Wow, Incredible, Unbelievable, Un-imaginable… – If you can dream big enough, have the courage to challenge traditional thinking and are willing to set goals, execute a strategy that is WAYYYY out of your Comfort Zone, PLAN, are willing to take a chance and are fortunate to have someone that shares that dream you really can stretch yourself to an entirely new LIFE!!!

“The Times are a Changing ” is no understatement.

So I’m sure you’re asking yourself where are we headed with this post? After several years of planning, research, you-tube viewing, soul searching, future pacing, spreadsheet analysis, budgeting, saving, and practical experiences each summer, we finally decided to put a plan in place to begin our process to start to downsize, simplify,  and move towards our future Full-Timer RV Life/ RETIREMENT.

Many years ago I heard a metaphor that went this way – “How do you eat an Elephant? One bite at a time…” Well the elephant I am outlining above had to start with the first bite and it was a big one!

Selling our Home:

After 30 years of living in our home in Connecticut, a home we built, raised a family in, shared with our family, friends, and community, and loved, we decided to finally contact a realtor to begin the exploration process of preparing our house for market/sale. Mind you living in a house for 30 years we had made a conscious decision about 6 years ago to remodel the entire home from top to bottom so we could enjoy the remodel and also put the house in the best position to be presented for sale when this day would come. Every bedroom, wall, kitchen, closet, bathroom was remodeled and designed and built again as new. While we keep a very clean and organized house, after 30 years of living we decided it was a prudent decision. As a culinary arts teacher, Joanne had spearheaded the design and construction of her ultimate dream kitchen in the remodel, which was the center piece to the remodel. We knew that creating an open floor plan along with the dream kitchen would be a difference maker when we did decide to put our house on the market in the future.

Our town, our street, our home…of 30 years

So back to the first bite: –

Over the years we’ve had a good  friend in our hometown that was a very successful realtor. Many times we had stopped to talk to her and said someday we were going to call her. Well, after much discussion we decided to call Jenny (The Realtor) officially in early February to stop by our house and talk to her about a strategy/time-line for putting the house on the market. We sought her professional input regarding if we needed to make any additional improvements when listed. Jenny is a straight shooter and told us emphatically we didn’t need to do anything more. The house was show ready right now and she strongly encouraged us to get the house on the market immediately. Now, I don’t know how the housing market is in your respective area though the Connecticut real estate market has just been terrible for years and has never recovered from the housing crisis of 2007. Houses in our price range/area have traditionally taken years to sell. Unfortunately, as much as we love the Connecticut shoreline, the high taxes and costs of living in this area have significantly impacted the number of people moving into this area. One report, I read recently, stated that for every person that moves into Connecticut each day 7 are moving out. With a the state already fiscally in dire straights, the shrinking population is stretching the communities in every way to pay for infrastructure and housing sales are bearing the brunt of this problem.

Jenny encouraged us to put the house on the market in late February, even though we were still in the midst of winter. Almost immediately from the moment she went live with our listing we had calls for showings. Within 2 days of putting the house on the market we had 2 offers at our full asking price. Our heads were spinning… We were not ready for this and really had to do some soul searching on what we were going to do. We decided to accept the the offer from a nice family relocating to the area which made things much easier as we progressed in the process.  So almost 30 years from the day we closed on the house in 1988 we signed the papers to sell our home in Connecticut. The challenge was we had to be out by April 10th…

The absolute toughest day – Moving Day April 10, 2018! -Yes we do both have tears in our eyes…

While during the remodel, years earlier,  we had forced ourselves to get rid of a ton of accumulated stuff, we still had a lifetime of typical consumerism scattered in every room and closet that we needed to figure out what to do with. We really had hoped to simplify enough so we didn’t need a storage shed, which we know from many other full timers was just not a good investment.

Selling Items to the Buyers:

After signing the” intent to sell contract” and after completing the home inspection, confirming buyers mortgage approval, and receiving a good faith deposit, I asked the buyer’s and our realtor if it would be ok to send an email of items in the house we were looking to sell reasonably. CC:ing everyone I put together an extensive spreadsheet of items by room, with Ala Carte pricing and room pricing. I also did the same for outside yard equipment.  It was organized, easy to read, and I priced items very fairly. The buyers actually ended up buying about 65% of the items in the spreadsheet and the buyers realtor bought the entire Master bedroom. It was a key to quickly downsizing and was WIN-WIN for everyone involved.

Craigslist is your friend:

Whether you believe it or not I have been selling items on craigslist for nearly 5 years trying to get a head start on this huge undertaking. I had gotten rid of tons of stuff; extra yard equipment, bikes, foosball & ping pong tables and so on. The process works if you take good pictures, offer a very fair bargain price, and continue to repost items if they don’t sell quickly. Between Craigslist, Facebook Market place, our big tag sale, Good Will, family and donations,  coupled with a full court press we were able to get rid of nearly everything else we needed to. It does take a fair amount of discipline and time, though those vehicles worked wonders for us. Costs associated with these vehicles were minimal.

