning ahead will keep the "junk" from accumulating. That's how we do it.

 

[Carle3]

I just took my new home over the scales yesterday. We are in the process of moving in and have most of our belongings in place. My trailer weight was 13980 and my pin weight was 2960 putting us at a GVW of 16940 with a GVWR of 16840. So now I am looking at ways to reduce weight. Besides the ongoing process of down sizing, one of my ideas is to add a tool box to my truck bed and move all my tools over into the truck. My truck still has plenty of load capacity this alone should save a couple hundred pounds. I like the idea of not traveling with all that bottled water. I would be interested in other weight saving ideas. Oh, and this was on empty tanks.