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Old 10-17-2021, 08:38 PM   #1
sunshine 1
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Sold my house

I had closing on my house 3 days ago, and I am now a fulltimer. It's a little scary to not have a home base to come home to, but I am also excited about it.
I have been out with my RV 8 months a year the last 2 years.
Any advice would be appreciated.
 
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Old 10-18-2021, 07:08 AM   #2
Montana Man
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I was in a similar situation for a short period. It felt great not having responsibility for a home while away in the camper.
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Old 10-18-2021, 08:07 AM   #3
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Felt the same way, for about a week. If you are a fulltimer and doing lots of traveling, you need a mobile medical and dental plan, and mail forwarding. If you are a fulltimer, look into state residencies such as South Dakota, Florida, Texas. And you need a plan fornwhen you decide or are forced by circumstances to come off the road. We did it for six years and enjoyed it immensly. We now snowbird in Florida in the winter.
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Old 10-18-2021, 08:40 AM   #4
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Quote:
Originally Posted by sunshine 1 View Post
It's a little scary to not have a home base to come home to.
We all go through that and found a solution that works for us.

Before we sold the house in SEPA(5 years ago), we thought we would move to a new location every 3 or 4 months. It didn't work out that way.

FL winter weather is truly awesome. So awesome that we ended up renting our FL spot for a year. The cost was not much more than 6 months rental and it gave us a home base. That first year, we spent 7 months in FL and traveled the other 5.

We knew we were returning to FL and the DW wanted a place to call home. A place that was not subject to the whims of a campground owner (cost and rules). We ended up buying a lot in an RV Resort.

If something happens, and we can no longer afford to travel, we know we can stay in a wonderful resort for the cost of the HOA fees and taxes, around $360 per month.

Also, if we decide not to go back to FL for a year or two, we can rent out the lot for $2,500 per month.

I think the point is, to make the choices that make your life better. If not having a home base is a barrier, remove it. There is no right or wrong in full-timing, you do you and we won't judge.

Life is grand!!!
-B
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Old 10-18-2021, 09:26 AM   #5
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We've been full time now for 11 years, but still have two home bases. One is a lot we own in Kansas that we've set up to service two RV's and have his and her's sheds. The other is an annual lease in Tucson. So you can do this full time thing in anyway that suits you.
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Old 10-18-2021, 11:19 AM   #6
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Congrats on your new lifestyle change. Hope you actually enjoy the transient lifestyle as much as dreamed it will be.

FYI, we deeded our house over to our son. We still have roots, a home base, and all the investment, work, self-sacrifice we put into our property, so it's still ours. But the responsibility of it's upkeep when we are gone is a HUGE load. So, I think we have best of both worlds right now.

Again, congrats! Enjoy your freedom and new life style. You will have challenges, and they will come your way. Be patient, keep your cool, think through the problem, and just like Army food: "This too will pass!"
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Old 10-20-2021, 03:36 AM   #7
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We joined the full timer club in July.
It took me about a month to get used to the amount of down time you have by not owning a house. Took a lil bit to get back in the groove of still being productive. Theres always stuff ya can do on the camper just like the house, like reorganizing a closest, go through the stuff in the basement etc.
We have cable slides, and one thing i would recommend is ordering 2 spare cables, and a spare slide motor, because one day you're gonna need em.
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Old 10-20-2021, 08:08 AM   #8
432bartman
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I'm so happy for you selling the homestead and hitting the road full time. A new chapter in life, with new adventures.
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Old 10-20-2021, 08:42 AM   #9
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Originally Posted by DougVelting View Post
We joined the full timer club in July.
It took me about a month to get used to the amount of down time you have by not owning a house. Took a lil bit to get back in the groove of still being productive. Theres always stuff ya can do on the camper just like the house, like reorganizing a closest, go through the stuff in the basement etc.
We have cable slides, and one thing i would recommend is ordering 2 spare cables, and a spare slide motor, because one day you're gonna need em.

Sounds like good advice. If you don't mind, who did you order them from?


Thanks!


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Old 10-20-2021, 12:43 PM   #10
1retired06
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Sounds like good advice. If you don't mind, who did you order them from?

Thanks!


Bill
You can order the cable kits off Amazon, not sure about the motors. We have carried for years a repair kit we got from a generous MOC member who fabricated them himself in his machine shop. However, we spent 7 months traveling in our fiver, a 2015, and have never had a problem with our cable slide. Very reliable if you keep them adjusted properly.
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Old 10-21-2021, 09:26 AM   #11
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Originally Posted by 1retired06 View Post
You can order the cable kits off Amazon, not sure about the motors. We have carried for years a repair kit we got from a generous MOC member who fabricated them himself in his machine shop. However, we spent 7 months traveling in our fiver, a 2015, and have never had a problem with our cable slide. Very reliable if you keep them adjusted properly.

Thank you, I'll look at Amazon.


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Old 10-24-2021, 01:40 PM   #12
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Enjoy being free. Free from property tax payments, utilites, home owner associations and trash collection bills. You just need to decide where to spend YOUR time. You already have 8/12 months experience. Just be.
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Old 10-24-2021, 04:43 PM   #13
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We were full timers for 6 years and lived in Dallas and San Diego. We felt like we were on vacation 365 days a year while in SD. The only problem we had was in Dallas trying to get the trailer reskinned after severe hail damage. We would have to move out for an unknown period of time which caused us to scrap the repair. Hopefully you can also find a mobile RV repair shop for on site repairs. We ended up in a hotel for three days when the AC went out as we were having 100 degree plus temps in Dallas.
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Old 10-25-2021, 08:50 AM   #14
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Generic change advice,

Change is hard, change is stressful, stress can be both positive and negative.
It is easy to get overwhelmed by all the change happening, if you find that occurring start looking for methods to maintain. Stuff like staying on a daily routine or doing stuff that helps you balance (exercise, fish, hunt, paint whatever, attempt for it to be something positive vs say drink excessively).

A couple years ago we did some major changes (both changed jobs, sold our primary residence, lived in a pile of places while a new home was built in a different state).

Basically we changed everything except who we were married to. It was hyper exciting and scary at the same time. In the moment their were some stressful points and a few minor breakdowns.

Looking back, it was the best thing we could have done and if could do it again we would have done it sooner.
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Old 10-28-2021, 08:01 PM   #15
sunshine 1
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Thank you for all the advice, truly appreciate it.
I am still at 2 miles from my old house, at a friend's house in Kansas City. I am heading down to Arizona next week, away from cold and rainy weather.
My friend have helped me to put in a mini split AC with heat pump. I love it, it put out some serious heat.I can't hear it. It's great watching TV and not hearing the heat pump. We are going to install the new Victron Multi 2 inverter tomorrow. We are going to hook it up so I got Ac power in all the trailer. I can then run the mini split from my solar system. I have 1800 watts of solar panels and 400ah of Battle born batteries.
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Old 10-29-2021, 07:15 AM   #16
Delaine and Lindy
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We full for a while, family situation caused us to stop full timing. We still was spent 8 months or so on the road, either out West, or in South Texas (RGV) or South Florida. We stopped for almost two years. However, father in-law said we should go back to RVing. We did, we have deeded everything over to our Kids, house and land paid for. Back to Florida for 6 months, in Nov. "On the Road Again"

Happy Trails.
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