Shredding:

Well if you are a collector of paper like us and also having a home-based business the cost of shredding all sensitive paperwork was probably a place that we underestimated in the downsizing budget. Fortunately I had a truck and made many trips to the shredder over the 6 weeks to have this paperwork destroyed at a significant cost. We hated to spend money on shredding though in todays identity theft environment we felt it was a must.

Where are we going to Live:

With the closing date set for April 10, 2018 now we had to figure out where we were going to live next. Our goal was to work for maybe 1 or 2 more years even if we were lucky enough to sell the house quickly (which we never expected would happen, given the CT market). Since we already had bought our 2017 Newmar Motorhome in July 2016 with the hope to someday in the future go Full-time we knew we had a short term contingency for housing, provided we could find a campground to park it close. We looked at several campgrounds in a 40 minute circle though decided to set-up in the campground in our home town. Although we lived in this town for 30 years neither of us had ever stepped foot into this campground until looking at it in March during this process. At first look we weren’t sure it was the right place for us though after much deliberation and meeting the owners we decided it was the best place for temporary housing. In fact the owners don’t open until April 15th though they let us move in on April 10th. So many thanks to Riverdale Farms Campsites -Family Campground (In hindsight this proved to one of the most important and best decisions we made in the entire process.) We figured we would stay there until late June and then spend the summer camping, as in past years, and return to our home town and rent an academic rental by the beach. Living in a New England Beach town there are many summer cottages & homes that are vacant from September-Memorial Day and we felt confident we could find something to work for the next school/work year.

Riverdale Farms Family Campground

Where am I going to set-up and run my business:

With housing taken care of,  the next question was, “where am I going to set-up and run my company during this transition and store all of my equipment”?  Understand that I have a home office which is where I run my entire company from. If I had to go out and spend too much renting office space it would make the entire house selling process a bad decision as I’d be in less strategic/efficient location and the expense might not be an equitable option and maybe we should just stay in the house. I spent considerable time thinking about options and costs and then asked this question:

“Who do I know that has extra space, infrastructure, internet, security, and convenient access that would be willing to share the space with my company as a temporary solution?”

I came up with a short list of options and then approached a friend on the top of the list. I approached my friend Todd, who owns a successful jewelry store in town, and explained to him what we were doing with the house and then asked if he would consider letting me share his backroom for the Spring. To my surprise Todd was very receptive and this turned out to be another just serendipitous decision. Todd’s generosity I will never forget. His generosity, trust, support, and friendship I can’t extend enough THANKS for. Although we have known each other casually for years, the time we spent this past Spring working side by side allowed us to become very good friends and share insights and experiences as fellow entrepreneurs! Big shoutout to Christo Jewelers!

Storage: 

Although we did an incredible job downsizing we still ended up needing a 10×15 storage shed temporarily. 2/3rds of it would be for work related items and the balance was for items my daughter wanted from the house. Actually the only things we had personally were art work, some pictures/frames, and seasonal items my wife had collected  for years and still wanted for the future. The goal from day one was this would be temporary and when our daughter bought a home all would move to her basement / attic.

Shipping: 

Another logistic to downsizing was deciding what my son wanted from the house. These items would include some furniture, technology products, and boxes and things that were important to keep from his youth. After looking at several options including rental trucks, pods, and storage, we decided that a commercial shipping company provided the most economic solution. We completed a Request for Proposal/Pricing on-line and immediately companies started to call. I’m not sure I would suggest doing this again since we were overwhelmed for several days with these types of calls and emails. Fortunately one of companies we talked to was New Jersey Transport. They were very organized, reasonably priced, and did a terrific job packing, loading, and ultimately delivering the items 2,000 miles away to Aspen, CO.

My business:

With the home sale and downsizing process progressing I then started to think about a strategy that might allow me to segue out of my company in the future. Actually, I started my company about 17 years ago, and with no succession plan in place, I really needed to develop a migration strategy if the full-time RV life adventure could ever become a reality. Approaching this problem was just like the house sale. I thought this could be a multi-year process if everything came together perfectly.  I had been thinking casually about a solution for several years and once the house contract was signed I started to really work on some possible scenarios. I decided the perfect solution had to be WIN-WIN- WIN for everyone involved. A win for the new owners, A win for my clients, and a Win for me. I created a list of potential suitors for my company. The list contained people already involved in like/similar business though were niched in non-competing markets/segments though might have interest in complimentary channels of business. Since they weren’t competitors, though had similar infrastructure and processes, I thought the arrangement might be very appealing. With much trepidation I decided to reach out to the top person on the list, and asked them to lunch. While I knew of this person and I had done a fair amount of due diligence in investigation I had no idea what to expect. The first luncheon was informal, with the outcome for me to build rapport, and then explain that I was doing some succession planning with my company and exploring business exit strategies and retirement. I explained to him he was the first contact on the list and if he wanted to consider learning or hearing more I would give him 3 weeks before going to the next person on the list. Three weeks later he got back to me communicating he had interest in talking more and understanding more details. Over the next several months, after signing reciprocating NDA’s (Non-disclosure Agreeements), each doing due-dilgence on each others business, building a good business relationship, and finally agreeing in principal to the economics, time-line, roles & responsibilities, and expectations, we got our lawyers and accountants involved and signed an intent to sell in late June 2018 with an expected final closing July 25, 2018. Well if you thought my head was spinning selling the house now it was about to head into lunar orbit…

