What is truly full time?

[philnail]

We have a 2013 Entegra Anthem paid for. We are debt free. We stay in Southern California for the winter. We stay at www.silentvalleyclub.com. I stay 120 days for $700 total that includes power. Beautiful park great people. Then I drive 1 hour from here and stay 2 weeks for $39 then boondock and go back for another 2 weeks. Then summer comes and we head out. This last year we did 11,000 miles and went to the Island of Newfoundland

We live cheap. Less than $3,000 per month. We have a blast plus we want to be with down to earth people so we don’t go to high end resorts. When we travel we go to Walmart and others which is free

Great life and I can tell you they will pry the steering wheel out of my hands at 110 years old. Both myself and my wife have no desire for a house ever again

[Nanci]

When I retired we traveled for 6 months in the RV, came back home and analyzed the cost and hassle of retaining a home versus full-time RVing. Sold the house, the stuff and moved on. We are camp hosts for eight months of the year and able to travel and explore the remainder. Financially it works well for us.

[Zooandmrfox]

Rent for a one bedroom apartment, is $12-1400 a month around here, and that's the low income housing. Utilities and internet was close to $400 a month.

Now we pay $300 for our new 35' travel trailer, and $700 a month for our space, and utilities are $75 that includes internet lol. So we are saving about $800 a month to buy a house, and enjoy vacationing in our trailer some day. Tough to find a park around town with no tweeters lol. Which is why we upgraded to a new model, and live just outside of town at a nice quiet park.

We love it. I remember renting a studio years ago, that was horrible. Now I live in a luxurious studio size one bedroom.

In retrospect, my quality of living is much better, and easily take weekend vacations within 2-300 miles anytime we want, and the other fulltimers that come through our park are mostly retired, have great wisdon, and are happy. Can't get a neighborhood of people like that in any town anymore. Fulltiming is great we live a blessed life.

Good luck on your journeys, read this forum regularly lol it will save you, and
P.s. Get a large post office box

[Feiter]

Originally Posted by 450Donn

A true full timer, a person or persons who live in their RV 24/7/365, and move on a semi regular basis are the most common. There are folks that say their full timers, but their RV has not moved in years. Each is doing it for a variety of reasons. Your idea of full timing and living cheaper is likely not going to happen. Unless you spend a lot of time camp hosting site fees can run anywhere from 10 to 50 dollars a night. Add fuel costs, insurance, maintenance and upkeep of the RV and it really makes no sense. The RV life is not a way to save money. It is a way to enjoy retirement.

Spoken like a person who doesn't live in California...our housing cost can eat up most of a fixed income. BTW, maybe Baja California (Mexico) where you can monthly for less than $500

[Kurtsara]

Originally Posted by philnail

We have a 2013 Entegra Anthem paid for. We are debt free. We stay in Southern California for the winter. We stay at www.silentvalleyclub.com. I stay 120 days for $700 total that includes power. Beautiful park great people. Then I drive 1 hour from here and stay 2 weeks for $39 then boondock and go back for another 2 weeks. Then summer comes and we head out. This last year we did 11,000 miles and went to the Island of Newfoundland

We live cheap. Less than $3,000 per month. We have a blast plus we want to be with down to earth people so we don’t go to high end resorts. When we travel we go to Walmart and others which is free

Great life and I can tell you they will pry the steering wheel out of my hands at 110 years old. Both myself and my wife have no desire for a house ever again

I will stay in my house before I camp in a walmart parking lot.

[Pyropete]

Originally Posted by Barbaraok

You experience is not all the unusual, the first owners of any rig are the quality control check. One of the reasons that we advise buying a gently used, maybe higher level of rig that you would buy new. Let someone else deal with the 'break-in' period. I know we would not have been able to afford our coach, but by buying a 3 year old one, we were able to get the DP that we wanted.

It's the reason I am not going with a class A or C. If something went wrong with a 5th wheel, as long as I had tires on it and could still pull it with me then I will be ok. As for the truck I can always set up in a place, and have them tow the truck to repair. Would be much easier to find a place to repair a vehicle over a motorhome.

[Pyropete]

Originally Posted by Zooandmrfox

Rent for a one bedroom apartment, is $12-1400 a month around here, and that's the low income housing. Utilities and internet was close to $400 a month.

Now we pay $300 for our new 35' travel trailer, and $700 a month for our space, and utilities are $75 that includes internet lol. So we are saving about $800 a month to buy a house, and enjoy vacationing in our trailer some day. Tough to find a park around town with no tweeters lol. Which is why we upgraded to a new model, and live just outside of town at a nice quiet park.

We love it. I remember renting a studio years ago, that was horrible. Now I live in a luxurious studio size one bedroom.

In retrospect, my quality of living is much better, and easily take weekend vacations within 2-300 miles anytime we want, and the other fulltimers that come through our park are mostly retired, have great wisdon, and are happy. Can't get a neighborhood of people like that in any town anymore. Fulltiming is great we live a blessed life.

Good luck on your journeys, read this forum regularly lol it will save you, and
P.s. Get a large post office box

Yah I will probably be in the same situation. MY home is paid off thanks to my grandfather and inheritance, but if I ended up selling and renting (hate yard work... 2.5 acres of yardwork takes about 15 hours every weekend) renting will be about 1300 for average one bedroom here in Sacramento unless I want to live in a bad area. And to think about 15 years ago I was paying for the same 1 bedroom that cost me 775 per month.

But I plan on buying the 5th wheel and truck and paying cash for it so I won't have payments for those except for reg/ins. So in the winter near Quartzsite I could probably stay out there for about $200 a month or even less depending on dog/cat/me food.

