What a hectic day today was but it was all worth it. Our house closing was this morning at 10:00 and by 10:15 it was all over with and we had a check in our hands! The buyers were paying cash so it was an easy transaction.
The rest of the day was spent getting all our other ducks in a row - changing our official domocile at the county clerk's office, cancelling homeowner's insurance, changing the address on our driver's licenses and vehicle registrations and a bunch of other stops (16 stops today and over 100 miles driven to make them).
It sure was a stressful and strenuous 30 days. The house selling in 2 days with closing in 30 meant we had to totally empty the house in about 4 weeks. We worked about 10-12 hours a day for all 30 but made it happen.
Thanks to all of you who contribute to this forum for providing your real life experiences in the fulltiming life. Of course we are especially thankful that Howard and Linda creatied the entire RV-Dreams.com site and for answering questions we've had along the way. After the rally in April 2011 we knew we were fully convinced we wanted this life!
Tomorrow we start our treck westward! Life is good!
-- Edited by RVRon on Wednesday 28th of March 2012 08:15:46 PM
Bob and Cheri said
03:58 AM Mar 29, 2012
Way to go. Congrats, and Happy Trails to the both of you.
Red Wolf said
04:31 AM Mar 29, 2012
Please keep us posted on your travels. You never know when one of us just might appear in you rearview mirror.
DorisandDave said
04:48 AM Mar 29, 2012
Congrats Ron and Joan! What a great feeling it is to be finally on the road. Safe travels!
MaryBee said
08:18 AM Mar 29, 2012
OMG! I am so excited for you guys!
Yes, you are right...there is tons of work to do in order to become a full-timer....we ourselves are only a month or to away from our dream....
Glad to hear things worked out for you!
Enjoy your new life.....dream on!
Hogladyrider said
11:19 AM Mar 29, 2012
WOW congratulations and safe and happy travels!
Susan
RVPAINTER said
12:34 PM Mar 29, 2012
The very best to you folks and all the happiness as well. Keep in touch.
Ckerr said
01:30 PM Mar 29, 2012
Congrats Ron and Joan! I think we just went through the same thing, except my house isn't sold yet. It is however empty! What a job! We're currently in Branson, MO. Probably not on your route west to Utah, but hopefully our paths will cross in the future. Keep us posted on the workamping job as it is one we considered before landing here.
cherylbrv said
01:31 PM Mar 29, 2012
My sincere congratulations as well! We were hoping to be on the road this year as well, but since we can't come up with the funds to make the necessary cosmetic repairs to sell the house, and all the offers we've gotten to sell "as is" haven't even been enough to cover the mortgage, looks like we'll just keep the dream alive living vicariously through our friends here on the forum. We will get there too... some day.
janni said
01:41 PM Mar 29, 2012
Great news and Congratulations! Everything has a way of coming together and is worth it in the end. Enjoy yourselves....you deserve it.
Jim01 said
02:07 PM Mar 29, 2012
Congratulations, RVRon
So glad it all finally worked out for you.
See ya down the road,
Jim
Jake62 said
02:22 PM Mar 29, 2012
"The rest of the day was spent getting all our other ducks in a row - changing our official domocile at the county clerk's office, cancelling homeowner's insurance, changing the address on our driver's licenses and vehicle registrations and a bunch of other stops (16 stops today and over 100 miles driven to make them)."
Congrats Ron!
I believe others have already documented this, like Howard, but I would be interested in exactly all the steps you took to get to this point to full-time, especially since you indicated a few of them above, and then another "16 stops." It's nice to keep a "punch" list handy for the future of those who traveled down this road before.
Loretta said
02:27 PM Mar 29, 2012
Great news, congratulations. Drive safe and maybe someday we will meet down the road!
bjoyce said
02:32 PM Mar 29, 2012
Great news. You will love it!
JayKim-no regrets said
04:12 PM Mar 29, 2012
Congratulations to you both! I'm looking forward to keeping up on your travels, hope you get chance to pop on here occasionally to update all us 'wannabes', enjoy yourselves and slooooow down for a bit, catch your breath you are all done now with the S&B, so lucky
huggs Kim x
Ivey said
04:16 PM Mar 29, 2012
Congratulations RVRon. I remember how exciting it was for us when we first pulled out of what was now someone elses driveway. Don't miss the house one bit. What stops are in your immediate plans?
