Jesse A

5 hours ago, Kirk W said:

You may also want to look into work-camping to add some extra revenue & a free site or you could try being an RV volunteer as many of us here have done as that dramatically lowers your expenses. 

Thanks for the advice we have! We want to travel and move around for a while then I would definitely love to camp host!

Everyone's situation is different, hopefully my response didn't conce off as rude (I was not trying to be what so ever). We just have a slightly different look on life after route 91.

28 minutes ago, Kirk W said:

How far do you still have to go in order to reach your projected retirement? We were fortunate in that I made most of my career with a company that had early retirement as a part of their benefits package. I was able to meet the requirements of that program and retire at the age of 57, with a health care plan as part of the benefits. I don't know if that programs still exists for my previous employer today or not. I hesitated to leave then as I could have increased the size of my retirement checks by staying there longer but looking back and very glad that I resisted temptation. 

I'm 33 and my wife is 31. We are very fortunate that she can work remotely, we have a house and a rental that we rent in CA.  I was self employed so I dont have any retirement, wife has a 401. We plan to have our properties pay themselves off and live off the monthly income.  Little unconventional but hopefully it works. Life is short!

7 hours ago, Twotoes said:

Jesse A, I to own a house in Calif that is rented out and have a So Dakota address thru Escapees. SD is my domicle, drivers liscense, tags, Insurance etc.  I just file a CA non resident tax return for the rental income. It’s no problem. 

Great to know! My wife has health insurance through her CA employer do you happen to know how that would work? Thanks!

Very cool we saw this somewhere else as well! Great stuff!

We are in a similar situation. We own a house and rental in CA that we rent out, but have been looking into domicile in SD.  For obvious reasons we would love to cut ties with CA, going to follow along on here and a few other threads to start collecting information.

On 5/24/2019 at 2:57 PM, Lloyd said:

I didn't see a dedicated intro forum, so I guess this is as good a place as any! I'm Lloyd and my wife and I have been camping for several years now. We both grew up camping with our folks and have settled into camping quite easily. We're both still working and will be for 5-10 more years before we can hit the road on a more permanent basis. So for right now we're weekend warrioring every time we can get a reservation and enjoying the occasional weekend with the grown kids or grandkids. We started out with a travel trailer and recently upgraded to a new KZ Durango 5er. Really liking the extra space and build quality of the fiver.

 

Thanks for reading,

   Lloyd 

Welcome! This forum and the people are amazing on here! Also we love our 5er.

11 hours ago, GR "Scott" Cundiff said:

Thanks - glad it helps.  A lot of people love boondocking and I know it saves a lot of money too.

Yes it does I think we definitely underestimated our diesel cost, we are also new so we love to see new things, typically moving once a week. 

We were a bit nervous, but now 3 months in and almost everything is second nature!

My wife and I recently started full-timing in our new to us 2015 Keystone Cougar 313RLI 5th wheel. We have a 2016 Ram 2500 Cummins. We decided to start this  full-time RV journey after surviving the Route 91 Harvest festival shooting. After a near death experience and struggling with daily life, we realized that the life we were living was not living! We started to make the switch to full-timing, sold off most of our possessions, rented out our house and bought the 5th wheel. So I guess we are class of 2019? we started March of 2019 currently we are in Florida visiting family. Loving this lifestyle so far! I made a couple videos of our start and some of the process.

Bare with me the quality has gone up since!

Thanks for the info! Defiantly helps with our own fiances. We noticed that campsites was a very large cost along with diesel, we try to boondock as much as possible.

My wife and I recently started full-timing in our new to us 2015 Keystone Cougar. We decided to start this  full-time RV journey after surviving the Route 91 Harvest festival shooting. We were right at ground zero, saw and experienced things that no one should ever see. After a near death experience and struggling with daily life, we realized that the life we were living was not living! We started to make the switch to full-timing, sold off most of our possessions, rented out our house and bought the 5th wheel. We are three months in, we talk about retirement all the time and how its not guaranteed that you make it to retirement. We are going to try and keep the full-timing going as long as we can.

Full-Time RV life in Louisiana we check into our new Rv resort Ponche Plantation in between Baton Rouge and New Orleans. While there we explore the Mississippi River and Oak Alley Plantation. It's wonderful having my parents and brother in town. Hopefully the information is helpful!

Antone have any other ideas here?

2 hours ago, Kimberly said:

Jesse, my TH has 2 30 gallon gas tanks. One for the genny the other auxiliary for 'toys' but.... I generally pump the auxiliary gas into the genny tank, basically making 60 gallons for the generator.
Just a thought for you to ponder.

