Mxrdad wrote:Also, Miljet is spot on with that RV website. Its a must have for not only the "lifers" in RV's but also the weekend warriors. Good stuff in there.
Yesterday morning, as we were going through the departure preparations prior to returning home, a lady walked past with her killer chihuahua and we chatted with her for a couple of minutes. Her first question, "So, are you full-timers yet?"
Answer: not with this little trailer! So here are my impressions regarding size..... First, our trailer is way too small to even remotely consider full-timing it. We would have to be forced by desperate circumstances into such a scenario. We're not that desperate. That said, it is easy to see why nearly everybody in the campground of our age group (I'm 64, and TAW is "late 50s") was camped with a large RV with multiple slide-outs and a LOT of room and features.
For instance,
we used the campground's toilet and shower facilities for nearly everything except a middle-of-the-night tapping of the kidneys. I noticed that I never saw any of the other guests using those facilities, for the simple reason that they didn't have to. I'm sure their RV's bathroom facilities were more than roomy enough to use for all uses, and less spartan than our little marine-style "wet head". Ours is suitable for travel, but I would want something more substantial for long-term living.
At home, we sleep in a king-size bed - a split king Sleep Number bed which allows us to individually change firmness and angle/elevation of head and feet. With my back issues, this has proven to be near-mandatory to obtain a decent night's sleep without being well-medicated. We are each able to get in and out of bed on our side of the bed. Our trailer has a smallish queen sized bed, which is just
barely long enough for either of us (at 5'10", I am the taller of the two of us). It is mounted crossways in the trailer, so one of us has to climb over the other to get out of bed, which leads to what I called "relay-peeing" in the middle of the night. If one of us gets up, the other takes advantage of the moment to get up also to use the facilities.
And then there is just the issue of square footage. We spent most of Sunday evening into Monday morning confined indoors due to a rainstorm passing through. We've been married 28 years and get along very well together and enjoy one another's company, but I can see how we could begin to tire of one of another's presence if we had to live this way full time. The U-shaped dinette, which is fairly large for such a small trailer, thanks to being located in the slide-out, is not really a substitute for a good couch or armchair; so there is really no comfortable place to sit for extended periods. The truth is, a trailer like ours is meant to be an adjunct to outdoor living - simply a place to retreat to for the night, or for passing bad weather. But it is
not really a place to
live full-time, or for any kind of really extended stay.
The question then becomes, what would it take for us to want to invest in an RV large enough to live in at least semi-permanently? The answer is, we're not there yet......in no small part because we have two precious grandbabies that we just can't get enough of. As I am fond of saying: my grandbabies are #1; all others are #2 or lower! Right now, we live fairly close to them, about 15 minutes away. We're unwilling to spend large amounts of time away from them, so there is no practical way to fold full-time RVing into that piece. If we lived far from them, then long-term RVing would make perfect sense as it would be a way for us to spend large blocks of time with them.
Then there is the financial peace piece (yes, I said it that way deliberately). We are, other than the loan on this trailer and a small credit card balance, debt free. We own our home free and clear. It is comfortable and spacious for the two of us, and we
like living in it. Hospitality ranks highly among spiritual gifts for the
both of us, and we enjoy entertaining - particularly in the Lord's service. Our home affords us the ability to do that easily and fairly regularly. Since there is no
need to invest in a "house on wheels", I have to consider whether or not I want to assume what is essentially a mortgage, all over again, as the price of entry into longer term RV living. Add to that the cost of a tow-vehicle, since neither of our current vehicles — both of which are capable of towing our current trailer — are capable of towing a much larger unit better suited to full-time RVing. Since a large trailer is more affordable than a large motor home, that means we'd have to buy a large heavy-duty tow truck, probably diesel, so there's another $50-$60K (assuming new).
And then there is the cost of storage. We live on a smallish suburban lot just under 1/4 acre. There's no place to store even our little trailer, let alone a large RV. So we rent space at a local storage yard which is conveniently located to our home. We could probably store it more cheaply if we were willing to store it further away, but we're willing for now to pay a little extra for that convenience. It's a covered space at a local facility. There are several large RVs stored adjacent to my spot, and they use
two spots like ours; so I'm assuming twice the cost of storage for something in that size range. We don't own any land yet outside of the city (although that is in our future plans), so we don't have a free place to store it. I am willing to discuss storage at my son's brother in law's place in Colleyville, in exchange for allowing him and his wife to use it, but my wife is not as sanguine about sharing it as I am. And then there is the consideration of upkeep costs. If he breaks it, do I pay to fix it? Stuff like that.......
So for now, we are going with what we can afford right now, without going into a large amount of debt to have it. So between that and our family/grandkids situation, our RVing ambitions are pretty limited to what we currently have, including limiting whether or not we can consider full-timing it.
