Basic Full-timer questions & discussion

[MidMichHunte]

Hello all, basic question for the FT’ers here. When someone says they are a full timer, do they live 100% of the time on the road or do the usually have a base location, a plot of land, a park or house/apt they can return to where they are a member of a community so they can vote/get mail/register the MH/have a doctor? How do you handle when you just want to come off the road and have a “home address”?

The wife and I have been looking for our first MH for a while and recently she threw me a curve ball by saying why don’t we just sell everything and live in it for a few years once we retire; that isn’t something I expected to her from her. The reasoning behind that option is she doesn’t like the idea of having a house sitting empty for a few years. She’s concerned about the cost and when we come back having squatters or the place being robbed.

Retirement is 5-7 years off so we have a lot of time, but I’d like to get a HM soon to get use to it and the lifestyle before deciding to jump into it FT. I don’t feel we’d be FT’ers for life, we’d use the time on the road to find a location we’d like to build our retirement house on some land. Once we find/do that, we’d probably scale back on the amount of time we spend in the MH.

Now my wife’s simple question just added an other dimension to the evaluation & a lot of questions we have, most are along the lines what to get as our first MH. In our research to date we determined a 36-38’ DP from either Newmar, Tiffin or Winnebago was the way to go & we want to stay in the $150-175k range. Is this still realistic if we were to FT for a few years?

[FatChance]

1. All of the above.

2. It doesn't matter what someone else calls it.

3. Everyone does things differently because everyone has different needs.


FWIW, we full-time.

[scenic route]

I think your approach is correct in buying the RV first...the life style isn't for everyone. Be a shame to have sold the house and find out that living full time in limited square footage isn't your forte.

Personally, I like knowing we have a home base to come back to...just in case.
We've done a few 5&1/2 month trips and only once did I realize we were so far away from home and got a bit antsy. In Haines, AK looking out over the water at snow covered mountain peaks & watching the ships slide by...I was sitting at the booth during high tide and it looked like we were on a boat. That's when 'holy crap', I'm over 4K miles from home. During my slight panic attack, a humpback breached 2/3rds out of the water and I realized THIS is why we're here!

I now know I could very easily do the full time thing...but I do get a lot of comfort knowing we have a permanent nest to come home to after a long summer. We did down size to a manufactured home in a small retirement community...shut the water heater off, turn off the water, set the A/C to 80 degs and we're gone.

[twogypsies]

Originally Posted by MidMichHunte

Hello all, basic question for the FT’ers here. When someone says they are a full timer, do they live 100% of the time on the road or do the usually have a base location, a plot of land, a park or house/apt they can return to where they are a member of a community so they can vote/get mail/register the MH/have a doctor? How do you handle when you just want to come off the road and have a “home address”?

If you have a RV but come back to your house to stay for months you're not a full-timer. Full-time means full-time in your RV. You could travel and then go to a RV park for a few months but you'll still be in your RV. However, you can call it anything you want.

Full-timers typically get a mail forwarding service in a state that is well-acquainted with full-timers. The three popular ones are Texas, South Dakota and Florida. We chose Texas and the whole switchover process only took a couple hours in Livingston, the home of the Escapees RV Club (highly recommended, by the way). That doesn't mean you have to stay in those states with your RV. It's just your address. Using that address you can register vehicles and vote. (Most prefer to only vote national because you don't really know the local issues unless you live there) Medicare & Medicare Supplements work very well with traveling. Medicare Advantage - not so well in most cases. We've easily had various surgeries as we traveled; including cancer. It can be done and you can choose the best places to have it done. Physical therapists will even come to your RV. It's easier to recoup in a small space. We seemed to winter in the same area so that's where we chose our doctors. We had no problems with medical.

When you come off the road just do a change of address to your home state where you will then be living . . . just like anyone does when they move.

The wife and I have been looking for our first MH for a while and recently she threw me a curve ball by saying why don’t we just sell everything and live in it for a few years once we retire; that isn’t something I expected to her from her. The reasoning behind that option is she doesn’t like the idea of having a house sitting empty for a few years. She’s concerned about the cost and when we come back having squatters or the place being robbed.

Leaving a house sit can cause many problems. Your wife is correct. Renting it out also poses problems. Is that where you would want to live your life out? Weatherwise? House size? Yard upkeep? Many full-timers chose a different place. We did. By the way, we're from Michigan, also; but certainly didn't want the winters anymore.

