Forever Home Found……..and Lost

As ours reader are probably aware of by now, we have been looking a location to find or build our forever home. Over the last few months our search has taken us from Montana down to Texas and everything in between. While our forever home search started out very wide, and across several states, it has since narrowed. As much as we love Montana and our temporary home state of South Dakota the winters are too large of a negative to overcome. After considering states like Utah and Nevada we have narrowed our search to parts of Texas. This however still feels like half the country anyway.

Over the last few weeks a lot has transpired and eventually reached a crescendo late last week. Honestly we were hoping this would be the blog where we expressed our excitement about entering a new phase of our lives. But despite giving it our best effort and even going out on a limb financially it wasn’t meant to be.

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September 2023 Financial Update

We are back with our September 2023 financial update! The months are flying by and before you know it we will be heading to the great state of Texas for the winter. We have enjoyed our time on the lake in Oklahoma, but like all great things it will soon come to an end.

As much as we love lake life we are getting to the point where we are ready to move on. The downside to being in this area is that there just isn’t much to do. Aside from walking around the campground or sitting outside looking at the water not much is going on. As such, we have been pretty stagnant for that last month. After a rough couple of months camping in a remote area was a relaxing change. Now we are itching to get somewhere we can be more active and do some sight seeing.

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September 2023 Dividend Portfolio Update

Well, let’s get this dividend portfolio update out of the way. As you probably know, and maybe experienced, September was an awful month for investment holdings. Pretty much everything was down with the only exception maybe being oil and refinery stocks. On the bright side that means it was also a great time to buy and build up some positions.

There wasn’t much in terms of news in September. This put the focus squarely on the federal reserve and that’s never a good thing. There is no better market killer than that band of bumbling idiots. While they didn’t increase the funds rate this time around they opened their mouths which is usually just as bad. As expected, in the aftermath of the fed meeting and the J. Powell news conference, brought to you by Apple iPad, the markets tanked.

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August 2023 Dividend Portfolio Update

Another month in the books and that means it’s time for another dividend portfolio update! After two solid months of gains our dividend portfolio took a small step back in August.

For most of the month it looked like the pullback would be sizable. However, after the fed summit in Wyoming and chairman nimrod’s speech the markets brushed off the worry and moved backup. While we didn’t recover all of the downside it was good to see the markets holding strong once again.

There were a couple of events that impacted our dividend portfolio in August. The biggest by far was J&J completing the spin off of Kenvue. The deal was very enticing with the opportunity to receive 8 shares of Kenvue in exchange for each share of J&J. That would have created a nice position for us in the new company. But in the end we decided to stick with our J&J shares as the company is just a machine. It is also our third largest holding and more importantly they are not adjusting the dividend after the transaction. We will probably look to add Kenvue into or portfolio down the line.

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Campground Review – Jim & Mary’s RV Park

In this edition of our campground review series we will be reviewing Jim & Mary’s RV Park located in Wye, MT.

This was our first visit to Jim & Mary’s RV Park and it was a place we were super excited about. Many folks on social media RV groups had mentioned this RV park as one of their favorite places in Montana. So we had high hopes and booked a stay for most of June and early July 2023.

Jim & Mary’s RV Park is located off of interstate 90 just outside of Missoula at the exit for US 93. The location is super easy to find and all you really need to do is make sure you turn at the correct street as the signage could be a little confusing.

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July 2023 Financial Update

This is not where we expected to be when we started writing our July 2023 financial update! We were sitting in a beautiful campground in South Dakota. The owners of the campground are amazing people. Not only do they maintain and manage the campground, but the rest of the property is a working family farm. We were on the list to purchase farm fresh eggs once a week and Mrs. RVF was taking rides with the owner out to the pasture to help feed and water the cows.

They were also gracious enough to share fresh vegetables from their garden with us and other campers at no cost. Each evening we would sit outside and watch the sunset. Some nights the campers would gather around the community fire pit and share stories. This and the surrounding scenery reminded us of why we chose to live this lifestyle.

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Campground Review – Juniper Campground

In this edition of our campground review series we will be reviewing Juniper Campground located in Ririe, ID.

This was our first stay at Juniper Campground and we booked one full week in May 2023. This stop on our journey was just supposed to be a short layover on our way to bigger things. As it turns out, we might have discovered a hidden gem that we would like to return to some day.

Juniper Campground is located off Idaho state highway 26 which you can catch out of Idaho Falls. Finding the resort isn’t too difficult, but it is a pretty good distance from the time you get off Interstate 15 until you arrive at the campground. Just a heads up, you will also take a country road through farmland down to the campground. It’s paved, but it’s remote. When you are 40 ft long and towing a vehicle getting on the back roads can be a little sketchy. It’s a lot of trust to put into a GPS system that has failed us before. Needless to say, we were extremely happy when we cam around the bend and saw the reservoir and the campground ahead of us.

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