fulltiming budgets

[Byron Kinnaman]

Enforcement or not enforcement is not always the case. Sometimes it's choosing to implement then choosing to enforce or not enforce. Posting the signs indicates implementation, kicking you out or fines is then enforcement. Subtle difference, but still different.

Each agency listed above have different regulations and manage the lands differently for different purposes. National Parks, Monuments, Seashores, Lakeshores, BLM, Bureau of Reclamation, and National Wildlife Reserves are part of the Department of Interior. National Forest is part of the Department of Agriculture. TVA is TVA and reports directly to Congress. Corp of Engineers is part of the US Army. So there's bound to be a lot of difference in regulations. For recreation purposes BLM and FS seem to be combined lately.

[Dee Hill]

Hi Al,
You are not the first to head out across the country on a tight budget..i actually I did it when i was 17 and ended up living in a VW camper for over 15 years even going between working in the canneries in Alaska and flying to Hawaii in the winters and I had a bus on each end!! I also had a toyota with overhead camper at one point.. i always looked at a vehicle in sleeping terms!!

I was the queen of thrift but i also worked and worked hard in between adventures!! now i am older and have a scamp and i am not a fulltimer but i do have some experience in this sort of thing!!

Settle in one spot as long as possible and use a bike!!! Stay in warm areas!! Work a bit at odd jobs..it is a great way to socialize and also make a few extra $$ it wouldn't take much to boost that $600 up a bit and make your trip more enjoyable!!

Try getting on Amazon and read about others adventures, this may help alleviate any worry ...

Try Ten consecutive years living in a car by Craig Roberts

Support your RV lifestyle Jamie Hall

Living on Practically Nothing ~~and others!!! good luck.. Dee

[Greg A]

Hi Al,
You are not the first to head out across the country on a tight budget..i actually I did it when i was 17 and ended up living in a VW camper for over 15 years even going between working in the canneries in Alaska and flying to Hawaii in the winters and I had a bus on each end!! I also had a toyota with overhead camper at one point.. i always looked at a vehicle in sleeping terms!!

I was the queen of thrift but i also worked and worked hard in between adventures!! now i am older and have a scamp and i am not a fulltimer but i do have some experience in this sort of thing!!

Settle in one spot as long as possible and use a bike!!! Stay in warm areas!! Work a bit at odd jobs..it is a great way to socialize and also make a few extra $$ it wouldn't take much to boost that $600 up a bit and make your trip more enjoyable!!

Try getting on Amazon and read about others adventures, this may help alleviate any worry ...

Try Ten consecutive years living in a car by Craig Roberts

Support your RV lifestyle Jamie Hall

Living on Practically Nothing ~~and others!!! good luck.. Dee

Dee,

I think you need to write a book.... bet you have a lot of stories to tell.

[peterh]

Back in the 80s I had a couple friends who bought a small, beat-up motor home and struck out on an adventure together. Ran into them years later at a science fiction convention. They were still living in their small motor home, but had visited every continental state and Canadian province, seen every national park, visited every major art museum in the country. They worked minimum-wage jobs part-time when they parked somewhere, managed to save about 1/4 of their respective take-home cash, and that beat-up motor home? Five years later and it still looked like h*ll on the outside, but the inside was a stylish, if super-compact, studio apartment. I always envied their gusto . . .

[AlBarnes]

Hi Al,
You are not the first to head out across the country on a tight budget..i actually I did it when i was 17 and ended up living in a VW camper for over 15 years even going between working in the canneries in Alaska and flying to Hawaii in the winters and I had a bus on each end!! I also had a toyota with overhead camper at one point.. i always looked at a vehicle in sleeping terms!!

I was the queen of thrift but i also worked and worked hard in between adventures!! now i am older and have a scamp and i am not a fulltimer but i do have some experience in this sort of thing!!

Settle in one spot as long as possible and use a bike!!! Stay in warm areas!! Work a bit at odd jobs..it is a great way to socialize and also make a few extra $$ it wouldn't take much to boost that $600 up a bit and make your trip more enjoyable!!

Try getting on Amazon and read about others adventures, this may help alleviate any worry ...

Try Ten consecutive years living in a car by Craig Roberts

Support your RV lifestyle Jamie Hall

Living on Practically Nothing ~~and others!!! good luck.. Dee

Thanks for the good advice Dee. I bike everywhere now so that won't be tough. I have a decent job presently but I feel that life is passing me by and want to gain some experiences before it's all over. Does this make sense? I agree with the "settle in one place as long as possible" advice, it's the cheapest way to go.

