I will second the idea of reading as many blogs of fulltimers as you can. We each fulltime differently and a wide variety of blogs will give you a flavor of what is possible.
We both had serious, life threatening, health issues so had decided to take early retirement years. That meant that we looked at each decision as to how it would effect our eventual retirement. Like the last house we bought - we knew that in 4-5 years we were going to sell, so anything we were going to do was done with an eye towards reselling. That also kept us from buying a lot of 'stuff' just because we had extra room in the house. Our daughter married, so we helped furnish their first place with things we didn't need.
We sold/gave away everything except for the art work - that is stored with my sister and daughter. Didn't store anything.
A lot of people will tell you no debt. And while we do pay for everything each month, we did take a loan out for part of the purchase of the MH because we had money tied up and didn't want to pay the tax on a lump sum distribution to pay for the coach. Instead, we've taken out at a lower tax rate over time to pay for the coach - - but that is something that you have to run spreadsheets on to determine what is better for you. Also, don't make the mistake of not having a sufficiently funded emergency account to cover unexpected repairs, etc. We put 10% of the purchase price of our MH in an account and add to it each month to cover maintenance, repairs, upgrades, new tires/batteries, new TVs, etc. Others will recommend an extended warranty (really a break down insurance), but if you go that way make sure you really understand what it will and won't cover.
Think about any health issues you have now and work on setting up a program to try and mitigate them as much as possible. Tell your primary health care provider that you want to try this lifestyle and will they work with you - if not, take the time to find a health care provider that will work with you so you can do this, not all of them will.
Begin telling family that this is what you want to do so that they can adjust to the fact that you will be living in an unconventional way - -sometimes family members have a great deal of difficulty with it. We were lucky in that my parents had done the same thing, but not all families handle it well.
Get a small RV for weekend trips/vacations and learn on it. If you can't adjust to that, then fulltiming might not be for you.
Barb
