Full timers question ?

Sportzfann

Senior Member
Joined
Jan 30, 2021
Messages
122
Location
Milwaukie Or.
For the full timers out there, how many of you sold your home and belongings and dove into full timing ?
Did you start out with longer trips and then worked your way into full time and then just selling everything?
Would there be a financial advantage to selling the home and placing the funds into an interest bearing account and then just living in the RV and traveling ? It would seem to be a financial advantage, but at some point you may need to go back and purchase a home and then those funds may be depreciated after a number of years a home base of some kind seems like a safe option to have.
Wife and I are considering selling the home and just living in the RV traveling but have concerns…. Thanks, Sportz
 
I'm not a full timer. Often take month+ long trips. I the same questions myself a few years ago. I think whether you sell you home base or not has a lot to do with your existing hobbies and how you spend time at home right now. For example woodworking, shooting, fishing, an old muscle car, and scale models and hiking use my time when at home and not RV'ing. Of those only scale models and hiking really will fit in an RV lifestyle. So full timing would only work if I wanted to give up the other things I enjoy.
IMO, you are only a full timer if you have sold your house.
Make sure you are both on the same page though. Years ago when we bought our present house there was a recently retired couple selling everything to go full time. We bought all the appliances in that house. I heard they headed out as full timers a month later. Two years later I heard they divorced. Why? I don't know. But it made me think taking the plunge into full timing should be preceded by two or three years of a few long trips while still living in a house. Kind of like little test runs.
 
Last edited:
For the full timers out there, how many of you sold your home and belongings and dove into full timing ?
Did you start out with longer trips and then worked your way into full time and then just selling everything?
Would there be a financial advantage to selling the home and placing the funds into an interest bearing account and then just living in the RV and traveling ? It would seem to be a financial advantage, but at some point you may need to go back and purchase a home and then those funds may be depreciated after a number of years a home base of some kind seems like a safe option to have.
Wife and I are considering selling the home and just living in the RV traveling but have concerns…. Thanks, Sportz
Quite a few people sell their home to pay for the RV and lifestyle. This is risky because the RV lifestyle the way most do it is not cheap.Campground fees alone will hurt the wallet. And if at some point in the future one wants or needs a home again, the funds from the original home sale will be depleted
 
There is no one answer or "one size fits all." Everyone's financial situation is different as are their inclination/tolerance for different situation. All I can do is tell you what we did.

We sold the home, moved our domicile (burn the term "domicile" into your brain) to the Escapees RV Club in east Texas, and hit the road full-time. The house sold much more quickly than expected, so this all happened very rapidly. "The purge" (getting rid of all the stuff) was hard but we felt liberated afterward. We realized we had been working for the stuff rather than the stuff working for us. After nine years full-timing, we realize that we never want to go big again - and probably don't want to buy again, either (I'm in my 70s and she's in her late 60s). The savings and investments we have will be there for care, emergencies and travel instead of disappearing into another house. Our retirement income is more than adequate to cover a luxury apartment when the time comes.

One of the big reasons we decided to sell the house is that I wasn't genetically programmed to be a landlord nor would I have been able to enjoy traveling knowing there was an empty house sitting back in the location from where we launched - not to mention that it was the Army and my post-Army-retirement job that had us in that location and there was no reason for us to move back there.

I keep the books in Quicken with detailed allocation categories to track everything. Basically, our full-time lifestyle hasn't differed much from life in the stix 'n brix from a financial point of view. We use a lot of military campgrounds (we're at one as I write this) and have tended to winter for three months at a time either in my home town in southern New Mexico near my sisters or in Maryland near a bunch of grandkids. Either way, monthly rates for those months are significantly lower than nightly or weekly rates. At other times, we have spent an entire month in one place when it was someplace we really enjoy - like the Olympic Peninsula in Washington state or our favorite Excapees park in southern California. It would have cost about twice as much to keep the house and live on the road full-time.

I hope this helps. If you have specific question, ask away.

Rob
 
A lot of people have situations that are different.
Some people can not bare the thought of getting rid of all their "stuff" and some want that homebase. That's ok too.

