OK, the dream is delayed but not dead.
We got the last check out of the insurance for the personal property. It was only for $7500. We filed for $13k in losses. We had $10k in coverage. All I can say is that you can never have enough documentation and you need to read your policy *closely*. Don't rely on agents to tell you the stuff you really need to know. Our policy had limits of $3k per “category” and $500 per item. So the computer we had just paid $1700 for was only covered for $500. And all electronics for only $3k; which we maxed out. Our policy also did not cover stuff outside the trailer; even stuff mounted to the trailer. So no coverage for the generator, hitch, bike rack or bicycles.
We submitted about 235 pictures and nearly as many receipts and invoices for every little thing we could find records for; all the way down to grocery receipts and some purchases of electronics we lost that were up to 5 years old. Even with all that documentation we still only recovered for about half the value of our losses. And the adjuster kept telling us over and over how most people don't have this level of documentation. I hate to see what they recover. One of the things that we did not recover anything for at all was her grandma's antique diamond ring, even though we had a picture of her wearing it in high school and recently as well, because we did not have a written appraisal for it. (Make sure that you get written appraisals for *everything* valuable!)
But, on the upside we got enough back to rebuild. We've got a truck, we'll take delivery of the trailer soon. After we run up to Boise and pay the taxes / title / registration we'll have about $8500 left over to live.
What we don't have is a long haul towing vehicle: Yet. We have a dang good project truck that still needs about $5-7K worth of work to make it a good long haul tow vehicle; which will put us in to it for about $15-17k. In the mean time it is a perfectly good around town vehicle and for short tows; like moving the trailer across town.
Some questioned why I bought the SUV I did instead of something lower miles for $17k up front that was ready to go. Well, that would have left us with an operating budget of $1500; which is just cutting things to dang close.
The SUV we have has already had 11 pages worth of repairs and services done to it by the dealership; most minor, some major and a lot of it at *their* cost. They actually had to eat the cost of a brand new radiator, plug wires and AC belt because of mistakes in their used car department and them not catching stuff before they put it up for sale and the dealership having already quoted me a price in writing. So I bought it for $9300, put $1000 in services in it and got about $2000 worth of work for free.
We will be staying in Vegas for about 6 months to a year. We'll get jobs and save up for the rest of the work on the truck.
There is a work camper job here in town that is perfect for us if we can get it after we get the trailer. It's out at the shooting range. Worst case scenario we rent a space somewhere in the valley.
By the time I'm done with the truck I will *definitely* overhaul the tranny and replace the rear air shocks and maybe one or two other things. I picked the SUV I did b/c out of the over 500 cars that I looked at on line and the over 60 that I looked at in person this is the only one that I looked at in our price range where the power plant was in great shape. It's a good project truck that will make a perfectly good around towner until we finish overhauling it from end to end. And, if it's taken care of this power plant can go 300-500K miles without being rebuilt or replaced. So, I figure that even with the worst math 17k for a vehicle that will long haul tow for 150K miles is not a bad deal. We just didn't have the budget to do it all at once. But, we'll still be able to get back on the road. It will just take a bit to do.
In the mean time we both walked away and we've still got each other. We also won't have to touch any of the sellable stuff that we left in our storage bin up in Boise as an “insurance policy” in case we fall on our butts out on the road and need to go back up to Boise and rebuild.
Watch your six, stay out of New Mexico, you can never have enough documentation and you probably need more insurance than what you think.
