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”

Happy Thanksgiving!!

As we approach 2 years on the road we are grateful that we are able to live our best life and share our adventures.

Thank you to our readers for your continued support and sticking with us! We hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving and enjoy spending time with your families!

Joe & Mrs. RVF

P.S. Happy 13th Birthday to our best friend and travel companion!

Murphy

October 2022 Financial Update

Greetings from Arizona where we have settled amongst the snowbirds and will be riding out the fall and winter months in the warm desert sun.

In addition to being in a warm location we have started our largest work-camper assignment to date. We made a 5 month commitment at an extremely large RV/Mobile home resort. This is a 55+ resort and by the time December rolls around there will be approximately 3,000 people on site. Our job is in the entertainment / activities department and let me tell you this place has a lot going on and it gets very busy.

Our job involves everything from serving coffee and donuts to residents in the morning to setting up and decorating the entertainment halls for parties or headliner events. The calendar is jam packed every day of the week so we always have something going on. The best part is that we will typically only work 2 or 3 days a week and since we are considered residents we will get to enjoy all of the amenities and events too. And if we work ticketed events we get to enjoy the shows for free so we are hoping to get scheduled for some of the bands and headline events on the schedule.

Continue reading “October 2022 Financial Update”

2021 Year In Review

What a difference a year makes! As a matter of fact, we never published our 2020 year in review for a few reasons. Mostly because 2020 just plain sucked! The pandemic ruined everything from our son’s senior year of high school, large parts of our college road trip, his freshman year in college and our plans to start our full-time RV life. And who can forget the financial rollercoaster from the top of the world down to the pit of despair and back again? Publishing a blog post and reliving it all over again was the last thing on our minds.

Here we are at the end of another year and still dealing with the continued fallout from the pandemic. Some things have remained the same. Everything else in our lives has changed for the better.

Continue reading “2021 Year In Review”

Happy Thanksgiving!!

Happy Thanksgiving from our family to yours!

This has been an amazing year and we truly appreciate all of our readers and the time you take to read our posts and support our little blog.

This year we made significant progress to reach our F.I.R.E goals and transitioned into living our full-time RV dream. And we finally retired!

Since the beginning of the year the number of people following our blog has more than doubled and we are on track to more than quadruple the number of page views compared to last year. Even more amazing is that we have had visitors from 74 different countries this year!

We are very humbled by the level of support we have received and are excited to keep sharing our adventures with you as we travel across the Country.

Thank you!

Joe & Mrs. RVF

December 2020 Financial Update

And exhale! It’s finally here, the end of the month and the end of the most chaotic year of our lives. We referred to 2020 as the year of change as we had big plans and big goals, but we had no idea what was in store.

In 2020 everything that was supposed to change didn’t. We are still living in our house. Our son went off to college, but he came back home and he is still here. Our RV is still sitting in a storage yard. We are still paying for bills that were supposed to be gone with our new and improved nomadic lifestyle.

In the end it feels like nothing changed except the calendar. Like Groundhog Day we are starting 2021 with the same goals and plans we had at the start of 2020. Continue reading “December 2020 Financial Update”

November 2020 Financial Update

What would 2020 be if we didn’t have a record breaking month for the markets on top of everything else that has happened this year.

In our October update I mentioned that the four market drivers going forward will be Stimulus, unemployment, growth and covid. With at least two covid vaccines now ready and waiting for approval the markets made major moves upward in anticipation of a post pandemic environment.

Additionally there are signs that stimulus talks are picking up again in Washington. I’m not holding my breath on a deal yet, but if talks are successful this time it could help people and businesses bridge the gap between the time the vaccines are approved and when they are made available to the general public. I think this is what needs to happen before we can get back to meaningful positive growth and lower unemployment rates. It’s always nice to have a positive month but there is still a long way to go before the economy gets back on steady ground. Continue reading “November 2020 Financial Update”