For us older farts, alot depends on a couples financial situation, age and or health conditions. Or like selling while current housing markets are hot in their area, mortgage interest rates, if people are looking to move away from their current area, city, state etc. So some go fulltime with the desire to eventually find a different place or part of the country to live. So they sell their home put the equity back and look for a different place while traveling.

Some people go fulltime, but keep their home and rent it out while they travel because they can't afford to do both. Then eventually return to their home after several months or years.
Some are looking to simplify and downsize their life substantially, they do not want to be property owners any longer, travel awhile and then settle back down either in a long term RV park or maybe a retirement community condo.

Here is our situation and why we went fulltime, got rid of everything when we did. We are in good health, our late 60's on Medicare, lived in our home Texas, all of our family lives in Indiana or Ohio. Now eventually we know as long as our health allows, when we are in our late 70's early 80s we will need to settle back down closer to our family up north. At the time we sold our house in Texas the housing market was hot, interest rates extremely low, but the property taxes were going crazy. It was the right time to sell before the market went sour.

We made a substantial gain, put most of it back along with another savings and now live off our combined Social Security and small pension. Its enough to keep us going every month fulltiming. Our average cost all in fulltiming is approx $4400 a month.

In the meantime we will travel the country sometimes and sometimes we stay stationary for months. We will enjoy the time we have left, experience life not just live it, before we can't do it at all. Right now we are in a lovely RV park with all amenities and site cost is $500 / month + electric.
We have absolutely no desire to ever own a sticks and bricks property again and do not miss at all the "stuff" we had one bit. We are having the time of our lives! Yes, Our hobbies have changed a little, but still fishing, touring, trail walks, bike riding, site seeing etc.

Escapee's RV Club members and our domicile is still Texas, Livingston, Polk County

The whole idea of going fulltime takes a lot of planning, fore thought, sole searching and communication with the people involved. I think you have to be a person/couple who likes to be explorers. Absolutely couples have to be on the same page or it wont work. I don't think it advisable to spur of the moment, jump in, sell everything, buy an RV and hit the road.
 
Last edited:
We have been full-timing over a year now and have no plans to slow down.

Our approach was a little different. We sold the big house and moved into a townhouse half the size of our house for one year to see if we would like living in a smaller footprint and to slowly get rid of everything. The first thing we learned was that our kids didn’t want our stuff. They didn’t care for antique furniture or china. So while living in the townhouse we sold or got rid of just about everything. We now have a 10x10 climate controlled storage unit for family heirlooms. We invested our house money in a CD in case we didn’t like full-timing. We already had an rv so last year we hit the road and traveled the US,Canada, & Alaska. Decided we liked it and bought a bigger rv and plan to continue this lifestyle for a while.

We have decided to be winter Texans in our home town that is centrally located between our three children. We will do 4-6 months in Texas and the rest on the road. I wouldn’t say it is cheaper but it all depends on how you travel . Good luck on your decision.
 
Last edited:
We have been full-timing over a year now and have no plans to slow down.

Our approach was a little different. We sold the big house and moved into a townhouse half the size of our house for one year to see if we would like living in a smaller footprint and to slowly get rid of everything. The first thing we learned was that our kids didn’t want our stuff. They didn’t care for antique furniture or china. So while living in the townhouse we sold or got rid of just about everything. We now have a 10x10 climate controlled storage unit for family heirlooms. We invested our house money in a CD in case we didn’t like full-timing. We already had an rv so last year we hit the road and traveled the US,Canada, & Alaska. Decided we liked it and bought a bigger rv and plan to continue this lifestyle for a while.

We have decided to be winter Texans in our home town that is centrally located between our three children. We will do 4-6 months in Texas and the rest on the road. I wouldn’t say it is cheaper but it all depends on how you travel . Good luck on your decision.

Thanks for all the replies. I just retired jan5,2024
I was maintenance supervisor at a hospital in Oregon and I have had enough of working, I turned 64 in march.
We just returned from a 4 month trip, we left shortly after my last day. That was the longest trip we have ever taken.
Went to quartzite, Yuma, San Onofre, Victorville (brothers home) then back home. Boondocking, hookups, casino parking lots etc.
This was our first shot at “part timing” and we enjoyed traveling this way.
We are considering selling the house and full timing, the Wife is still working remotely for 1 more year or so.

