We'll we've been doing a lot of reading. As you can imagine we have an insatiable desire to know everything about RVing. Of course, I'm most interested in anything about finances. How much does everything cost. Can we live on $45K/yr? What would a good budget look like. Dagmar is most interested in how can we possibly live in a trailer, even one as big as a 5th wheel. What happens if we miss the kids and grandkids too much to stay on the road. We found a great site, rv-dreams.com, with all of that on it and so we're digging in.

Thinking about a Rig

Thinking about what kind of rig we might want to start the journey with. It's not going to be easy to make the transition from being house bound to RV bound. We don't want to have a lot of money invested in a rig before the house is sold, otherwise, we could be making payments on both. But if the house sells before our January retirement date then we'll need something to live in until, at least until then. Our 1999 F150 with tow package is rated for 8,000 lbs. I think we could look for a trailer between 6-7,000 lbs empty...if we are to use it. In that range we aren't looking at anything very long, or with slides, probably something less than 30' in the light or ultralight category. Those can be had, used, in the $10-$15k range. When we have a little more experience on the road we could purchase something larger. But how hard is it to sell a trailer in that range? Are they worth anything on a trade-in? How do you do it all without a permanent address?

Retirement Date is Set!!

We've set the date. January 2010 is the date for my retirement regardless of how the stock market is doing. We'll just have to get by on my Federal pension and my Social Security check until our Thrift TSP account gets healthier. Might be a few more years; but we have until I'm 72 before we have to start taking it out. Until then it will grow tax free. We were planning on more income for retirement but we should still have enough to join the ranks of full-time RV'ers.

We hope to get a lot of help from those RV'ers that blazed this trail before us. So many decisions to made. We have to sell our house; should we sell everything else or put it in storage? What kind of RV to buy. We have an older 23' Fleetwood Terry that we pull with our 1999 F150. That obviously won't cut if we plan to live in it full-time. What's best? Should we buy another bumper pull, a 5th wheel or a motorhome. Finances play a significant part of that decision. We would like to spend less than $30-35k for our rig. Also, what is a reasonable budget for traveling expenses? How about GIS systems?! What about internet service; do we need it if we use something like the Iphone or the T-Mobile Google Phone?