Yes this is great, thank you for chiming in!

3 hours ago, Alice said:

Hi Jesse!

My husband or I could have written your posts, except for the part about kids.  We're empty nesters, looking the full-time in retirement in about 4-5 years and have looked and looked for the right rig to do that in.  We're pretty sold on the Grand Design toy haulers too.  Have you actually been in a 351M? - Very nice. 

We like the toy haulers for a lot of the same reasons you do.  Large tanks, on-board generators, fuel tank that will be mainly for the generators.  We plan to do a lot of boondocking and those things will be fantastic.  Unlike you, our garage wouldn't be a bedroom, just storage and a place to work on hobbies or to just get away from each other for a bit; a "man-cave" if you will.  I'm really taken with the idea of a patio. 

Of course, in my opinion, the secret of a happy marriage is two bathrooms!

Anyway, all the best in your search!  You've gotten some awesome info that is helping me too! 

Yup we seem to be on the same page. No we have only looked at the 351 online, if we looked in person we would probably go home with it!

15 hours ago, rynosback said:

You say that now. But if the newer models are that much better you might change your mind. Like they could start placing Tesla walls in rigs for the true boondockers. 

Thats true! All depends on the deal we can get as well.

15 hours ago, Darryl&Rita said:

Water/waste tanks typically run close to the axles, just in front, or just behind. Often both. The higher the weight capacity of the trailer, the further forward they'll be, to shift more weight onto the truck. If you don't ever plan to use the fuel station, that's some weight off the rig, even more if the whole thing is deleted.

True, we probably will not use the fuel station. Just some fuel for tge generator. 

2 hours ago, Darryl&Rita said:

Nobody else said it, yet, but toyhaulers are nose heavy without anything in the toybox. Your 2500 is going to struggle.

Thanks for chiming in! we would defiantly be adding weight into the toy box but it probably wouldn't be enough, do you happen to know where they place the fresh water tank?

9 hours ago, 2gypsies said:

Since you don't have children yet why not keep what you have until you really need to upgrade?  Money saved and no need for a bigger truck yet. 

That's the plan, I just like to give myself a long research period. Also the models that are new now is probably what we will buy a few years down the road used.

10 hours ago, rynosback said:

You may not want to chose this model. As there spacious living space just took it to the next level.

https://www.m109riders.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=384040&d=1559537511

She said to open it not eject it.

haha oh no! I think we might skip over that model!

29 minutes ago, jenandjon said:

I carry a couple plastic 55 gallon drums of water. Pit a spigot in one bung and a shrader valve in the other. Pressurized with air it will push water down garden hose to refill your tank. I don't have a picture of this on my phone. I will post one when I get to the computer.

Thats a cool idea as well where do you store/ carry the 55 gallon drums?

9 hours ago, Kimberly said:

Very well Jesse (my hubby's name is Jesse 🙂)

It has about 10000 miles and nothing to report. The stock Sailun tires are due for rotation and wearing evenly. 

Been down some bad roads, mechanically sound but have had to tighten screws here and there because of that. 

It tows great, love the leveling system, and the generator. 

We boondock 95% of the time and I love it. 

No we dont plan on hauling toys. We are looking at a toy hauler for mutiple reasons. 

Huge water capacity 

On board generator 

Rear deck

We can haul our bicycles inside out of the elements 

Lots of toy haulers have 1.5 baths.

That's the basics why we are looking at them, we live boondocking. We have our eyes on the grand design 351m.

9 hours ago, Kimberly said:

Very well Jesse (my hubby's name is Jesse 🙂)

It has about 10000 miles and nothing to report. The stock Sailun tires are due for rotation and wearing evenly. 

Been down some bad roads, mechanically sound but have had to tighten screws here and there because of that. 

It tows great, love the leveling system, and the generator. 

We boondock 95% of the time and I love it. 

Wow good to know. Do you feel like 100 gallons is enough water? Also your husband has a great name!

1 hour ago, Kirk W said:

In that case, the accepted practice on this forum is to insert a link into your signature line that leads to your site. Many of our members have such links to websites and blogs. Posts that are made only to promote a website and especially those which produce an income for the owner have been under review by management but I'm not sure if any decisions have been made as I am not part of management or admin but only a volunteer who removes spam. Many of us have such links and have had for many years.

I'm not familiar with the term "Vlog" but if you notice there is a link in my signature to the website that I own but mine does not produce any revenue.

Yeah totally understand all of this. Just strange because there are videos/ links that are the same as mine in that thread...... I'm happy either way, just glad to be Sharing our story,  maybe more people will chime in.