We sold our home and downsized to a 34.5 Hitchiker 2 a couple of months ago. we live at a county RV park and help out in exchange for full hookup, including 50 amp service. Linda is a teacher and i have a small business. we travel on weekends and at all the school breaks including long trips in the summer. it was on one of those long summer trips that we decided we liked the full time RV lifestyle and made the move.
how many others are there out there that full time but still work? do you plan to quit working and travel full time or are you going to work and travel part time? where do you live? what kind of park do you live in? do you have your own lot where you live? other questions escape me but wondering if we are unique or if there are others that have chosen to live full time in an RV but still work.
Well we sold our business and house in 05 and started fulltiming. We still owned the commercial building that my shop was in but it was leased out. During a planned trip back here in March to visit family things completely changed and soon I was back at work for one of my old customers. Guys who bought my business crashed it into the ground and were going to auction it off. I made a deal and bought it for one of my customers but the deal was I had to come to work for them, I said if you rent my building and pay all utilities I would work for 4 years. So here we are sitting the majority of the time but making improvements to the rv and truck and restocking the bank account so we will never have to work again when we go back out. We still live fulltime in our Rv as that is our home and we don't want to be living in a fix house again, at least for now. As for where we stay, the building we own is 10,000 sq ft and only using about 4000 of it for the shop, so we park inside out of the weather and basically have all of our hookups paid. Got our satellite internet and tv set up outside. We try to get away on weekends whenever possible. We long for the traveling we were getting use to. Desert, beaches, forests we loved it all and anticipate doing it again soon. :)
Workinrvers said
02:13 PM Nov 5, 2006
Gregg,
We just started the wheels rolling on our plan for future fulltiming. We plan to sell the house move into our yet to be purchased fulltime rig and live locally while still working and building up that bank account. Our youngest graduates college next month and when he is out and settled we'll make our move so it could be as early as next spring. We are both in our upper 40's so retirement $$ and SS are still a few years away for us. We figure by lowering our living expenses now and saving as much as we can while still working our regular jobs we will be in a better position to fully explore fulltiming in the future. We still want to work-camp after we quit our jobs because we think it will not only help the budget but will keep us busy too, can't wait until the time comes to "blast off" and leave the 8-5 jobs behind but we are sticking to our plan which is to work another 5 years and then "retire" and hit the road.
wmalefyt said
08:02 AM Nov 6, 2006
We would like to get the wheels rolling on our plans to full-time. However, the real estate market has dried up here and even with much lower prices than last year not many homes are selling. We'll take a wait and see until after January 1 and then decide to put it on the market or wait another year. Maybe things will pickup once the snowbirds all arrive after the holidays. At least we made it through this year without any hurricanes!
Roz said
08:39 AM Nov 6, 2006
Your last sentence surely struck home, and home is in Jacksonville, FL. Where are you located along the Atlantic or Gulf Coast?
We are retired, I consult about 60% of the time and have a struggling business. We have the MH here next to our house on a slab and undercover. We do not get out as much as I would like. Last year was just over four months, but the longest stint was 2.5 months.
We spent August in Maine, but I would like about a 50/50 split. If we are close, maybe we can get together sometime.
Charles & Ethel "Roz" is our Itasca HoROZion
wmalefyt wrote:
We would like to get the wheels rolling on our plans to full-time. However, the real estate market has dried up here and even with much lower prices than last year not many homes are selling. We'll take a wait and see until after January 1 and then decide to put it on the market or wait another year. Maybe things will pickup once the snowbirds all arrive after the holidays. At least we made it through this year without any hurricanes!
wmalefyt said
06:48 PM Nov 6, 2006
We're located in Naples, FL on the Gulf which puts us about 325 miles apart.
We had a near miss with Charlie in 2004 and then Wilma came in last year just south of Naples. In both storms we only had tree damage although my In-Law's lost their carport roof, thanks to Charlie, which took 18 months to get replaced.
We hope to get away from here from May to November which just happens to coincide with the hurricane season! Maine would be a great place to spend some time. We have never been north of Boston up the east coast so would like to explore New England sometime. We're ready to hit to the road if we can just sell our condo and upgrade to something larger than our 36' Monaco Knight DP. Naples is still the best place for us to winter as it rarely gets cold enough to put the furnace on for more than 3 or 4 times in a winter.
We came through Jacksonville in August and we were amazed how big it is. We enjoyed St. Augustine very much and would like to go back there again.
-- Edited by wmalefyt at 19:52, 2006-11-06
-- Edited by wmalefyt at 19:54, 2006-11-06
debken said
09:26 PM Nov 6, 2006
We're also in Florida (Ft Lauderdale area) and were hit by Wilma last year. We lost our roof and backyard fence. Just got the final inspection for the roof. We've had the fence replaced but we're still waiting for the permit let alone the inspection!! It's been over a year now. Our house has been on the market for 6 months now with no prospects in sight. There are six other houses on our street for sale. A few people have come to look and everybody says, "You have a nice house" but nobody has even given us an offer. We have no choice but to sit here and wait it out but I'll tell you everybody will hear my WOOOHOOO when it does sell.
We sold our home and downsized to a 34.5 Hitchiker 2 a couple of months ago. we live at a county RV park and help out in exchange for full hookup, including 50 amp service. Linda is a teacher and i have a small business. we travel on weekends and at all the school breaks including long trips in the summer. it was on one of those long summer trips that we decided we liked the full time RV lifestyle and made the move.
how many others are there out there that full time but still work? do you plan to quit working and travel full time or are you going to work and travel part time? where do you live? what kind of park do you live in? do you have your own lot where you live? other questions escape me but wondering if we are unique or if there are others that have chosen to live full time in an RV but still work.
greg gregandlinda06@yahoo.com
Gregg,
We just started the wheels rolling on our plan for future fulltiming. We plan to sell the house move into our yet to be purchased fulltime rig and live locally while still working and building up that bank account. Our youngest graduates college next month and when he is out and settled we'll make our move so it could be as early as next spring. We are both in our upper 40's so retirement $$ and SS are still a few years away for us. We figure by lowering our living expenses now and saving as much as we can while still working our regular jobs we will be in a better position to fully explore fulltiming in the future. We still want to work-camp after we quit our jobs because we think it will not only help the budget but will keep us busy too, can't wait until the time comes to "blast off" and leave the 8-5 jobs behind but we are sticking to our plan which is to work another 5 years and then "retire" and hit the road.
We're located in Naples, FL on the Gulf which puts us about 325 miles apart.
We had a near miss with Charlie in 2004 and then Wilma came in last year just south of Naples. In both storms we only had tree damage although my In-Law's lost their carport roof, thanks to Charlie, which took 18 months to get replaced.
We hope to get away from here from May to November which just happens to coincide with the hurricane season! Maine would be a great place to spend some time. We have never been north of Boston up the east coast so would like to explore New England sometime. We're ready to hit to the road if we can just sell our condo and upgrade to something larger than our 36' Monaco Knight DP. Naples is still the best place for us to winter as it rarely gets cold enough to put the furnace on for more than 3 or 4 times in a winter.
We came through Jacksonville in August and we were amazed how big it is. We enjoyed St. Augustine very much and would like to go back there again.
-- Edited by wmalefyt at 19:52, 2006-11-06
-- Edited by wmalefyt at 19:54, 2006-11-06