Update Entry #1: All About our Airstreaming Adventure
Update time. It's been too long, so it will be done.
Topic One (this has gone so long that it will be the sole topic for this entry): The Airstream Plan. We are still doing plenty of research, and we are still just as confident that we will be proceeding with the two-year plan as we originally conjured up. I just finished a book called Take Back Your Life: Travelling Full Time in an RV, which was advertised to be geared especially toward "young full-timers". Unfortunately, in the RV world, "young" is considered of Baby Boomer age.
But the book still addresses plenty of useful issues in detail-- everything from health insurance options, home insurance, to the differences between black water and grey water tanks and how many gallons you really need. There was also a section for working on the road, but you can really tell that the adience/author of the book was not that of any skilled profession or high education. It basically covered the vast availability of minimum-wage jobs, or if you're really industrious and smart enough to start your own business, maybe you can sell satellite dishes out of the back of your truck! Um, okay.
D and I are actually thinking the following: This will be the perfect opportunity for me to establish my freelance business-- something I just cannot afford to focus on with a Bay Area cost of living and mortgage. I currently am building up a tiny arsenal of freelance clients, but with my full-time job, I can only work on one other project at a time, and after three steady months of freelance projects, I am burned out. The lowered cost of living will allow me to focus on freelance while not being as worried about paying the high bills. We haven't actually sat down and worked out a budget yet, but here's an estimated example: Our current cost of living (everything we have to + want to spend) is over $5,200/mo (just on stuff I can think of off of the top of my head). When I do an extremely conservative estimate of our cost of living while travelling (which inludes a full month $30/night campground fees even though we'll probably be "boondocking" --staying on National Forest land, etc, land for free a lot-- and full payments for the airstream as if we put nothing down, and $600/mo for health insurance-- all of these we'll hopefully find better solutions for) we are looking at total expenses of $3,485/mo. These numbers include basics such as food, gas etc, high speed internet (a must for my job) but does not include all the incidentals we buy every month, and we are major consumers. The airstream living will cut these cost down to almost nothing, as we simply can not consume "stuff" while in such a small space. I added extra costs for dining out to the airstream budget as well. We currently dine out about 4x/mo, not much relatively. As part of this experience, I definitely want to be trying out the local food and restaurants, but obviously this is something we can cut back on if we can't afford.
I'm also considering the possibility of proposing an off-site contract with my current employer when we're ready to take off. Basically, working the minimum number of hours to retain health insurance. This could save us almost $500/mo. I have no idea if my employers would go for it, and it would cut back on my time spent with generating freelance clients, but maybe a steady income and health insurance would be worth it. A lot of people who do this get "catastrophic" health insurance, which is only $100-200/mo, but the deductibles are extremely high. With D's back problems (degenerative disc disease) and my contsant bladder infections, I'm not sure if this would be wise for us. We need to really sit down and crunch some numbers for that one. Other work plans include temp agencies (which we both have experience with), freelance agencies (for me), D will be looking into the realm of "Virtual Assistants," a bit of WorKamping, and at one point along the way, I must try being a diner waitress.
Another thing we're planning to help us out financially is the initial "take off" phase (see below).
Here's the chronology of what will happen:
•Starting Now:
- Develop a seriously detailed budget and game plan
- Major dental surgery for D - may have to be spread over the course of 2 years for insurance purposes, or we buck up and pay a lot out of pocket
- Finish all of our home improvement projects to improve resale value
- Buckle down on our finances. Pay off all outstanding debt, including the possible surgery and home improvements
• Two years from now:
- Buy an airstream. Hopefully used-- we could save up to 30k buying used, and hopefully some of the initial manufacturing kinks (they tend to have undescovered leaks, wiring issues, etc, straight off the lot) might have been discovered and fixed in a used unit.The airstream must be an International CCD. We'd prefer a Signature Series, which was just introduced this year, so hopefully in two years some used ones will be available. We will most likely have to make payments on this, depending on the equity we get from the townhouse, and what we decide is the best thing to do with that money.
- Sell one car. Buy a truck. Hopefully used, unless some good hybrid or diesel options come out in the next couple of years.
- Put the townhouse up for sale.
•Two years and so many months from now:
-Close on the townhouse
-Have a massive garage sale/donate the rest. Everything we must keep (our nicest furniture, books, albums, etc. will go into storage.)
-Move into a local RV park. Stay there for 3-6 months while continuing to work at our current jobs to put a nice sum of cash in our savings. I've identified several decent RV parks in the area that charge between $650-$750 monthly and include WiFi, laundry and cable. This will be the part that will take the most will power-- living in an RV park in our own area and working full time. We will officially be "trailer park" for a half a year!
•Two and a half years to three years from now:
-Sell the other car
-Quit our jobs (or possibly re-negotiate a job in my case) and hit the road!
