Escape Plan

When we hit the road, we were debt free. We invested the proceeds from our home sale. We then had the funds to buy again in another location.

We also have money set aside for emergencies and an exit plan. We are working with other co-operative members with whom we have close ties towards purchasing land in the north and south which will eventually be used based on the weather or seasons. When it becomes necessary to hang up the driving gloves we will then sell our piece of the property and likely move into senior housing of some sort. We're hoping that's a long way down the road.

WE hit the road debt free.............proceeds from house invested for future (Exit Plan).
Emergency fund set up for what ifs while traveling.

7 yrs. of FT traveling, life changed so we put exit plan into motion.
And still debt free.

We hit the road February 24th debt free. The proceeds from our primary home sale are invested, as well as 401k's that are growing.

We plan on travelling the country, hopefully for many years, to find an area of the US we love, and buy a piece of property.

Hopefully, we won't have to use our exit plan for a very long time, but life happens. We will enjoy every day we get, wether it's one year, or 20.

Not hit the road FT yet, just started selling off our properties, and took a long time to get our heads around being "footloose and fancy free" with no ties that bind in the form of holding onto any properties. We are there now, and looking forward to no more property taxes, house insurance or upkeep.

Kids (daughter 24 and future SIL 31) are going to rent acreage off us for a couple of years to make sure they can handle the costs, and then will buy it outright - her dad built it and she wants to raise her future family here. Plan is to keep enough money put aside so when we want off the road again we build a mother in law style suite either above the 1150sq ft garage or above the proposed outbuilding at time of build. Works for us and when we've gone from this world, they'll have an extra income generator option if they chose or for one of our grandchildren hopefully in the future.

Revenue Properties, Building and Selling, Flipping and other forms of RE over the past 30+ years, created our ability to be able to do this and self fund our retirement within the next 2 years, so we really really struggled to get around to imagining not owning any RE. Now I just feel so bitter about how much we pay in property taxes for next to nothing, insurance that went up 70% last year over 2013 due to others huge wind, flood, fire claims, cost of in time and $'s maintenance etc, we now can't wait to get rid of them all.

Till now we've travelled for past 15+ years for minimum of 6 weeks to four months a year in our RV, and missing our children aside, that's when we are always the most happy and healthy with lots of walking/rowing etc.

So for us will build a Mother In Law Suite on kids property for when it's time to hang up the keys.

I'm not full-timing yet - got to get to retirement first. But I'll make a suggestion based on the financial parameters you've given.

As you full-time look for an area you like with a low cost of living. There are pockets in rural areas where you can buy a house for $50,000. Could you put $10k of your nest egg as a down payment and swing the payments on a house that was $80,000 or less purchase price? Keep in mind you probably couldn't get a 30 year mortgage. (not looking for you post the answer with too many details personal finances).

Condo might be an option too and makes maintence easy. You'll have a monthly fee but I bet you couuld find a small condo for the above figures. Rent is also cheaper in small towns.

Old-Biscuit wrote:
WE hit the road debt free.............proceeds from house invested for future (Exit Plan).
Emergency fund set up for what ifs while traveling.

7 yrs. of FT traveling, life changed so we put exit plan into motion.
And still debt free.

Same here except we lasted a little longer before we hung up the keys.

We like to winter in Arizona, so when we sold our home in California, we bought a mobile home there. Allows us to "store" the stuff we couldn't part with and the kids didn't want...:S....gives us a place to go to and get out of the rig once a year for a couple months. This also allows us to get our physicals done, teeth cleaned, dog physical etc. It also provides us the opportunity to get the annual maintenance done on the coach and schedule any needed repairs/modifications etc.

My in-laws also live in the park so that's a bonus. They can watch it while we travel. No maintenance, no upkeep, space rent is cheap, utilities are next to nothing, ($25/mo) and it's paid for.

We've put 80,000 miles on the coach over the past 6 years so our wheels keep turning the other 9 months of the year. We plan on keeping the coach well past the traveling time and we'll most likely put it in a park somewhere out of the Arizona heat for the summer months once we reach that point.....Dennis

we will either rent an apartment or buy a park model. No plans on doing so anytime soon. Don't want a house to take care of.

Last fall we came to the decision that since we always spend the winter in Mesa we would look at a park model (used) in a park we liked as a winter home and a 'just in case' something happens to one of us or the rig, we have somewhere to go to. We purchased in October and got a great deal because we could pay cash and the previous owner wanted out. It isn't our forever home, but for now it is our winter place where we can spread out a little. Then come spring, we hit the road by April 15th. We've already put 2000 miles on the coach since we left April 13th. Looking forward to our summer of exploring and hope to be back in the Mesa area by the end of October.

Barb