Full time with young kids anyone????

[Rob G]

Do any of you have young children that you full time with? I have a full-time career that I will be at for the next 15-20 years, and three kids. Their ages are 5, 4, and 2. We home school the kids. We are thinking of selling the stick house, and becoming full-timers. We would be local full-timers, but would have the freedom to vacation and travel several times a year. Full-timing would allow me to really put a lot away towards retirement, and actually allow me to retire sooner. My question is, how feasible is it with young kids??? Most of the posts I have been reading are from empty nesters, or retired folks....... Thanks --Rob P.S. Great site!!

[Rob G]

Do any of you have young children that you full time with? I have a full-time career that I will be at for the next 15-20 years, and three kids. Their ages are 5, 4, and 2. We home school the kids. We are thinking of selling the stick house, and becoming full-timers. We would be local full-timers, but would have the freedom to vacation and travel several times a year. Full-timing would allow me to really put a lot away towards retirement, and actually allow me to retire sooner. My question is, how feasible is it with young kids??? Most of the posts I have been reading are from empty nesters, or retired folks....... Thanks --Rob P.S. Great site!!

[FredB]

Rob,

We don't full time but we travel for a couple of months at a time. I am one of those "retired folks" and home school our 13 year old grandson (he has lived with us since he was born). This is our fourth year at home schooling and traveling.

We have found that the younger he was the easier it was to pick up and go. At times we have been able to tie together home school lessons with travel destinations. When out west we visited Mesa Verde National Park when we covered early Native Americans in History. We visited Arches and Canyon Lands National Parks when we studied rock formations in Geography and Science. We have followed the path of Louis and Clark, stopped and looked at the wagon ruts left behind by those that went west looking for their fortune, visited Williamsburg, toured Washington DC. We visited the reproduction of the Parthenon in Nashville, TN when we covered Greek History. I firmly believe this RV lifestyle has given us the opportunity to give our grandson a much more rounded education than he would have ever received in a standard school building.

The thing to remember when traveling with young children and home schooling is to make time for fun. With ages 5, 4 and 2 they will play happily with each other. The older they get the more they will want to have their own friends. In most campgrounds in the winter there are very few kids. So you have to make time to be where other kids can be found.

The older my grandson gets the more he wants to be with his friends and the more involved we get with activities like Boy Scouts, Karate lessons, and home school PE at the YMCA. Now when we want to take off for a while we have to look at his calendar to see when we won't miss critical activities.

One of the nice things about this lifestyle is that we can travel in the off season when it is a lot less crowded and a lot less expensive. Tomorrow we leave for Florida for a few weeks and will visit Orlando and Tampa. From there we will leave the RV behind and take a very inexpensive 8 night cruise to Panama and Costa Rica.

Good luck on your decision. I was able to plan, work hard, save hard and retired at 49. I am now 54 and I have not missed work for a moment.

Fred

[Frankie]

I think because of thier ages it would be great.I cant think of a better way to teach math than with the Grand Canyon as a backdrop. It is my dream to take my son and wife on the road as soon as the older boys are out of High Scool,around 5 years away.Just need to train the right person to run my company and check back here and there as we travel. I have several skill , so finding something to do with all that free time won't be a problem. We can still maintain a little structure along the way for my son. Good Luck and let us know your progress.

[Rob G]

Thanks Fred and Frankie!! I appreciate your thoughts. I'm a firm believer in homeschooling too.... I posted the below response in the general section too....

Wow! What a great site! Thank you all for your responses and word of wisdom. Mamaloya, JPerry29 Gary, Lorna, 007, and Monaco, I really really appreciate your posts!! I'm going to try and respond to you all at once. Please forgive if I forget to answer a question...
Let's see, We live in a home where we owe 630K. The home was appraised for 850K. I really feel that the way the market is now, I'd be lucky to get much more than that. If I wait a year or two, I should be able to get more value out of it. The thing is, that this is our second home. We upgraded, and unfortunately bought too much home. My monthly expenses are nothing short of astronomical, (you'd be amazed). My wife stays home with the 3 kids, and she obviously has her hands full. We are a one income family, which means that I have to work gobs and gobs of overtime just to make ends meet. Usually 6 out of 13 of my regular days off are at work working overtime, which means I have only 6-7 days off a month to see my family. I am working for the house. I don't get to spend hardly any time with my family. It's really a dumb way to live. Really dumb. I am missing all of the great times that we could be having. No vacations, no trips, I'm not saving for retirement. If something were to happen to me medically, we would lose everything. So the clear thing to do would be to down size to a more affordable lifestyle. The only problem with that is that, the houses that I can afford (no more than 28% of my income) would be a really, really small house in an area that I don't really want to live in.

The obvious soultion would be to move to that small home, and have my life back with the family. The nice house on the hill is not all that it's cracked up to be. Money problems are what destroy lives.

