Rose Colored Glasses

[MidMOTraveler]

  I’ve only been long time for a very short time. However on so many RV sites , YouTube , blogs etc; there is so much of “we’re going full time “ 

Then you read and people are young lots with young families. I think in lots of cases they are being misled. Full time is not cheap even if your thrifty. It is day to day expenses. Living in an RV full time is like owning a house, paying rent, and depreciation all rolled into one. How can these young folks ever get ahead. 

There is always someone talking about Work Camping to save. Ok how’s that going to benefit them when Social Security time comes. Taking lower paying part time work to be FT will only limit them in later years. 

I understand there are those that can remote work.

I have been thinking about this for some time after meeting several young families while traveling this past summer. I saw love and family connections but also ideas that were just not realistic.

Thoughts? 

 

 

[TheDuke]

I am unsure what your point is. Are people unrealistic? Do people not think of the future? Are RV ers unrealistic? What are the real costs of RVing? 

Different strokes. I think you should enjoy what you have and do and worry less about what and how others do. I retired at 55. I hope no one worried if I would make it or not.

this is meant in a friendly tone. 

[Kirk W]

46 minutes ago, MidMOTraveler said:

There is always someone talking about Work Camping to save. Ok how’s that going to benefit them when Social Security time comes. Taking lower paying part time work to be FT will only limit them in later years. 

That is a question that I have wondered as well. The fulltime families that I have known were mostly either on a sabbatical from a job they intended to return to, or able to work remotely. Being part of the older generation, I don't have that many close friends in the working on the road group, but I do know several and those seem to be doing quite well financially. Working remotely is a growing trend and most of the younger fulltimers that I have had enough contact with to know about do either that or they run a business from the RV. Escapees Magazine articles are beginning to reflect the growing numbers of younger, still employed members, and I believe that is a good thing for the group. I'd be very interested to read more about what the working RV couples do to make a living. From what I have observed, the people working for a small wage and RV site are mostly still retired from some other career. 

[Barbaraok]

There really are two groups of younger fulltimers, at least from my prospective, those who have jobs that make fulltiming advantageous (remote work, big construction jobs, traveling nurses,  etc) and those who can not afford a house and are living on very meager means.   For a lot of these people, Social Security is viewed as something they will never get.  They  don't see themselves every being able to retire, but just working until they drop dead.  

Are the young unrealistic at times - they wouldn't be young if they weren't.   I'm sure a lot of people shook their heads when we headed out, married 3 months (ages 21, 22), heading for Ohio from the Seattle area with an old car barely holding together, getting 5 hamburgers for a dollar and keeping them warm on the dash, a few hundred in wedding/Christmas presents in our pocket, traveling across country between Christmas and New Years with snow storms at our backs, on the hopeful chance that Dave would have a graduate student stipend and I could get a job when we got there.  He did, I did,  we managed to get into married student housing at Miami U, and things did work out for us.    

[trailertraveler]

As we travel across the country, we encounter a considerable number of craft/tradesmen who like the founders of Escapees, travel from job to job. They are welders, carpenters, heavy equipment operators, oilfield workers, etc. They are not all young. There is at least one active member of this forum that I believe falls into this group, but for the most part, I do not think they identify as RVers and join RV organizations or discussion groups. You will usually not encounter them in state or federal campgrounds due to the length of stay restrictions that are pretty much the norm for public facilities. When you encounter one, you may find several working on the same project.

[chirakawa]

2 hours ago, trailertraveler said:

As we travel across the country, we encounter a considerable number of craft/tradesmen who like the founders of Escapees, travel from job to job. They are welders, carpenters, heavy equipment operators, oilfield workers, etc. They are not all young. There is at least one active member of this forum that I believe falls into this group, but for the most part, I do not think they identify as RVers and join RV organizations or discussion groups. You will usually not encounter them in state or federal campgrounds due to the length of stay restrictions that are pretty much the norm for public facilities. When you encounter one, you may find several working on the same project.

Exactly.  Where I am presently is the hub of a petrochemical complex.  There are at least a dozen large RV parks and a couple dozen smaller ones of 20 sites or so.  Most are full or close to it.  This is not a destination for retirees or tourists.  I'm in one of the large parks and I'm the only retiree in the bunch.  The majority of residents are industrial workers and construction tradesmen.

