Full Timers Help - RV-Dreams Community Forum

Raytronx · RV-Dreams Family Member

Full Timers Help

thebeagletraveler · RV-Dreams Community Member

I have no doubt we are destined to full time. We have discussed and researched the lifesyle for the last 6 months, and we are all about it. We have purchased a rig (bus conversion 1975 GMC 4905A DD 8V71), and now we are in that weird transition stage. My question is...What was your anxiety, worry, fear right before you began to full time? I might be a little freaked out looking out my window at a 40' bus sitting in front of our house!!!

Shad

Jim01 · RV-Dreams Family Member

Your anxiety is very normal. You're making a complete lifestyle change. Besides that, you've probably had some people question your sanity when you told them about your plans.

When we were trying to get ready to full-time, it seemed like we were worrying about everything, but one by one we worked our way through the worries.

There will be some roadblocks along the way to your full-timing dream but stick to your plans and eventually everything will fall into place.

Good luck and safe travels,

Jim

bigboomer · RV-Dreams Family Member

Shad,

I can tell you that Sue and I had been planning our FT RV experience for about 12 years when we finally just said why wait, tomorrow may never come and we are young enough to still enjoy a lot of the things we like do but need the time to do them. With the economy in the tank for the past several years we also looked at when and if our house value would recover and after putting together a spreadsheet with many possible scenarios (basically a 1, 5 and 10 year plan) we decided that with the house already paid off and the possibility of upcoming major repairs on a 19 year old house (furnace, A/C, etc.) plus the reality that our taxes are continuing to go up, to just go for it.

In the end we are more than happy we decided to make the move. After 26 years of marriage we feel like newlyweds again with no other cares but ourselves. No lawn to cut, no "honey-do" list to tackle, just us and what we decided to do each day. Now I still work FT and we are fixed base for a spell but we still have the freedom to do what we like and not have to feel guilty that we are putting something important off trying to have fun. We have greatly reduced our expences from owning a home which makes it that much more convincing. Now there is always some sort of minor maintenance to keep up with on the RV but no where near the scope of a S & B home.

Aside from that the biggest anxiety we/ I had was getting rid of our "stuff" and even that transition has worked out. I am now going with the thought that if is out of sight and out of mind and have not looked at something for years then I do not need it. We also now look at things as to whether we can fit it in the RV and if we cannot we do not get it, no matter what it is. We are looking to get rid of the small storage unit where we have with the rest our stuff and hopefully that occurs in the next few months.

This is our scenario and everybodys take and circumstances differ, especially financially but if you have the means, why not?

Good luck!

Les

Lucky Mike · RV-Dreams Family Member

Anxiety is when one lives in tomorrow
Depression is of thoughts of yesterday
Peace and happiness is living today at its fullest.....

Yes but it gets better , wait till the moment comes when you are looking out the windshield at the house.......or a day later when your looking out at the mountains.........then the moment comes when your standing there and the sun rises and you hear the world softly saying good morning......its then you know you are right and....."Life is good!!!

Hdrider · RV-Dreams Family Member

(anxiety, worry, fear right before you began to full time?} You bet,, and plenty of it. Selling off what was a dream home and shop for us in a poor housing market,, leaving a darn good paying job in a econamy like we are in now,,, getting rid of the toys that we worked so hard to buy,,, leaving family and friends behind,, and the list goes on and has been the same for many many people.

But the time comes that you just know it's right and off you go. And if you have done your planning and have a exit plan if things don't feel right down the road it's even easier to make the jump.