Ivey
Linda said
08:38 PM Mar 29, 2012
Woo Hoo!!!!!!!
Hip, Hip, Hooray!!!!!
So happy for you two!
RickandJanice said
12:44 AM Mar 30, 2012
Congratiulations!! Hope to sell our house this year and go fulltime by the end of the year.
RVRon said
01:54 AM Mar 30, 2012
Thanks everyone! The first travel day went without incident and we're settled in at Eastbank COE Campground west of Tallahassee, FL. It's our first stay in a COE facility. We followed the lead of so many of you and did not make reservations (OMG!!!). We did call ahead and were told there were campsite openings and I think getting here at about 2:30 in the afternoon helped us get a decent site. Not on the water, but it's not a long walk.
I do have to say it really feels weird... knowing we are not on vacation and don't have a "house" to go back to. As much as we thought about what it would be like I guess you just have to do it to really get the feel for it.
RVRon said
02:09 AM Mar 30, 2012
Jake62 wrote:
"The rest of the day was spent getting all our other ducks in a row - changing our official domocile at the county clerk's office, cancelling homeowner's insurance, changing the address on our driver's licenses and vehicle registrations and a bunch of other stops (16 stops today and over 100 miles driven to make them)."
Congrats Ron!
I believe others have already documented this, like Howard, but I would be interested in exactly all the steps you took to get to this point to full-time, especially since you indicated a few of them above, and then another "16 stops." It's nice to keep a "punch" list handy for the future of those who traveled down this road before.
Jake, remember we lived in Florida and other states may vary in the procedure. We set up our new address about a month ago at a mail forwarding company in a town close to our house but did not make it our permanent domocile at that time. In Florida you get a healthy discount on your real estate taxes called a "homestead exemption". If we had changed our domocile before actually selling the house we would have lost that discount. So, that was one of the stops - to go to the mail forwarder and get the form to make that dinky mail box our official domocile! That form had to be filed at the Clerk of Courts for it to be official.
Changing our addresses on our driver's licenses at the DMV was actually easier than we expected but we had been warned as to what documents to have. We needed 2 pieces of mail that we had received at the new address (to prove we were actually there) and because of the post 9/11 legislation, proof that we were actually citizens. That meant Social Security card and a passport or birth certificate.
Once we had the driver's license addresses changed we could change the addresses on our vehicle registrations.
Other stops were to the bank, insurance company to cancel homeowner's insurance, library to return borrowed books, post office to mail packages out to our kids and 3 complete-waste-of-time stops at Verizon stores to get Joan's Sprint phone moved to Verizon. All 3 stops were met with sales clerks who were tied up doing other things and couldn't help us. One was actually on a phone training session and couldn't help any customers! The sloppy Verizon customer service is a topic for another thread entirely.
Trabuco said
02:11 AM Mar 30, 2012
Congrats Ron!
Jake62 said
03:15 AM Mar 30, 2012
Thanks Ron! I've kept in my electronic file for future reference.
crafter32034 said
03:31 PM Mar 31, 2012
RVRon wrote:
Thanks everyone! The first travel day went without incident and we're settled in at Eastbank COE Campground west of Tallahassee, FL. It's our first stay in a COE facility. We followed the lead of so many of you and did not make reservations (OMG!!!). We did call ahead and were told there were campsite openings and I think getting here at about 2:30 in the afternoon helped us get a decent site. Not on the water, but it's not a long walk.
I do have to say it really feels weird... knowing we are not on vacation and don't have a "house" to go back to. As much as we thought about what it would be like I guess you just have to do it to really get the feel for it.
It sounds like you are in Chattahoochee. We lived there in the 90's, when half the town flooded.
Best of luck and be safe.
What a hectic day today was but it was all worth it. Our house closing was this morning at 10:00 and by 10:15 it was all over with and we had a check in our hands! The buyers were paying cash so it was an easy transaction.
