Kirk W

14 hours ago, RV_ said:

We pretty much wanted to move anyway to a Ranch with no stairs and a much bigger garage, three car this time.

So you are thinking of another move? We just moved a few hundred feet to a bigger apartment and moving seems to get to be more work with every passing year. We thought we were buying our last home when we left fulltime life but that has not turned out to be the case. And we are to a point of downsizing even with the vehicles. I believe that you are about 10 years younger than I so here's hoping that health treats both of you better than it has Pam.

The Pebble Flow     The Pebble Flow Is the All-Electric, Stress-Reducing Camper Trailer of the Future   from Motor Trend Magazine

Dimensions

Exterior length: 25’

Exterior width: 7’6”

Exterior height: 8’8”

The Lightship L1      Tesla Graduates Electrify the RV Industry to Infinity and Beyond With Lightship L1 Camper     From Motor Trend Magazine

Exterior length27 ft

Exterior width8 ft, 6 in

Exterior height, Road Mode6 ft, 9 in

Exterior height, Camp Mode10 ft

Interior height, Camp Mode7 ft, 6 in

You best be really into the ecology and with very deep pockets since either of these small RVs will cost you more than $100,000 and you still need a tow vehicle. 

Does anyone know if Airstream has ever produced the Airstream eStream Trailer? I haven't seen anything about it for a year or more now. 

Is there some way of contacting you?

Are you seeking help to move your fifth wheel to a different site in the same park, to relocate it on the pad it is on now, or possibly move it to a different RV park? You would likely get more responses if you shared more information.

4 hours ago, rickeieio said:

 However, some states, Texas and South Dakota for example, don't require you to have a permanent structure in which you reside, in that state. 

Florida, Texas, and South Dakota are generally the most popular because none of the 3 have a state income tax, none have a time requirement for residency, they accept mail service addresses, and all have been RVer friendly, although it seems that SD is starting to restrict their voting rights. Several other states do ally use of a mail service to qualify as a resident such as Nevada who also has no income tax, and Oregon who does have income tax. As of today, nine states — Alaska, Florida, Nevada, New Hampshire, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Washington and Wyoming — do not levy a state income tax.

12 hours ago, rickeieio said:

For instance, in Ohio, in order to claim residency, you must live in a permanent structure. 

I believe that you are thinking of the requirements to hold a driver's license, register a vehicle, or register to vote? It so, the same is true for the vast majority of states.  Most states have physical address requirements for those functions and that address must be residential and not a business address. It's something to consider for any one going fulltime. 

10 hours ago, markandkim said:

How come the insurance rates are so freakin high and they only write 6 month policies in Texas?

 Texas has liability limits of 30/60/25, which break down to $30,000 per person of bodily injury liability, $60,000 per accident and $25,000 of property damage per accident, higher than most other states.  While Texas auto insurance rates are above the national average, they are not one of the highest 5 states. The rates are influenced by the number and size of claims filed as well as things like extreme weather events and high crime rates. Rural areas tend to have lower rates than cities.  

Quote

Car insurance rates by state in 2024

Behind Louisiana at No. 1, Florida, California, Colorado and South Dakota followed as the most expensive states in the country for auto insurance. 

As to the term of policies, some companies will write policies for 1 year while others limit to 6 months. I recently changed from Safeco who had annual policies to Progressive who will only write  a 6 month policy. Some companies offer both and others only one or the other. 

2 hours ago, lappir said:

not within the City Limits of Norman,

Norman, OK?

2 hours ago, rickeieio said:

Yer slipping bud.

Emissions testing is only required in 7 specific counties in Ohio: Cuyahoga, Geauga, Lake, Lorain, Medina, Portage, and Summit. If your vehicle is registered in one of these counties, you must pass an emissions test every two years to register it. Ohio's vehicle test program requires emissions testing for vehicles from four through 25 years old. 

Indiana Bureau of Vehicles says that registered in Lake and Porter counties are required to undergo emissions tests and tampering inspections every two years if they were manufactured after 1975 and have a gross vehicle weight rating (GVWR) of 9,000 pounds or less. 

13 hours ago, jblo said:

Now, soon as forms arrive, its done in 2 days using TurboTax.

We have 2 social security 1099's, my pension 1099, my 401k(RMD) 1099, 2 investment fund 1099's, and the last 2 years a W2 from my part-time job. I too use TurboTax and mine took me about 2 hours to do, mostly a matter of collecting the documents and scanning the paper ones. I usually have it ready to submit as soon as the IRS begins to accept electronic returns (this year Jan. 29) but this year I was almost a week later ad the last 1099 wasn't yet available. They have until the end of February to send them out but most of ours arrive before the end of January. Since we lived in WY for 18 years and have now been TX residents for 35 years, we have not files a state return in many years, which can complicate things. 

