The Schedule – A Review

We met other Tiffin motorhome owners while at Red Bay, AL and got a group together to go to dinner one night.  It is interesting to hear how people are using their motorhomes and their background.  There are some who full-time like us, some use them half a year, and others just use them for vacations and short trips.  We often get asked how we decided to begin full timing and what was the hardest part of the journey.  Here is how it came to be.

Pattie and I have kept and updated a 5-year family strategic plan since early in our marriage.  This allows us to set goals together and celebrate accomplishments when we review it annually.  About 8-years ago, I slipped in an option in the plan for us to sell everything and travel the country like gypsies.  It was more of a joke or wishful thinking, but we laughed about it each year when we reviewed the plan.  Then about 3-years ago I came across the web site www.rv-dreams.com and began reading how a couple did just that.  The web site is a great resource with hundreds of full-time RV’ers sharing their experiences. I showed it to Pattie and we began to actually consider this as an option. 

Since we have lived in 12 different locations in our 26 years of marriage, we do not have deep relationships tied to a specific geographical location.  Most of our family is in Alabama or Georgia and we were living in Maryland where I retired from the USAF after 24 years.  When both our sons chose to attend Auburn University in Alabama, there was nothing really keeping us in Maryland and establishing residency in Alabama would cut the tuition bills in half.  The simple solution would be to just relocate to somewhere in Alabama, but where?  This made the RV life for a few years attractive.  We purchased a property in Auburn for our sons to live in and we could use as our legal residence.  We would store about half our things and get rid of the rest by selling them or giving them to charity.  Pattie agreed to the concept, but was not totally sold. So, we each got some paper and separately wrote down:

1. The top 3 reasons we should do this
2. The top 3 concerns about doing this
3. The 3 things you will miss the most
4. The top 3 things we will miss the least
5. The top ten things we want to do while full-timing

When we compared notes, many answers were the same.  Living in very close quarters, having an exit strategy, handling emergencies, and financials were top concerns.  Being able to make our own schedule and go where we want together with no set timetable was the number one reason for full-timing. 

We discussed each item and built 2 ½ year program management timeline (see photo) that enabled us to see the multitude of tasks and events that needed to take place before we would actually be own our own to explore those places we want to see.  Tasks and events included selecting a college for our youngest son, getting him a car, moving him to college, selecting an RV, preparing our home for sale, numerous yard sales, trips to the dump, and selecting a location to store the items we want to keep.  We were advised to buy the RV at least six months prior to beginning the adventure to test it and learn how it all works.  We purchased The Bus about nine months before we began and were able to make some modifications to it and fit items in it.  The most difficult thing was to determine what to take in The Bus, what to store and what we could discard.  Doing this early allowed us to move into The Bus and use our much-reduced belongings to stage the house for sale.  This worked well and our house sold in 10 days mid-June.  We hired a freight forwarder to move our storage items to Alabama and we were on our way.  In December, I gave my final notice at work and we sold Pattie’s car leaving us with the Jeep Wrangler that we tow (TOAD). 

For anyone considering this lifestyle, I am happy to provide advice from our lessons learned.  There are also many good references on-line like the rv-dreams web site. 

Until next time, thanks for following us at keepingupwiththejonesrv.