Full Timing as of tomorrow at 10:00 am!!!

[raymondfl]

Well the day has arrived that we will actually be fulltimers. We close on our stick house tomorrow at 10:00 am. As we have lived in Florida we have been fortunate enough over the years to travel all summer in the motorhome so we are not strangers to spending four to five months of the year in the motorhome. But with the sale of the house things will become a little different, no "home" to come home to. We will continue to spend winter in Florida, we will just resident in the motorhome. But being full time does bring up some questions that were not important before, but not seem more meaningful. Any help with the following from the years of experience out there would be helpful. Just a quick side note, we are traveling out west at the moment, motorhome is sitting in Hood River,OR. Got call all cash buyer, full price, had to leave our trip, fly home and clean out house, rent storage units, hire packers, movers, dump runs all in less than a week over a holiday weekend, been a little busy but got it all done and headed to Hood River from Tampa tomorrow at 4 to reunite with our HOME.
Questions:

1: Should I change my insurance policy to let them know we are now full time? I have always had full coverage, does anything change? Is it more or less expensive if you are full time?

2: P O Box is taken care of as family will pick up mail and forward to where ever we happen to need it, most stuff is e mail anyway so not really worried about mail. BUT, what about physical address for passport, investment accounts, bank accounts, all of these items say they required a physical address, how is that handled?

3:State of Residency, at moment we are Florida residents and probably will be this year. But since we are out west would it make sense to become a South Dakota or Montana resident if we decide to upgrade and purchase a new motorhome, Florida sales tax is 6%. Even the purchase of a new car could be $1,500 savings. I know a lot of people have Montana LLC, but they have a 1/2% fee of the value of the motorhome each year, cost of insurance more because of being inside a "business" instead of personal? Any experience with state of residence would be most grateful, and yes I will do search engine and see what I find, but always fun to see the responses.

4: Any other useful info that I forgot, which probably covers a lot, but don't forget we are used to traveling in the motorhome for long periods of time so living conditions, parks, traveling, maintenance, etc. pretty used too, it is just the unknown of the full time differences.

ARE YOU READY FOR SOME FULL TIMING!!!!!!!!

Thanks everyone

[raymondfl]

I would like to thank everyone for the good wishes and the information. I need not realize there was a full timimg section to RV.NET, so I have spent some time reviewing the domicile and residency comments. I have 40 years experience as a CPA, and have dealt with establishing Florida domiciles to avoid probate and income tax for years. I am going to the full time section and try to write a guide to establishing domiciles. There are a lot of good comments and suggestions on that section, but some misinformation.
Any interest take a peak, and again thanks for info.

[D_E_Bishop]

I can't really help on those questions, but, congrats and I wish we were there, I take the two of you up the hill to Full Sail and buy you lunch. There is a nice CG across the river in WA, Beacon Rock. Not for big rigs but their annex is across the hwy by the marina. Have fun and congrats again. I just had my 19 anniversary last month. Nineteen years of living off my successors at work. Ha Ha.

[mtofell1]

The previous posters have you pretty well covered on your main questions. I just want to wish you well on your full timing and am glad to hear you are starting in Hood River, Oregon. You won't find a better place this time of year. I was just camping in my TT up on Mt. Hood last weekend and ran in to Hood River for some stuff.

I live around Portland and encourage you to take some time around here as you get going. If you don't already know the area the coast is great this time of year and there are a lot of great camping/RVing places around Hood River and up onto Mount Hood.

Drop me an IM if you have any regional questions or if I can help. I'm a life long Oregonian and have camped and RVed around the area for years. Congratulations on your next adventure.

[holstein13]

The folks at Technomadia wrote a great article on exactly this. Check it out here.

I joined St. Brendan's Isle and made that my legal residence. I filed a declaration of domicile with the county courthouse to make it official and I even registered to vote there.

Now, this doesn't work for some things like bank accounts. If you haven't dealt with an address change and your bank recently, you may be in for a rude surprise. Technically, banks are prohibited from accepting mail forwarding services as physical addresses. I have a great relationship with my bank and managed to get them to accept it, but you may need to use a relative's address for that. For taxation purposes, I'd do my best to find a relative in a tax friendly state if you are going to declare your physical address there. Remember that any state with an income tax will be itching to consider you a resident.

