GR "Scott" Cundiff

5 minutes ago, Ronbo said:

Scott I checked into it. I would have to open a new account t as a prepaid and transfer my mofo over to it. It would then cost me $65 plus whatever for the account. Not worth it. I will stay with postpaid.

Not sure I follow.  Get the prepaid account for the Jetpack, pay $65 a month..  Then go to a two line, 3Gig plan for $60.  That's $125 a month.  
 

Intetesting...right now I'm running an old unlimited grandfathered sim in a jetpack because tethering to the phone is hard on the phone.  I'd  save money by giving up the grandfathered plan.

5 hours ago, cshrader said:

I ran into a new one a couple of days ago...

We moved to a new location and I do the online chat to change our service address and local channels. The rep tells me he can't change my local channels because my account isn't tagged as a Dish outdoors account. I pushed back and told him I have changed my locals many times through the chat and he finally agrees to do it "just this one time", but tells me I need to get my account tagged as Dish Outdoors. I ask him how I do that and he gives me a phone number that I need to call. After the chat ends, I call the number and the DIsh Outdoors rep is very confused by my request and says she has never heard of that. She says there is no way to mark an account as Dish Outdoors. I asked her how I can get access to change my locals through the app and she said it is very limited right now because it is in testing and they are having some problems with it, but eventually, it will be available to all of us. 

Obviously, Dish needs to set some rules and do some training. 

Sometimes you just have to say, "Okay, thanks."  Hang up, dial again (or use Chat which is actually better) and talk to the next person.  

I had some fun yesterday.  We moved to the Roanoke, VA area.  I did the online chat to update locals.  The old listings disappeared in a few minutes but the new ones never showed up.

I rebooted - still no joy.  Ran check switch, Eastern Arc showed just fine.

Contacted support, had them resend authorization - no go.

Ended up chatting with advanced support.  Took me through the same old stuff.

Suddenly, it dawned on me.  Roanoke is only on the Western Arc - nothing, not even SD on the east.

After spending the last several months traveling in the northeast, I forgot that there are a very few places only on the Western Arc in this neck of the woods.

9 minutes ago, D&J said:

I was wondering if you can have your locals changed before you get to a location without your reciever being on, I  know the reciever remembers the last chanel it was on when you set it back up at a new location so it may not work.

Denny 

When a change of programming is authorized, the satellite sends a signal addressed to only your receiver, reprogramming it.  That signal is only sent for a certain number of times and then stops.   So, if you call them to upgrade your locals and don't have your receiver on it won't receive the programming change prior to the satellite change signal stopping.

Now, I have heard of people who knew they were going to be out of cell and internet range calling prior to the move and having them change the locals while they still had the dish up.  As you can guess, it worked just fine.

I don't know if this will help anyone, but here's the text I send using Facebook chat with Dish:

Quote

 

Hi - we are traveling in our RV and have moved and need our locals updated to our new location, zip code 1xxxxx

Thanks

 

Then, once they update it and tell me that I can change it myself using their app I send this:

Quote

Since we travel in our RV all the time, I often have to change my service address.  I know that the Android App is supposed to allow me to do that myself, but apparently this feature is not available for accounts with Dish Outdoors and Dish Home Equipment. I'm looking forward to someday being included in the group of mobile customers who can update their own service address.

There is usually a brief interlude while they check out my information, and then they return and acknowledge I am right.

1 hour ago, D&J said:

After I checked dish programming costs its $10 a month more with the pay as you go so I'm going to try the chat, I made a short message in my notes I can copy and past that has my account number and a place for a new zip and servce address. Will that work?

Denny 

Here's the message I send:
Hi - we are traveling in our RV and have moved and need our locals updated to our new location, zip code 77????

I have done it via their website chat, but the past few months I've been going to their Facebook page and doing it via chat there.

21 hours ago, WeBeFulltimers said:

The app won't allow me to change either BUT the CHATT feature takes only about 10 minutes for the change from start to finish which is fine to me.

My guess is that you talk to the same people no matter how you chat - either through their website, through the app, or via their Facebook page.  I've been doing it via Facebook with good results.

16 hours ago, sandsys said:

Words of wisdom.

Nothing to add - just wanted to quote this. :}

If we have it our way we will quit when we are good and ready!  We'll look at each other and say, "Let's stop traveling and do something else."

However, we are well aware that life doesn't always work that way.  So our second preference is to gradually slow down.  Longer stops, fewer moves, ultimately becoming point to point travelers - summer and winter.

And, truth be told, there's a good chance that we won't get a choice in the matter.  Life will happen and we'll suddenly find ourselves unable to travel.

In other words, we have our plans and hopes but we know we aren't always in control.  We'll just appreciate today, plan for tomorrow, and then deal with what actually comes.

By the time people reach 62+ years their circumstances vary wildly.  There simply is no one size fits all.   There are elderly parents, disabled children, past health issues, financial windfalls and disasters and a thousand other situations that impact one's retirement decision.  That doesn't take into account one's current work situation - some people love their jobs and are having the time of their life going to work every day.  Others are just barely hanging on trying to get to exits.

If you narrow the discussion down to just one specific aspect of retirement - like which will get the biggest monthly check or will result in the biggest pile of money at the end of life - it gets a bit easier but even then different people have different life situations.

