I'm not sure what to say because there were no specific questions. I would be glad to answer any question about our experiences. What I can say is that I would do it again and retire earlier. I also know it's not for everyone.
Ginny and I are not quite fulltimers, however for the last 10 years we have traveled for at least 7 months of the year and often for ten months. For the last four years we have traveled in a trailer not more than 16 feet long. This year we will be gone 9-10 months.
Actually our biggest concern was the bed; we thought we'd have to learn synchronized rolling over. It turned out to never be a problem.
Financially it is a very low cost what to live. We're almost religious about keeping track of our expenses. Not that we live by a budget but we do have a projection of what we plan to spend on each line item. Simply being conscious of what we spend seems to help us control spending. If you're interested I can send you an example of our monthly spread sheet.
We are members of Escapees. It provides strong services to full timers and is worth going Escapees.com. They have a number of books about
fulltiming. If you're going to be a fulltimer it may be your best investment.
Stuff. Fulltimers need to learn to live with less. We began by making a list of everything we were going to take by storage compartment, where we're we going to put it was the big question? It's a defined volume so it pretty much decides what you can take. We try not to overfill any compartment or drawer. For example, Our silverware drawer basically contains 4 of things, not 8 or 12 like we might have at home. I bet our house has dozens of knives but not our trailer. We tend to divide drawers with physical dividers so there's none of those junk drawers like every kitchen has.
Once we have the list we reduce what we want down to what we need. This can be very difficult, particularly for Ginny but she's learned to do it. There's little worrying about what to wear. On SUnday's I have a single dress outfit.
I was one of those 'A' type people, rushing thru life expecting to be dead by 45 like my Dad. I lived past 45 and when I retired I slowed way down. We quickly recognized that the journey was as important as the destination. Our first destination was FL, shockingly to all our friends and family it took us 18 weeks to get there from NH. "What's in Maryland?" was a common comment from them.
Our other big discovery was don't drive too far in a day. Except for emergency, we never spend more than 4 hours driving in one day. This allows us to stop early and check out the local community. So many times we end up in some place no one has every heard of that turns out to be wonderful. We almost always unhook, ask at the campground about the area or search the internet. As well we're always listening to people we meet, there forever telling us about neat things to see and do.
We don't make reservations unless we're going to a national park. Partly because we stop early it's hardly ever been a problem, and with a small rig there always seems to be a place for us.
I'm wandering about here but one thing I did was buy every book I could and read everything about RVing I could find. We had never Rved before we retired. Ginny stopped working on a Tuesday and we left on a Wednesday.
We are Bank of America customers. They bought our bank but it turned out to be a good thing. Practically every where we go there's a BoA. Once a month we get on line and pay all our bills. For everything else we use a credit card that we pay off each month. We occasionally use a debit card to get cash at a BoA or Walmarts (they'll give you a $200 dollars with any debit purchase.)
Our mail goes to Escapees in Livingston, TX. When we want it they send general delivery to us. We've never had a problem. We generally choose smaller post offices. Additionally all Escapees have a legal address in Livingston, TX. This is handy for all kinds of things like voting in national elections for 100% fulltimers. (They went to court to win that right).
We stay at Escapee parks when ever we can because they are usually very nice, always low cost and have really knowledgeable and friendly people. As well Escapees can join Days End for $5 a year and get a directory of free or low cost places to stay. We are also members of Passport America for half price camping. They have a web site that shows campgrounds and prices.
This is probably too long already but ifm you ask me anything I will do my best to answer.
Norm
Midlife Crisis
Waltzin' Matrillda
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