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FULL TIME vs full time


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That was cryptic, I know. I read a lot more than I post  here and I see a lot of people who say they are full time RVers but at some point in the  thread they mention that they have a home somewhere. That puts things into a different perspective when  you have a place to go home to.  The same with those who visit kids (or parents) for a month at a time and have a place to go.

Once I hit the road, I will be living in the wind forever. In my mind, that is true full timing. not having a place to come back to. Part of me is scared to death to do this, but the other part of me says it will be a great adventure and I am really looking forward to it. Once the new owner of this house takes the keys, probably in spring, that's it. I am houseless. (Not homeless, just houseless.) So I'm just curious and wonder if I can get a show of hands of who is literally full time living in their RV. 

I have SO much to learn. Like one other poster who went from renting straight to her RV, I am doing exactly that. I am currently learning how to do basic stuff, like I just found the bypass valve that allows the water heater to fill up. Had I not read about that I would have not known to fill the tank before turning the heater on and burned the heating element out. I have had my RV for about a month and every day I explore it. In about 2 weeks, after I buy water hoses, dump hoses and such, I will "test camp" at a campground near my house. I plan to do that a handful of times while I get a feel for how the rest of my life is going to be. Me and my old blind dog, who has thus far taken to it well as we go out and do stuff every other day or so.

So, who is FULL time? And what can you offer as advice to a complete newbie?

 

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1 minute ago, chirakawa said:

hand.png.6a5c9d740266205924457b533720f85b.png

X2 ... Only I have slightly longer fingers than he^ does . LOL

Advice : if you haven't already , start thinking of your RV as primary residence and treating it as such . Explore every nook and what's behind it .

You are vacationing in the house you'll be leaving behind at some point forward . 

Goes around , comes around .

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23 minutes ago, dirtyboots said:

x3 - but just because you go FULL time, doesn't mean you won't decide to do something different someday.  No harm in that.

 

Interesting that you mention that, because it is in the back of my mind that if someday the wanderlust wears off, I can always head back to whatever city I liked the weather best and use my VA Loan to buy a house with as little as $0 down.  Or rent somewhere on a short lease while I recharge my human batteries and then head out for another year or so. I am retired, not rich but will not struggle financially (pending the transmission in the RV exploding my first day out), have the VA for my medical care so no concerns about that, and I can truly do whatever I want. At 66 I hope there are a lot of years left to do that.

I LOVE that thought about treating this house as a vacation rental (for the last 12 years). That is a GREAT idea to prepare myself mentally for going from 1100 sq ft to 50. I have gotten rid of a good amount of stuff already, and slowly the purge continues. I didn't know how many excesses and repetitions I had until I started selling things. I have 4 TVs. I live alone with a dog and I had 4 TVs  Sold the 2 small ones, the big one will go when I am ready to move out, and the bedroom TV becomes the RV TV. I had a very nice set of dishes, service for 4, I bought when I moved here in 2004. I sold them last month. I am such a hermit, I never had anybody here for dinner, so they were UNUSED.

That suggestion is a winner!

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12 hours ago, eddie1261 said:

I read a lot more than I post  here and I see a lot of people who say they are full time RVers but at some point in the  thread they mention that they have a home somewhere. That puts things into a different perspective when  you have a place to go home to.  The same with those who visit kids (or parents) for a month at a time and have a place to go.

It is very risky to attempt a definition of who is or isn't a "true fulltimer." That has caused some heated discussions at times on many an RV forum. :P

12 hours ago, eddie1261 said:

So I'm just curious and wonder if I can get a show of hands of who is literally full time living in their RV. 

Way back in early 2000 we closed the sale of our stick house and drove away in the motorhome, with every intent to never own a house again. Our dream went pretty well for the first 10 years, so I think that may qualify us as "true fulltimers" by your definition. But age and health can get in the way of our dreams and after a series of major medical issues in 2010 we began to look for a place to have a home-base again and in late 2011 we once more were parttimers. I can tell you that there are some issues that can be much more easily dealt with from a more spacious home that has all flat floors with no stairs at all. We very much miss the fulltime lifestyle and we still play at it for several months at a time most years but after having had to deal with the issues that Pam has experienced, I realize that it was time. 

You are wise to give some thought to what you may do in the future if you must since it can happen and sometimes much sooner than expected. 

EDIT: In reading your definition again, we may not have been "true fulltimers" since we do have adult children with families and we did tend to spend a week to a month or more in campgrounds near them fairly frequently. I don't believe that many of us abandon our families to go traveling but that doesn't mean that they move out of the RV to do so, but only move the RV close to them for periods. 

