When I was 11 yrs old, I went with my brother & dad to rent a pop up camper for a vacation. I didn't think that I was paying that much attention when the salesman showed them how to set it up but I must have been because I had to show them how to do it when we finally got to the campground.
I guess that was the start of my passion!!!
My husband retired in Aug, so we have been talking about full-timing since then. He lived in a 5th wheel for 6 years before we met and I have always loved being outdoors. We both love to hike and spend every vacation somewhere in our camper. I found this site about 2 months ago while on another early retirement site & got totally HOOKED!
Howard has such good, usefull information, I can't imagine anything he has left out.
I envy those of you who have already started on your wonderful journey and hope to join you soon.
Still working on convincing husband that we need to sell the house. It will be hard to do because we have created our own backyard paradise with inground pool & country store (his shop) complete with old gas pump that actually still works (49 cents a gallon-we all remember that!) I don't want the worry and work involved in keeping the house but he is afraid that if we let it go, something might happend & we could never create again what we have now. I will keep working on him, so keep your fingers crossed!
Plan to be financially able no later than sept 2011, just have to figure out the health insurance thing as I am 56-a long way from medicare.
Linda & Wayne + GISMO the dog 28 ft 5th wheel 2010 Springdale 2005 Ford F250
Denise said
11:50 AM Nov 3, 2010
Howdy Welcome to the forum. This is a great place to get info and meet other RVers. Sounds like you have your mind made up. Good LUCK getting hubby on board
Travel Safe
Paul and Jo said
12:11 PM Nov 3, 2010
SLIPSLID-N-AWAY wrote:just have to figure out the health insurance thing as I am 56-a long way from medicare.
Welcome to this forum. It's a very friendly and useful place.
Any pointers on the health insurance question is something I currently need. I suppose I should do some more research! [GRIN]
Paul
Terry and Jo said
12:13 PM Nov 3, 2010
Linda,
Welcome to the RV Dreams forum. If you've been lurking for a couple of months, you probably already know that the participants make up a very knowledgeable group of folks in just about every aspect of RV'ing.
However, I need to caution you about hanging around here too much, You just might suddenly decide that a 28 foot fifth wheel is too small, especially if you plan on full-timing. In know that in the case of my wife and I, we spent two weeks in our old 26 foot fifth wheel in Colorado last year. By the time about 10 days had gone by, I got to where I wasn't comfortable in the furniture or in its size.
But, good luck with all of your planning and research. Good to have you with us, and feel free to ask questions and make comments. We can all use new perspectives.
Terry
laurly said
12:16 PM Nov 3, 2010
Welcome to this wonderful place! We have learned a lot as well. Hopefully you'll have the house on the market soon!
jagco said
12:50 PM Nov 3, 2010
Welcome! You are right in your statement about Howard. He has covered just about all we need to know :)
This is truly a wonderful, and knowledgeable group of RVers here, and quite a friendly bunch.
Sounds like you two have lots of RVing experience already. I do qualify for, and have, Medicare, and still don't have the full-timing thing figured out when it comes to having my medical needs covered. Medicare alone won't cut it for most people that do qualify. When you do get it figured out, be sure to let us know. Although, anything you figure out about medical insurance, within the next several years, will probably change right after you figure it out. I wouldn't get it too figured out just yet. It may get very interesting.
Anyway, I wish you the best in getting your Husband on board. I will definitely keep my fingers crossed.
Anyway, welcome to the friendliest RV forum out there. I hope you enjoy it here.
SLIPSLID-N-AWAY said
03:00 PM Nov 3, 2010
thanks for all the well wishes....hubby IS ready to full-time but is reluctant to sell house, at least until we have done it for awhile to make sure. If we keep house , we almost HAVE to be home during summer months because of pool in backyard and there are way too many places I want to go & see that require going during summer or you freeze to death! yellowstone for example....so I feel house will be a burden. anybody else have this kind of issue? we don't have any reliable relatives to move into house and leasing/renting it is out of question because of liability with pool & would cost too much to have someone take care of yard & pool during summer months. once we leave on our adventure, I feel we won't want to come back home to clean everything out of house & put it up for sale......so selling 1st sounds like a better option to me.....
Ckerr said
03:26 PM Nov 3, 2010
First, WELCOME!
Just a thought about your house dilemna. How about budgeting to have someone take care of the yard and pool for 1 summer? Then you and hubby could decide together after the year whether fulltiming is something you are both up for and then go ahead and sell the house.
Just a thought...
Elaine NB said
06:23 PM Nov 3, 2010
Welcome Welcome.....
This is a great forum...lots of information here..if you have a question just post someone will answer...I've gathered alot of great information from everyone here...on this forum...everyone is so informative and helpful...someone always has the answer to any question you may have.