[Bobbafett]

Originally Posted by Don Juane

I'd stay away from Youtube as a "full timing" inspirational source as it has turned into a cottage industry of mostly a large-scale B.S. factory. It's the new "reality show" medium where everyone can be a star and with that get paid one penny for every 10 clicks they can sucker an audience into. So everyone is out clowning around, exaggerating, sensationalizing and in general making stuff up to get you to watch while they collect their pennies. Now if you have a wife or girlfriend in a bikini and post that as your cover thumbnail, you can generally expect to get 30K - 100K views for each episode that means you can make $30 on up to $100 per 10 minute video. So if you turn one out every couple of days you can see there can be money in it but I would never "ho" myself out to that point, personally. So the bottom line is that the content is for views and not in all cases matches reality.

So if your desire to "full-time RV" is based on any of this and while adding to your inspiration level, blogs and while realizing most blogs cover only the good days and don't cover the constant issues of maintenance, moving, cooking, etc. Then you may not have the best picture of what a "full-time RV" lifestyle is really all about.

I full-time RV in my 24' unit and enjoy myself a lot. I don't youtube because I don't want to work that hard and might start to vomit when I caught a glimpse of myself in a mirror if I exploited myself or loved ones like that for the cheap sell-out of youtube "pennies for clicks". I don't blog because while I'm entirely enjoying life, I now realize that the better I am at explaining how great a spot I may visit is, the more people who will show up in my campsite the next time I return. Additionally they will be there with all their friends, their dogs and their drones and also with their smart phones and selfie sticks. So for me there is no more blogging (I did it 10 years ago but today everyone is online and I can't add anything to it and if I could I would only be shooting myself in the foot by doing so, so I quit.)

I drive to all locations north and south and I've learned to try to observe things that people have made, their art, things they do and their day to day living and I do all that with a completely self-contained solar setup and I park where I can, from empty open fields to accepting parking lots because at least in the US there is no way anyone I know could afford campground stays, where in general these days they are starting more and more at around $50 per night and I might add at the Houston Rodeo I was recently hit with a request for $85 a night.

So in short, know what it is you are getting into and that won't come from youtube or popular blogs, because those are entertainment and while they give you an overview, that is not generally what people are doing all day. Cooking and cleaning alone will take up the majority of your time (if you can't afford the new $14-$22 lunches most places worth eating at today are changing).

So I'd suggest to go out and rent a RV as the very first step. Then see if your life becomes what it is you have been dreaming of. If it works out, then buy one that matches the way you have discovered you like to travel. And with this suggestion, the same fools warning goes as buying a new car, and that's to find a dependable model that is old enough to be affordable. The if it's actually cheap enough, you won't have to sell your house before you find that full-timing is for you or not.

Yeah. Totally know the YouTube click b.s.
Reason why I was asking here for more reliable info. And we already own our 35' class a. Will be upgrading to 42-45 DP for full time. Already have "lived in it for several weeks...not a vacation. Had no house when we sold ours. Then drove across country. Not a veteran rv'r. But have experience.

[Bobbafett]

Originally Posted by Barbaraok

You don't think you could find places to stay for less than $900/month. Obviously you aren't west of the Mississippi.

As far west as you can go.....

[twogypsies]

Originally Posted by Pyropete

It's the reason I am not going with a class A or C. If something went wrong with a 5th wheel, as long as I had tires on it and could still pull it with me then I will be ok. As for the truck I can always set up in a place, and have them tow the truck to repair. Would be much easier to find a place to repair a vehicle over a motorhome.

We never stayed in a motel during our 8 yr. with a motorhome. We had servicing done & if late afternoon we were always allowed to stay on their lot, most often with electric, until leaving in the morning. A couple times we stayed two nights while they finished. Absolutely no problem.

[Barbaraok]

Originally Posted by twogypsies

We never stayed in a motel during our 8 yr. with a motorhome. We had servicing done & if late afternoon we were always allowed to stay on their lot, most often with electric, until leaving in the morning. A couple times we stayed two nights while they finished. Absolutely no problem.

We spent 3 weeks in the customer service rv lots at Coach Care in Elkhardt waiting for parts. They had 6 pads with power, and a dump and fill station on the grounds. If they were working on our coach, we would have it pulled up at 7:00 am, put hand them the keys, put the cats in the car and head for breakfast. We spent time in the customer service lounge (cats got to know the place very, very well) and then between 2-3, they would push our coach out and we would park it until the next part came in, often several days. Most expensive RV park we ever stayed in , but at least we were home every night. Sometimes, the would just push a rig out so they could close the bay doors, and run an electrical cord out of the rig for the owners. They were very, very good at what they do, which is why they were always busy.

[Barbaraok]

Originally Posted by Bobbafett

As far west as you can go.....

Then you don't know how to find places to visit. We spent 2 weeks at San Francisco RV Resort in Pacific for $20/night.

[okcnewbie]

Originally Posted by Barbaraok

You don't think you could find places to stay for less than $900/month. Obviously you aren't west of the Mississippi.

They didn't actually say they didn't think they could find a campground for under $900. They didn't think it would safe them much money. They might be right with a mortgage payment of only $900/month.

[Bobbafett]

Originally Posted by Barbaraok

Then you don't know how to find places to visit. We spent 2 weeks at San Francisco RV Resort in Pacific for $20/night.

Why would you say I dont? Finding a place to visit, sure easy..and I boondock too. Harvest host many places in Oregon. I have stayed in parks from cape may n.j. to Astoria o.r..
..I'm going to a state park this weekend for 25 a night..
( I winterize many times a year because we still rv in the winter)
Was referring to mortgage and rent. And the cost of living overall in an rv compared to my mortgage/rent.