Good travelin !...............Kirk

Full-time 11+ years...... Now seasonal travelers.
Kirk & Pam's Great RV Adventure

            images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQqFswi_bvvojaMvanTWAI

 

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We have a piece of property we bought. Have never spent a night there. It is just in case. We don't move like most do. I still work. So we stay put till next job. Sometimes a year, sometimes 2 weeks. Just life of a welder. We intend to travel more when I retire. But we are in our coach all year. Are we full timers? 

2003 Teton Grand Freedom towed with 2006 Freightliner Century 120 across the beautiful USA welding pipe.https://photos.app.goo.gl/O32ZjgzSzgK7LAyt1

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1 hour ago, Kirk Wood said:

EDIT: In reading your definition again, we may not have been "true fulltimers" since we do have adult children with families and we did tend to spend a week to a month or more in campgrounds near them fairly frequently.

Yeah, see, from that aspect you get into the fact that I have no family, and I am not very social anyway. But I am aware that this extreme introversion is not the norm. I can go 2-3 weeks without speaking to another person and not care about it either way. I really think the RV life is going to suit me well. Just me and the dog. And when she has to leave me, just me. At some point I will likely see reality set in and health dictate that I land somewhere, like many do as we age. My knees only have so much juice in them, and the diabetes, while well controlled NOW, may jump up and slap me some day, So I want to squeeze in as much as I can see in this first 2 or 3 years and evaluate then how much longer I have. I would REALLY love to have a patch of ground with a slab, 30 amp electrical and septic somewhere in a good weather area to land for a month at a time, but it i shard to find cities zoned for that. 

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15 minutes ago, GlennWest said:

We have a piece of property we bought. Have never spent a night there. It is just in case. We don't move like most do. I still work. So we stay put till next job. Sometimes a year, sometimes 2 weeks. Just life of a welder. We intend to travel more when I retire. But we are in our coach all year. Are we full timers? 

In the sense of living full time in your RV, yes. My preconceived notion of "full time" leans more toward the folks who are always on the road sightseeing. However, that also implies that they are retired (as am I). I totally get that you are still working. And with a prime time skill like welding you can go wherever you want!! That "patch of land" concept is something I would like to do. I am sure there will be a time when I want to stop for a month and breathe, and I have no place to go do that. Shopping though! Small plot of land with a long pad on it.

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13 hours ago, eddie1261 said:

... use my VA Loan to buy a house with as little as $0 down... 

Just a word of possible caution... since 2007 many banks no longer will even do a VA loan (as I was very dissappointed to learn).  While some resumed doing VA loans in the last few years they often charge an excessive amount of points  (Of course they always blame it on the VA.) and an interest rate that is often a lot higher than you could get elsewhere.  And finally (based on a recent refinance attempt) about a 1/3rd will still want 10% down--even with the VA loan status. 

I ended up doing a regular refinance (fortunately I could).

As you can imagine my opinion of banks is less than zero.

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Another one here...no property owned, no family in the US to spend any amount of time with. I do have some cousins on the east coast but rarely see them...in fact only seen one of them in 20 years. May see them briefly when I make it that direction.

Sometimes I think having a home base would be nice as I really don't have any fall-back plan. I'm one of the ones who will be stationary in my RV part of the year as I have to work at least 7-8 months in order to travel the other 4 months.

2007 Keystone Springdale 245 FWRLL-S (modified)

2000 F-250 7.3L SRW

Cody and Kye, border collie extraordinaires

Latest departure date: 10/1/2017

 

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Eddie, it doesn't matter what you say now, at some point your body will tell you that NO, you will not be going down that road forever.   You may go for years, but at some point, we will all need to slow down and realize that in order to enjoy life we have to spend a little more time taking care of ourselves and learning that age will bring on some limitations and we must adapt.  Some end up living in their RV in a park for their remaining years.  Others buy smaller homes and do travel during summer as they are physically able to do so.

Barb & Dave O'Keeffe
2002 Alpine 36 MDDS (Figment II), 2018 Ford C-Max HYBRID
Blog: http://www.barbanddave.net
SPK# 90761 FMCA #F337834

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Speaking as another introvert, the RV lifestyle lends itself well to that. Dave and I were weekend and vacation campers for many years. Then we fulltimed together for three years with no home base. Then Dave was done traveling so I was a snowbird for three more years as a solo. When I could no longer pull the dump valve, I settled down with him again. So, I've pretty much had the whole gamut of experience when it comes to RVing. I would still be out there if my body and mind would cooperate. 

