Some full timers have planned for the day they need to come off the road, so to speak. While others are clueless as to what they will do when the time comes and it does come.
My wife and I did the full time thing for 2 1/2 years and found we didn't care for it so bought a stick house here in Florida. During the time we were full timers, we met many people that were doing the same thing. There are about as many definitions of full timing as there are people doing it. To some, just living in an RV was what they meant. Their rig had lost it's recreational value to them, a long time back. At a campground near Homosassa Florida, we met people that hadn't had their RVs out of the campground in over 3 years. They had given up on traveling and were just living in their rigs. Health problems, financial problems, age related problems, death of a spouse, etc. had killed their dreams.
A few years back either Trailer Life or Motorhome Magazines had an article about the needed three stages of full timing. 1st was to plan how you are going to full time, sell the house, rent out the house, buy an RV or use the current one, etc. 2nd was to consider what you planned to do while full timing and could you afford it, where you planned to stay etc. and 3rd was how do you plan to end the experience when the time arrives. The writer of the article felt most people did the first two planning stages and stopped before getting to the 3rd.
Often times the death of a spouse, usually the man first, put the surviving spouse in a major problem of what to do now? Often the woman hadn't participated in the driving, the maintenance, etc of the RV. They may have spent most of the money they had, the loss of the man's pension was often a problem, etc.
My wife's parents did the full time routine for about 6 years and ran out of money. They had a worn out 5th wheel and pickup truck. A major lack of planning on their part as they had sold their home and spent that money on their rig and travels. They ended up with just their social security as income and that was no where near enough. So my wife and her three siblings ended up having to support them and still do, 25 years later, her dad died but her mom is still having to be supported financially. I asked her one time, what she thought was going to happen when they ran out of money? Her answer was "we thought that God would take care of us". So it is good to know that the four children of theirs, and their spouses are now "gods".