We are also thinking downsizing to a smaller home that is more affordable and finding a Domicile that has no state income tax, and try to lower our property taxes, this is the part that slowly grows and on a limited income it takes more and more of our retirement income.

I wasn’t looking forward to all the house chores that had to be done once we returned, I do like having a garage to work on things around the house and the trailer, so not sure how that looks while full timing.
I didn’t know it but we just missed the GD rally in Quartzite, we had already left when I discovered they had a rally there in January?
Anyway thanks for the insight, just listening and seeing what others have done and what works for us. ?
 
We have been full-timing over a year now and have no plans to slow down.

Our approach was a little different. We sold the big house and moved into a townhouse half the size of our house for one year to see if we would like living in a smaller footprint and to slowly get rid of everything. The first thing we learned was that our kids didn’t want our stuff. They didn’t care for antique furniture or china. So while living in the townhouse we sold or got rid of just about everything. snip

Jason, we found the same thing. We had family heirlooms, antiques going back to our Great Grandparents and Great Uncle's/Aunt's. Our kids/grandkids didn't want a lot of it. One Niece wanted some of it but the rest was sold or donated. It took us almost a year to get rid of that stuff, and our stuff. We got rid of it all so we wouldn't have to store it.
When my Wife's Father passed away last October and her Mother went into an extended care nursing home, only one person in her family wanted any of her parents stuff. The rest was donated. Took us over a week to empty out her parents home so it could be sold to prepare for her Mothers extended care in the nursing home. It's over $90K a year for her extended care. When that money is gone, she will have to go on Medicaid, if she lives that long.
 
Rob do you use the VA for your medical. If so how do you handle doctor appointments. I get all my care from the VA and have issues that require me to see 3 different set of doctors twice yearly. To have a primary doctor I have to have a permanent address and then see the doctors near that address. Makes it difficult to just travel as I would always have to go back to home base for an extended amount of time twice a year.
 
Thanks for all the replies. I just retired jan5,2024
I was maintenance supervisor at a hospital in Oregon and I have had enough of working, I turned 64 in march.
We just returned from a 4 month trip, we left shortly after my last day. That was the longest trip we have ever taken.
Went to quartzite, Yuma, San Onofre, Victorville (brothers home) then back home. Boondocking, hookups, casino parking lots etc.
This was our first shot at “part timing” and we enjoyed traveling this way.
We are considering selling the house and full timing, the Wife is still working remotely for 1 more year or so.

We are also thinking downsizing to a smaller home that is more affordable and finding a Domicile that has no state income tax, and try to lower our property taxes, this is the part that slowly grows and on a limited income it takes more and more of our retirement income.

I wasn’t looking forward to all the house chores that had to be done once we returned, I do like having a garage to work on things around the house and the trailer, so not sure how that looks while full timing.
I didn’t know it but we just missed the GD rally in Quartzite, we had already left when I discovered they had a rally there in January?
Anyway thanks for the insight, just listening and seeing what others have done and what works for us. ��

The three popular states for fulltimers with no state income tax domicile is Florida, Texas and South Dakota. I think interest in domiciling in Tennessee is growing, also no state income tax but their sales tax is high.

Then you have to consider health care availability/costs in those states if appropriate. All based on your domicile address zip code. I have heard that South Dakota is not the best for health care options. Florida is popular for health care options.
I can say Texas is good for Medicare type health care options.

Next is these states requirements and costs and ease of renewing for vehicle license plates, vehicle safety inspections and drivers licences weight requirements for big RVs. Like South Dakota has no restrictions on this, no vehicle safety inspections. Texas does have special drivers license requirements if over 20K pounds combined weight for RVs. But Texas is slowly getting rid of RV vehicle safety inspections (gone in 2025 I think) and has online renewability for plates. However Texas in some areas has high property taxes and growing.

You have to look at all of this and decide which state would be best for your domicile (if changing) and particular situation.
 
