Getting ready to full time and DW is getting nervous

Real interested in full timing and bookmarked tons of blogs and other stuff. Came to the conclusion most of the folks looked to have a pretty good financial port folio to fall back on. On SS and a very modest savings and IRA we would have to sell the house and all my stuff that has be acquired over the years. End up not liking FT or grow to old to enjoy it and not having a house is a pretty scary thought. Thinking of alternatives. Having two places and splitting time doesn't seem to cost effective.

I met and talked at length to a fellow where I stayed in AZ for the winter that was in a similar situation. Their solution was that his wife pretty much stayed back at their permanent home, to be close to their kids and grandkids and he spent most of the year on the road. Worked for them.

We have been fulltimers for almost 6 years and we have no desire to stop. You have to be best friends and want to spend most of your time together. We have a place that we go to annually for medical and dental visits. If we need seen between those times, we just look for a doctor that takes our insurance and have had no issues at all with that. The stress for us comes from going to a new campground in an area we have not been before. You can read all the reviews in the world and look at satellite maps but it still does not help much. Over the years, our stress level has backed off a bit about that. Basically, you are just living life. There are ups and downs wherever or however you live. Just enjoy!

Keep the house for a year or two to give the DW the security of having a home.

After one year sit down an reevaluate. She may or may not be ready to go full time and "house-less."

If yes,sell the house. If no return home.

Tell here to ask the people in the CG offices where you stay for referrals for hair & nail salons. Or if she sees someone's nails or haircut she likes , ask them where they go. I got over being shy a long time ago and if you give someone a compliment I find they're pretty free to share info!

Funny, =I'm= the one that wants to keep a home base, though the DW wouldn't want to full-time, she =would= like to take some months-long trips. I guess having a family rooted in the same town for 118 years and living 2.5 miles from your great-grandfather's homestead might have something to do with it. :-) DW grew up in a USAF family, so is used to moving around, but she's come to realize, too, that having a "core" of support to come back to is essential, especially if illness or a major accident strikes.

Lyle

Excellent answers from other posters. We have been fulltime for over 8 years. We both wanted to hit the road and love it. However, the suggestion to start out with 1 month or so trips is a good one. The funny thing is that now all cities really look alike. With so many chain stores and restaurants you can find the same things in every decent size city. You can look on the internet for the local grocery stores and see what's on sale that week. We kept our same Dr in Reno and return every year for our physicals and have her write prescriptions for a year. Wal Marts, Walgreens, CVS & Target all have nationwide pharmacies. If we need a Dr in between we go to an urgent care. Hopefully, your DW will love the travel, we have seen so much and there's so much more to see. We found out it was more expensive than we thought and volunteer as park hosts 6 months then travel for 6 months. Good luck

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You might consider asking on the Full Time forum (here), as well as checking on the two forums dedicated to full timing on the Escapees forums for more info.

Good luck.

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While not there yet DW still works, out plan is to go full time for 1 year, and then if 1 of us doesn't kill the other living in the MH we'll probably sell the S&B and keep going. My DW is looking forward to full timing, but I'm a bit skeptical that she'll be able to not be around Family all the time.

Biggest mistake I see people make is to never be in a RV more then just weekends then sell EVERYTHING and hit the road full time.

Some make it some don't!