Since I am traveling to Europe before I start full timing, I haven't tackled insurance yet, but I hope you will let us know what you find out or at least PM me so I can benefit from your research. In addition to car and RV insurance, you will probably want to notify your health insurance provider.

[Dog_Folks]

hanzfranz60 wrote:
We have been full timers for six years. We started using MYRVMail back in 2010. They are a division of Passport America. Mail comes to a physical address that you can use for needed items that require it. For example: Your Name 5715 Hwy 85 North #123 Crestview FL 32536. You log onto their website to view what mail comes in and you have it forwarded to your location, wherever you are. Hope that helps as you check out mail forward services. If you choose MYRVMail, let them know you heard about it from Howard #722. I get a $10 break on my renewal. Best wishes on your full time lifestyle!

No, I mentioned it first, tell them 402 sent you.:B

[hanzfranz60]

We have been full timers for six years. We started using MYRVMail back in 2010. They are a division of Passport America. Mail comes to a physical address that you can use for needed items that require it. For example: Your Name 5715 Hwy 85 North #123 Crestview FL 32536. You log onto their website to view what mail comes in and you have it forwarded to your location, wherever you are. Hope that helps as you check out mail forward services. If you choose MYRVMail, let them know you heard about it from Howard #722. I get a $10 break on my renewal. Best wishes on your full time lifestyle!

[Dog_Folks]

Congratulations on your freedom.

You are not "homeless" but rather "houseless." Florida is a very friendly state,overall, for us full timers to maintain a legal residence in.


Before we went houseless, we were lifelong residents of Florida.

We still maintain our legal residence there. We use My RV Mail. This allows a legal residence and also takes care of all mail.

Here is a link for them. Check them out. They are great people to work with. My RV Mail

Keep us updated on your progress. Good Luck today.

[Ranger_Smith]

We have our residence in South Dakota. Very easy to do. Our mail is with My Dakota Address. They do all our registrations for us. They will,even send you an email each day with what mail came in. You can just have delivered what you need and discard the rest. We also have our Insurance out of South Dakota with Allied. Have the full time endorsement and it is less than 700 a year. Our cars are on a seperate policy and around 900 a year.

Hope this helps

[J-Rooster]

Physical address for a passport, I would use a close relatives address! Good luck full timing! I can't do it just leave 6 months at a time during the winter! I love returning to my stick built, best investment I ever made!

[Earl_E]

I would also suggest joining Escapees Forum. It it mostly full-timers or past full-timers and can answer all those question. You have asked many good questions...and it will take time to sort them all out.

[YC_1]

American Home Base in Pensacola can provide a physical address as well as excellent mail forwarding. This will take the pain it might become away from your relatives. The mail forwarding will hold your stuff and sort it too if you ask. They will mail it wherever you want and how you want. Very inexpensive. You may need a physical address for a CC too. Have your home mail forwarded to AHM.

[Golden_HVAC]

Hi,

You might want to join the Escapees club. They have several RV parks across the country, and can lease you a lot, sell you a lot, or just rent one for up to about 2 weeks at a very reasonable price. They even have "Rainbows End" for those who have given up the keys and no longer can travel.

Escapees.com

THey have mail forwarding service, and a great magazine that has advertisers who know about full time coverage for a RV.

You might also find that boondocking is fun, gives you a huge camping area, and some of the most scenic places to camp ever! FreeCampgrounds.com

I have found some great places to stay, such as the National Forest near North Rim of the Grand Canyon. There are a lot of BLM camping areas out west. Near many dams all across the country are Corp of Engineering campgrounds, that are normally near the lake, many times near the dam, so that if there is new construction or contractors on site, they have a place to camp.

Fred.

[N7SJN]

Find an insurance company that does full time. We had to change when we went full time.

[Frosty_s_Mom]

congratulations on your new freedom! kinda fun but scary at the same time. we try not to give any ins company any reason to deny a claim and informed our insurance company immediately that we were full-timing. yes, i know, these things are not meant to full-time in--and your unit is now your only home and you probably had good coverage on your stick built home. our insurance was raised considerably, but we aren't just vacationing anymore.