We are in the process of retiring, closing/selling our business and hitting the road....I know what you mean about the house...I can see both your side and your hubby's side ...we are cleaning out our house..selling STUFF...downsizing...organizing..wow the STUFF we collect over the years...we at first thought we'd sell the house right away then hit the road...its way to big for two people...now we're not so sure we'll sell first...being Canadians we do have to come back to Canada so many months of the year...which we could do without the house..we could come back and stay in our motorhome...I wanted to sell sell sell hubby was a bit hesitant...so what we think we will do is ..keep the house for at least the first year...like you we won't lease or rent..I'd rather leave it empty..but I insist that we have it 'sign' ready...my fear is one of us will get sick on the road and have to come back..and the non sick one will have to do the cleaning out etc getting the house ready to sell...so we will have it ready before we leave...to the point where if we want we can just call the realtor and say List it....
Good luck getting yourselves in order to ft mode...there will be days you will be stressed (at least I am having those days)...but you will get over them...you have a fever that no pill will break :)...
happy trails
Howard said
08:56 AM Nov 4, 2010
Welcome Linda & Wayne! And thank you so much for the kind words.
You've already experienced the kindness and warmth of this Community, and we're all here to support you or just listen when you need it.
jb said
03:33 PM Nov 4, 2010
Welcome-
We will be even further from Medicare so we plan to do Cobra for 18 months. I will turn 50 15 months after we go FT and then we will apply with AARP. Hopefully, the new health care refom bill will make more options available in 2014.
Our original plan was to keep the sticks and bricks and just pay someone to care for pool and yard. However- in 2009 I was promoted so we had to move to ST. Louis and we sold the sticks and bricks in Florida. Now we will sell as we don't want to stay in STL long term.-
Good luck with your plans
Waggin Tails said
08:02 PM Nov 8, 2010
Welcome Linda and Wayne.
Our plan is to sell the house and live full time on wheels. Even if we are not able to travel full time, we still will live in our home on wheel on a small spot near Lake Sommerville. I'm not upside down on the house so we should not have a problem selling it. Don't want to give it away but I will not let that be a sticking point on our go live date in 2012.
You will find a lot of experiential information here so ask away. You will certainly find someone who closely mirrors your circumstances.
Hope to meet you down the road some day.
I guess that was the start of my passion!!!
My husband retired in Aug, so we have been talking about full-timing since then. He lived in a 5th wheel for 6 years before we met and I have always loved being outdoors. We both love to hike and spend every vacation somewhere in our camper. I found this site about 2 months ago while on another early retirement site & got totally HOOKED!
Howard has such good, usefull information, I can't imagine anything he has left out.
I envy those of you who have already started on your wonderful journey and hope to join you soon.
Still working on convincing husband that we need to sell the house. It will be hard to do because we have created our own backyard paradise with inground pool & country store (his shop) complete with old gas pump that actually still works (49 cents a gallon-we all remember that!) I don't want the worry and work involved in keeping the house but he is afraid that if we let it go, something might happend & we could never create again what we have now. I will keep working on him, so keep your fingers crossed!
Plan to be financially able no later than sept 2011, just have to figure out the health insurance thing as I am 56-a long way from medicare.
Linda & Wayne + GISMO the dog
28 ft 5th wheel 2010 Springdale
2005 Ford F250
Welcome to the forum. This is a great place to get info and meet other RVers. Sounds like you have your mind made up. Good LUCK getting hubby on board
Travel Safe
Any pointers on the health insurance question is something I currently need. I suppose I should do some more research! [GRIN]
Paul
Welcome to the RV Dreams forum. If you've been lurking for a couple of months, you probably already know that the participants make up a very knowledgeable group of folks in just about every aspect of RV'ing.
However, I need to caution you about hanging around here too much, You just might suddenly decide that a 28 foot fifth wheel is too small, especially if you plan on full-timing. In know that in the case of my wife and I, we spent two weeks in our old 26 foot fifth wheel in Colorado last year. By the time about 10 days had gone by, I got to where I wasn't comfortable in the furniture or in its size.
But, good luck with all of your planning and research. Good to have you with us, and feel free to ask questions and make comments. We can all use new perspectives.
Terry
Welcome Linda & Wayne! And thank you so much for the kind words.
You've already experienced the kindness and warmth of this Community, and we're all here to support you or just listen when you need it.
We will be even further from Medicare so we plan to do Cobra for 18 months. I will turn 50 15 months after we go FT and then we will apply with AARP. Hopefully, the new health care refom bill will make more options available in 2014.
Our original plan was to keep the sticks and bricks and just pay someone to care for pool and yard. However- in 2009 I was promoted so we had to move to ST. Louis and we sold the sticks and bricks in Florida. Now we will sell as we don't want to stay in STL long term.-
Good luck with your plans