Fulltiming - and keeping my stuff!

[Neal]

I really believe fulltiming is in my future. I'm out in the MH this week and it's my happy place. I love the simple life, I love the traveling, the freedom, everything the RV lifestyle grants us (other than when things go wrong, that part sucks). I don't know though that I could part with my belongings as some have. My "plan" as of this 10 second time slice is to only FT for a few years, we'll see where that leads me. My options are:

1. Sell house and put belonging in storage. Question is how much will it cost to store that much stuff? Is it worth selling the house or using as storage?
2. Rent the house, furnished or unfurnished is the dilemma
3. Sell house and all belongings, start over in the future. I somewhat like this idea as it closes one chapter and reopens another for another day. Just the waste of money is the sad part.

For others that have been through this thought process, please share as well as share what you pay for storage if you are storing your entire house belongings.

 

[BGMAC]

My $0.02 worth.
1. Unless the stuff will increase in value or is sentimental I would not keep the house stuff if your not going to use it relatively soon. If your going to be gone for a long time it is probably worth selling it and keeping the storage rental money in your pocket.
2. Rent the house unfurnished. Usually the furniture will get damaged and it would probably cost more to repair then a hole in the wall.
3. If you plan on possibly returning to your house. Rent it if you can manage it yourself. I have not seen to many property managers keep up and check things out until its too late. If you can't manage it yourself, then I would probably sell it.

I am not really a materialistic type of person so getting rid of things is not a problem with me...

 

[Our Coddiwomple Journey]

just started our fourth year as full timers. Sold/gave away/ donated everything.
No regrets.
It's all just stuff

 

[sheridany]

Rent the house. Clear it out and keep what is important with family friends whatever and or put in storage. You may want to come "home" at some point and you dont have to go through the house buying process and you certainly dont want to pay cap gains on the sale assuming you make some money on it and then start over again. I would imagine you could do pretty well right now on the rental front. My .02 FWIW.

 

[Jabber Jaw]

Neal;
Since we have sold the house here, & are in the process of getting ready to move into the RV for a while, until probably the end of October; we have been going through the "getting rid of stuff" mode. What a challenge it has been. Sell, pack, give away, & donate "stuff" is a big task. Actually, going through everything posed the biggest time consuming challenge.
So, as a result, here's a small piece of advice, start early, & allow yourself plenty of time. We started this process in June, so plan ahead if you can.
We are anxious to get to Florida and get into our new house. Essentially, what we did was buy all new furniture, and probably don't have enough in storage to fill a U-Haul Cube Van.

I think "full-timing" would be wonderful, but DW wants to still have a house. Net result. New house with RV garage, smaller home, low to no maintenance, & easy to leave to travel.
Load the Coach, lock the door, & hit the road! But it still leaves her a place to call home. This way, we both win!

Whatever decision you make, don't look back, & enjoy each day to the utmost!

 

[NWIP]

Keep as little as possible. Storage only cost money and well is it preserved. We have spent about $7000 in storage in 3 years, keeping mostly sentimental or irreplaceable items.

 

[Jim]

I love my MH cuz it gets me away from my house/property/etc. But I love my house/property/etc. cuz it's a nice place to come back to after being in the MH for a month. No way I could be without them both.

 

[MapNerd]

If you have family that can store your stuff, store the sentimental with them instead of a storage unit. If you don't have family or they can't/won't store your stuff, consider a mail-in storage facility that charges by the box. Sell everything else, take the proceeds and put them into some CDs (or whatever investment vehicle floats your boat) that will mature when you think you'll be finished, or half way through and then reinvest. When you're all done with your adventure, your investment should be maturing at the same time. Use those funds to refurnish and equip your new sticks & bricks.

As to renting or selling, that's a personal decision but talk to your realtor about market conditions in your area. Hopefully it would never come to it, but there are now all sorts of eviction moratoriums these days. I'd hate to be in the position of not being able to collect rent, not being able to evict and still having to pay a mortgage. Unless I could get a military renter, I personally wouldn't consider renting in the current environment.

 

[sheridany]

@Neal Don’t forget the extra charge to store the kayak....