So, ultimately, we have to each do what we think is best for us at the time.  For me to tell others they need to do what I did is foolish on my part and, if they copy what I did it would be foolish on theirs.

Since Dish still hasn't enabled the service address feature on my app I'm still doing it the old fashioned way.  However, the last couple of moves I went to their Facebook page and did it via the message function.  I think the response time is even faster than it is using the online chat on their website.

Probably the first response to the question is "what do you mean by fulltiming?"  If the answer is "live in an RV parked behind my cousin's house" the answer is probably "yes."  If the answer is "travel the country, staying in state, national, private, etc. campgrounds" the answer is probably "no."

2 minutes ago, Zulu said:

Not really. This is what I mean by comparing Apples & Oranges.

Right.  I see people who are work camping and not paying for their campsite say their campsite cost is $0.  If a person is researching fulltiming costs intends on doing the same thing that's valuable information.  Otherwise, the estimated value of the of the campsite needs to be included.  Or stated differently, if I were parked in the campsite next to you and paying what would it cost me?

When I post my expense information I note that in my camping cost I'm including an estimated value of the site during the months when I volunteer and also annual dues for Thousand Trails, etc. in my camping costs.  (Also, I'll mention that I include a note that I'm not including start up costs - again, like Thousand Trails initial cost, etc.)

I wrote about reading other people's budgets here.

Just sad.  

While I know this poll isn't scientific, I'm thinking it is possibly the best snapshot anywhere of what fulltime RVers spend.  I refer people who are researching fulltiming to it all the time.

I'm using the paid version of this Android app - there's a bit of a learning curve, but it makes record keeping pretty easy.

50 minutes ago, rm.w/aview said:

Record keeping to the penny Tedious, impressive, and much appreciated work, thanks for sharing!

Ha - might just be a symptom of being a tightwad.  

I have a expense app on my phone - anytime we spend money I enter the amount in the phone.  If it is cash, I may be a bit less accurate on things like eating out.  If it is a credit card charge or bank charge, I have to get it right or I can't balance the statement.  It has become almost second nature to enter expenditures in the phone.

Update: I got ambitious tonight and created a spreadsheet that includes 2013-2017 using annual figures.  The information is actually the same as you would find in the year end reports, but it is presented in spreadsheet format and gives annual amounts rather than monthly averages.  It might help some folks doing research to see all the information in this way.  Annual Expenses 2013-2017

1 hour ago, Cementmaker said:

This is very good information, as we will begin our travels on April 1st.  Just one question, how many miles do you travel and how long do you generally stay in one location?

 

Happy new year.

 

We did just under 5000 miles towing in 2017.  A rule of thumb for us is that we do equal to that in sightseeing, just living, etc. so you can put us down for 10,000 miles on the year.  We did about 4 months volunteering and then two one month stays.  The rest of the time we moved around once a week.  

When you are working with other people's expense lists it is wise to do exactly what you are doing here - drill down so you can use the portions of information that will apply to you.  

Also, I will mention that most people, when they first start out, are in "vacation mode" that includes lots of shorter stops and longer days of driving. Once you get past that period you will likely slow down.

We did a couple of 1 month stops this year and decided that we really don't like them very much.  It does save some money but we get hitch itch and are ready to travel again.  In the future we may do just 1 one month stay early in the year but I doubt we will want to do back to back stops that long again.

Also, in addition to our regular 3 month winter volunteering-for-campsite gig I agreed to an additional 1 month fill in job.  We were glad to help out, but, really, that's too much sitting around.

Good luck on your planning.  I hope you enjoy it as much as we do.

Here's our 2017 Fulltime Expense sheet.  In spite of the ins and outs of unexpected expenses and surprise savings, we came in almost exactly on our projected budget - within $30 on the entire year.  I chalk that up to pure luck rather than any budgeting discipline or skill on my part!  Anyway, here's the link to my 2017 entry: 2017 End of Year Expense Report

Just keep in mind the occasional expenses that pop up and can easily wreak a tight budget.  This year we bought tires for camper and pickup, had to replace a windshield, had to do some other repairs - one of them a major one.  You may get by for a few years with nothing like this but over time, these budget busters are sure to come.  When they do, a razor thin budget will be blown away overnight.

34 minutes ago, Al F said:

Scott,  Great tip, your " Tips on reading other people's budgets."

 

Thanks!

One key to using other people's expense figures is to remember that you already have most of the numbers you need.  Many personal expenses stay the same, full time or in a stix and brix.  This includes things like: 

• debt
• groceries
• dining out
• clothing
• hair
• medical and dental expenses
• charitable giving
• gifts
• insurance (life, health, etc.)
• entertainment
• Cell/Internet/TV

The information you need from fulltimers is what they spend on this lifestyle specific expenses, but even with those numbers you need to be aware of their circumstances.  For instance if they are workcamping and never spending anything on their campsite, you need to take that into consideration.  Here are the expenses I include in my annual budget blog:

• campground fees
• propane
• RV maintenance
• travel fuel
• club memberships
• etc.

So you take your own information, then find expense information from fulltimers who are doing more or less what you expect to do.  That will give you a ball park number to work with.  

Most of this post came from this article in our blog:   Tips on reading other people's budgets.

I'm revisiting this thread to answer my own question.  My Rhinoflex lasted just a week shy of 4 years of constant use.  A couple of days ago I noticed a couple of pin holes.  I have a new one on board, so it was time to swap hoses.