We are totally, 100% serious about this.
Topic One (this has gone so long that it will be the sole topic for this entry): The Airstream Plan. We are still doing plenty of research, and we are still just as confident that we will be proceeding with the two-year plan as we originally conjured up. I just finished a book called Take Back Your Life: Travelling Full Time in an RV, which was advertised to be geared especially toward "young full-timers". Unfortunately, in the RV world, "young" is considered of Baby Boomer age.
But the book still addresses plenty of useful issues in detail-- everything from health insurance options, home insurance, to the differences between black water and grey water tanks and how many gallons you really need. There was also a section for working on the road, but you can really tell that the adience/author of the book was not that of any skilled profession or high education. It basically covered the vast availability of minimum-wage jobs, or if you're really industrious and smart enough to start your own business, maybe you can sell satellite dishes out of the back of your truck! Um, okay.
D and I are actually thinking the following: This will be the perfect opportunity for me to establish my freelance business-- something I just cannot afford to focus on with a Bay Area cost of living and mortgage. I currently am building up a tiny arsenal of freelance clients, but with my full-time job, I can only work on one other project at a time, and after three steady months of freelance projects, I am burned out. The lowered cost of living will allow me to focus on freelance while not being as worried about paying the high bills. We haven't actually sat down and worked out a budget yet, but here's an estimated example: Our current cost of living (everything we have to + want to spend) is over $5,200/mo (just on stuff I can think of off of the top of my head). When I do an extremely conservative estimate of our cost of living while travelling (which inludes a full month $30/night campground fees even though we'll probably be "boondocking" --staying on National Forest land, etc, land for free a lot-- and full payments for the airstream as if we put nothing down, and $600/mo for health insurance-- all of these we'll hopefully find better solutions for) we are looking at total expenses of $3,485/mo. These numbers include basics such as food, gas etc, high speed internet (a must for my job) but does not include all the incidentals we buy every month, and we are major consumers. The airstream living will cut these cost down to almost nothing, as we simply can not consume "stuff" while in such a small space. I added extra costs for dining out to the airstream budget as well. We currently dine out about 4x/mo, not much relatively. As part of this experience, I definitely want to be trying out the local food and restaurants, but obviously this is something we can cut back on if we can't afford.
I'm also considering the possibility of proposing an off-site contract with my current employer when we're ready to take off. Basically, working the minimum number of hours to retain health insurance. This could save us almost $500/mo. I have no idea if my employers would go for it, and it would cut back on my time spent with generating freelance clients, but maybe a steady income and health insurance would be worth it. A lot of people who do this get "catastrophic" health insurance, which is only $100-200/mo, but the deductibles are extremely high. With D's back problems (degenerative disc disease) and my contsant bladder infections, I'm not sure if this would be wise for us. We need to really sit down and crunch some numbers for that one. Other work plans include temp agencies (which we both have experience with), freelance agencies (for me), D will be looking into the realm of "Virtual Assistants," a bit of WorKamping, and at one point along the way, I must try being a diner waitress.
Another thing we're planning to help us out financially is the initial "take off" phase (see below).
Here's the chronology of what will happen:
•Starting Now:
- Develop a seriously detailed budget and game plan
- Major dental surgery for D - may have to be spread over the course of 2 years for insurance purposes, or we buck up and pay a lot out of pocket
- Finish all of our home improvement projects to improve resale value
- Buckle down on our finances. Pay off all outstanding debt, including the possible surgery and home improvements
• Two years from now:
- Buy an airstream. Hopefully used-- we could save up to 30k buying used, and hopefully some of the initial manufacturing kinks (they tend to have undescovered leaks, wiring issues, etc, straight off the lot) might have been discovered and fixed in a used unit.The airstream must be an International CCD. We'd prefer a Signature Series, which was just introduced this year, so hopefully in two years some used ones will be available. We will most likely have to make payments on this, depending on the equity we get from the townhouse, and what we decide is the best thing to do with that money.
- Sell one car. Buy a truck. Hopefully used, unless some good hybrid or diesel options come out in the next couple of years.
- Put the townhouse up for sale.
•Two years and so many months from now:
-Close on the townhouse
-Have a massive garage sale/donate the rest. Everything we must keep (our nicest furniture, books, albums, etc. will go into storage.)
-Move into a local RV park. Stay there for 3-6 months while continuing to work at our current jobs to put a nice sum of cash in our savings. I've identified several decent RV parks in the area that charge between $650-$750 monthly and include WiFi, laundry and cable. This will be the part that will take the most will power-- living in an RV park in our own area and working full time. We will officially be "trailer park" for a half a year!
•Two and a half years to three years from now:
-Sell the other car
-Quit our jobs (or possibly re-negotiate a job in my case) and hit the road!
We are totally, 100% serious about this.