 

[Nobaddays]

We bought a 24 foot used cargo trailer and packed that full of stuff that I didn’t want to replace if we decided to buy a home again in a few years or stuff that we might want in the camper. Couple tool chests full of tools, newer tv, minimal furniture, extension ladders, clothes, kitchen stuff, etc. I park the trailer at a family members and when we stop to visit we know what we don’t need in the camper and grab some stuff we think we need. Cargo trailers are always easy to sell and have little depreciation. At some point we will probably sell the rest and the trailer. Learning to live with less has been very enjoyable.

 

[Kevin D Pem]

No relatives that want to house sit? They can disappoint you but if you don't feel like ending your trip, you can always clean house later when the rig continues to be your happy place.

 

[Neal]

No relatives that want to house sit? They can disappoint you but if you don't feel like ending your trip, you can always clean house later when the rig continues to be your happy place.

No.

Selling stuff is so much harder than buying it! I hate it and I think one thing that I really enjoy about the RVing is the simple life. Not overwhelmed with stuff. I like my "stuff" at times and big screen TV but in total it all adds stress probably more so than the enjoyment of it. I keyed in on this many years ago when I went to a ski lodge for a long holiday weekend. It was just a big studio so a bed, a kitchen area, a bureau, bathroom and I thought wow, this is exactly what I want. Simple, has it all, low stress. My house is more of a storage unit than a place to live and I am the storage for family.

 

[MapNerd]

for what you can't sell easily or quickly enough and don't have a reason to hold on to, consider donating it and taking a write off on your taxes. Standard deduction increases may have changed whether or not you still itemize or not, but your accountant will be able to advise. If you can't sell it, can't donate it and write it off, don't wanna give it away and don't want to carry it around, put it in one of your boxes.

Once most things are sold, donated or packed, you'll know if you need to rent a unit or if it makes sense to store by the box. My sister in law stores most of our stuff but for things we want to be able to get back at a moments notice, we store by the box at a facility that will ship it back to us. This allows us to swap things in and out of storage on the road.

 

[ARD]

Just finishing my 3rd year fulltiming and I don’t see myself stopping anytime soon. My biggest regret is the 12 vaults of stuff ready to be shipped anywhere in the world which is costing almost $600/mo.

I gave tons of stuff away, but my house sold quickly and the rest went into storage. It is like a cloud hanging over me.

If you are serious about fulltiming, I would get rid of everything and be totally free. @Jabber Jaw had best advice ...start early if this is the route you take.

Regarding the house... if it makes sense to rent it and gives you a little monthly cash flow, then get a property management company and rent it. You so don’t want to have to deal with renters while you are on the road. If you are not attached to the house , I’d sell it. It’s a seller’s market. ? But you already know all this. I’m sure you will discover what feels right for you.

 

[Kevin D Pem]

No.

Selling stuff is so much harder than buying it! I hate it and I think one thing that I really enjoy about the RVing is the simple life. Not overwhelmed with stuff. I like my "stuff" at times and big screen TV but in total it all adds stress probably more so than the enjoyment of it. I keyed in on this many years ago when I went to a ski lodge for a long holiday weekend. It was just a big studio so a bed, a kitchen area, a bureau, bathroom and I thought wow, this is exactly what I want. Simple, has it all, low stress. My house is more of a storage unit than a place to live and I am the storage for family.

what they say is you don't own your stuff your stuff owns you.

 

[TJ&LadyDi]

No.

Selling stuff is so much harder than buying it! I hate it and I think one thing that I really enjoy about the RVing is the simple life. Not overwhelmed with stuff. I like my "stuff" at times and big screen TV but in total it all adds stress probably more so than the enjoyment of it. I keyed in on this many years ago when I went to a ski lodge for a long holiday weekend. It was just a big studio so a bed, a kitchen area, a bureau, bathroom and I thought wow, this is exactly what I want. Simple, has it all, low stress. My house is more of a storage unit than a place to live and I am the storage for family.

I fear Amazon.com stock is about to plunge if word of @Neal's new "simple life without stuff" thoughts get beyond RVF!

Seriously, though, it doesn't matter whether one plans to full-time in an RV or just gets up in years and wants a smaller place, "stuff" is a big issue. We're starting to deal with the same thing.

