Today I left a full-time, secure, good paying job to get ready to sell my house, and live in a 39 foot RV while traveling the country. Who does that? Come check out our story!
Today was the day. Many hours of planning and research came down to a few moments in time when I had to face reality. I became a quitter. Back in July when Stacy and I looked at each other and said “Lets go for it”, I was not really sure how things were going to go when I thought about today. There was a ton of forethought put into the big plan and we always had something to do to get ready. But until today, I never really knew how today was going to go.
I started discussing with a few of my customers our plans when we were prepping for the house to be listed. The first comments were a little disbelief but then as we talked about opportunities and seasonal employment options they realized that it was not such a far-fetched idea. It also helped me to work through the anxiety over the what ifs. Following the many bloggers and vloggers helped me realize that there are many out there doing it on less.I found the more I talked about it the easier it became to realize that all we needed to do was want it bad enough and we could do it. We knew that the transition to the RV lifestyle was going to be a difficult one and that we would have to make a lot of decisions. As I look back I can say many were not hard. The process would involve many hours discussing and evaluating our live goals and desires. I do not regret anything we have done or decisions made to make the transition happen. Many outside forces seemed to only exacerbate the feelings that we needed to go now. From deaths to illnesses and broken self promises experienced by those around us, we came to understand the truth to the saying “tomorrow is never promised”. We came upon so many situations and heard so many stories from people who could give you many reasons why they could not. We would always look at each other and say “We Can!” We then came across a YouTube channel called GoingNoMad. Eric and Tina went through the same thought process that we did. Though their way to get there was different, they still had the same thought processes and end goal in mind.During our initial preps we knew that we needed to downsize our personal possessions. We (ok more I) needed to learn to let go of our collections and not worry about the what we would later refer to as “the just in case” items. Before Christmas we came across and started to follow a podcast from two guys that called themselves “The Minimalists”. We listened in the car during our many trips we took around the holidays and found it very comforting to know that there were many people that felt the same way we did. Their podcasts have really helped us figure out a lot of the how to but also some reinforcement of the why to.So we are down to the last two weeks. I am having to decide what I am going to do with the remnants of my tools that I have used regularly for the last six years. There is still a few projects in Honey (our 5th wheel) that need to be done like our battery bank and battery monitor. I need to finalize my decision on generator options. I also need to build my window to the back of the water lines in the basement. There are some last-minute service items I need to get done to Ginger (our truck) that I have scheduled for next week. And on top of all that, I need to figure out where we are going to go when we close on our current house until the first week of April.
Opting Out of Normal 