The Rolling Home
June 2006
Since we are spending this month parked in
the mountains of North Carolina, I figure this is a good time to get on
my soapbox and talk about some of the things we have done over the
years and why.
In 1999, we were basically fed up with working for a large
corporation and decided to just sell everything we had and hit the road
fulltime. We had prepared financially for early retirement by
putting a great deal of money into our company 401k, which was then
matched up to a certain percentage by BellSouth. We had a good
deal of money in the market and while we were short my personal goal of
a million bucks in the bank, we were darn close. Libby had
retired in 96 and took her retirement money as a lump sum. We
rolled all of that off into a retirement IRA and then just left it
alone.
When I officially retired in early 2000 (I was on vacation for the
first six
weeks of that year) I too, took a lump sum retirement and rolled it and
my 401k into a retirement IRA. Then I opted to move a bunch of
that money into a variable annuity. This would pay me much more than my
pension from BellSouth would have and since the market was flying, I
expected it to double my income in about six years.
Of course, the best laid plans etc. The market tanked between 00
and 02 and the value of my variable annuity dropped to about 30% of our
budgeted amount. Than meant we had to fall back to plan B.
Plan B was always a part of our early retirement plan. We would
simply workamp part of the year and continue to travel.
In the summer of 2002, we took a job working at the Happy Hollow RV
Resort in Wrightstown, WI. We had never been to Wisconsin, so we
thought this would be a good way to see some of that state. We
worked 40 hours a week, getting paid $6.50 an hour. Now one year
with Bell, we made well over 200k, so working for six and half bucks an
hour was quite an experience. We did enjoy our time at Happy
Hollow and became good friends with our managers there. We saved
some money, but not a great deal. The really bad part of working
in Wisconsin was the fact that we wound up paying more Wisconsin state
income tax after we left. It took about $400 more of our income
after we left. When your are only making a bit more than that
each week together, it was a real surprise.
That winter, we started a business selling DirecWay internet satellite
systems in Okeechobee, FL. Since I am a ham and hold an FCC
license, I didn't want to jeopardize that by selling my systems to
Rvers, (even though we had one ourselves) so I only sold to fixed
abodes. We sold about 10 systems that winter, not nearly enough
to make any real money.
The next summer in 2003, we took a workamping job in Cannonville, UT at
a KOA near Bryce Canyon NP. We spent five months in Cannonville,
working only 30 hours a week this time. We had a lot more time to
explore and to this day, South Central Utah is one of our favorite
spots in the country. We made about the same amount of money as
we did in Wisconsin because we worked an extra month.
We wound up paying extra income tax just like we did the year
before.
The following winter, we took a job in Okeechobee, FL
selling RVs. We really enjoyed our first six months
selling RVs. We made a good chunk of money that first year.
We both sold and pulled in about 80k gross. We did so well
and the owner promised us lots of things, so we got suckered in
and wound up buying a house. We closed on that house late
in August of 2004 and a week later got nailed by Hurricane
Frances. Then three weeks later, we took another direct hit from
hurricane Jeanne. It started to make us think that perhaps buying
a house wasn't such a good idea.
After the hurricanes, we decided to take a few weeks off, so we
traveled to North Carolina and North Georgia on a two week
vacation. When we returned to the dealership, the very next day
the owner had a meeting of the employees and announced that one of the
other sales folks would be the new sales manager. A job that had
been promised to me. Oh well, we knew then that we had been
suckered into doing something we really didn't need to be
doing. We stuck it out until the next summer with the dealership
and then Libby left in July of 05 and I left in August. In the 8
months we worked in 05, we made about 27k, because we were then sharing
the sales floor with six other sales folks. Instead of leaving the
sales force at four as promised, we now had to split our selling time
with 8 folks. The pie pieces became just too small to make it
worthwhile to stay.
We sold our house exactly one year and one day after we bought it to
avoid paying short term capital gains tax. We piled into the
Discovery and hit the road again. We knew we would need some kind
of job to make up the shortfall on my annuity, so I had been pursing a
reservist position with FEMA. It started to look like that was
going to happen in June of 05, so we went ahead and bailed out.
Our original budget was based on a $48,000 annual income. We were
making only bit above $30,000 due to my annuity shortfall, so we had to
make up the difference somehow.
