The DW and I have been discussing doing this for about 6 months. It was her idea, but I had a lot of questions. My main concern was how to get mail, bank, etc. while on the road and with no permanent address. We did find a UPS mail service close by (we live in SE Louisiana) that we will use to start off with.
We made the first step by getting in touch with a real estate agent to see what we need to do to put the house on the market. After our upcoming 5 week trip we will hunker down and get started. The agent's main comment was to declutter which we knew we would have to do. I started selling some unused exercise equipment plus gave away a 2002 60" LCD TV last week just to get it our of the garage. When we get back I will put more items on Craigslist to sell.
We currently have a Tiffin Allegro 31SA, but will upgrade to a 40' model after the house is sold. If we get what the agent predicts we will get we will have two options on either buying new or used. If we can find a great deal on a barely used model we will most likely pay cash for it. If we go the new motorhome route we will use about 75% of the house proceeds for the down payment and put up the rest for emergency use. This should cover about 75% of the cost of the new motorhome and will lower the payment quite a bit. After we spend the first few months close by for any motorhome issues we plan on doing some volunteering/work camping.
Any suggestions to help us doing this is appreciated!!
Lucky Mike said
10:29 AM May 3, 2014
Welcome!!!!!
French Bikers said
11:13 AM May 3, 2014
Welcome to the forum. I find that you are lucky if you only thaught about going FT for 6 months, in our case we've been planning for several years but we are getting closer. Concerning suggestion I don't know what you are looking for but i've done a lot of research and find that some books are a great tools. Two good books I bought are written by Jamie Hall Bruzenak. ( Retire to an RV & Support your RV Lifestyle).
Good luck
Jean
DRV said
01:29 PM May 3, 2014
Welcome to the forum. You should read the first six months of Howard and Linda Payne who have a similar start to full timing. Their journal discusses the transformation from 'sticks and bricks' to 5th wheel. You can find the start of their journal at the following link:
Welcome. Sounds like your well on your way to full-timing reubenray.
One thing we found out when starting full-timing was the need to have an legal address and state of residency. I'm sure Howard has covered this topic before so read up on it before you hit the road. Ask any questions here on the forum that pop up as you formulate your plan.
reubenray said
09:35 AM May 5, 2014
NorCal Dan wrote:
Welcome. Sounds like your well on your way to full-timing reubenray.
One thing we found out when starting full-timing was the need to have an legal address and state of residency. I'm sure Howard has covered this topic before so read up on it before you hit the road. Ask any questions here on the forum that pop up as you formulate your plan.
This subject was the main hold back of us not going fulltime already. I completely understand the need to have an address for SS, insurance (vehicle & medical), drivers licensing, etc. When we do go fulltime I plan on keeping Louisiana as our state of residency at the beginning. Both of our drivers licenses will be good until 2017, so they should not be an issue. The DW will be able to start drawing SS benefits in 4 years. There is a UPS store close by to use that we can use for our mail forwarding. They will give us an actual street address and not PMB address.
DenJen12 said
07:16 AM May 6, 2014
Beware with the UPS store as far as using the address for licensing vehicles,etc. We did that originally in Tennessee and when it came time to renew our tags, etc, they would not allow us to use the street address because when they googled it, it was not an actual home address. Some states are just more FT RV'er friendly than others. We use a company called American Home Base out of Pensacola, FL now for all of our needs like that. Plus, Florida is an income tax free state so that is also nice. I do know other people use states like Texas and South Dakota. You may want to look into something like that.
Good luck on your future FT plans! My husband and I are younger and have been doing it for 1 1/2yrs (travel for hubbys job) with two of our four kids (7yrs and 10yrs...other two are older) and our 2 fur kids and we love it! Nothing like getting toe see the world (or just the states...LOL) and take the comforts of your home everywhere you go
BVC said
02:58 PM May 6, 2014
Welcome! Something else you might want to look into is the health insurance residency requirements. In our state it seems that you have to actually live here at least 6 months and can not use a family members (or friends) address.
reubenray said
04:24 PM May 6, 2014
BVC wrote:
Welcome! Something else you might want to look into is the health insurance residency requirements. In our state it seems that you have to actually live here at least 6 months and can not use a family members (or friends) address.
This is another reason to keep everything with a Louisiana address to start off with. If this works then I would continue to use it. The DW and I have talked about just buying a small lot somewhere just to have an address. It would need to be in an area that mobile homes are allowed where I could set it up for a RV port if necessary.
The DW and I have been discussing doing this for about 6 months. It was her idea, but I had a lot of questions. My main concern was how to get mail, bank, etc. while on the road and with no permanent address. We did find a UPS mail service close by (we live in SE Louisiana) that we will use to start off with.
We made the first step by getting in touch with a real estate agent to see what we need to do to put the house on the market. After our upcoming 5 week trip we will hunker down and get started. The agent's main comment was to declutter which we knew we would have to do. I started selling some unused exercise equipment plus gave away a 2002 60" LCD TV last week just to get it our of the garage. When we get back I will put more items on Craigslist to sell.
We currently have a Tiffin Allegro 31SA, but will upgrade to a 40' model after the house is sold. If we get what the agent predicts we will get we will have two options on either buying new or used. If we can find a great deal on a barely used model we will most likely pay cash for it. If we go the new motorhome route we will use about 75% of the house proceeds for the down payment and put up the rest for emergency use. This should cover about 75% of the cost of the new motorhome and will lower the payment quite a bit. After we spend the first few months close by for any motorhome issues we plan on doing some volunteering/work camping.
Any suggestions to help us doing this is appreciated!!
Good luck
Jean
Welcome to the forum. You should read the first six months of Howard and Linda Payne who have a similar start to full timing. Their journal discusses the transformation from 'sticks and bricks' to 5th wheel. You can find the start of their journal at the following link:
http://www.rv-dreams.com/journal.html
One thing we found out when starting full-timing was the need to have an legal address and state of residency. I'm sure Howard has covered this topic before so read up on it before you hit the road. Ask any questions here on the forum that pop up as you formulate your plan.
This subject was the main hold back of us not going fulltime already. I completely understand the need to have an address for SS, insurance (vehicle & medical), drivers licensing, etc. When we do go fulltime I plan on keeping Louisiana as our state of residency at the beginning. Both of our drivers licenses will be good until 2017, so they should not be an issue. The DW will be able to start drawing SS benefits in 4 years. There is a UPS store close by to use that we can use for our mail forwarding. They will give us an actual street address and not PMB address.
Good luck on your future FT plans! My husband and I are younger and have been doing it for 1 1/2yrs (travel for hubbys job) with two of our four kids (7yrs and 10yrs...other two are older) and our 2 fur kids and we love it! Nothing like getting toe see the world (or just the states...LOL) and take the comforts of your home everywhere you go
Welcome! Something else you might want to look into is the health insurance residency requirements. In our state it seems that you have to actually live here at least 6 months and can not use a family members (or friends) address.
This is another reason to keep everything with a Louisiana address to start off with. If this works then I would continue to use it. The DW and I have talked about just buying a small lot somewhere just to have an address. It would need to be in an area that mobile homes are allowed where I could set it up for a RV port if necessary.