I have been doing our taxes on the computer since 1990 and have used both Turbo Tax and H&R Block software. Lately I have stayed with TurboTax for several reasons but either one is very easy to use and there are a host of others as well. Many retired people are eligible for free filing from the IRS as well if they are willing to do it themselves. The average fee for preparing Form 1040 with Schedule A to itemize personal deductions, and a state income tax return, was a flat fee of $323. The average fee for Form 1040 with the standard deduction, plus a state income tax return, was $220, according to Investopedia. Depending on which one a person chooses and what version of the program, tax software will usually cost between $50-100 and possibly as much as $150 for a business version. 

12 hours ago, durangodon said:

It's a federal mandate for certain areas depending on air quality.

It is actually a state law that sets the rules. There are only 13 states that have no safety or emissions inspections required by law. These states include Alaska, Arkansas, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Montana, North Dakota, South Carolina, South Dakota, Florida, Washington, and Wyoming. 

Vehicle Inspections by State

12 hours ago, kb0zke said:

"Physically 67, mentally 14."

Last fall I celebrated the 42nd anniversary of my 39th birthday!   😏

1 hour ago, fpmtngal said:

 What I do know is that the plans I had when I first sold the house didn’t happen the way I had envisioned it, so any exit plan I might have now will have to be modified when the time finally comes.

While I am an advocate of fulltimers having an exit plan, I also believe that said plans should be kept flexible because one never knows what may have changed when the exit time comes. Like you, we sold the house believing that we would never buy another house but when health forced us to change our lifestyle we did buy a small home in an RVing community that was patterned after the Escapee co-ops, but with some significant differences. We then traveled part time out of that base but eventually sold it and moved into a senior citizen community, where we live today. I do believe that there is comfort & security in having an exit plan but that it should be kept loose and reviewed often. 

4 hours ago, DanZemke said:

For couples with a single forum ID, whose ages fall in different categories (like Danfreda1): should they use the age of the most active participant, or the average age of the two?

I went back and added my age group to the poll. I wrote it with intention of the person making the post but if two people use the same ID I guess that they need to choose. I did consider a second question for a spouse or partner but the poll wouldn't allow a second question. At this point, it is running about as I might have guessed. Having been to many Escapades, I know that there are increasing numbers of younger members but they don't participate in this forum. 

The discussion of owning property got me to wondering what sort of age mix we have on the forums today. I will share mine as I am currently 81 years old and my wife is 82. We have been RVers since the 1970's and members of the Escapees RV Club since 1998. Feel free to remain anonymous if you prefer but please do help us to understand who we are as a forum group.  

Looking at the responses, I'm a little surprised to see that almost half of those responding do own at least some real property. I remember a very similar poll here back fore 2010 and wish that I had access to it because I believe that the numbers were much different then. The forum was far more active at that time and so the numbers of responders were much larger too. I am pretty sure that fewer than 1/3 of those replying then owned real property. Sadly, I do not believe that our group is very representative of the total Escapee membership or a cross-section of the fulltime community any more. There has been a huge increase in younger, still working members but very few of them contribute to these forums. I suspect that the results of this poll would be significantly different if we could gather a true cross-section of the Escapee membership and/or the total fulltime RV community. It is only a guess, but I suspect that the share who own property would also be quite different. 

12 hours ago, 2gypsies said:

I would ask a tax guy rather than a forum!

Or read the IRS publications on the subject. And the IRS also has a lot of assistance for tax payers if you choose to use it. Like many people, I was always slow to go to them because I didn't trust them. Eventually my wife worked in an accounting office where tax returns was a major part of the business and doing so discovered that professionals use the IRS help as a primary resource.  And there is no charge for advice from the IRS.

As Glen points out, keeping records is important if you should get called in or an audit. My parents were called in because the computer flagged then for the large amount given to their church and other charities, when compared to their gross income on 2 occasions. My mother always kept detailed records, hand written into a spiral notebook with the date, amount, and recipient of the donation. They were regular supporters of things ranging from their local church, to Boy Scouts, a children's home, a local teen center, and local disaster relief efforts. The IRS examiner looked closely at her record to be sure that it was kept over the course of the year and not all created just for the interview and once he was sure that it was legitimate it was accepted as accurate. Personally kept records are almost always accepted so long as they have been kept over the year and not created during audit preparation. They are pretty good at detecting faked records, as a former coworker of mine once discovered. 

Keep in mind that with so few returns being examined, the fact that you were not challenged does not prove that everything you claimed as a deduction was acceptable under the law or the IRS rules. 

Generally speaking the answer is no. IRS topic 511  and also Pub. 463  are what you need to consult but like most such publications, it isn't all that easy to understand and you won't find anything that actually covers your situation. In general, to be a deductible expense, the travel must be away from your tax home and for business purposes only. If you vacation while there, the expense is not deductible. 

