Hello there! It’s been awhile since we have posted a blog. It’s been even longer since we posted a blog that wasn’t a financial update of some sort. Over eleven months as a matter of fact. In that blog we wrote about buying our property in Texas and being excited to start building our home. Little did we know at the time we were in for a wild ride.

As we started our home building journey it quickly became clear that our original plan was not going to work out. The builder we had at that time was becoming very difficult to deal with. After discovering some questionable line items on our build budget that relationship came to a very abrupt and contentious end.

This turned out to be a blessing in disguise. Let’s just say the true character of a person comes out when confronted with facts and we dodged a bullet. If we hadn’t asked the right questions and been vigilant we could have been put in a bad position and also taken a financial hit.

Eventually we settled on a new builder and a new plan for a fully custom home. The only issue with this plan was the house and the cost were going to be larger than our original budget. It’s not a massive difference in housing terms, but we really enjoyed living a simple life in our RV. As such, we struggled with this decision for some time before finally committing to the build. In the end the plans were exactly what we were looking for and this is our forever home so we took the leap.

Once everything was put in writing we eventually turned to transitioning out of our RV. This is where everything started to become overwhelming and complicated. The timing for all of this just wasn’t good. We had to go to Pennsylvania in the spring for our son’s college graduation. At the same time we had commitments to deal with in Texas. How do you sell an RV that you live in while traveling back and forth across the country? You can’t, it’s impossible!

The only option we had was to get help selling our RV through consignment. This would allow us to leave it in one place for potential buyers to see it. The downside? The consignment shop gets a percentage of the sell and that is a lot of cash out of our pocket. A LOT! But we had to get rid of it before the house was completed and there was no way we could do it on our own.

Because we lived in our RV we had to move out of it and find a place to live in the meantime. So we rented a storage in our new neighborhood and made several trips, 4 hours each way from our campsite in San Antonio. We emptied our RV for the most part and load up the storage unit.

Once the time came for us to leave San Antonio we loaded up the remainder of our stuff in our Jeep, dropped off our RV at the consignment shop and headed west to stay with family in Utah. From there we made the trip to Pennsylvania in spring where we stayed with our son for a month. We also stopped in Texas on the way there and back to Utah to take care of some business.

Over the next several months we would make four or five trips to Texas from Utah. It’s a miserable and boring drive, but we had to do it. During this time our RV would finally sell and with that we took a decent financial hit. We knew we would, but that didn’t make it any easier to deal with.

The work on our house seamed to progress well except when the rain would make the property a muddy mess. What we didn’t expect with a custom build was the level of detail we needed to be involved in. We had to design every cabinet and closet as well as pick out every fixture down to the door hinges.

Once we got to the point where our builder thought we only had a couple of weeks left in the build we once again loaded up our jeep and headed to Texas for good. But of course, once we got to Texas the rain came again. With most of the remaining work being outdoors this cause delay after delay because the ground was unworkable. This turned a couple of weeks living in a hotel into a couple of months of living in a hotel. Yet another financial hit.

We finally got to the point where we decided we were moving into our house and getting out of that hotel. If there was any further work it could be done around us. The good thing about rural living in Texas is that no one, except the builder, can tell you no. If the builder says the property is safe and inhabitable then you can move in. There is no government red tape or some bullshit agency that you need to pay to get the approval to live in your house on your land. So when he said go for it we did!

So that brings us to present day. We are in our house and slowly getting settled in to this new style of living. The feeling of being overwhelmed still persists, just on another level now that the build is done.

Financially, we are still not sure where we stand. Since this was a custom build being paid for based on our investments portfolio it’s taking more time to get everything squared away. This has been frustrating and those of you who have followed our blog know that I absolutely hate waiting on other people to get things done. Well, here we are. Waiting! A lot of this is out of our hands right now, but it literally costs us every day as it drags out. So we will keep pushing until it gets done.

On a personal level we know we made the right move. As much as we loved living life on the road and having that freedom this just feels better. Eventually we will get back on the road, but it will be for weeks or months at a time with a home base.

The biggest fear we had on the road was breaking down and having no where to live. This almost happened our first month on the road when our RV was hit on the highway. Luckily we made it to our regular repair shop and they let us live in their parking lot while they made repairs to our RV. There is no guarantee we would be that lucky somewhere else and that always weighed on us. Travel days started off fun, but they always had the underlying fear of something going wrong.

