Fulltimers

[-Gramps-]

Diane and I are living full time in our Motor Home. It did not happen the way we planned it or hoped it would...the transition from part time to full time has happened but it was rough.

I wrote a bit about stumbling towards full time awhile back, stumbling certainly was the right choice of word. I have a clue for what it is like now!

Stumbling Towards Full Time (written 1-8-2014)

I have a bunch of rules for owning a Motor Coach. We have owned a coach for nine years. I can create a new bunch of rules for buying one both used and new because I have experience at buying both.

I have no rules for full-timing it …I don't have a clue ... not yet, anyway.

We have made some serious decisions in the last few months that have told us that full-timing it could very well happen at some point in our future. That point may be sooner than later.

The thought of living in the coach for an extended period of time doesn’t bother me. We have done it a few times already. Just after our son Joel was graduated from college (notice my proper grammar) we took a four-week trip in our first coach. For part of that time he and his sister stayed in the coach with us. We all came out alive. At the end of the month on the road, I was not too eager to get back to work.

The idea of going full-time is entirely different. Do we move toward full-timing it slowly? Making big changes in one’s life is like running a marathon -- start out slow, conserve some strength for the end and, if you start to stumble, make sure you stumble in the right direction.

I think a long trip, say six weeks or more, should be the first thing Diane and I do. This trip would not only be the longest one we have taken, but the destination should be somewhere special like Niagara Falls or deep into the Smokey Mountains or back to Disney World. It would be a trip without looking back home. No worrying about customers. No phone calls from them either. This trip would be a time for Diane and me to get to know each other all over again.

Let’s assume that we really enjoy our two months time on the road. We take to it like ducks to water or something to that effect. Then what?

I don’t really know how to go about making the transition. Do we store some things? Do we sell our stuff? Do we give things to our kids? Do we do all the above?

Selling our house, parting with “things” we own, some for more than forty years, causes me to grieve even before it happens.

I mentioned a duck to water. I may be a duck tossed in a stream. I have to float with the flow.

Diane has been downsizing for quite a while now. She keeps telling me to carefully evaluate every non consumable item I want to buy. Her favorite phrase is:

“Do you really need it and if you do will it fit in the coach?”

She did not ask for anything for Christmas except for Kindle books.

She wants me to digitize all our slides and pictures.

I can see where her head, and more important, where her heart is headed.

I should know, after all, she is the reason we have a coach in the first place. I think she has been working toward living on the road for a lot of years.

I am not sure how to do this but I will learn.

Don't I have rule that owning a motor coach is a never ending learning experience?

Derrick.

[FULLTIMEWANABE]

-Gramps- wrote:

msmith1199 wrote:
Storage is not that expensive, and since you're full timing it can find the cheapest place in the Country for storage space and put your household items there. Just be careful that you aren't paying more for storage than the items are really worth.

I'd like to full time it some day, but there is no way I'm getting rid of everything I own to do it. I can trim a lot, but there are things with sentimental value I'll want to keep. And it may take a 12' x 30' storage locker to keep them. (Maybe smaller if I really downsize.) Not to mention, there will come a time when we'll want to move back into a real house. Don't want to have to start completely from scratch when that happens.

We are storing some items with friends, Christmas decorations, scrapbooking stuff that belongs to Diane, photos and slides, and one bin of mementos. That's it...we liquidated or gave everything else away.

We can so relate Derrick, as we will be doing similar on the storage with some Totes, exactly what you have done, and instructions upon our demise are absolutely get rid of those sentimental things you kids don't want or can't relate to.

Big plan is the kids getting married next year, finishing Uni end of this year, are taking over the main acreage house, completely furnished with very stressed to them instructions that anything they don't want over time as and when they have the savings to replace to go ahead and dispose of "don't worry about our feelings whatsoever". Our exit plan is to build a "granny annex" either above the 1080sq ft garage here or similar above one of the outbuildings. In the meantime we have a homebase to come back to at the kids home (as it will be in due course).

Our biggest challenge holding us back right now is we have 3 other properties we need to get sold, and two are in the devastated economically challenged, energy province of Alberta here, the other in Fla - latter one might pick up somewhat post election Nov, and "hopefully" global market stability returns and folks carry on with their plans and start buying again.

