We did it! After years of planning, saving, investing, researching and pandemic delays we are finally living in our RV as full timers. There is still a lot to do but the hard part is done now that we took the leap and made it to the other side. It’s wonderful to say we actually achieved a long term goal and hopefully our journey will help inspire others to do the same.

We all have goals in life. Some people write them out or track them in one form or another while others just keep a mental note of things they would love to do and call it a goal. Typically those that track their goals are actually working in some fashion to achieve them while those keeping a mental note are mostly just dreaming about it. I call it the “maybe someday” syndrome, which is something we suffered from for many years.

When we set out on our goal to live in and travel full time in our RV years ago it was something we knew we passionately wanted to do. It was also probably the first time we really had a stated goal that we were dead set on achieving. I would even go so far as to say this goal is what drove us to the F.I.R.E movement to begin with. We have always been ardent savers and planned to retire earlier than the standard 65+ but the simplicity of the F.I.R.E movement made the idea a viable reality. To us financial freedom is a stepping stone on the path to living the RV life as its hard have one without the other if we really want to enjoy life on the road to the fullest.

There are many people we know both personally and professionally that are shocked that we could possibly be in a position to live this life. During the long days of my previous corporate life my coworkers and I would talk and discuss our dreams of life beyond the corporate rat race. I would tell them we wanted to live and travel full time in our RV and they would mostly scoff at the idea as being too expensive and not possible for someone younger than 65. I would always try to explain to them anything is possible if you plan it right and that retirement doesn’t require an enormous bank account and unlimited cash to blow on frivolous things. Nor does it mean you have to work until you have one foot in the grave. This would usually be met with glares as if I was talking crazy. But that’s the problem, there are too many people who still believe in retirement in the traditional sense and are content to work until they no longer physically can or even until their final day of life. The good news is that more and more people are figuring out there is a better way if you are willing to delay gratification and not give into having “things” as a status symbol.

This brings me to our current situation and I want to be clear and transparent with our readers. Mrs. RVF is still working for at least the next six months as that is what she agreed to with her company. After that time they will meet to reevaluate and decide which direction both she and the company want to go. So we are not retired yet and we are not going to go around saying we are retired or write blogs about how great life is in retirement. I know this is sort of a sticking point with people that read and follow F.I.R.E. bloggers and I personally feel it’s disingenuous to say you are retired while earning a paycheck from a company. If you have achieved F.I. and don’t really need the paycheck that is an amazing accomplishment and congratulations. But unless you are solely living off of passive income, money generated from investments or maybe a side gig to keep you busy, you are not retired. Just my opinion.

So where do we go from here? Well we have a month to get everything sorted out before we start making our way to South Dakota to establish our domicile residence. And since it looks like a bomb went off in our RV we are probably going to need a full month to get things in order. After we are done in South Dakota will will make our way to Utah ad stay there for the entire summer so we can visit with family and hopefully our camping buddies will join us so we can catch up. BTW, hello camping buddies since you now know who we are and are probably reading this blog 🙂

This is an exciting time and we can’t wait to share our travels and details on RV living with our readers. Hopefully we can help answer some of the questions people have about living this lifestyle and also break some of the myths as well.

Thank you as always for taking time to read our blog.

Until next time………………

Joe