Linda Sand

Blog: http://sandcastle.sandsys.org/

Former Rigs: Liesure Travel van, Winnebago View 24H, Winnebago Journey 34Y, Sportsmobile Sprinter conversion van

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I knew that we could not afford to keep a house and an RV. We had never camped before so this was a huge step of faith on our part. So we put our house up for sale and it sold in 5 days. We didn't have a truck or RV, but we had dreamed for about 4 years. We were 5 months house and home less, but had a number of business trips and travel plans, so we really didn't miss not have a permanent place. We got our Home and Truck 10 years ago and haven't looked back. We have lived the FULLTIME life for 10 years now. We can't imagine living any where else than our little home on wheels.

We find that a lot of fulltiming is about philosophy, We don't travel like we are on vacation, we are home. When we stop, everything in the world that we own is with us, so we are at home. We don't eat out like vacation, we like to eat at home. My wife is a great cook. We have nothing stored somewhere. People ask us where we go back to...We don't go back to anywhere, "we go to the next place." We don't travel every day, we usually stay anywhere from a month to 4 months at any one place. When we do move to another place we generally don't travel more than 200 miles in a day, we are at home. I am not retired so we live, office and travel in our home on wheels. 

2003 Volvo VLN630
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I am SO loving this thread!! So many different perspectives, so many different lives as far as working and not working, etc....

I relate to some degree to every one of these replies. I am so eager to launch this rocket that I wish I could leave tomorrow. That is mainly because I want to get the first round of newbie mistakes behind me. I will only be able to gauge how many times I can flush that toilet before I need to dump the black tank by flushing that toilet. I need to learn exactly what that huge V10 engine can do as far as comfortable climbing angles, MPG, oil consumption, whether 3000 or 4000 miles is right for the oil change, whether I will burn out a transmission my first week on the road, if all my solar energy consumption research and projections are at least close... I can't really do any of that until I actually do it and get the experience all of you kind folks are thankfully willing to share. I am probably going to screw stuff up once. Thankfully I rarely make the same mistake more than once (That is not including marriage....) so I will learn from every catastrophe.

The mix of retirees to people who still work is interesting. There was a time when RV living was something "old people do".

What is also interesting to me is seeing how different financial profiles are dictating how people go about their RV life. Between youtube, Facebook, blogs, and sites like this one I am able to see people who live in their car because they have to as well as people who are in the bracket that someone with my background considers to be rolling in dough. I see beautiful 40ft 5th wheel rigs pulled by $100,000 trucks and think "What do these people DO to have this kind of money", but that comes from someone who was raised by depression era parents and grew up without a whole lot. I probably relate more closely with the people my age because they had parents form the same era (dad would have been 100 this month), yet the perspective of the far more energetic younger people is extremely stimulating. Kind of makes me sad that biking and kayaking are not in my mix, but I never did that stuff anyway.

Thanks to all who have responded so far. This has been a GREAT source of information and inspiration for me. I love things that make me think! Everything I have tossed out there has been met by at least one person who is strong in that area! Great stuff!

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On 8/15/2017 at 5:25 PM, kfrimr said:

 I am not retired so we live, office and travel in our home on wheels. 

Now does the fact that you work, and thus I assume need fast, reliable internet access, dictate how long you stay at places, and where those places are? The other side of that same sword though says that since you work, you likely have more disposable income to deal with and can afford to be in the better campgrounds with the strong access.

I love the philosophical perspective that wherever you land, you are HOME, not on vacation. While my plan is to land in places and see whatever town I am in, with a mix of Charlotte NC type places, a coastal town in Maine type places, and towns in Texas where 2000 people reside. Your philosophy made me append my thinking to add "and every one of those towns is home for this day or 2 or 3 I am there."

Another thing I am mindful of is that interests vary, so a lot of what I like would probably bore other to tears. Great example is a city called Macedon, NY. It's a little town on the Erie Canal with maybe 10,000 residents. BUT... they have locks for the boats to pass through. I have no idea why watching locks in operation thrills me so, but it does. That will probably be most of a day for me, sitting in Canal Park watching boats. Me, the dog, a video camera, and a basket of food and water. Some may say "Why do you want to waste a day doing that?" My only answer would be "Because I can." And based on your outlook, for that day, I will LIVE in a city where I can watch boats pass through locks, not visit. Great stuff.

You have a MAJOR rig there!!! My 25 foot Class C is jealous!!!  :D

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7 hours ago, Barbaraok said:

Eddie, it doesn't matter what you say now, at some point your body will tell you that NO, you will not be going down that road forever. 

Oh Barb, it is already whispering that to me..... all the more reason to get a move on so time doesn't run out for me before I can even start. :mellow:

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31 minutes ago, eddie1261 said:

Now does the fact that you work, and thus I assume need fast, reliable internet access, dictate how long you stay at places, and where those places are? The other side of that same sword though says that since you work, you likely have more disposable income to deal with and can afford to be in the better campgrounds with the strong access.

