We’ve been asked alot of questions about how this all came about, so I thought I’d answer them here also…
Bill and I met almost 10 years ago, both divorced, and both with kids. We took a few trips and talked about traveling the country in an RV someday if we could possibly manage it. Well… when Bill retired 2 1/2 years ago, we still had three boys living with us, two finishing up college, the third just home from the Navy. So began the process of going through closets and the attic and decluttering. Bill had 27 years of stuff here and I had my own share. As we found things that could be sold, we make a yard sale pile.
We rented an RV for a month to see if we liked it. We had a yard sale. We cleaned, sealed and painted the whole house, inside and out. The boys had solid jobs and moved into places of their own and were doing well. We put the house on the market just after the economy took a dive, steeled our courage, and waited for the buyers who were destined to have this house. We traded in Bill’s car for a truck and bought a new 5th wheel camper (was a 2006 model still on the lot) and took two test trips.
Our perfect buyers came just after the blizzard in February. Then came the process of letting go of the things that made us normal suburban consumers, to whittle the things that we need to live down to what we really need, living off the grid. This was not an easy task at all, but we got ourselves through it, and eventually felt freed of having “things”.
To cut the cost on RV parks and campgrounds, we joined a few discount camping clubs giving us a 50% discount. We will be using a Garmin Nuvi 350 that has a travel kit and plays audio books, an FM transmitter coordinating the announcement of directions and the story through our car stereo speakers. We will be doing our laundry at campgrounds and bought a fold up cart to get our laundry back and forth. Something that will be time consuming, but we will adjust. Maybe I’ll be here telling our tales while our laundry finishes.
There will be many adjustments to life off the grid… but we’ve gotten this far…
Hiya Jo!
Of everything you wrote, one thing stuck in my mind…..about you saying that laundry would be time consuming from now on. On the contrary, its actually LESS time consuming than having a washer and dryer at home. Whether you have two loads or ten, its all washed and dried at once instead of over an 8 hour period or whatever. I speak from experience LOL
Take care,
weeshan & wolfden
Hey Shan and Woofie! Thanks for that, makes me feel better. Does that include all the schlepping to and from the laundry facility, LOL?