Last edited:
Just a quick suggestion on the interest bearing account for everyone, regardless of travel. Look into Capital One 360 Performance Savings. There is no minimum, no time commitment like a CD, currently pays 4.25%. Rate fluctuates but has remained in the 4.25% to 4.45% range since we started it more than a year ago. Prior to that our cash saving languished in a big bank money market earning $10.00 per year. My Dad is tickled with what he's getting since he did the same 6 months ago.

Best wishes on your full-time decision!
 
If you want to domicile and/or spend any significant time in Tennessee and you want/need excellent VA facilities, take a look at the Tri-Cities area (Johnson City, Bristol, Kingsport area). There’s a massive VA facility on an old Army training ground in Johnson City, and it’s associated with ETSU's Medical school.
https://www.etsu.edu/com/surgery/affiliations/jamesquillencenter.php
 
Our full-timing "work" started about 2010, when I turned 60. Retirement was five years away (I thought), so we started talking about what we wanted to do and where we wanted to live. To our great surprise, we discovered that the idea of full-time RV'ing was something we had each thought about. Bear in mind that Jo Ann and I have never met, even though we've been married for 40 years. (We grew up together.) Long story shortened, we stopped looking at communities to retire to, and started researching full-timing and RV's. We asked a LOT of questions and got a lot of good advice. We started out in 2013 in a 1993 Foretravel U300 40' motorhome. We had that for almost exactly 10 years, then sold it to a gentleman from The Netherlands and bought our Reflection 315 RLTS.

Why the change? We originally decided that a motorhome would suit our planned activities. If we had kept to that plan, we probably would have a newer Foretravel now. We're not doing as we originally planned, moving 1-5 times per month, but staying put for 1-6 months at a time. That is not a good use for a motorhome, but makes more sense with a towable.

We also now have a winter base at The Ranch, the Escapee co-op between Carlsbad and Roswell, NM (between the bats and the aliens). Most years we do 2-4 months of campground hosting. Prior to covid we also did Habitat For Humanity RV Care-A-Vanner builds and Laborers For Christ (our church's program to help congregations with their projects). Since covid I've decided that I'm getting a bit too old to be doing much construction, so we've dropped those two parts.

We researched for a couple of years before we started looking for an RV to buy. We attended as many shows as we could and visited every RV dealer we could. I joined several general RV forums and a few brand-specific forums. If a brand didn't have an active owners' forum, or you had to own the brand before joining, or you had to pay to join, we excluded the brand. If the brand was no longer in business we also excluded it. The one exception to that was Bluebird Wanderlodge, since the forum was, and still is, very active and many of the people who made 'Birds are active members of the forum.

Retirement came a couple of years sooner than we had planned, but that happened to coincide with the purchase of the Foretravel, so it all worked out. We were able to park the Foretravel literally right outside the front door of our house, so moving into it was pretty easy. That summer we took a brief trip to a family reunion, then back to getting rid of stuff. As was mentioned, our kids didn't want much of what we had, and storage would have been more expensive than what the stuff was worth. We packed some things for ourselves, gave family members what they wanted, and had an auction to get rid of the rest. Some things sold at the auction, but weren't taken, so those were donated.

Hope our story helps someone.
 
Gary, we travel for extended trips but not full time. I also have three medical specialists I see twice a year, although not VA doctors. When traveling I have my blood work request sent to a nearby lab by my doctor. The results are then returned to my doctor and I do a video call and review the results with him. I don't know if this practice can work for you but for us it eliminates some of the aggravation of medical care on the road.
 
Just a quick suggestion on the interest bearing account for everyone, regardless of travel. Look into Capital One 360 Performance Savings. There is no minimum, no time commitment like a CD, currently pays 4.25%. Rate fluctuates but has remained in the 4.25% to 4.45% range since we started it more than a year ago. Prior to that our cash saving languished in a big bank money market earning $10.00 per year. My Dad is tickled with what he's getting since he did the same 6 months ago.

Best wishes on your full-time decision!

Thread drift but I will respond.

Vanguard Money Market is paying 5.3% and is liquid.
 