The Final Decision:

Well with the house sold, our old lifestyle now downsized, my business with a closing date set, my wife and I decided to take a bike ride on Fathers Day weekend at Hammonasset Beach. Both of us love the beach and our bikes and some of our best conversation and reflections come from time spent there. As we stopped by Meigs Point and sat on the rocks to look at the waves I remember Joanne turning and saying these words ” You know we could do this every day…” I turned and responded asking her if she wanted to do this everyday?” she looked at me, hesitated for a moment and then said yes. I responded “I would try to make it happen.” It was at that moment we decided that she would put in for retirement and we would start our Full time RV-Life.  Over the next 10 days the paperwork, logistics and neccessary tasks to get everything finalized was nearly overwhelming. So many things were very time sensitive and given my wife’s retirement decision was so late, many items required nearly heroic efforts to shepherd through the process. 2 days before the end of the school year my wife told her administrators she was retiring and would not be returning next year. As a very popular and respected teacher they were surprised and disappointed she was leaving though they understood and were happy for us.

Joanne’s last day of teaching…

Selling our cars:

So transitioning to full-time RV requires 1) An RV (a Motorhome, trailer, or 5th wheel) 2) a tow vehicle or toad (tow car). Since we already have a Motorhome (Newmar Baystar) and toad (Mini Cooper convertible), we needed to sell our work life vehicles. We had been talking about selling Joanne’s, everyday car, since we were selling the house/garage and she could drive the Mini (tow car) instead. In addition, once I sold my company I would no longer need my truck for work.  Selling any vehicle requires, good networking/marketing, a very fair price, and a vehicle that has been well taken care of. We sold Joanne’s Mercedes Diesel to a long time company employee who we think the world of; though it was tough to part with when the day came (Joanne said it was very hard to part with…).

The truck we could not sell until after the business closing, and while I thought would be the easiest thing we had to sell it proved to be the hardest. While it was a 2010 F150 Platinum in terrific shape, with still 18 months of transferable Ford Premium extended warranty care on it, we were surprised that it didn’t sell quickly. Come to find out that any vehicle with over 100,000 miles on it, regardless of the shape/condition, banks don’t seem to loan money on. While many people were interested in it, no one could get a loan for a vehicle that was still worth quite a bit of money.  All the normal avenues like Craigslist, Facebook Marketplace, Cars.com. Autotrader.com yielded plenty of interest, they just never ended up with cash paying buyer. With only 5 days left before we hit the road I was really starting to get concerned that if the truck didn’t sell I would be driving the RV towing the Mini, while Joanne followed in the truck. Not really the vision we had to go off into the sunset… I decided we needed some gorilla marketing…to make things happen! (As a footnote my brother-in law Tony was really pressuring me about what if it didn’t sell. An option I told him I wasn’t even considering, so I had more pressure than ever on me now to make things happen…)Having spent a life time in professional sales and been a sales trainer for many organizations in a past consulting life, I knew it was time to get creative. So for several days I drove it to the entrance of the busiest Walmart I have ever been in and parked it at the entrance with 3 gigantic FOR-SALE signs on it. Fortunately I had 2 people reach out, that saw it, and had strong interest, and cash in hand. After several days of back and forth one of the Walmart prospects decided it was a great deal and bought the truck about 2 days before our departure. Again the lesson learned: be creative, persistent, fair priced, and keep the faith… All vehicles sold now!

Mail:

Well this isn’t as big of an issue as many might believe. After getting reviews for several mail services over the years that cater to RVer’s and Cruisers we decided on using St. Brendan’s Isle in Green Cove Springs, FL. On a scale of 1-10 their customer service, help, and process was a 10. In fact the service is so good we should have moved to them years ago just so we could have eliminated all the junk mail which was an option they have. For less than $20.00/month all our mail is now sent to them. Each day if any mail is received they send us an email telling us and then we log into our portal to see the scan of the outside of the mail. If we want to see the inside we drag it to a scan folder and wholah the next day we can see the inside in a pdf. We then can take that mail and either drag to a shred folder, hold folder, send folder (where we collect mail that will eventually be sent to any address we indicate). The process is easy, seamless, and is highly recommended. Also, they are terrific resources in providing information via the website or by telephone regarding setting up your domicile in Florida as well.