We sold our place in July and have only been on the road 8 weeks but have no regrets so far.

mjlitz · RV-Dreams Family Member

Lucky Mike says it best (as usual, the man is sooo talented with words). The worse day was when I had listed a very special piece of furniture on Craigslist, thinking that no one would be interested in it. Lo and behold, a e-mail came in - they wanted it. I immediately started crying, realizing I couldn't part with it. Told my husband, he looked at me and said that we are not getting rid of anything that means anything to us - it will go into storage. this is not what it is about. We have now been full timing since October 22. I won't lie, there have been ups and downs before we left and after we left, days when before, and I say before we left that I wondered what we were doing. When things started to happen just after we left, I was received so many replies to my insecurities of what the h... have we have done - these things all and more could happen in your sticks & bricks house - that it put my wondering out the door. We took some overdue downtime to recoup and it did us the world of good. Finally, realized it truly is the journey not the destination. A calm has come over both us, a feeling that this is so right. We are now in Louisiana, the rain is worse than what we had to deal with living in Vancouver, British Columbia but we are still loving it, making it work and enjoying every minute. We sold our house, got rid of most of our belongs, only have the smallest storage locker, live in only a 30' older class C but this is our home and we love. I have only had one friend be negative as to what we are doing, the rest have been behind 110% and so thrilled that we are doing what some could only dream about. This journey has also made both of us so much less critical of people, realize what is really important in life and look at what other people are doing and asking ourselves "How can they do it in that!" but " It works for them and their happy" What is the worse that can happen - you find out that you don't like this lifestyle and you go back to a stick and brick place, but you can't find out if you don't like it unless you try. Enjoy the ride and as Lucky Mike says "Life is Good"

TXRVr · RV-Dreams Family Member

May I respectfully suggest to all that the decision to FT is not a permanent one. It can be reversed when necessary.

I am not a fan of Oprah, but she did have a memorable quote on the subject: “The biggest adventure you can ever take is to live the life of your dreams.”

thebeagletraveler · RV-Dreams Community Member

Thank you all for your wonderful responses. You made me realize my feelings aren't abnormal. Last night after Tracie went to bed I freaked out. Since I couldn't sleep I slept in. And Tracie got up early and freaked out. So when I got up she was manic, I told her about my post, and all of your responses have helped. Thank you.

Lucky Mike · RV-Dreams Family Member

not very long ago in my life I came to the Reflection and realization of what it was really about.....We start out to succeed in excelling in material things to keep ourselves happy as we grow it gets bigger and we need more and we just keep feeding it,bigger places to store it........then all of the sudden I met the end of my normal life ,it all had to go in order to live......then it happened...........

the anxiety of losing all I ever worked for tore at me,how would I ever get it back..............after all I went through it allowed me to think for a long time...........its all gone but I am alive!!!...........I am breathing, when I walk outside I appreciate nature and see the simple things and I no longer am part of a rat race that sets the standards according to how much I have......I am alive!!!........I get to travel about and sit with nature and enjoy the world as it was meant to be and thank nature for placing me back in it!!

Biggest lesson learned out of all of it.......I died and was given a second chance,I will not waste a second of it ....Life is good!!!!!!!!

and Hearses dont have luggage racks for a reason!!!!!............you cant take any of it with you, if you can dream it...you can live it....and you can only regret it if you dont do it!!

Relax , live it ,Breath it!!
Mike & Nikki!!!

PIEERE · RV-Dreams Family Member

wink smile Lucky Mike & Janni; you just took the words right away! What good is "those things" if we are not around to enjoy them!!! No more friends; no more sunrises or sunsets; no more birds singing in the early morn, no more listening to the water in a babbling brook, or seeing all the beauty of nature that surrounds us. Ask me; how I know!! The things we usually don't think about come in to full focus after a life altering event strikes us. Have had four in my lifetime and this last one really made me re-evaluate my life, when I realized I had survived.

PIEERE

-- Edited by PIEERE on Friday 11th of January 2013 08:44:09 AM

janni · RV-Dreams Family Member

What was my biggest worry/fear? Probably getting rid of all of my "stuff". I can't even tell you what most of it was now! My life now doesn't revolve around that stuff. I don't have to move it, dust it, cut the grass around it, or even pay taxes on some of it. Like a few of the others here I had an "event" a year ago and should not even be here to tell about it. Life is wayyyyyy to short. Take your leap. If it is a mistake and doesn't work out you can always go back but the real mistake would be not trying and never knowing what could have been.