It's all very well folks saying, lower your price, lower your price etc and that a property is only worth what someone else is willing to pay, but once we go FT with no other sources of income (self employed all our lives), our monies have to last us until our demise. We feel the pain of not being able to sell properties or getting 25% below offers. One, our only ever condo is actually listed $40K+ less than we paid for it 10 years ago and repeatedly told best value in it's category in the South/SE communities = so what do you do? If we don't amalgamate 'X' dollars for our "anticipated" retirement years then it's a non starter for us, which would break my heart having dreamed for so long to do so.

Took a long time to get my head around becoming totally real estate free, with that having been what's built our net worth over the last several decades. Funny how you can do a full 360 Deg over time, and now I just can't wait to release the shackles that bind, and get rid of some of the government/insurance company hands that keep digging deeper and deeper into our pockets.

We always live by the "never say never", because you don't know what will happen over time, but right now going through this stressful selling time, I personally feel I don't ever want to own real estate ever again. Like I said, that's just how we feel right now, and is based on being a few decades older than we were, but of course anything can change over time without a reliable crystal ball.

Very envious of you right now Derrick having finally hit your end goal to be travelling FT'rs. Enjoy each and every minute.

[-Gramps-]

2 Gypsies. We had hoped to take a six week trip after we sold our business last year before we sold the house...we took two 3-4 week trips up to the coach lot we own in the mountains instead. The house took some time to sell, we closed on it this last Thursday. I had to hire lawyers to get rid of the first set of buyers back in March (that is a not so nice story) after we moved out in December..tough getting rid of all our stuff during Christmas week, but we did it.

Do we have an exit plan? Not a firm one. It feels a bit soon....only been stationary house-less officially for a just a few days..but you know what? It feels good. I think that when it isn't safe any longer to drive due to age or health of the coach or the driver, then like you, we move into a small house in an RV community lke TGO or somewhere. Diane says she doesn't want a place anywhere near the size of the home we sold.

Diane has been saying for a long time..."Less House=More Life" Now we are free to find out just how true that is.

[2gypsies1]

If I'm reading correctly, you have sold the house and are going to 'try' a 6-week trip to see if you can live in the RV and you're going to do a fun vacation thing. Personally, this will not give you any idea on full-timing. It will still be thought of as a vacation.

You said your wife is the reason you have a RV. She is already downsizing and urging you to get going on your stuff. You are having a hard time letting go of your 'stuff'.

What things are you having a difficult time of letting go? Are they things you use all the time or are they just 'there'.

I think your wife could easily go full-time but I seriously doubt that you are onboard for this.

You have to both want it equally or it won't work.

Storage fees are very expensive for a household of stuff if you're going to leave it there for years. Will you even want to use the stuff you stored? I'd hate to think what we would have spent on storage for our 16 years of full-timing.

However, in your case I really see a hesitancy. Therefore, put your stuff in storage and take your 6-week trip and then re-think it. If it's not for you then buy another house.

In our case, we were downsized early from our jobs. In winter we took our small trailer down to Florida for six months. We talked to a lot of full-timers in the parks. We had never heard of the idea. On our way home we said, "We haven't missed anything in the big 2500' sq ft house. We took everything we needed. We don't want to spend the winters in cold anymore. We're too young and healthy to stay idle. Let's go full-time". We sold the house and everything in it that summer and left for good in August and never regretted our decision.

We advertised the big things individually. We gave the kids what they wanted and it was very little as they had their own 'stuff'. We gave a few items to friends but they had their own 'stuff'. We then had a big house sale and what was left went to Goodwill or the dump. 'Stuff' owns you. It was a huge weight off our shoulders to get rid of it all. We invested the money from the house which was paid for.

We did everything on our bucket list and had awesome experiences. We met many new lifetime friends. It was a great lifestyle. We found a tiny place (1000 sq ft) in a completely different state that we would have never thought of living. We found we don't need much room anymore. It came completely furnished down to linens and silverware. We didn't have to buy a thing. It requires no yard work. It's in a 55+ community with activities of every kind. We are busy daily.