My wife is the one that planted the seed about full-timing. She would be all for that option. The idea was to take 150-200k and get a class A and live in that until the kids get older (teens). We won't have anymore kids so the pregnancy thing isn't a problem. We can get a far better rig than we can neccessarily get in a stick house.

We've rented a mh and gone places and LOVED it!! But I am afraid of the space thing. We could live at the beach, or at long term mh areas all around the southern part of California. The kids would have ample room to play and thrive. But what about structure and the anchor that a stick home provides?

The idea that I'm leaning towards would be to sell the home that is enslaving me, and rent a small house. We would have enough money left to still get the big rig. We could travel and have vacations again etc... What a great thought! Later, when the market improves, we could even move towards the purcahse of a more reasonable residence.

I know, for now at least, the kids could handle it. But the oldest will soon be 6 years old, and 5-10 years goes by so quickly...

The smart thing for me would be to do whatever it takes to max out in my retirement plan, and retire at the age of 49-50. That's about 15 years out.

We have two boys and a girl. The girl is 4 years old, and already enjoys her space away from her borthers...

They will all be home schooled. We belong to a home school organization (umbrella), and everything that they get in a stick school is provided for them. Even the socialization with their peers is covered with lots of extracurricular activitives, field trips, and sports. They even get to ineract with kids that are older and younger than them. I feel that they get a more well rounded world outlook that way. I was against the idea of homeschooling at first, but if you look into it, it can be a great advantage for the kids. You'd be amazed at how many kids are getting full ride scholarships at major Uni's that were home schooled K-12.

I'm going break my goals down into smaller goals. The first is to get to the point where I'm living within my means. That means selling the stick house first. Then, maybe renting for a spell, or buying a cheaper home. and moving on to the next chapter.

Step two would be to live in the mh for a few weeks, then months, and see if it's something we can actually do. Realistically.

Then, who knows....

It's such a romantic idea, to full time, but I don't know if it's the best idea for the family.

I do know, without a doubt that in 15-20 years, when the kids are grown, and it's just momma and I, we WILL be full timers.. But for now....

What I love about this, is that it gives me prospective. It helps me to see the big picture.

Whats the sense in having a big beautiful home that I can enjoy and have people over, with a gameroom and pool/spa, and large yard with horses and fun stuff like that when I'm not there to enjoy it?

Parking the 40 foot class A right on the water, and surfing everyday for months on end sure sounds like paradise to me though.... But it might be a little selfish of me....

JPerry29- "All the things you spend on your daily life such as groceries, school supplies, clothing, fuel for the car, literally everything you spend now will virtually remain unchanged. The exception of course will be the kids, they will just get more expensive as time passes. Especially the grocery part. Of course there are exceptions. Since you will be physically occupying what is probably a much smaller space, the cost to heat and cool it will be less, but not non-existant. Regardless, you'll have a mortgage on the RV, pay rent for the space you occupy (unless you are one of the lucky few that has a friend or family with land that you can use for free), and daily living expenses which in all likelyhood won't change. All the while living in a depreciating rig that in all likelyhood won't survive intact for 15-20 years."

Thank you for those words. Very insightful, and you're 100% right. While we will break even with the purchase of the mh, we will still have a lot of the same costs for other things....Then lose the 200k in the end from depreciation, and won't have anything to put down on a new home in the years ahead......

Anyway, keep the thoughts coming in. I really do like the feedback, and I keep you all posted too... Sorry if I ramble.

Thanks! -Rob

[Mrs.Anthony337]

We are looking to FT soon aswell- we have teenaged sons. Someone somewhere gave me this link- http://www.familiesontheroad.com/ and many others...it is being done by all sorts of people- it is not for everyone, but that is for each of us to decide.

The more we look at it the more we like it- now we just have to find the 'right rig'.

[Lorna]

When you go to a museum, natural attraction, living museum, etc tell the folks there that you homeschool. It has been our experience that they will do a little more than usual. especially if you go during the week when they don't have a large group. We have visited places and been the only folks there. We have gotten expanded tours and more in depth personalized tours (my kids got to ask lots of questions). The tour person does all the teaching. And I got to list it as a "field trip" and a day of school. The only problem I can see is that this type of "learning" lends itself more to "unschooling" than a text-book based curriculum.

[im2cuteferu]

I'm a single mom with 2 girls and we full-time in a 25 ft TT. We loved it for weekends and such and couldn't wait to move in. Reality is that you have nowhere to be alone. It is small and has thin walls. Not enough room for everything the kids and you want to bring along. Small cluttered rooms drive me crazy. Kids make a mess. I'm still adjusting to it. It isn't all bad but I'm feeling a bit closed in right now. I love the chairs outide under the awning, and the fresh air. Cost is a major thing for me right now. That is why I got rid of the house.