Who knows: Maybe taking a couple years off from teaching and living on the road will give me new appreciation for what I got now. The time is right for a sabbatical at this point.

[Dee Hill]

Thanks for the good advice Dee. I bike everywhere now so that won't be tough. I have a decent job presently but I feel that life is passing me by and want to gain some experiences before it's all over. Does this make sense? I agree with the "settle in one place as long as possible" advice, it's the cheapest way to go.

Who knows: Maybe taking a couple years off from teaching and living on the road will give me new appreciation for what I got now. The time is right for a sabbatical at this point.

I say if you don't have pressing obligations..live in the moment!! Give it a go and i would love to hear about it!!! if you don't have enough $$ you will find a way to make a few more!!

i am leaving here this next week to head to warmer climates for 6-8 weeks..some of it will be on the coast of Mexico..in a place called Huatabambito..i will be eating shrimp with garlic and butter/ salad and rice for $5.00 dollars.... Tacos for $2.00 and then those wonderful freshly squeezed carrot/ beet and green juices!!!! Hope all goes well for you, Al..

When are you thinking of going and what area will you explore first?? Dee

[Loren G. Hedahl]

Early into my engineering career my employer experienced an almost complete drawdown of needed work at the site I was assigned. Leave without pay was encouraged, as was temporary reassignment at other sites across the nation.

My wife and I took as much advantage of that as possible, pulling a Compact Jr. with a Peugeot 404 station wagon (1.6 liter, 2500 lb. vehicle). We traveled in most of the lower 48 over a couple of years, worked about half-time on each of the coasts, etc. My employer did continue health insurance.

The end of this was a combination of parenthood and plenty of work by my employer. I am now retired. However I am glad for those years that I was able to experience a bit of the free-to-go life style.

If I were starting out again and were strongly attracted to full-timing, I would choose a career that would support my lifestyle. At the time we were doing this, had we both been registered nurses (my wife was), we could have carried on through retirement age with little financial concern. I believe that occupation is still in great demand about everywhere you go. There are likely others, if you check things out.

In this day and age, the internet provides a lot of potential earning power that wasn't available in my age. On a recent trip I ran into a fellow with a nice Airstream camped in a county park in Texas for a week or so. He was retired, but produced more income trading stocks and other securities than he was making before he retired. He was quite accomplished and disciplined at this, trading on either the long or short side as appropriate.

I'm sure there are other ways to add to that $600. The point is, consider the $600 as your fall-back. Whatever extra you make, enjoy it to the fullest, donate appropriate amounts to those less fortunate and provide a financial cushion for your own time of need.

Good luck.

[AlBarnes]

I say if you don't have pressing obligations..live in the moment!! Give it a go and i would love to hear about it!!! if you don't have enough $$ you will find a way to make a few more!!

i am leaving here this next week to head to warmer climates for 6-8 weeks..some of it will be on the coast of Mexico..in a place called Huatabambito..i will be eating shrimp with garlic and butter/ salad and rice for $5.00 dollars.... Tacos for $2.00 and then those wonderful freshly squeezed carrot/ beet and green juices!!!! Hope all goes well for you, Al..

When are you thinking of going and what area will you explore first?? Dee

Mexico would be nice right now. I'm in Utah at the moment and it's been a bit chilly. I'm off for the summer on June 1st, then plan to camp in the mountains around here for a month in my old truck camper. I'll have until July 1st to decide whether to quit my job, so I'll have the luxury of a one month trial period. If I decide to full time it long term I'll buy a scamp and pull it with my Volvo, since my truck and camper are getting long in the tooth.

Where would I like to go? Utah, New Mexico, Texas, and Mexico are my favorite places. I would also like to take a trip to Northern Canada at some point.

[AlBarnes]

Early into my engineering career my employer experienced an almost complete drawdown of needed work at the site I was assigned. Leave without pay was encouraged, as was temporary reassignment at other sites across the nation.

My wife and I took as much advantage of that as possible, pulling a Compact Jr. with a Peugeot 404 station wagon (1.6 liter, 2500 lb. vehicle). We traveled in most of the lower 48 over a couple of years, worked about half-time on each of the coasts, etc. My employer did continue health insurance.

The end of this was a combination of parenthood and plenty of work by my employer. I am now retired. However I am glad for those years that I was able to experience a bit of the free-to-go life style.