Sure enough, I got deployed by FEMA in October of 2005 and have been
working for them ever since. I deployed to Austin, TX for most of
October and all of November and December of 2005. In mid January,
2006, I got redeployed to the Texas Wildfires between Abilene and Ft
Worth. We did that for three weeks. Then I released from
that disaster and we headed on out to The Ranch in New Mexico where we
again had leased an RV lot. This lot is ours for our lifetime. We
pay a bit above $500 annually for maintenance and except for
electricity, that is all it costs us to stay there. We will get
back all of our lease money if we decide to turn the lot in
someday. We have already done this once. We leased a lot at The
Ranch in 2001, kept it for about 18 months and then turned it in
because we knew we would be in the east for a couple of years.
While in FL, we bought an RV lot and kept it for about 18
months. We sold it when we bought the house, making about 50% on
our investment. We did well on the house we owned there in
04/05. We made a nice tidy profit on the house, paid our long
term capital gains and then hit the road.
We got deployed again by FEMA in April of 06 to Little Rock, Arkansas
to work on a tornado disaster that hit that state on April 1 and
2. We stayed in Little Rock for five weeks, released and then
headed for Indy and the 500.
Now we are in NC, just across the state line from Hiawassee, GA and
will spend about six weeks total here. We have done our dentists
appointments and have doctor appointments lined up for the first week
of July in Blairsville, GA, another of our previous homes. Next
week, we are in class at the John C. Campbell Folks School in
Brasstown, NC. I'm taking a banjo class and Libby is taking a wire
jewelry class.
Its a great life and the FEMA job is perfect for fulltimers. They
pay me a salary, travel expenses, rent me a car and I also get per
diem. They pay for our campground when we are deployed.
Most everyone else stays in a hotel, so I am a cheap employee in the RV
and Libby gets to go with me and be a tourist wherever I am deployed.
The three to six week deployments seem to be what I like the most and
with two or three of those each year, I more than make up for my
annuity shortfall. I can see doing the FEMA reservist job for
many years to come. Its a great job. You get paid, get most
expenses and are helping folks too. Besides, paying me a fairly
good salary, I get basically free camping which helps cut down on
expenses too.
Why am I telling you all this? Because, as you can see, our plans
and aspirations have changed considerably since we first went out
fulltime in 2000. We travel much less than we used to, we stay
longer, I work from time to time in various locations and we have a
fallback position at The Ranch if we need to go sit and save
expense money. Most of our fulltime friends have either changed
their travel habits, gone to work part-time or come off the road.
When we started in 00, we often traveled with the Emonds, the
Paynes, the Holders, the Hammonds, or at least met them in
various parts of the country. The Emonds are still out there as
are the Paynes in a new rig no less. The Holders are looking to
buy a home near Austin and the Hammonds have been off the road for
several years now. We had a bit of temporary insanity , buying a
house based on unkept promises, but we made a tidy sum from it and it
has not hurt our bank account at all.
No matter what you think you will spend as fulltimers, you need some
sort of exit plan, a fallback strategy or some place to lay low while
you recover from financial dips, medical problems or increases in
expenses. (can you say fuel costs!)
Actually, our fuel costs this year will be a bit less than $200 a
month, just like they were in our first year of fulltiming in
00. We just don't drive as much and we stay longer in one
place. We paid no campground fees in January and only paid for
about six nights in February of this year. We paid no
campground fees in March and April except for four nights travel
to Little Rock, which was basically covered by my travel expenses
to Little Rock. We have been in campgrounds on our nickel
since the fourth week of April. We will wind up
paying for campgrounds for June, July and part of August before
we either get deployed by FEMA again or go back to The Ranch for
a while. Our expenses will be much less in 06 than any other year
we have traveled.
Our current lifestyle allows us to continue to travel, although less
than early on in our fulltime adventure and also to keep our
expenses down quite a bit. We actually are spending less in
expenses this year than ever before. We won't be moving every few
days, but we still enjoy the lifestyle, know from our home buying
adventure in 04 that our mental state is still that of fulltime RVers,
not stick house owners and that as long as there are disasters
(and there are lots of them) we will have a nice supplemental income
until we reach the age where we feel comfortable tapping into our nest
egg.