[BSFocht]

We fulltime with 3 kids... ages 8, 5, and soon to be 3. We have been fulltiming since July. We do not miss the house and the kids enjoy all of the outings in the different cities they have been able to see. We travel in a 40' Newmar Allstar 3950 which has a two-story bedroom in the back so the kids have their own room and we have ours so there is no having to make beds out of tables or sofas every night. We absolutely LOVE it!

[rvgrandma]

We did it twice when our kids where young. The first time was only a few months until we found a rental.

The second time was when the kids were 14 and 15 and lasted for 4 years. We started out with a TT with twin beds but after a year bought a 2 bedroom TT with big livingroom/dinette slide. The kids room had 3 beds in it. Due to their size, they were too heavy for one so we split it in half for storage for them. The only real problem was our kids were 14 year old girl and 15 year old boy. Our son went to public school and I homeschooled our daughter. They learned the simple rule - if you want privacy, go for a walk. When our daughter was 18 she said she was tired of living in an RV. She said she would be home for another 2 years. We traded it in for a manufactured home and she moved out the day we signed papers. Lost more on that house, even after 8 years in it, than we ever lost on an RV.

They do have MH now that have bunks in them and even an extra bathroom, but I do not know of any with triple bunks. TT are the only ones I know that comes with them. And I would not go fulltime and have to make up the beds everyday. This adds a lot of stress that can quickly overshadow the positives.

An option to think about is to buy a lot in an RV park that you can use as a home base. There are ones where you can put sheds on which could be used as a place to extra playing room, storage or whatever. The lot will not loose value and the kids can make friends in the area (probably outside the park) therefore feeling like they do have a 'home', a place they grew up in.

On the reverse side, military families move all the time and for the most part the kids come out fine. People are more mobile now and kids rarely grow up in the same area.

MH's are nice but for that large of a family you might want to consider 5th wheel or TT. With a TT the pickup will allow you to carry along the bikes or other family toys. You can get a lot of nice TT, 5ers, and tow vehicles.

Plus, with the trailers, if your vehicle breaks down, you still have you home to stay in. Whereas with a MH, if it breaks down you all have to go to the motel. When we lived in the TT, our truck broke down. Our truck, with trailer attached, were towed back to the park we were staying in (fortunately we had not gotten but 10 miles from the park), unhitched and backed into the spot then the truck taken to the shop to be fixed.

As others mentioned - the closeness can be the number problem. If couples can't stand being that close with each other with no where to escape except outside, it can be a marriage breaker.

I agree that you do need to sell the expensive house and downsize. Why have it if you can't enjoy it? That is one reason many of us go for RV lifestyle - get rid of material things and enjoy this life and country.

Best of luck and let us know what direction you go.

[amy5708]

Rob,

we are planning on doing this ourselves. We have 2 girls, 9 and 11 years old.

I don't know if your situation is anything like ours, but you sound a lot like we did about 5 years ago.

I have been into downsizing our stuff for years, once I realized that the "big house and lots of stuff" syndrome that plagues middle america meant that we had to work more and see each other less.

We had an offer on our 4000 square-foot house when it wasn't even on the market and jumped on it. I don't think these prices will get better for years. The scandal that's unfolding with inflated home appraisals driving the bad mortgages is getting very ugly.

Our lives are too short to keep stressing about paying for things like big screens and fancy houses.

We now are renting a house half the size of our old one, had to get rid of half of what we own, cut back on eating out and big vacations.

The upside? We have no debt except for a small camper payment. We aren't tied down to our "stuff", and we can leave pretty much any time we want to spend quality time with our 9 and 11 year old girls.

We haven't given up our high paying jobs yet, but still use them to save for our big adventure next year.

You guys need to figure out what's really important to you, and just make sure everyone in the family is on the same page.

amy

[Jackm]

My wife and I have been full-timing for around four years. Everything we own is in or being towed by our motorhome. We used to think it was a big deal to travel with two large dogs and three cats. But last Friday, my wife gave birth to a baby girl. Now we're really cooking. In truth, we're one of those full-timing families that wouldn't have it any other way. That being said, having a newborn certainly raises the stakes. Should be interesting.

Jack

[amy5708]

Congratulations Jack! Another generation of RV'ers. That's great. Do you have room for the crib in the RV? Tee Hee.

Do you mind asking what you guys do on the road for income? DH and I are thinking about having him either do on-the-road-sales or workcamp while I travel nurse. We are leading to workcamping, since I will have to be in one spot for 12 weeks at a time for nursing.

[Jackm]

Thank you.

We actually do have room for a crib but it's a real small crib. I recently read that kids get larger as they grow older but it may simply be one of those Internet roumors.

My wife and I are writers. We have a couple of books out and we also do some freelance stuff. We've done some work-camping in the past but found that its really for RVers that are looking for a way to save some money while meeting other RVers. We needed to find a way to actually make money so we no longer work camp. Anyways, I could go on for hours on the issue of making money on the road. It's a complicated topic.

Take care and let me know how your winter goes. You can always private message me.

Jack