Words of advice from other Full Timers

[BobbyBa]

We recently purchased a 2017 Forza 38W and have made the decision to go Full Time. We currently reside in our sticks and bricks home in South Carolina, where our personal property taxes for Forza is $3000/yr and SUV is $1200/yr. We are contemplating obtaining a residency in SD to minimize the expenses in that regard. Would love to hear from other folks about your experiences, both positive and negative. Thanks for you help and safe travels to all .
BobbyBa

[Selah]

Florida has no state income tax, does not tax your vehicles, and vehicle registration is pretty darn cheap. There are no special license requirements either.
The St. Brendon's Isle mail service out of Green Cove Springs FL is excellant. If you go to their web site they have all the information necessary for changing your domicile to FL.
Vehicle insurance is only slightly higher than in oir original state.
You have already checked out SD so that leaves TX. Personally I would stay away from TX only because of their special license requirements and annual inspection.

[momdoc]

Selah has it correct. We also use St. Brendon's Isle mail service out of Green Cove Springs FL and are very happy with them. The also helped us get our driver's license and voter registration done.
Plus if camping in Florida there are huge discounts at the state parks for seniors as well as free fishing lic for seniors.


momdoc

[BobbyBa]

Thank you Selah & momdoc for your input. We are going to seriously look into this option.

[MGrawe]

We are in Rapid City, SD and have a lot of campers come through to establish their domicile. America's Mailbox is right down the road from us and I have been told they will walk you through all the requirements in a very short time. I am still active duty but will likely keep SD when we retire.

[radarboy]

You better double check the Florida license plate registration costs. Also better look into insurance rates in Florida. They are definitely not cheap.We live here and know actual costs.

[JFXG]

Originally Posted by Selah

........Personally I would stay away from TX only because of their special license requirements and annual inspection.

Bobbyba...... sounds like any of the three "full timer friendly" states would work for you, but let's at least get the advice set out correctly.

1. The TX annual inspection is a non-issue. It is not required if you're out of state at the time of renewal. (We haven't been to Texas since early 2014). There's even a check box on the online registration renewal page wherein you check "out of state", and the instruction becomes (essentially) 'ok, well, whenever you do come back to Texas, get it inspected.'

2. My personal opinion is that a bit of a license upgrade to move from a Jaguar or a Prius to a 40 ft bus is a smart thing. Other opinions may vary. If the thought of having to take a driving test is enough to make you stay away from TX, well, maybe you ought to think about that.

3. In SD and FL there are mail forwarding agencies that will also assist you in setting up domicile. In TX you have the Escapees, which not only runs what is likely the largest private mail forwarding operation in the country, but also offers a broad spectrum of member services of particular Interest to and specifically designed for the benefit of RV Fulltimers. It's worth checking out.

Whatever you decide, good luck!

[Lanny1763]

Bobbyba:

We faced the same dilemma when we were residents of MO (personal property tax, state income tax on retired pay, high sales tax). We opted to become SD residents and have a mail forwarding service (Your Best Address). They are very helpful with all the registration of vehicles. You will have to physically come to SD to get your driver's license.
The only negative I've heard about SD is they are limited in their health care coverage plans. This didn't affect us because I'm retired USMC (Tricare) and DW is retired civil service and has her own plan through GEHA. SD makes you renew your plates yearly, but it is much less expensive than personal property tax. The truck and FW combined are just over $400.

Good luck with your decision and safe travels.

[BobbyBa]

Originally Posted by JFXG

Bobbyba...... sounds like any of the three "full timer friendly" states would work for you, but let's at least get the advice set out correctly.

1. The TX annual inspection is a non-issue. It is not required if you're out of state at the time of renewal. (We haven't been to Texas since early 2014). There's even a check box on the online registration renewal page wherein you check "out of state", and the instruction becomes (essentially) 'ok, well, whenever you do come back to Texas, get it inspected.'

2. My personal opinion is that a bit of a license upgrade to move from a Jaguar or a Prius to a 40 ft bus is a smart thing. Other opinions may vary. If the thought of having to take a driving test is enough to make you stay away from TX, well, maybe you ought to think about that.

3. In SD and FL there are mail forwarding agencies that will also assist you in setting up domicile. In TX you have the Escapees, which not only runs what is likely the largest private mail forwarding operation in the country, but also offers a broad spectrum of member services of particular Interest to and specifically designed for the benefit of RV Fulltimers. It's worth checking out.

Whatever you decide, good luck!

JFXG, Thank you for the much appreciated info. We also are going to research the "Escapees", as the inspection & drivers exam will not deter us from considering TX as our domicile location. Again thank you for your much needed words of advise.

[WendyG]

An earlier poster mentioned an important issue: health insurance. If you both have Medicare or Tricare or another nationwide plan, pick SD or any other state mentioned. If either of you need to buy an individual policy, as of 2017 Florida is perhaps the best option, as plans with nationwide networks are offered here. I am told you cannot get those in SD or TX.

Also mentioned above, if one of you is 65+ with a Florida DL, camping fees in the Florida's wonderful state park system are half price. We the state parks a lot, and for us that savings more than offsets the higher auto insurance rates.

When registering vehicles in Florida for the first time one is charged extra fees. Registration is very reasonable in successive years.

[Fiesta48]

Originally Posted by JFXG

Bobbyba...... sounds like any of the three "full timer friendly" states would work for you, but let's at least get the advice set out correctly.

1. The TX annual inspection is a non-issue. It is not required if you're out of state at the time of renewal. (We haven't been to Texas since early 2014). There's even a check box on the online registration renewal page wherein you check "out of state", and the instruction becomes (essentially) 'ok, well, whenever you do come back to Texas, get it inspected.'

2. My personal opinion is that a bit of a license upgrade to move from a Jaguar or a Prius to a 40 ft bus is a smart thing. Other opinions may vary. If the thought of having to take a driving test is enough to make you stay away from TX, well, maybe you ought to think about that.

3. In SD and FL there are mail forwarding agencies that will also assist you in setting up domicile. In TX you have the Escapees, which not only runs what is likely the largest private mail forwarding operation in the country, but also offers a broad spectrum of member services of particular Interest to and specifically designed for the benefit of RV Fulltimers. It's worth checking out.

Whatever you decide, good luck!

TX resident also. With no state income tax, lower ins rates, moderate registration fees, but Class B required for vehicles over 26k lbs, I not changing. Inspections maybe thrown out. Good place in S TX to winter. But the summers, get out....

[Dan McMartin]

The bill to repeal vehicle inspections in TX has passed the Senate and is headed to the floor of the House for a final vote. It looks like it will pass. It's not a big deal since you don't have to get an inspection until you enter the state, but not having to worry about it at all will be nice.

TX is our choice. We don't want to have to show up in SD every five years to renew our drivers license. Texas has Escapees and the infrastructure to handle everything we need. Without vehicle inspections, it's even mroe attractive. We're not going to try to save money on sales tax since our coach will only be about $110,000. It would only be a one time hit of a couple of thousand dollars. But we could pay TX registration fees of the rest of our lives with what Nevada would charge us for the first five years

[Barbaraok]

Originally Posted by Selah

Personally I would stay away from TX only because of their special license requirements and annual inspection.

The inspection is a non-issue. Will soon be gone. If you can't pass a simple driving test for a vehicle weighing over 26K lbs you have no business driving that rig.

[Stripe34]

Escapees also offers a FL domicile. So, if you do decide to go with TX and things change eventually such that FL is more advantageous, you'd be well positioned to make the "move"