Terry and Jo · RV-Dreams Family Member

When we were beginning the process of thinking about, researching, and asking questions about the aspects of full-timing, I was one who had accumulated a lot of tools and other stuff. So, one day, I walked out into the garage and started looking at "things." I would look at something and realize that I hadn't used that in months or years. I went through the entire garage with that thought in mind and found that there was very little that I felt was important enough to keep. There have been a few times that I missed having a certain tool, but considering that I might use that tool once a year, it isn't important enough to go get a new one.

The only things that I had a problem of getting rid of were about 65 oil paintings that my mother had painted when she was alive. We kept a few of the small ones that would fit on a wall in the Mobile Suites and took all the rest to my sister. Everything else in the house were items similar to my garage stuff. It was amazing the number of things in the house that we seldom even looked at, even though they were put up in places where we could "always see them."

Mike has it right. In my mind and heart, the memories of people is worth much more than their things.

Stuff is just stuff. It is NOT the essence of anyone we know or knew.

Terry

Alie and Jims Carrilite · RV-Dreams Family Member

We are in the transition stage too. All most everyday one of us finds something that causes a little stress.
What we did/are doing though, is we are camping this weekend in our new to us rig. Its pretty much set up for our fulltime, (we think). This gets us out of the house for the weekend so we're not looking at everything that needs to be done.
We'll be fulltime in late Feburary and hopefully on the road by November.
Take one day at a time and breath.

-- Edited by Jims carrilite on Friday 11th of January 2013 05:43:37 PM

flyone · RV-Dreams Family Member

I'm not a full timer--but maybe I can help ---when looking at a big decision my thoughts tend to gravitate to "what is the worst that can happen" If I can live with that then bingo I'm ready. My other thought is nothing is permanent except death, if you didn't do it prior to that then you (permantly) missed it.

Flyone

PD CFK · RV-Dreams Family Member

Thank all of you who shared on this thread. Some deep thoughts here, and wise. I remember someone saying something like, "whoever has the most toys when he dies, wins". Love what Mike said about the hearses not having luggage racks! Kinda puts that other quip in perspective, huh? Been reading on this forum going on 3 years and can't tell you how many times someone has said what a freeing feeling it is to let go of so much "stuff". We still have our house and are only planning to RV part time, but I can see how nice it would be not to have the responsibility for all that stuff we leave behind each time we go off down the road. We could always change our plan :) We'll see. Pat

NWescapee · RV-Dreams Family Member

Tomorrow starts the process of weeding through what goes, what gets stored and what we are going to take with us. We have 2 storage units rented, beginning tomorrow, for the long term and short term storage, just decided how we are proceeding forward on the Estate Sale, plus we've bought our 5'ver and ordered our truck, all since Dec. 29th. We've started the house renovations to get ready to put it on the market, we've consulted with a house stager to know what are the best colors, styles, etc. Wow, feels like someone hit a "fast forward" button on our decision to FT.
Tonight, we took a break, grilled some salmon, harrassed our kitty, and realized that no decision is irreversible. We'll be selling our house with a reasonable amount of equity, even after paying off the truck and trailer. We still see no feasible reason to slow down, we feel freedom is the "light at the end of the tunnel" and while there might be roadblocks or temporary slow downs, we truly feel we're in this together. It's a "we" not a "you or me" thing and that, plus our faith that in God that we're not to be quite so encumbered by the things of this world is keeping us going.

BVC · RV-Dreams Family Member

If you do your own estate or moving sale you might check out estatesales.net to list your sale. I don't remember if there is a listing fee to use this site. I go to estate sales in the Chicago area and eventually learned that this is the site that people use that attend esate sales regularly. We used this site when my in-laws passed and probably had over 60 people in line before we opened. So you might consider this site in addition to something like Craigslist, especially if you are in a more polulated area. We are planning to downsize soon and spent part of yesterday going through things in the basement (too many estate sales :) I can see the challange of letting go of things is going to be difficult. My wife says, "why do you want to keep that" and a minute later I'm saying the same thing to her. Uh-oh, this is going to be..........fun?