The rest of the day was spent getting all our other ducks in a row - changing our official domocile at the county clerk's office, cancelling homeowner's insurance, changing the address on our driver's licenses and vehicle registrations and a bunch of other stops (16 stops today and over 100 miles driven to make them).
It sure was a stressful and strenuous 30 days. The house selling in 2 days with closing in 30 meant we had to totally empty the house in about 4 weeks. We worked about 10-12 hours a day for all 30 but made it happen.
Thanks to all of you who contribute to this forum for providing your real life experiences in the fulltiming life. Of course we are especially thankful that Howard and Linda creatied the entire RV-Dreams.com site and for answering questions we've had along the way. After the rally in April 2011 we knew we were fully convinced we wanted this life!
Tomorrow we start our treck westward! Life is good!
-- Edited by RVRon on Wednesday 28th of March 2012 08:15:46 PM
Please keep us posted on your travels. You never know when one of us just might appear in you rearview mirror.
Yes, you are right...there is tons of work to do in order to become a full-timer....we ourselves are only a month or to away
from our dream....
Glad to hear things worked out for you!
Enjoy your new life.....dream on!
WOW congratulations and safe and happy travels!
Susan
My sincere congratulations as well! We were hoping to be on the road this year as well, but since we can't come up with the funds to make the necessary cosmetic repairs to sell the house, and all the offers we've gotten to sell "as is" haven't even been enough to cover the mortgage, looks like we'll just keep the dream alive living vicariously through our friends here on the forum. We will get there too... some day.
Congratulations, RVRon
So glad it all finally worked out for you.
See ya down the road,
Jim
"The rest of the day was spent getting all our other ducks in a row - changing our official domocile at the county clerk's office, cancelling homeowner's insurance, changing the address on our driver's licenses and vehicle registrations and a bunch of other stops (16 stops today and over 100 miles driven to make them)."
Congrats Ron!
I believe others have already documented this, like Howard, but I would be interested in exactly all the steps you took to get to this point to full-time, especially since you indicated a few of them above, and then another "16 stops." It's nice to keep a "punch" list handy for the future of those who traveled down this road before.
Great news, congratulations. Drive safe and maybe someday we will meet down the road!
huggs Kim x
Ivey
Woo Hoo!!!!!!!
Hip, Hip, Hooray!!!!!
So happy for you two!
Thanks everyone! The first travel day went without incident and we're settled in at Eastbank COE Campground west of Tallahassee, FL. It's our first stay in a COE facility. We followed the lead of so many of you and did not make reservations (OMG!!!). We did call ahead and were told there were campsite openings and I think getting here at about 2:30 in the afternoon helped us get a decent site. Not on the water, but it's not a long walk.
I do have to say it really feels weird... knowing we are not on vacation and don't have a "house" to go back to. As much as we thought about what it would be like I guess you just have to do it to really get the feel for it.
Jake, remember we lived in Florida and other states may vary in the procedure. We set up our new address about a month ago at a mail forwarding company in a town close to our house but did not make it our permanent domocile at that time. In Florida you get a healthy discount on your real estate taxes called a "homestead exemption". If we had changed our domocile before actually selling the house we would have lost that discount. So, that was one of the stops - to go to the mail forwarder and get the form to make that dinky mail box our official domocile! That form had to be filed at the Clerk of Courts for it to be official.
Changing our addresses on our driver's licenses at the DMV was actually easier than we expected but we had been warned as to what documents to have. We needed 2 pieces of mail that we had received at the new address (to prove we were actually there) and because of the post 9/11 legislation, proof that we were actually citizens. That meant Social Security card and a passport or birth certificate.
Once we had the driver's license addresses changed we could change the addresses on our vehicle registrations.
Other stops were to the bank, insurance company to cancel homeowner's insurance, library to return borrowed books, post office to mail packages out to our kids and 3 complete-waste-of-time stops at Verizon stores to get Joan's Sprint phone moved to Verizon. All 3 stops were met with sales clerks who were tied up doing other things and couldn't help us. One was actually on a phone training session and couldn't help any customers! The sloppy Verizon customer service is a topic for another thread entirely.