We did a turnaround and then had to sell everything from our motorhome and our motorhome itself. We still miss the full-time lifestyle but we're also happy where we are in our lives now.

Think it over carefully and best of luck with your decision.

[jeeperdude10]

Well, we decided in November to "try our hand at full timing", put house up for sale-thinking it would take 6 months or better-well..shucks, it sold within a week. NOW WHAT??, we thought. So we sold, gave to kids, gave to charity, gave away all of our STUFF and took the plunge. This was in December (closing on house was the 15th), and we are just LOVING this life style. We have kids/grandkids all over the place, and since none really ever came to see us...we figured-well. we GOTTA go see them...and we are doing just that.
Sure it is an adjustment, but one we are becoming accustomed to. We are in Texas now, and have been for about a month or so and doing a lot of 'day trips' looking and seeing and doing. Such a relief to be able to go somewhere and not be in a hurry to get back/go anywhere else. We are enjoying and are not looking back. After all STUFF is nothing but STUFF....life and living it is really all we have! (In my opinion)

[gonesouth]

Derrick, we still have our business which allows us to close down and go south for about 5 months a year, but I don't know if we'll ever get it sold. But the last three years we have been clearing out stuff........yard sales every year and several dumpster fillings.......operating on the rule that if the kids don't want it now, they may never, and for us if we don't actually use it, maybe it belongs at the museum or someone else's house, so a picture is much easier to store.

[prstlk]

Getting close to starting year three. Do somethings different if we had do it over, yes. We sold the s&b and got rid of piles of stuff. Still store some stuff, and 2 cars we are too attached too to sell.
All in all no real regrets. Just finished watching the richmond nascar race, and will work our way north from here.

[Naio]

My first RV trip was 6 months long, so transitions can be done in many ways :).

Do you have an exit plan? Money set aside to get you back into an S&B if you decide you want one? That might be important for a sense of comfort.

[John_Joey]

My simple rule of thumbs is if you count the days you're RV'ing you're on vacation. Extended time is not 2,4 or 6 weeks, it's "wait now, how long have we been gone?"

You might take to it like ducks to water, or you might find out that you miss the space and comforts of a house. Without a doubt you will learn that the dream has it's short comings like all lifestyles. So have a plan B, it will make plan A go a lot smoother.

[-Gramps-]

msmith1199 wrote:
Storage is not that expensive, and since you're full timing it can find the cheapest place in the Country for storage space and put your household items there. Just be careful that you aren't paying more for storage than the items are really worth.

I'd like to full time it some day, but there is no way I'm getting rid of everything I own to do it. I can trim a lot, but there are things with sentimental value I'll want to keep. And it may take a 12' x 30' storage locker to keep them. (Maybe smaller if I really downsize.) Not to mention, there will come a time when we'll want to move back into a real house. Don't want to have to start completely from scratch when that happens.

We are storing some items with friends, Christmas decorations, scrapbooking stuff that belongs to Diane, photos and slides, and one bin of mementos. That's it...we liquidated or gave everything else away.

[-Gramps-]

Both, I guess I am fishing for other peoples experiences going full time...Selling our house and getting rid of the stuff inside liked to kill me! One of the worse experiences of our lives...because selling the house went really south on us..awful set of buyers who didn't buy, walked at the last hour literally and after we had moved out. The house is now sold (as of 4/21) and we can start to really concentrate on the coach experience...what do we do next?

[msmith1199]

Storage is not that expensive, and since you're full timing it can find the cheapest place in the Country for storage space and put your household items there. Just be careful that you aren't paying more for storage than the items are really worth.

I'd like to full time it some day, but there is no way I'm getting rid of everything I own to do it. I can trim a lot, but there are things with sentimental value I'll want to keep. And it may take a 12' x 30' storage locker to keep them. (Maybe smaller if I really downsize.) Not to mention, there will come a time when we'll want to move back into a real house. Don't want to have to start completely from scratch when that happens.

[2oldman]

Is this a question or a blog?

[Mandalay_Parr]

I've been full timing for 10 years now.
You will figure it out as you go.
Call me if you wish.