Bruce

Edit by moderator: Activated link. Terry

-- Edited by Terry and Jo on Sunday 13th of January 2013 03:03:42 PM

heyduke · RV-Dreams Family Member

sure there will be some anxious moments but nothing ventured nothing gained... we are nearing our 2nd year of full timing... we never even owned an RV before we started full timing so if you go way back in our blog to the early days you will get a feel for what we wnet thru...

JayKim-no regrets · RV-Dreams Family Member

Like so many on this forum, we had our life altering/shatttering thing in Nov 2011, we had planned on starting our dream in another 15 yrs or so. We are still static fulltimers for a little while longer, Jay works full time on the base where we have our FHU space, we hope to go 'mobile' by the end of the year.

Getting rid of 25 yrs of 'stuff' was pretty easy for us, getting rid of our house in Illinois was the hard part, we just closed it this month but it sold as a short sale, no regrets there we are just happy to be rid of it. We have a storage unit, but it only has stuff in it that our Son is going to take, hardest thing for hubby to let go of were all his books, he has always been an avid collector of History related books, now he uses a kindle, for me, it was the sentimental items, I took photos of everything we couldn't put in the RV and surprisingly haven't looked at them since!

Our mantra now is "no regrets", nobody knows what will happen from one day (minute) to the next, why put your dreams on hold until the "right time'? If you can make them happen while you still have time to enjoy them, why not?

Huggs Kim x

Team Murc · RV-Dreams Family Member

Shad,

A very timely question as Anne and I are getting closer and closer to FTing every day, hopefully sometime in late 2014. We have taken the "how do you eat an elephant" approach to this... one small bite at a time smile . We have been working on sorting through everything we own and deciding on what to give and share with those we care about, what to sell and what to dump. We have been married for 34 years so there is a fair amount to go through disbelief but again the small bite appproach. For me personally having been self employeed since the age of 16, not working scares the begizzes (sp?) out of me! I have worked long and hard my entire life and to a large degree I feel defined by the work that I do (sad I know) and not having that is scary to me. The budget will be a source of anxiety until we actually get out there and see how things really are. Selling the hame we have shared for 33 years is also going to be hard and again I admit more difficult for me than Anne. I guess I just have very deep roots that don't like to be disturbed furious . We have been campers our entire lives so that is an advantage and we are sooooo looking forward to getting out on the road. We know that through all the work, all the anxiety, all the doubts that on the first night of our new adventure all that will melt away and be gone forever. My motto is "keep your eye on the prize". We wish you all the best in you preperations and you could not have a better place to turn to for help and support...these folks are the best!!!

Win the day,

Mike

-- Edited by Team Murc on Monday 14th of January 2013 09:29:30 AM

kb0zke · RV-Dreams Family Member

Some full-timers have certain items that they want to keep for when they come off the road, but don't need or want to have with them while traveling. Some of those items can be stored or loaned to children or grandchildren with the understanding that you get them back when you want them. In this day I'd put all of that in writing and get them to sign it. Other stuff might go into a storage unit. More than one full-timer has started out with a decent-sized storage unit and had a sale six months later, moving to a smaller unit. Six months later they have another sale and dispense with the storage unit entirely. The advantage of this is that you are buying time to change your mind about something. The disadvantage is that buying that time is pretty expensive. Decent storage units around here are $80-100/month.

WestWardHo · RV-Dreams Family Member

Oh boy, today we are taking our collection of Kachinas to my sons in Tucson to store for us. They have a big territorial style home with tons of bookshelves where they rest in case we ever want them back. If we don't they have a valuable collection. It's like giving over good friends, I actually feel pangs of sadness. Yesterday we made three lists, in storage, sell, and antique furniture to take to sons guest house to store. Sticks and bricks already feeling empty. I know we'll be glad when we're done but this is the hard part. I keep telling myself, "It's just stuff" and "stuff owns us we don't own stuff".

You comments here help, especially your Lucky! David, your calm thoughts help also.

janieD · RV-Dreams Family Member

Thanks Lucky Mike, we've been on the road 2+ years now and what you wrote is how we feel as well. Thanks.