If you want to domicile and/or spend any significant time in Tennessee snip

Glad you replied about East Tennessee, we really like east Tennessee. We have good friends that live in Bristol. We have stayed and explored some, the areas of Bristol, Bluff City and Bulls Gap all near the Tri-Cities area that you mentioned. My Wife's Grandfather was born in Bulls Gap.

We have also explored some, the area North of Knoxville in the Heiskell area where there is an Escapee's Rainbow Co-Op Park at Raccoon Valley and also Rocky Top. We are also interested in the Townsend area. We are going back to really explore these areas.
Somewhere in one of these areas will probably be our Re-settling down place, whenever we get to that point. These areas are well within @ 4 hours driving time to our Daughters home near Cincinnati. Gives them their space and we still have our space but closer. The winters will be colder and longer than we are use to. Hopefully that will be a long time from now.

Now we really, really like South Coast Texas area for the winter, and we love the desert southwest but it's just too far from family when the time comes that we can't travel anymore.
 
Last edited:
I decided to try the full time life over 8 years ago. I spent the winter in my TT in east PA, in the camper to test out if it was what i wanted to do before retiring early and hitting the road.
I had a very good solid 7 years of travel after leaving the company in the spring.
Just this past spring, of 2023, i decided to try going back to normalish people living. I sold my HD pickup and TT, ( actually the TT had frame problems and was totaled ). I got a car, and an apartment. Spent the winter in the very north west of MN where i grew up. I forgot how cold it gets hear, as i worked doing linework on the east coast, and its warmer there in the winter.
The plan was/i did, get a vehicle with good fuel economy and a small camper for still traveling, but keep a home base, but i didnt like it, or am not ready for it yet.
I just gave back the apartment this past Friday and moved into my new/used 2020 reflections 273mk. I also purchased a new 2024 cheby 3500 with the 6.6 gas motor. I had a diesel in my last pickup and im trying gas this time. So far in putting stuff away, i find the grand design to be a great build fit and finish, as well insulated compared to my forest river TT.
I am in the process of having a friend sell on f book things to good to toss, i have donated lots, and am still organizing and going to give more away.
Its hard to part with things that i havent used ever, and or in years, but want to keep, for no practical reason.
My most preciouses space in a camper is the freezer. I dont want to buy a small one to have around. I was pleasantly surprised that, the outside kitchen fridge i was going to give away and use that space for storage, works as a freezer when cranked wide open. Life is goooood.
There are plenty of options to hunker down when ready to stop traveling.
It was 32f this morning hear, and i love it compared to the apartment, less space but its home. More windows to look out on all sides, but the front end.
....
I pay out of pocket health and dental insurance. My main domicile is SD, as mentioned about health insurance there is ways around that. The lady that wrights my health insurance, that is a PPO, is in Florida, and said just get an address at escapees in Texas and that covers your insurance address problem of SD.
I am a healthy 60 year old male, i have used the dental insurance 2 times, and the health 0.
...
I am looking forward to being with like minded full timers this winter. I am hunkered down in my home town park for the summer now.
 
Thread drift but I will respond.

Vanguard Money Market is paying 5.3% and is liquid.

For fun I'm going to start a separate thread and ask what others use for a good paying savings account and set some criteria to see what I get.
 
Last edited:
Lot of great info here. I'll reiterate what was said earlier. There is not one size fits all. My wife and I sold our house last summer and went full time. We had been in a TT and then after the house sold we upgraded to a used fifth wheel. We plan to save money up and build in a few years so just enjoying this in the meantime. That also means we have to be frugal. We can't afford to constantly be paying for full hook up sites and we have too high of anxiety to always be wondering where we will be in a few weeks. So we have shorter stints of 2-6 weeks that we float and pay for campgrounds and then find places to stay that are free. We spent last winter as campground hosts and plan to do the same thing this winter. We are currently mooch docking with family for a few months. We are enjoying it but it's also something we enjoy more because we know it's a temporary thing to enjoy and have memories from.
 

Try RV LIFE Pro Free for 7 Days

  • New Ad-Free experience on this RV LIFE Community.
  • Plan the best RV Safe travel with RV LIFE Trip Wizard.
  • Navigate with our RV Safe GPS mobile app.
  • and much more...
Try RV LIFE Pro Today
Back
Top Bottom