If I were starting out again and were strongly attracted to full-timing, I would choose a career that would support my lifestyle. At the time we were doing this, had we both been registered nurses (my wife was), we could have carried on through retirement age with little financial concern. I believe that occupation is still in great demand about everywhere you go. There are likely others, if you check things out.

In this day and age, the internet provides a lot of potential earning power that wasn't available in my age. On a recent trip I ran into a fellow with a nice Airstream camped in a county park in Texas for a week or so. He was retired, but produced more income trading stocks and other securities than he was making before he retired. He was quite accomplished and disciplined at this, trading on either the long or short side as appropriate.

I'm sure there are other ways to add to that $600. The point is, consider the $600 as your fall-back. Whatever extra you make, enjoy it to the fullest, donate appropriate amounts to those less fortunate and provide a financial cushion for your own time of need.

Good luck.

What a cool story. Yeah I've been a single dad for 15 years and I understand parenting. My youngest is almost out of high school and I can't wait to be free. I gave my house in Texas to my daughter this past August (always have a free place to park!), and moved up here to Utah to seek freedom of the home ownership thing, and live near National Park land. I live so cheaply now without a house to fix it's amazing! Getting rid of the house is often the biggest step toward fulltiming, my next step will be to get rid of the job, I might wait a year to save up some more money, but it's not necessary to do so.

Thanks for the pointers,

Al

[Sebastian H]

Going by your two criteria—it’s doable. I’ve been full timing in a Casita for two years for under $800 a month. Mostly boondocking and dry camping in national forests and on BLM land in Utah and Arizona. I generally get a seasonal part time job for a few months a year. This year I’ll be teaching a silversmithing class up in Park City, UT in the spring and then working as a host in two primitive campgrounds in the Wasatch.

My gasoline expenses are pretty low since I’m not into traveling the asphalt; definitely not a car-potato. I really enjoy the Outdoors so my traveling is in my hiking boots on trails. Having a rig that can get down the dirt roads and double-tracks is priceless.

At some point I’ll get a solar panel. Presently I can go three or four days before the house battery needs an hour of charging from the Honda 1000. Only had two weeks or so of hookups in the last three months.

Didn’t find out about the NM state park pass until recently. It’s a hard deal to pass up for the winter season. You no doubt can guess where I’ll be next winter.

Expenses also depends on how you spend your time, how you eat, if you have pets, and little stuff like this that can add up. Look at your bank and charge card statements to get a realistic look at where the money is going each month.

You can check my last post if you are interested in this lifestyle:

http://www.casitaclub.com/forums/ind...showtopic=9916
OR http://www.casitaclub.com/forums/index.php...643&hl=road

It can be a hoot but it’s definitely not for most people.

Sebastian

[Byron Kinnaman]

Going by your two criteria—it’s doable. I’ve been full timing in a Casita for two years for under $800 a month. Mostly boondocking and dry camping in national forests and on BLM land in Utah and Arizona. I generally get a seasonal part time job for a few months a year. This year I’ll be teaching a silversmithing class up in Park City, UT in the spring and then working as a host in two primitive campgrounds in the Wasatch.

My gasoline expenses are pretty low since I’m not into traveling the asphalt; definitely not a car-potato. I really enjoy the Outdoors so my traveling is in my hiking boots on trails. Having a rig that can get down the dirt roads and double-tracks is priceless.

At some point I’ll get a solar panel. Presently I can go three or four days before the house battery needs an hour of charging from the Honda 1000. Only had two weeks or so of hookups in the last three months.

Didn’t find out about the NM state park pass until recently. It’s a hard deal to pass up for the winter season. You no doubt can guess where I’ll be next winter.

Expenses also depends on how you spend your time, how you eat, if you have pets, and little stuff like this that can add up. Look at your bank and charge card statements to get a realistic look at where the money is going each month.

You can check my last post if you are interested in this lifestyle:

http://www.casitaclub.com/forums/ind...showtopic=9916
OR http://www.casitaclub.com/forums/index.php...643&hl=road

It can be a hoot but it’s definitely not for most people.

Sebastian

I read your casitaclub post. You're living the good life. I don't think there's anything better than getting in touch with our wild and wonderful neighbors. Moon light walks are such fun. One of neatest walks was around a lake in the moon light, no flashlights.

I see you're also into geocaching. That's also a great outdoor activity, I've been doing that since April 1 2001. Would you believe it, found my first cache on April fools day, been a fool ever since.

I hope our paths cross sometime.

Now back to your regular scheduled topic. Budgeting - I don't have much to offer there.