Retirement is 5-7 years off so we have a lot of time, but I’d like to get a HM soon to get use to it and the lifestyle before deciding to jump into it FT. I don’t feel we’d be FT’ers for life, we’d use the time on the road to find a location we’d like to build our retirement house on some land. Once we find/do that, we’d probably scale back on the amount of time we spend in the MH.

Don't put a time period on full-timing. That's not a commitment . When things don't go perfectly it's too easy to quit. Any issue can be handled and probably has been handled by full-timers. To really enjoy the lifestyle you BOTH have to go into it fully with no reservations. You can't just 'try it'. We made our decision in May (never heard of full-timing before that) and had everything sold and took off in August. Absolutely no regrets for our 16 years of full-timing. It went by so very fast. We saw the country, including Canada & Alaska, many times. We volunteered for state and national parks (Sleeping Bear Dunes Nat'l Lakeshore, Michigan was one of them) - highly recommended to give back to places we enjoyed and to have a purpose. We have more friends now than before. Our friends are fellow full-timers we met through the Escapees RV Club, doing like activities (hiking, geocaching, 4-wheeling, boondocking on public lands) and as we traveled. Twenty-three couples have now settled down in the same area. We have an instant family and help for anything we may need is always there.

Now my wife’s simple question just added an other dimension to the evaluation & a lot of questions we have, most are along the lines what to get as our first MH. In our research to date we determined a 36-38’ DP from either Newmar, Tiffin or Winnebago was the way to go & we want to stay in the $150-175k range. Is this still realistic if we were to FT for a few years?

If you look for a good used motorhome by those manufacturers it's certainly doable.

Hopefully this can be moved to the full-timers section.

[Mtn. Lion]

Not sure about the logic with your wife. It sounds unreasonable and spontaneous.

Full timing isn't for everyone. I wouldn't sell the home unless it is for profit to buy another home + motor home.

It is good to have a place of your own. If you think the house is going to be ransacked or populated with crack heads, buy a home in a safer area. Meanwhile, full time to your hearts content.

[grindstone01]

We plan to full time for at least 10 years, so it made sense to sell our house and then buy another house when we settle down. I figured by selling the house, we would save about $10k+ a year, which that savings alone should pay cash for a small retirement home in the mid Mich area. I base our savings on:
1 - no home insurance, $1500
2 - no property tax, $2500
3 - no utilities, $2000
4 - no maintenance, est $2000
5 - current house sale funds in the bank earning interest, ______ fill in blank!
6 - No state income tax (Texas), (priceless)
I did not figure in the truck cost, since I would have owned a truck no matter where I lived. I probably would have owned a fifth wheel anyway and our used one didn't cost that much. We volunteer/workamp all over the USA, so our camping cost is very low and the workamp covers the expenses.
The best benefit is we don't have a house to worry about or to rush home to and we can visit family when we want to with the RV. The renting our house nightmare is not a option for us. We owned 4 rental houses during the last 30 years, BTDT.

[GypsyCoder]

When DW and I decided to full time, one of the reasons was to figure out if and where we would want a home base (or two), we were positive we did not want to live in far northern Wisconsin as we were getting older, thus selling the house was a no brainer.

As for voting, we moved our domicile to Texas, that is where our vehicles are registered, where we vote, and where we have our mail sent to (and then forwarded to wherever we happen to be)

You do want to make sure the lifestyle is right for you, DW, the dog and I lived in the motorhome in the driveway next to the house for a couple of months one summer. We treated the house as a store and laundromat, but for nothing else. Once something came from the ‘store’ a place needed to be found in the motorhome.

There are many ways of full timing, we found we like to be in a place for a couple of months and then move to another place. It is quite nice to be ‘in the area’ for one the kids, or other relatives for a couple of months . That way visiting is not so rushed and disruptive to their schedule.

We are at a couple of years and see no end in sight.

[robertkathy]

kathy and i did the opposite of scenic route we sold our homes bought the largest class a and trailer we could. to be fair i spent 5 yrs in the navy and spent a 1.5 yrs living on a sailboat so i knew i would be ok it was to get kathy out for an adventure.

[450Donn]

Full timing is a life style. Motor Homes dont like to sit still. That is two truthes you can never forget.
Living full time i an RV means giving up all but the basics. A couple changes of clothes, minimal cooking utinsils. At some point in your life everyone goes off the road. At that point your RV will be next to worthless, so plan to have money set aside to allow you to settle down somewhere.
Motor Homes have a drive train that will need maintenance and repairs whether you drive all the time or park for months at a time. To own a motor home most people have a small car to get around in. Another drive train to maintain. If your going to buy something now to live in for a period of time in one place a trailer, fifth wheel, or park modelmoght be a far better option.

