Am I Just Naive

[TMichelle]

I caught the traveling bug years ago while moving halfway across country by car. I have since traveled by bus, by car and by train half way across the country several times and really enjoyed it. I have been dreaming about buying a class A motorhome and living full-time in it with my husband and two small children. We have lived in tight spaces since having our first child 4 years ago so I am not too concerned about space. Also so many of the RV parks have so much room to run and play that I am not concerned about outdoor space either. My husband is starting a home-based business and we plan to homeschool our children no matter where we live so we would be free to travel the country. My parents think it is a neat idea (my dad has wanted to travel across the country by RV or train for years) but my in-laws keep saying things like it is very expensive, a hassle and other things to discourage this thinking.

I keep thinking of the expense but if we buy a used class A diesel, gas and RV parking fees would still be a lot less than a house payment. My in-laws tell me that something constantly needs to be fixed on an RV and it is expensive and a hassle to fix it. Is this true? I find that when we had a house we were constantly fixing stuff so I'm not sure it would be much different even if the RV did have a lot of maintenance issues. Am I just ignoring sound advice from my in-laws? I wanted to ask people here who actually go RV-ing regularly or full-time to see what the good, bad and ugly is.

Also if any of you RV full-time with children, have you found it to be a positive experience or mostly frustrating? I have a 1 year old and a 4 year old.

[Jarlaxle]

TMichelle wrote:
Thanks for the thought to consider a fifth wheel. I have always dismissed it in the past and we still might feel a class A is the way to go, but now I am actually going to put it on the table.

Thanks also run 100 and Bubtoofat for the motivation and truthtruth and Bubtoofat, I love what you wrote at the end.

Don't overlook a large travel trailer...when looking at towing capacity per dollar spent, absolutely NOTHING beats a fullsized van!

[Jarlaxle]

Bubtoofat wrote:
RV depreciation? I have never had anything depreciate as much or as quickly as my home has. I never want to own a ball and chain like this again. The value of my home has dropped nearly 80% from it's housing bubble high. My taxes have NOT dropped accordingly. Even though our house is paid off do we really own it? Just try not paying your property taxes for a while and see who REALLY owns your house.

My town is quickly becoming a ghetto with most who cannot sell going section 8. Crime is WAY up. School test scores are way down. Home values are not going up. All the while banks are keeping 70% of foreclosed homes off the market to try and bring the prices up (we have 2 on our short street that have been empty and off the market for 2 years). I cannot imagine what the REAL value of my home is. Home ownership is just not all it's cracked up to be. And I do way less maintenance on my RV than my worthless house sucks out of my life.

I say get out there and follow your dream while you can and the kids are still young. You can always go back to a stick home anytime you want. Go man, GO!

Mike

I'm seriously considering selling my house. It has gotten to the point that just the property taxes would get me a decent apartment. It's just not worth it anymore. I have a standing offer to store my Genesis at my uncle's house...and it's looking like a good idea.

[jimroach]

I think homeschooling is the way to go, considering what you hear about public schools. You and your husband are the only one you have to please.

[Bamabound]

The age of the kids would worry me if that were my grandbabies on the road.

[doxiemom11]

I would definately stay in one place to get assistance with your language delayed child. My grandson also had that and was enrolled at age 4 in a program thru the schools that allowed him to be with other children with various learning challenges. This helped him immensely and by the time he was 5 he had partial speech, still difficult, but had stopped making noises when trying to express himself and tried to use speech intead. By age 7 he had good speech patterns. I do believe his early intervention programs were responsible for his improvements. They actually recommend that they be started by age 3. I don't know if this will be the case with your child or not, but at a later age our grandson was diagnosed as ADHD and mild autism. This has created challenges for him with his behavior. Getting your child on track as far as speech should be the first concern. The longer he challenged, the harder it will be for him to overcome this problem and it definately affects how he can socialize with other kids. Very important for him to be able to make friends.

[Kidsgone]

For what its worth, I second the opinion of the 5th wheel. We have been RVing for a short 4 years and have run into several full-time families. A toyhauler 5th wheel could give your DH his office, just change the "toy" part into his personal office space.
If you and your DH are both on board, just do it. Especially since he has to travel, but do it as comfortably as possible.
I think you're a smart lady listening to all the advice. Stay with the in-laws as long as possible if you get along. Buy an RV and try it for a year, then make a permanent decision. That being said, nothing in life is permanent!! Things change all the time. Now is the time, kids are young, you are willing to home school (something I would do if I had a "do over").
I travelled extensively as a Air Force "brat", back when there were no computers to keep in touch with friends....we wrote letters! We moved every 18-24 months and I would do it again in a heartbeat.
Just make sure that your DH has his space for work, kids have theirs, you get time for yourself and most importantly the both of you have some alone time too.
Enjoy the experience and if it doesn't make sense for you to do it now, like a member already stated, get a RV of some kind and start the weekend trips!
Andi

[TMichelle]

Thank you for the encouragement 6hunsucker!

