Hi, my husband and I have a Class A. She's graced our life for about 8 years now. I still love her as much as ever. My husband is a Flooring Contractor 25 years now. Work's been spotty over the years and we've been living paycheck to paycheck...lost our home to foreclosure and so we're renting. But I held on with sheer determination and stubborness to our RV. I look forward to every Spring because I know soon as the warm weather settles in, we'll find a way to get out and go somewhere on the weekends when we're able to. We generally find a local campground and leave friday nite, come home sunday. We always hate coming back too. We do so enjoy just sitting by the campfire, holding hands, talking about the grandkids and such. We enjoy all the creature comforts of our home on wheels but we spend all the time we can outdoors. We eat our meals out at the picnic table and we take walks. We meet people and make new friends. We always find a campground where the site is woodsy and we can enjoy the sounds of the birds, and the breezes whistling thru the trees. The fresh air always invigorates me. I have such an appetite when we're out. One day we hope to go on the road and just do a little traveling. But for now, we're doing what we can, when we can. Anybody else out there that enjoys going out on the weekends too for whatever reason...mental break, just get away from it all so to speak, please drop me a line. Happy RVing all.   Angie

Mike, that's funny. You have such a zest for life and you seem like a real go getter. I wish you health, happiness and lots and lots of wonderful good times ahead. Keep smiling. It's contageous! Angie

Yes, I was a hair stylist for most of my career, so there is no end to what you can do to help with your income.  Also consider workcamping for your space and sometimes they even add a salary if there is more work involved.  Possibilities are endless.......let us know how you make out.  Give it some thought!

Oh, I hope you find a way. There's such good advice on here and I do recommend looking at Howard & Linda's & & Technomadia's expenses to get an idea of costs. You'll find diverse ways of earning your incomes but DO plan ahead and be sure you can work it. You'll find a way I'm sure!

We've learned and are learning from all the generous support on here.

Sherry

Dear Angie,

Like you we lost our home to a foreclosure after my DW lost her job and they raised our property taxes 1,000% a couple years ago. We managed to hang on to our camper, a little Aliner and are renting while we save for a FT mobile retirement 6 yrs from now. Unfortunately I only get one day a week off (usually Monday or Tuesday) so we only get to camp during my 2 week vacation. I only get to take one week at a time, so choose to take one on the Spring and one in the Fall. Naturally we spend the entire time camping My next vacation will be the 2nd week of May when we plan on camping at 3 state parks around the Amarillo, TX area.

We are currently saving for a used 3/4 ton diesel pick-up TV and a couple year old barely used or new TT that we can get a good deal on. We're looking at a models similar to the Keystone Sprinter 300KBS to snow bird with, wintering over in TX as an Escapee and spending the warmer seasons seeing the country, resources permitting (probably moving monthly.) We just bought a couple of camp bikes (small street legal, 125cc motorcycles) that we plan on taking with us when we Full-Time. They will go over 60 mph and still get around 100mpg, so they will save from firing up the TV for short sightseeing trips, errands, etc. We will be on a tight budget as we plan on retiring on my DW's meager pension and our social security, so we will be stretching every penny we can. I already found several CGs in the Rockport, TX area that charge less than $300/mo. That's less than we paid just for property tax on our stick and brick home, let alone all the other homeowner expenses such as insurance, maintenance, repairs, etc. Of course RVs need maintenance and repairs too, but just for comparison, I could buy half a dozen a brand new RV air conditioners for less than they recently wanted to repair and upgrade my stick and brick central ac unit. So even if we were able to keep our foreclosed home, and it was paid for free and clear (I still had 20 years of mortgage payments after our Hurricane Katrina repairs) I think it would still be much more economical to live the FT mobile lifestyle we chose.

Chip

We are still weekend warriors also, but hopefully not for long. House is on the market and we are just waiting to get it sold before we retire and go full time. We bought the rig we wanted for full timing 6 years ago because the deal was too good to pass up. We still love our rig and have no desire to get anything else. We have added some upgrades over the years, but felt that was less expensive than trading up. We still joke that when we bought this rig, we officially moved from camping to RV'ing on the weekends and vacation we take.