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CGXterra's avatar
CGXterra
Explorer
May 22, 2013

Holy Cow, What a week

Well Jess and I have been focused on full-timing after I retire from the military. I'm within 6 years of retirement and just found out that the house we're renting is not going to be available to us after September. We've decided to full-time a little earlier than initially anticipated. We have a 29' V-Cross, which is not what we intend to keep for full timing and it's just Jess and I and a dog. We live near Virginia Beach, so the fulltime camping opportunities are good. We've also checked with the local military campgrounds that are offering us some good options. This is kind of "all in" approach, but we're prepared to liquidate the house and move into the trailer, but we absolutely know there will be more to it than that. We have a storage unit for things that we just can't/don't want to sell in case this doesn't work out.

We're kind of freaked out and really looking forward to it at the same time.

Any advice for the newbies would be welcome. I've comed the internet and have answers to many of our questions, but if y'all can think of some immediate type things to think about, we're all ears. :)

Thanks and we look forward to joining the ranks of the Full Timers.
Ed & Jess
  • CGXterra's avatar
    CGXterra
    Explorer
    May 23, 2013
    Thanks for the dialogue all. :)

    Our plan is to use the surplus housing allowance to really get the V-Cross paid down and before I retire trade it in for one of those monster 5th wheels and a bigger T/V and then hit the road. We're kind of wanting to keep the basics in storage in case this whole thing flops and we end up working again.

    Some tough decisions ahead. We found where we're going to live after we leave here today. We went to a campground that got good reviews and talked to a couple of guys that were hanging out in front of a 5th wheel. The guy in the 5th wheel had been there for 4 years and the other guy had been there on and off for 18! That sounds like some good vouching. They said it stays nice and quiet and the owner doesn't put up with silliness or people making a mess around their trailer.

    We're both pretty excited to try this out.
    Ed
  • drillagent's avatar
    drillagent
    Explorer
    May 23, 2013
    CGXterra, please let us know how this works out. Especially how the housing allowance works. We have 3 1/2 years left before we retire and had contemplated moving out of on post housing and into our FW for our final year. I figured what was left over from the housing allowance would go towards paying off the FW. However, it looks as though we're going to have to retire right after our Son's senior year, and we're not sure we want to take away his own room during that important time.

    Our retirment plan is that we own a house at our HOR that we're currently renting out. We also have a storage space there. We'll keep the majority of our household goods in storage. That will be our fall back position if the full time thing doesn't work out. We may downsize once we figure out we like it.

    Please keep in touch and let us know how it works out. Keep the faith, Brother.
  • hitchup's avatar
    hitchup
    Explorer
    May 23, 2013
    We were lucky and started fulltiming long before we expected to be able to at retirement. We were also lucky that one of our sons had a heated/cooled basement room to store most of our boxes. He also got use of some of our furniture to repay him for storage space. Mainly because we weren't sure working and fulltiming would be what we wanted to do and it had taken years to accumulate some of our furniture.

    8 years later, we've since whittled down to a few irreplaceable photo boxes, put all the old home movies on DVD's and given away much of what we will never use again. Three years ago, we set up our 'guest room' at our daughter's when we're only visiting for a weekend. She's now using the furniture and it's holding up quite well. Our guest room has a walk-in closet with the few remaining boxes we can't part with.
  • Southern_Nights's avatar
    Southern_Nights
    Explorer
    May 23, 2013
    CGXterra wrote:
    You would recommend cutting everything out that we can't put in the camper then? We have some paintings from the mother in law and some other stuff that we just don't want to sell/donate. Maybe putting them in someone's attic till we decide to call the fulltiming quits?


    We had a couple of paintings that we gave to a good friend to "hold" for us. Asked him to hang them on the wall and enjoy them until we want them back. Don't put valuable paintings in an attic or basement. Humidity is not a good thing for paintings.
  • 2chiefsRus's avatar
    2chiefsRus
    Explorer
    May 23, 2013
    We have been full-time for nearly 6 years now. When we went fulltime, we put some items in a storage area because we knew we were going to be close enough to the storage area to take things in and out. It sounds like your scenario will be the same - i.e. you aren't going to put things in a storage area and then not be near it again for months at a time. We did set a time limit of six months (when we planned to leave the general area) for clearing out the storage area. We do have two boxes of things that only have sentimental value to us at my Mom's place.
  • CGXterra's avatar
    CGXterra
    Explorer
    May 23, 2013
    We were thinking the same thing. We've got the opportunity to try fulltiming on a military salary for a while but want to keep some sort of irreplaceable stuff till we figure it out.
  • clhamon's avatar
    clhamon
    Explorer
    May 23, 2013
    Eycom wrote:
    Having been through the storage bin scenario, I'd recommend not doing that. But, that's JMO. Good luck.


    Eyecom... Why do you sat that? We were planning on full-timing at the end of this year and were thinking a storage unit until we figured out if it was for us or not. Now you've got me wondering!
  • CGXterra's avatar
    CGXterra
    Explorer
    May 23, 2013
    You would recommend cutting everything out that we can't put in the camper then? We have some paintings from the mother in law and some other stuff that we just don't want to sell/donate. Maybe putting them in someone's attic till we decide to call the fulltiming quits?
  • Eycom's avatar
    Eycom
    Explorer
    May 22, 2013
    Having been through the storage bin scenario, I'd recommend not doing that. But, that's JMO. Good luck.

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