These people are full time rv'ers, by any reasonable definition.  They live in their rv's year round.  Yet, they have very little in common with full time rv'ers who travel the country sightseeing and playing.   Most are young, many are not.  However, any conversation about living in an rv or full timing should include them and give them consideration.  JMO

[sandsys]

We also have been in parks with RVers who work in the trades. We also know of RVers who travel to gatherings to sell services or products. And some who work the stock markets and make money at that.

And when I think about the dumb things we did when we were young it makes me wonder how we ever got to the point of being comfortable now.

For now does not mean forever.

Linda Sand

[Kirk W]

I was thinking of the typical X-scapers members of Escapees. There are some in the construction trades but of those that I have had contact with (mostly at Escapades) there are more who are commuting by computer and/or running a business remotely. There are also travel nurses and some couples that both are travel nurses. There seem to be more of them on Facebook and few that spend much time on these forums, but they are out there in growing numbers. The trend at Escapades in recent years has been a steadily increasing number of children. Kidscapade is specific to them and it has increased in size each year since it began. The current president of Escapees is not yet turned 40 and I suspect that our CEO hasn't yet turned 50 (don't actually know but he looks young ☺️) While the CEO isn't full-time I believe that Travis is or is very close to it. If attendees at Escapade is a cross-section of the typical membership, the average is now dropping once more. 

7 hours ago, Barbaraok said:

There really are two groups of younger fulltimers, at least from my prospective, those who have jobs that make fulltiming advantageous (remote work, big construction jobs, traveling nurses,  etc) and those who can not afford a house and are living on very meager means.

This may be true, but I have not personally come into contact with the second group and I doubt that many of them would consider being a part of this forum or the club. The X-scapers may not participate much here, but I assure you that they are healthy and growing in numbers. The majority of them are in the age group of the children and grandchildren of most of the forum members. 

[kb0zke]

We're run into two families that might be considered part of the second group mentioned above. We've run into far more who are able to work remotely or are running their businesses from their RV.

The amount of money needed to live full-time in an RV can be more or less than living in a sticks and bricks. One can't just look at one aspect and say that one is more expensive than the other. Some of us keep the overall costs down by volunteering. Right now we're at a Habitat For Humanity RV-Care-A-Van build. We've been here for one week and have seven more to go. Last year we were campground hosts for 3 1/2 months. We also had about six weeks of paid work (also had free camping). That's five months (more or less) of free camping. More importantly, very little diesel purchased during that time.

We also avoid the RV resort campgrounds. While they have lots of amenities, few of them are of any interest to us. Many commercial campgrounds have monthly rates, which can bring the price of camping down.

[Solo18]

Some people just do not think things through.  I met an older lady a few years ago who had retired at age 62.  She had bought a brand new motorhome and tow vehicle, but she did not have a pension, nor was she old enough to be on Medicare, so she was spending her savings very quickly, and her medical insurance was a lot more expensive than she had thought it would be.  She also did not take into consideration that things might happen.  For example, she got very sick and had to be on oxygen at night, which meant she could not boondock because she needed an electric hookup for her oxygen generator.   

One thing that many people do not plan on is how expensive RVs can be to repair, especially if you are not handy and cannot do the repairs yourself.  You really need a substantial amount of savings for just-in-case things.  And you need an exit plan in case you get sick or things do not work out the way you had planned.

[FL-JOE]

Some of the "full timer" younger families we have met were simply living in an RV stationary.  There is a local park district CG up in central Illinois that used to stay open all winter.  They had about 10 to 12 stationary families living in RVs.  They were not allowed to put skirting around their units or anything like that and just driving through you would think they were just regular RVers.  In reality they never moved and were being used as low rent living quarters because the monthly fee with utilities was only $325.00.

With young kids sitting around playing violent video games and then going to school and killing their classmates maybe the smartest parents in the world are young full time RVers who travel with their children and home school them.

[whj469]

There are several RV parks near me in SE Texas were you can rent a site for $250 to $300 per month plus electricity. Working people live in old RVs, even old Katrina housing, there and I call that cheap living.