So I promised a post about the plan. Here's a quick synopsis.
The plan was to sell the house, buy an RV, live in it here for a year to see if it's too confining. We were going to keep working during this time, keep the cars and then if all went well, quit our jobs, sell the cars (this has now evolved to be keep one car until we see if we feel we need it) and hit the road.
We have been thinking about doing this for over a year. A zillow email with the estimate of our house's worth prompted us to light a fire under our ass. Our first stop was an RV lot. If they felt confining there would be no need for any more research. I had already researched what approximate cost of living would be. Factoring in everything, except healthcare, that's a necessary evil that I wasn't going to allow to stop us before we even started. But there is still a lot more research to do and I didn't want to waste time if the RV felt too small. So off to a lot we went and the RV's were much bigger than my 12 year old brain remembered from my neighbor's tiny one I played in as a kid. We were so excited to proceed with step 2.
The next step was to have a realtor come tell us how far off zillow was. He gave us really great feedback and our excitement continued to grow. However, he made it clear that if we couldn't list until November that we might as well wait until January. People don't buy that close to the holidays. So....what to do....rush or wait? With the housing market, you never know what will happen and with the moron running (I use that term loosely) our country it's more likely to be a shit show than not. So now the rush to get the necessities done by the end of the month. But...first we need to rent an RV. We need a real life experience, not just standing in one in an RV lot.
Renting an RV is to answer some simple questions.
Can I sleep in a tiny box? That's what the bedroom is like. I can be a bit claustrophobic so I need to know I can feel comfortable sleeping with walls so close, even with a slide out, the walls are still pretty close in the bedroom area.
How hard is it to drive? Will I ever want to drive it?
Will the cats be terrified driving around? I know it will take time to get used to it but their initial reactions shouldn't be too terrible or we may need to reconsider. We know the birds will be ok, they were in a cargo van road trip for 4 days and were fine.
Those are the questions renting can answer and then we can push forward with listing the house. Tomorrow is the earliest rental we could get that fit our schedules. And unfortunately renting a Class C was the economically reasonable way to go. It will be smaller on the inside, so if we can handle smaller, well obviously larger will be no problem. As for driving we are renting a 25 ft and the plan is to get 25-30 foot Class A (after much research). We are leaning towards getting the smallest we are comfortable in, because some national parks won't allow really big ones on some of the roads.
So tomorrow could signal the end of our next adventure or....the beginning.
We know 3 days isn't going to give us a true idea of what it will be like, that's why we plan to stay here for a while. I say a while because after discussing the whole year idea, Dave isn't sure he wants to summer here in an RV. So we have some options. One is for him to take an off site summer job. His current job sometimes has the need for employees to temporarily go to other locations. There is a housing stipend and a food stipend, so you actually make more money than if you stay and work your home location. It would be a good way to see what it feels like to be on the road but not quite on the road. It's usually a 2-4 month gig and we'd be making money. Or we can just start our adventure after 6 months instead of a year. The plan includes knowing that being on the road could change everything. It isn't going to be the same as living in an RV park. The expenses will be more and the whole experience will be different. If we hate it, nothing is forever...we sell the RV, buy a condo or smaller house and go back to a more "normal" way of living. Maybe we find somewhere along the way that we like as much as here but with less expensive housing options. Or maybe the housing market has crashed and we get back in while it's down. Who knows? But at least we got a year of travel out of it.
If we really enjoy it but are finding it more expensive than we anticipate, we have allowed for working either the holidays November thru December somewhere or working a summer at an amusement park (like Cedar Point!!). Or both if we have to. Working 5 months and seeing America, still beats working all year and never getting to vacation (our epileptic cat makes it extremely stressful to go away).
We have thought long and hard about this and have done every imaginable "What if?" scenario.
We know we will experience problems, but there are problems with owning a home. We don't want any regrets and we aren't getting any younger. It would be nice to do this while we can still hike the trails in the parks we will visit. The best part is: it isn't something that can't be undone. We are leaning towards buying a used RV for a few reasons. One being how quickly they lose value, the other being horrible reviews from people who bought new...it seems that new ones have a lot of kinks that need worked out, a lot of people suggest letting someone else deal with that hassle and you buying yours after they get those kinks out. Since we aren't sure we will love this life, it makes sense to start with a used one (let's not get crazy...we don't want a junker, so the plan is to get one just a couple of years old!)
Reactions have been mostly positive but we have gotten our fair share of "You are crazy!"
We are just tired of "living to work" to pay for a house that's too big and takes up most of our free time to take care of. We want to "live to live" now while we are young(ish). There is so much equity in our home right now it makes the most sense to use it to give this adventure a try. Worst case scenario...we end up buying a smaller place and going back to work for a few more years.
Stay tuned....we feel 95% sure this rental thing will go well...but you never know.
I won't let fear ever make my decisions for me....don't think I don't have moments of anxiety about the unknown road that lies ahead. But thanks to my brain...I have anxiety about nothing too, so I might as well just go for it!!
🎵🎵 On the road again...I can't wait to get on the road again... or something like that...
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