If you're going to work and need reliable Internet on your schedule (i.e. whenever needed), you don't want to rely on park internet. The quality and speed varies too widely not just from one park to another, but from day to day and sometimes even hour by hour depending on how many people are trying to use the system  In most parks, a couple of people streaming videos can block everyone else out.

You'll wind up getting redundant ways of getting net access without having to rely on external wifi networks, probably hotspots and data plans from one or more cellular providers  Then you'll rotate through them depending on where you stand on that month's data allowance and how well each one works at at a particular location.

I was lucky enough to get an AT&T ZTE Mobley and their Connected Car Unlimited data plan and I use that for my primary Internet access.  If I was working and absolutely needed Internet access I'd also invest in another way of getting on the net, probably via a cellular router from another carrier like Verizon.  But since I'm not working any more, the Mobley and it's incredible $20 a month unlimited access plan is doing all I need by itself.

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1 minute ago, Lou Schneider said:

I was lucky enough to get in on the AT&T ZTE Mobley promotion and I use that now for my primary Internet access.  If I was working and absolutely needed Internet access I'd also invest in another way of getting on the net, probably via a cellular router from another carrier like Verizon.  But since I'm not working any more, the Mobley and it's incredible $20 a month unlimited access plan is doing all I need by itself.

I hear you about the streaming, Lou. When I worked I was a network technician at a very large company, and from time to time we had to deal with bandwidth issues when the guys in Mahogany Row would send out a company video and EVERYBODY in the company would open it as soon as  the email came to their inbox.

I have Verizon and will have their version of a hotspot when the time comes. I plan to also have a wireless router so the computers in the RV (3 desktops and a laptop) can share drives when needed. Just have to remember which network I am logged in to. :)

I will not likely have more than one PC at a time using wifi or cell data unless I am snagging it from a business for an overnight stop. I have done test drives to a Walmart to gauge their network strength and how much I can do at a time, and the tests have been good depending on where I am. By the tire center is best, but they don't want you there, so I may park there while it is TV time and then move to the fringes of the parking lot to sleep.

Do you find that "retiree" is the job you were looking for all along? :D

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5 minutes ago, eddie1261 said:

Do you find that "retiree" is the job you were looking for all along? :D

Ask me in another year or so.  I'm only about a month into the mission, but so far I'm having the time of my life.  Currently I'm in Ouray, CO doing a week of backroads 4 wheeling with a group of friends from another forum.

I'm fulltiming, although I did purchase a lot in the Pahrump co-op to use as a home base.  On my way to Ouray last week, I stopped in at the Colorado Welcome Center in Grand Junction and started browsing the racks with all of the neat things to do in this area.

Halfway through it suddenly dawned on me that there was no reason I had to return to Pahrump by any particular date.   All of my trips in the past had to be rigidly planned so I could get back to work by a certain date.  Life is good!  B)

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1 minute ago, Lou Schneider said:

 Currently I'm in Ouray, CO doing a week of backroads 4 wheeling with a group of friends from another forum.

I stopped in at the Colorado Welcome Cent B)

Nice! I sold my FJ Cruiser to buy the RV. Though it was a Mall Queen. Never took it off road.

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1 hour ago, eddie1261 said:

I love the philosophical perspective that wherever you land, you are HOME, not on vacation.

The secret to a happy fulltime lifestyle is in being able to think of home as being the RV and the location where it happens to be sitting. Home really is wherever you park it!  The only limit to the different ways that you can live your life in an RV is the limits of your imagination. 

Good travelin !...............Kirk

Full-time 11+ years...... Now seasonal travelers.
Kirk & Pam's Great RV Adventure

            images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQqFswi_bvvojaMvanTWAI

 

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As Kirk said, our home is our motorhome in our minds. When we sold our mountaintop home some 10 years ago, we kept a small lakeside summer cottage in the Adirondacks that my father in law built in the 40's and we had bought from the other family members long ago. It's only slightly bigger than our RV, although we have modernized it and made it year round living capable instead of just for summers. Even when we're there though, we usually continue to live in the motorhome on the full hookup site we added adjacent to the cottage. Exceptions to that are when maintenance or remodeling in the coach are easier with us out of it. Because of the many interpretations of "fulltimer", we're usually hesitant to say we're fulltimers, since we do have the cottage to fall back on, instead calling ourselves "longtimers" or "most timers" to avoid any controversy.

Dutch
2001 GBM Landau 34' Class A
F-53 Chassis, Triton V10, TST TPMS
2011 Toyota RAV4 4WD/Remco pump
ReadyBrute Elite tow bar/brake system

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