[grindstone01]

Originally Posted by 450Donn

Full timing is a life style. Motor Homes dont like to sit still. That is two truthes you can never forget.
Living full time i an RV means giving up all but the basics. A couple changes of clothes, minimal cooking utinsils. At some point in your life everyone goes off the road. At that point your RV will be next to worthless, so plan to have money set aside to allow you to settle down somewhere.
Motor Homes have a drive train that will need maintenance and repairs whether you drive all the time or park for months at a time. To own a motor home most people have a small car to get around in. Another drive train to maintain. If your going to buy something now to live in for a period of time in one place a trailer, fifth wheel, or park modelmoght be a far better option.

I disagree, there is no one solution that fits all situations. We have a fifth wheel and it works good for us but there are definite benefits to having a MH. Different people with different needs will have very different solutions that work for them. It's best to be open to all the solutions available!

[twogypsies]

Originally Posted by 450Donn

Full timing is a life style. Motor Homes dont like to sit still. That is two truthes you can never forget.
Living full time i an RV means giving up all but the basics. A couple changes of clothes, minimal cooking utencils.

I disagree. A motorhome is quite capable of sitting in one place for months. During the winter many people go to a park for up to 6m. It's not going to hurt a motorhome. The mileage is put on the more economical car.

Full-time certainly doesn't mean you give up the basics. You can take whatever you had in your house in the way of appliances and clothes - definitely more than a couple changes! The only things you leave behind are a big house, big yard, excess furniture and lots of unused, un-needed 'stuff'.

[momdoc]

I have to agree it is a lifestyle change and not for everyone.

Handling mail, driver's license, voter registration is not difficult. We have not had a US address for 13 years and no problem.

We get medical care as we need it on the road but do maintain a relationship with a "primary Doc" and visit him ever 12-18 months.

I have to disagree on one point though if you spend 6 months in one place (Florida for example) and 6 months on a lake in somewhere north that to me is not RV living but rather trailer park living and i do not mean this in negative way but rather a lifestyle way. To me full time RV living entails a good amount of traveling and seeing the country. Just my humble opinion.

[MidMichHunte]

A lot of great feedback and a lot to still consider. I agree with the posts that state we need to make sure the FT lifestyle is what we want before jumping into it. The plan is to by the MH now, 7-9 years before retirement, that way we can use it, get used to the lifestyle and once we retire, or maybe a few years before, we can go FT IF we determine it's what we want. I am fortunate as I can work anywhere, which makes the FT lifestyle a bit more do able before retirement.



Once we retire, if we decide FT'ing is the way to go, we'll sell the house and put the proceeds away to be used to buy land and build a new house when we decide to settle down. If FT'ing is not for us, we can stay here or move, the future will determine that.



We have, as others posters with ties to Michigan & other Northern states mentioned, grown tired of the winters up here and see the MH as a way to get away from it and still enjoy the journey. We plan to take trips to areas we are considering to relocate to once we retire, we'll use the trips as a test to see if we like the area or not.


The BIG challenge will be downsizing, living on only what we need. While we don't have a mansion, we have a lot of "stuff" that has built up over the years. They kids, one in college and one a Junior in HS (one of the reasons for the original 5-7yr time frame), have dibs on some of the stuff, but a lot of it needs to go. I assume every FT'er here had to go through that. We're starting now so we should be done in plenty of time if we decide to make the jump. The hard part will be not to over downsize, in case we decide FT'ing is not for us...



Another issue I need to consider is the overall MH length, we have a 40' pole barn we intend to store the MH in, it has 14.5' walls with a slider so height shouldn't be an issue. With only 40', we're stuck with a 36'-38' MH max. Not a show stopper, but it may be tight. If we could find the right used 36' MH to buy now, and sell it if we decided to go FT, and buy a longer one, that would work, but the price would need to be right as I don't want to take a big hit on selling it once we upgrade.



Once again, thanks for all the good information and things to think about, I appreciate it. I'll be around here for a while learning so plz feel free to add anything you think of that may help as we still have a lot to learn.

[grindstone01]

With 7-8 years to go before FT, I would consider a smaller starter MH first. When FT life begins, you can then upgrade to a newer larger MH you would want for FT. A 40' MH is good for FT but way overkill for weekend camping.