TJ

 

[Tip&Tina]

I really believe fulltiming is in my future. I'm out in the MH this week and it's my happy place. I love the simple life, I love the traveling, the freedom, everything the RV lifestyle grants us (other than when things go wrong, that part sucks). I don't know though that I could part with my belongings as some have. My "plan" as of this 10 second time slice is to only FT for a few years, we'll see where that leads me. My options are:

1. Sell house and put belonging in storage. Question is how much will it cost to store that much stuff? Is it worth selling the house or using as storage?
2. Rent the house, furnished or unfurnished is the dilemma
3. Sell house and all belongings, start over in the future. I somewhat like this idea as it closes one chapter and reopens another for another day. Just the waste of money is the sad part.

Very timely...we just got back from a road trip to see my Mother in Chicago. LSS: She called me begging for help. She admitted to being a Hoarder (Yes, one of "those"), and she is. I know it; I've seen it. DH had not. She said she needed her whole home cleaned out of the stuff piled up because she couldn't clean anymore. Good enough for us to drive 800 miles one way to help. We planned on 2 weeks.

We arrived on Sunday, September 13. All we had was a bed to sleep on because every available space was taken up with "stuff" that she called invaluable, antique, precious, and worth a fortune. We saw junk. We ended up cleaning out her garage so she could get her minivan in and she decided that she would go through the house and didn't need us to help her. GRRRR....

In short, we pretty much wasted our time. We drove home this past Sunday. We could have made a huge dent in the junk sitting around us. She just couldn't give up the stuff she has hung on to for so long.

She has 9 vacuum cleaners between 3 floors; 13 brooms, 3 brand new TVs in boxes, 2 snow blowers, 2 whole house generators. She had 13 bags of weed and feed for the grass (small yard), 14 bags of crabgrass killer, 12 bags of insecticide for the outside. She has 7 extension ladders hanging and sitting around her property. It looks like a trailer park....very distressing. This is scratching the surface of what we saw in the garage. The house is worse...

We donated to Goodwill 14 chandeliers that were just sitting in the garage. Every inch of every space has "junk" on it. There is not a spare inch of space in her home.

My point to this story? We've been downsizing for the past few years for FTing; I've gone and cleared out all personal items if we decide to sell so a Realtor can come in at a moment's notice.

We, at a previous home that was small, kept stuff in a storage locker for 6 years. I forgot what was in it. It cost $60 per month. When we opened it to look in and decide what had to be moved to our new home, we decided that most of it was worthy of donation to Goodwill. Money down the drain...learn from our mistake.

My Mom also has a rental property. Her renters are now living rent-free due to the Covid rent forbearances. They said they couldn't afford the rent and she can't evict them. She still has to pay insurance and taxes on the house. That is the risk of being a landlord. Plus, when on the road, you will have them call you at midnight to say a light bulb went out and they can't change it-believe me they do! Another renter she had put concrete down the toilet due to a disagreement with my Mom when she moved out. $3000 repair. People like that don't care about credit or what you can do to them after. Sell in an upmarket, bank it, and go FT.

 

[AbdRahim]

The different perspectives are very enlightening. Getting rid of stuff? Hmmmmm! Difficult indeed. I could never go full time while my wife is alive. She hates the very thought of such a thing. Should I outlive her, I am leaning more to the small house with RV garage. I feel the need for a base to return to which I can return. A place to wash and work on the coach, or live if the coach ever needs body work or any other repair lasting more than a week. The difficulty there is trying not to become a hermit in the new community.

I wander if I could convert my 2 story house into a one story with RV garage. That way I keep my great neighbors. That would probably cost as much as buying a new one in a warmer climate.

 

[Neemer]

This thread made me recall a routine by George Carlin in which he talks about “stuff” as only he could. It’s on youtube if anyone wants to look it up.

 

[Kevin D Pem]

This thread made me recall a routine by George Carlin in which he talks about “stuff” as only he could. It’s on youtube if anyone wants to look it up.

No matter how you are afflicted as a "stuff slave" there is someone else with more of a problem. or maybe they have less of a problem than we do but we can't see it. Point is it is real easy to write a comedy skit on this subject.