The other problem we always had was booking sites so far in advance. As much freedom as we had on the road we were really constrained by two things. First was the size of our RV. At 40 feet long we were often limited to the number of RV parks that could accommodate us. Some of the smaller RV parks that are located in amazing areas with beautiful views were not available to us.

Second was the seasons. Unless you want to roll the dice on the warmth and insulation of your RV you are heading south for the winter. The only problem is, so is everyone else and there are only so many spots to go around. Further limited by our other issue of RV parks that could accommodate our RV size.

As much as we wanted to go to Florida it was impossible to get a spot there for the winter. Some places had waiting lists and booked years out. And if you were lucky enough to get a spot you would be paying a fortune for the pleasure of having it. This is why we stayed in Texas and Arizona which still had their own issues. Let’s just say, winter in an RV kinda sucks. So having a home base when we are not traveling will be great. We will go where we want to for however long we want to and then come home.

Now, who knows when this will happen. It could be a few years out as we are in no hurry to jump back in and buy another depreciating asset. We just offloaded one in the worst and most expensive way possible. That’s going to take some time to get over.

Plus, there are a lot of things we are excited to get going on our property. Something people don’t know is that we like to grow our own food. Growing up my family always had a backyard garden and I would help my dad harvest crops. Over the years we have grown things like peppers and herbs in our backyard and even in the RV. The only reason we didn’t do anything else is because we were either working 60+ a week and never had the time or we were living in the RV.

Well now we have the time and the space. We already purchased the raised beds and will get them put together in time for spring planting. In the meantime we planted some garlic, onions and herbs that can handle winters in our grow zone in pots and grow bags. We already have some sprouts and that really makes us happy to see.

Long term we are hoping to add a barn or some sort of out building. We would love to get some animals for the property. Getting some hens for eggs would probably be our first addition. We would also like to get a couple of goats to help keep the overgrowth down on property. Plus they are funny animals which is good because they are also not easy animals to have.

All of this is of course looking out far into the future. As of now we have our work cut out for us before we can even start thinking about that stuff. The amount of clean up we have now that construction is done is mind numbing. We have about 25 trees down from the build that need to be burned. At first it was only going to be about 5-10 trees, but we needed to widen the driveway and perimeter. This more than doubled the number of trees that had to be put down.

We also have a lot of garbage on the property from the contractors. Despite our builders best efforts to keep everything clean by providing a garbage bin for the build it just didn’t matter. Some people just don’t seem to care about other peoples property. We are finding water bottles and food cartons all over the property. I get people need to eat and drink while on the job, and we really appreciate their hard work in hot and often wet conditions, but c’mon!

So that’s where we stand and a peek of where we hope to go. As for our dividend portfolio and financial updates we will see how it goes from here. We started this blog to document our journey to financial independence and a life on the road.

As of now we are no longer on the road and our financial situation is as clear as mud. I would like nothing more than to say “yes, we are still financially independent”. After all of the stuff we have been through the last 6+ months that would be a wonderful position to be in. But the truth is we can’t honestly say that because we don’t know where we stand at the moment. And in the interest of transparency, it’s not fair to make that statement when we don’t even know what our output is yet.

Until the dust settles and we can see both sides of the ledger and then do the proper calculations we don’t have an answer. For this reason it is probably best if we hold off on any further financial updates. We kept them going all through the build knowing that the information was sloppy, ugly and lopsided due to the construction. Over the last couple of months it has only gotten worse. But, that’s the best we could do with the information we had.

Now that we are at the end of that road we are trying to clean up the mess. In essence we are starting anew both personally and financially. We appreciate everyone sticking with us throughout this process and we wish we could have been more active over the last year. Unfortunately life doesn’t always go the direction you hope and priorities change.

In some way this blog will be starting anew as well. The transition back into a house and starting new projects opens a whole new avenue for us to explore. We hope to be more active on the blog as we settle in and build out. We also hope you will stay and join us on our new journey.

Thank you for taking time to read this long blog. We hope it provided some insight and clarity into our situation. If you have any questions ask them in the comments below.

See Ya’ll Soon!

Joe

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