Domicile:

This is a big decision for anyone thinking of stepping into the Full-time RV or Nomadic Lifestyle. There are so many things to consider including tax consequences, logistics, government regulations, geographics, voter registration, Health Insurance (especially for the early retirees), convenience, family,  proximity to services/airports, weather, auto insurance, and just about everything else we usually take for granted in the sticks & bricks life most us live in. As most people exploring this lifestyle realize, the 3 most popular states for Full time RVers to domicile are South Dakota, Texas, or Florida. Each have their own respective benefits and you have to weigh what’s most important to you in your specific case. I have found several websites that helped with making this decision including Kiplinger’s State by State Reference Map, Technomadia, Wheeling-it, RV-Dreams, and Moving forward Adventures. After the necessary due diligence we selected Florida and having family in the state it also made the process very easy. So after selling the house and deciding to begin the Full time RV lifestyle we flew to Florida for a 3 day weekend and accomplished everything in less than 30 minutes including (Florida DL, Voter Registration, and  Domicile Filing. ) The process was much easier than we ever imagined. So yes after a lifetime in the Northeast & New England we are officially Floridians.

Insurance:

1. Health Insurance – this is probably one of the toughest reasons that people delay retiring early or beginning to Full Time RV. I could go into a tyrade about the current state of our Health Care/Insurance industry in this country right now. Is it expensive…Unbelievably so, Is it an option to have?…in our opinion…no, Do you have to educate yourself on the plans, policies, coverages, rules, deductibles, HSA’s, co-pays, limits, in/out of network stipulations? YES to EVERYTHING. Healthcare really requires more education and consumer conscious than anything else we do. The cost of health insurance we realized early on was probably going to be our biggest expense if we decided to retire early and would continue to be until we turn 65 and can opt into medicare. Fortunately as a teacher my wife can buy into her current policy until 65, at great expense, though the policy will cover us regardless of what state we are traveling in at the time or abroad. Many other policies treat out-of-state care as out of network which could significantly impact coverage and costs if something happens. Deciding to commit so much of our resources to paying for health insurance for several years was the biggest financial decision we made in pursuing this lifestyle.
2.  Auto/RV/ Liability/ Full Time Insurance –  While we have always carried very good Auto & Home policies it was quite eye opening when we started to consider the Full-Time RV lifestyle. Who could cover us, what would be covered, the differences of coverage by state, and the costs involved. I researched many companies and found many companies will only write vacation coverage policies, some companies can only write specific policies in certain states (especially states that are more prone to claims), and their is a big difference in liability coverage for a Full-Time RVer. What became very obvious is the traditional home policy and accompanying liability coverages are not the same in vacation RV coverages. Full Time RVers need a Full Time policy to cover the same typical comprehensive and liability issues that are included in Sticks & Bricks coverage. After considerable due diligence and research I started working with FCIS Insurance headquartered in Iowa. These folks were excellent to deal with, very knowledgable, proactive in communication and follow-up, and very competitively priced. In addition they even got us an umbrella policy in addition to our Full-Timer coverage. Escapees, which we are members of, has also been a great resource as we progressed thorough this process and they interviewed the owner of this company which provides a good starting place for someone to begin to understand Full Time coverages and differences. Here is a link to that video. -Escapees/FCIS

Friends: 

With so much going on, in such a short amount of time, and with NDA’s in place with my business we really couldn’t tell anyone what our plans were and what we were doing. Most of our friends always know we go away summer camping though when Joanne retired at the end of the school year and then they found out I was segueing my business they soon realized we were’t returning and would be heading off on our Full Time RV adventure. Many of them had mixed emotions and while we wished we could have shared with them more in June it wasn’t until late summer when we stopped and met many of them for a proper get together for hugs, stories, and goodbyes. Joanne and I have told each other so many times we are so blessed that we decided to settle in Clinton, CT, raised a family and worked and contributed to the community. One of our biggest blessings was the friends and relationships we shared in those 30 years and we will forever feel part of the C-town family!

So there you have it. I know it was a long post though I tried to be as brief as possible while still sharing some of the milestones we experienced in the process. Were we scared?… yes, Were we taking a big chance?… yes, Was it at times overwhelming?…yes, Did we shed some tears?…Yes, are we hoping we made the right decisions and took the right steps?…yes, Are we excited to get on the road and travel full-time?…yes, Do we have any regrets we did all of this and have started the next phase of our REVOLUTIONARY JOURNEY?…Absolutely, Positively NO…

We are blessed with so many friends!