[6hunsuckers]

I full time with my family. There is myself, the husband, 4 children... 3 boys, 1 girl between 11yrs old and 3yrs old of age, 1 dog, and 1 cat. My husband works in many locations and is also up for a promotion, location unknown... so it's a little bit hard to decide where to plant roots right now. We are stable in one spot at a park. There are plenty of kids to play with mine, and new ones showing up all the time. My children are enrolled in a homeschooling program, and very enthusiastic about it. We are all very happy and content in our current lifestyle. Although I could definitely see how it wouldn't work for all people for sure. For us, this was not only the answer to our circumstances, but also something that we really wanted to do. We do spent time maintaining and repairing things quite often, so far nothing very expensive at all. And its pretty easy to figure out how to fix most things even with no prior rv experience whatsoever. Economically it will just depend on if you want to travel a lot, or if you choose to stay somewhere. We spend $575 each month, our water and electric is included as long as the electric doesn't go over $100, in which case we would pay the difference. So far we have not gone over on electric and we use plenty of electricity. But it just depends on where you stay like I said. Also we are lucky enough to get free wifi. My children are very happy living like we do, my husband and I couldn't be happier. Everyone in our family thought we were crazy when we said we were going to do this. However we decided there's no time like the present, and it would benefit our family in more ways than not. So far, we haven't been disappointed. Good luck whatever you decide. But definitely do make sure your husband is really on board with the idea, not just because you want him to be, but because it could be a disaster if he's not. Our children would be miserable if one or both of us were upset about the lifestyle, I'm sure. I can promise that if 1 person in our family became unhappy or miserable with the situation we would not continue doing this, although at this point I just don't see that happening 🙂

[trailertraveler]

mr. ed wrote:
A couple of posters have mentioned $900/month RV park fees. That must be some really fancy resort located in a prime oceanfront or lakefront area! Most RV parks I visit charge anywhere from approx $200 to $400/month. The ones closer to $400 or so are usually quite acceptable according to most people's standards. At least that's what I've experienced during many years of fulltiming.

I would agree provided that one can always stay at least a month and get a monthly rate. The OP stated "His business is going to be internet based. He is currently working on getting it up and running. He will have to do a lot of traveling for it. $900 in RV park expenses a month is more than I counted on."

A budget of $900/month comes out to $30/night. In my experience, that is not out of line for nightly fees in many parts of the country. A budget of $450/month means a nightly average cost of $15 which while possible may be difficult to achieve if one has to be in certain locations at specific times for work. We just stayed at a Passport America Park for $140/week, which I do not think for this time of year in Florida is that bad. Even that would come out to $560 per month. In the past 71 days we stayed in 11 different locations and spent $1305.86 on campground fees. Lowest cost was $5/night and we had one monthly stay at $372.90 plus electric of $33 in addition to the weekly. That comes out to $18.82/night($564/month).

Budgeting more than enough to cover expenses is usually much less stressful than not budgeting enough.

[TMichelle]

mr. ed wrote:
A couple of posters have mentioned $900/month RV park fees. That must be some really fancy resort located in a prime oceanfront or lakefront area! Most RV parks I visit charge anywhere from approx $200 to $400/month. The ones closer to $400 or so are usually quite acceptable according to most people's standards. At least that's what I've experienced during many years of fulltiming.

$400 sounds quite do-able!

[mr__ed]

A couple of posters have mentioned $900/month RV park fees. That must be some really fancy resort located in a prime oceanfront or lakefront area! Most RV parks I visit charge anywhere from approx $200 to $400/month. The ones closer to $400 or so are usually quite acceptable according to most people's standards. At least that's what I've experienced during many years of fulltiming.

[TMichelle]

lmsteck wrote:
TMichelle, have you seen this website, Families On The Road? I found it a few of years ago when we were considering full-timing with our children and it has grown leaps and bounds since then. I think you will find that it is not uncommon for families homeschooling to go out full-time. We would be if I wasn't taking care of my 87 year old father. Happy camping!

Checking it out now!

[lmsteck]

TMichelle, have you seen this website, Families On The Road? I found it a few of years ago when we were considering full-timing with our children and it has grown leaps and bounds since then. I think you will find that it is not uncommon for families homeschooling to go out full-time. We would be if I wasn't taking care of my 87 year old father. Happy camping!

[TMichelle]

Thanks for the thought to consider a fifth wheel. I have always dismissed it in the past and we still might feel a class A is the way to go, but now I am actually going to put it on the table.

Thanks also run 100 and Bubtoofat for the motivation and truthtruth and Bubtoofat, I love what you wrote at the end.