Quote

Generally, your tax home is the entire city or general area where your main place of business or work is located, regardless of where you maintain your family home. For example, you live with your family in Chicago but work in Milwaukee where you stay in a hotel and eat in restaurants. You return to Chicago every weekend. You may not deduct any of your travel, meals or lodging in Milwaukee because that's your tax home. Your travel on weekends to your family home in Chicago isn't for your work, so these expenses are also not deductible. If you regularly work in more than one place, your tax home is the general area where your main place of business or work is located.

In determining your main place of business, take into account the length of time you normally need to spend at each location for business purposes, the degree of business activity in each area, and the relative significance of the financial return from each area. However, the most important consideration is the length of time you spend at each location.

You can deduct travel expenses paid or incurred in connection with a temporary work assignment away from home. However, you can't deduct travel expenses paid in connection with an indefinite work assignment. Any work assignment in excess of one year is considered indefinite. Also, you may not deduct travel expenses at a work location if you realistically expect that you'll work there for more than one year, whether or not you actually work there that long. If you realistically expect to work at a temporary location for one year or less, and the expectation changes so that at some point you realistically expect to work there for more than one year, travel expenses become nondeductible when your expectation changes.

At present, very few federal tax returns are audited by a person but all of them are run through a software program that compares deductions take to what are considered norms for other people of similar circumstance. A friend who is an IRS investigator tells me that travel expenses are on of the most likely areas to trigger further investigation. 

Quote

Travel expenses defined. For tax purposes, travel expenses are the ordinary and necessary expenses of traveling away from home for your business, profession, or job. An ordinary expense is one that is common and accepted in your trade or business. A necessary expense is one that is helpful and appropriate for your business. An expense doesn’t have to be required to be considered necessary

I should add that my IRS friend used to say that you can claim anything you chose but the IRS determines if they will accept your claimed deductions. So what are the odds of getting audited? Very low. Less than 1% of all individual income tax returns filed for the 2020 tax year faced an audit, according to the most recent data available from the IRS. That means about 1 in 500 tax returns are audited each year, according to CBS news. 

I answered the poll based on our time as fulltimers, even though things have changed and we are no longer RVing. Today there are any still working fulltimers but this group seems to remain mostly retired.  I was fortunate to have worked for a company that had a great, early retirement plan and was able to retire permanently at the age of 57.  We went fulltime, selling the house and all that we could not carry with us and we never looked back. Retiring that early, neither social security or 401k money were available so we began to do RV volunteer positions that supplied a full hookup site and usually some other amenities as part of our budget control. I was given a pension with a "bridge to social security" by so doing we were able to live reasonably well and travel on the money available. About 5 years into our fulltime we began to both draw social security and I lost the bridge part of my pension. In our 12 years of fulltime RVing we did not own any real property and liked it that way because it simplifies life. After 10 years we began to look at acquiring some sort of real estate to park on and in year 11 we did purchase in a co-op community that was similar to the Escapee co-ops but not part of that system. 

4 hours ago, lappir said:

Is real estate really the best investment? 

This is another question with no single answer. To be the best possible investment the real estate must be in the right location and circumstances. That is even more true if it has a home base since you might change your mind about where you wish to settle once you stop RVing. If you buy some raw land in an area that will soon be developed, or where they discover minerals, or some other trigger it will prove to be wonderful. On the other hand, if you buy property with a house and a natural disaster should happen, then not so much. We invested the proceeds from the sale of our house when we left it and then used that money to buy a home when we left the fulltime lifestyle.

For us, the freedom from real property was part of what made life so great.  It meant that we had no one place that had to return unless we chose to do so. We did have an annual doctor visit due to Pam's continuing prescription medicines, but we made those appointments at our conveience. 

8 hours ago, amarie1 said:

That Facebook Escapees group is

I think that quite a few of us here are members of the Escapee Facebook group. 

1 hour ago, amarie1 said:

Well I'm looking for a local Chapter to join but not much out here in the Bay area or even the west coast, other than far south California.

Quote

Gold Nugget Chapter 24 covers Northern California,  with a primary focus on the Sacramento Valley and the Gold Country north of Sacramento.

GOLD NUGGET CHAPTER 24    Not in the Bay Area, but they are a lot closer than any others.

13 minutes ago, amarie1 said:

I took your advice and emailed the club business address with a few I found that seem dead.

That is a good thing. I recently checked to see who is staff for the BOF groups and in the future you may want to add, attention:

It is very difficult to pin down what an action has prevented, and that is true for any preventive maintenance. With wheel bearing there are many variables that can either extend or shorten the useful life of the grease inside. Heat is the enemy of most lubricants but there are many other factors. The probability of needing to do so every year is more of a guess than a fact. This is one of the choices that is much like the age that tires need to be replaced or your transmission serviced. None of those recommended times mean that something bad will happen immediately after that time, but only that it is pretty safe to say that bad things will not happen if the recommendation is adhered to.  

16 minutes ago, sandsys said:

Why

Damn spell-check.