What’s Our End Game?

After being on the road and seeing the country it’s only natural to start asking questions. The biggest question that comes to mind is…. What’s our end game? We love being on the road, but it would be naive to think we can do this forever. Our family would certainly like to know the answer to this question. Some of them think we are crazy for living this way to begin with.

In hindsight, this is probably something we should have considered during the planning phase. But back then we were focused on getting to a better place in life. We have always known that our end game didn’t include staying in a high tax state like California. It was always just a matter of time before we moved somewhere else regardless.

In a way we are just doing what we do best, winging it!

Continue reading “What’s Our End Game?”

April 2023 Financial Update

April went by in a flash and it feels like May is shaping up to do the same. It’s hard to believe we are already publishing another financial update! Ever since we left Mesa we have been busy trying to get caught up on projects and hobbies while at the same time getting back to enjoying the things we love like hiking and sightseeing. And since we have family that lives close by we have to make sure we find time to visit and catch up while we can.

Over the last month it has been great to be out in the open air and enjoying nature again and we have tried to get out for a nice size hike at least once a week. The great part about being full-time in our RV is we get to enjoy things while everyone else is busy working and the kids are in school. Often times when we go on hike we are the only people around which allows us to enjoy the views and our surroundings undisturbed. That will begin to change over the next few months so we are trying to take advantage of it while we can. We are hoping to hit Zion National Park before it gets too crowded and we have to leave. It’s been awhile since we have been there and it has some of the best hiking!

Continue reading “April 2023 Financial Update”

Operation Enduring Mesa

It’s no secret, we had a pretty miserable experience at our Fall/Winter work-camping gig in Mesa, AZ. While we wanted to give more details throughout the months of frustration, we refrained from doing so on the off chance someone at the resort would run across our blog and it would make it’s way back to management thus causing more problems. Not that we really cared what they thought, but there were other people who were work-camping there too and it wouldn’t be fair to them if things went sideways even more because of our blog.

While it might sound like we are giving our little blog too much credit when it comes to exposure, it’s not hard to put two and two together and figure out who we are when we are at a campground. It’s happened before so it can happen again and there were about 3000 people at this resort so caution was warranted.

Prior to this gig we had only one other work-camping job and we absolutely loved it. In fact, we loved it so much we became lifelong friends with the owners of the campground and we talk to them all the time. They actually sold the campground they owned and are now full-time RV’ers too!

Continue reading “Operation Enduring Mesa”

March 2023 Financial Update

Free at last! As we mentioned in our March Dividend Portfolio Update we are finally back on the road and settled in Utah once again. Most importantly, we are free from the work-camping hell we found ourselves in for the last five plus months.

We will be doing another blog on the experience, but in short there were many issues we, and every other work-camper, had with our time in Mesa as it turned out to be a terrible experience.

Continue reading “March 2023 Financial Update”

RV Life Hits and Misses – Two Years On The Road

As we approach our second anniversary on the road we thought it would be fun to take a moment and reflect on our RV life journey as well as what we left behind. This exercise might also be beneficial to those folks considering taking a similar path by giving them some things to think about before taking the leap into RV living. Make no mistake, life on the road is great and it can be so much fun in the best of times. However, it’s not all roses and at times it will definitely keep you on your toes or have you scrambling to find a solution to problems that arise.

We will preface this by saying that we have absolutely zero regrets about our decision to sell nearly everything we owned in order to enjoy life on the road. But, there are some things that we do miss about living in a regular ol’ sticks n’ bricks home and having a plain life in the suburbs. On the flip side, there are many things that have made those sacrifices well worth it and life more fulfilling too. This is why we recommend people considering this lifestyle sit down and put together a serious list of pros and cons relating to their lifestyle and living situation before taking on this type of adventure.

Let’s take a look and reflect on the good and the bad, welcome to RV life hits and misses!

Continue reading “RV Life Hits and Misses – Two Years On The Road”

January 2023 Financial Update

The first month of the new year is already in the books! Hopefully the adage “as goes January, so goes the year” holds true after a nice start to 2023. Obviously there is a long way to go and many hurdles stand in the way of positive returns for the full year, but a good start is always welcome!

As we enter our fourth month in Mesa, AZ it is clear to us that we will never agree to this type of work-camping structure in the future. We covered the different types of work-camping structures, and our current agreement, in our November 2022 Financial Update blog if you would like to take a look back. We won’t rehash all of that here, but let’s just say that the longer we stay here the more obvious it becomes that it’s not worth what we get in return. And the rate increase that took place at the start of the new year is only making matters worse.

Continue reading “January 2023 Financial Update”

Full-Time RV Budgeting Revisited

In our October 2021 blog we ventured into our full-time RV budgeting and living expenses. We did this by comparing our actual expenses after a couple of months of being fully retired to the original budget we compiled during the planning phase of our journey. At the time we thought it would be helpful to our readers as the main question we get from people who are considering this lifestyle is “how much does it cost?” While it was a small sample size the data still proved to be very useful for our readers and it confirmed that we were in the ballpark with our original budget plan. But how would it hold up over the course of a year? That was a bigger question and one that would have to be provided at a later date when we had more data, which brings us to this blog.

This blog post was originally going to published one year after our October 2021 post, but we decided it would be more beneficial to hold off until we had a full calendar year worth of data. This allows us to provide a more accurate accounting of what an actual year on the road costs. It also helps us see the impact that things like work-camping have on our budget.

Continue reading “Full-Time RV Budgeting Revisited”