Full-timing: Parting With The Stuff

[tbutler]

This is part of a continuing discussion of the aspects of going full time in an RV. In part one we examined the decision to go full time. If you haven't added to that discussion, please take time to tell your story. Likewise, add your thoughts about cleaning house as you went full time to this discussion.

Our story:

After we reached the decision to go full time, we faced a house full of stuff collected over a lifetime. Some of the items we had would go with us in the motor home. Most of the stuff would have to go somewhere else. Our choices were:

1) Store things we valued too much or thought would be useful in the future. The family photo albums and a huge collection of 35mm slides fit this category. We also stored some of our art collection, paintings, pictures and sculpture with special meaning to us. Then there was the ridiculous, I had more t-shirts than we could pack. So I saved them along with a box full of hats. I should have known these things multiply and I've never needed those old t-shirts!

2) Give our children first choice on any of the remaining items. TV's, stereo/CD player, surround sound system, chairs, tables, couch, a home gym set, table saws and an assortment of lawn and garden tools all went to our children. We had heirloom furniture passed down from my grandparents and an aunt that were given to specific children. Those items are still in the family.

3) We had a series of garage sales. Living in a metropolitan area, we had a wide audience for our stuff. Still, garage sales are what they are. Everyone is looking for a bargain. On the other hand, most of this stuff was what the kids had picked through so it wasn't that valuable! Only we thought it was valuable. We had collections of things that we parted with, we just couldn't store everything. With the garage sale, we listed all the furniture inside the house that was for sale and were able to sell almost all of it. I sold my motorcycle and pickup truck through ads in the newspaper.

4) We gave large quantities of clothing, books, other items to charities. I got rid of all my business suits!

5) We hauled one pickup load of absolute junk to the junk yard. That it was only one pickup load amazed me.

When we were all done, the items for storage were packed in boxes, marked carefully and taken to my son's basement where they stayed until his divorce. Then we put them in commercial storage for about two months while my daughter and her husband finished their home. We moved them to their basement where they have been ever since. We stop and visit them (our stored stuff) occasionally, dropping off this, picking up that. Someday when this adventure ends, we'll collect them and make them part of our new home. The total of the stored materials will fill a small U-Haul trailer.

Once in a while I get a twinge thinking about one thing or another that we sold or gave away thinking it might have been nice to keep that but in reality, it wasn't that important that I couldn't live without it. Once you get rid of the stuff and the house, you life becomes so much simpler. The travel it makes possible more than makes up for occasionally missing something.

We had the house on the market at a premium price and it had several offers that fell through before we got a buyer. We left town just before Thanksgiving 2001 even though the house hadn't sold. We returned in late December to sign the final papers on the house and then we were full timers for good!

[ClayL]

Like you we distributed stuff to the kids, sold some and gave some to places that could make good use of it. We dumped a lot more than you did though.

Still I guess we kept too much stuff. We had a 10 by 30 and a 10 by 5 storage unit. A couple of years later we went back and got rid of a bunch of stuff and dropped the 5 by 10 unit. We can move a couple of items and get access to the middle of the remaining unit now.

I had kept my business (six) suits and white shirts (14 or so). That was a mistake - moths got all but one suit and there was no way I was ever going to wear a suit or a white shirt again unless it was for a funeral or a wedding. That was some of the stuff we got rid of when we went back. I have one suit and one shirt with me now.

The storage facility owner was a neighbor and he let us have a yard sale in the facility. We sold quite a lot of stuff there and on Craig's list - probably averaged ten cents on the dollar.

After paying storage fees for six and a half years we now plan to get a couple of those big storage containers and move everything to DW's sister's commercial peach orchard in CO. I have an idea we will get rid of a lot more stuff then.

[mazza3@msn.com]

We have a 08 Fleetwood Bounder 35E. Reading the posts here is very helpful and we are in the process of trying to head out full time. Currently we have our house back on the market. We had it on the market last year but the market

was soft and for that matter still is so we took it off end of Oct, closed up, and left for FL Nov 1. We returned the end of

April after nearly 6 months of living in the RV. Everything went well so this was like a trial run and we fell we could adept well to this new lifestyle. We have committed to going back to the same RV park in FL for Jan-Mar but other than that it depends on the house selling. We know we will store personal stuff but undecided as to what to do with the

furniture. It is likely we will sell it all, after all we can always buy other furniture when we decide to settle somewhere

where winter amounts to no more than a few flakes. So we don't know where we're headed but looking forward to

the adventure.

Jim & Penny Mazza

Lee Center, NY

[Guest 2driftrs]

We, too, are in the process of trying to sell a house in a dreadful economy. But we've decided that other than a few family heirloom type things, everything else is going bye-bye. After letting the kids take whatever they wanted, we did the yard sale thing. Word of advice - - donate the stuff and take the tax exemption for charitable contributions - - worth more in the long run.

Being a back yard mechanic and handyman for years, parting with some tools they don't even make any more hurt, but not as much as what those storage units cost! And Janet having to put her horse up for adoption was even tougher. Oh well, you know the old saying, you can't take it with you. In our case, the lure of America the Beautiful outweighed the trinkets and doo-dads.

Of interest, the real estate agent told us that there are buyers out there that will buy a house with all the furniture, lawn mowers, even paintings. So we told him to go for it! We'll cross our fingers and hope for the best for Jim and Penny and everyone else out there trying to sell. All we can add is we've been RV'ing for 22 years and going full time can't happen soon enough!

[tbutler]

jmaz62 and 2driftrs,

Thanks for contributing to the discussion. Selling our house took much longer than we wanted. We had it on the market all summer. We moved out on July 7, 2001. By September we had cleaned it out entirely and ready for the next owner. The market took a hit and loans became more expensive after 9-11. We decided to let it ride until we got the price we wanted for it. In truth, if it hadn't sold like it did, we would have become anxious and perhaps negotiated the price down some.

You know what your situations are and what you want from your house. I would encourage you to take your time as much as possible with the sale. Selling a house isn't something most people do often and it would be a shame to be caught in a tight market and take a low sale price in the hurry to get out of the house. One possible way to deal with this might be to do some work camping to allow you to get on the road and still maintain the house payments and necessary maintenance on the home. Many campgrounds and parks offer a free site for doing work in the campground. There are also income possibilities for mobile workers. The best source I know for these opportunities is: www.workamper.com I did this for a while but decided it took too much from my travel experience. Others have found employment that they enjoy and consider it an important part of their experience.

[Jackhal49]

Thanks all for sharing! We are planning to go full-timing next summer when both of us will retire. We have already started downsizing and getting rid of just stuff we have collected over the years. Some of the harder items to deal with is lots of slides and pictures we have taken over a lifetime. I am currently digitizing all our sides and pictures and saving them on CDs and flash drives making several copies of each plus giving my grown children copies as well. We started thinking about full-timing 4 years ago and have been researching and talking to every full-timer as well. We are going to sell our stick and brick house, hopefully the market is better next spring/summer. We hope to find volunteer work someplace in Texas for the winter of 2010. Looking forward to traveling and getting away from the long winters and short summers of Maine. Hope to meet you all on the road in the future.

[DaSwansons]

We bought our first motorhome (2008 Winnebago Ellipse 40TD) last May, returned home and in five weeks sold, gave away, and threw away a lifetime of "stuff". Our total possessions (other than those in our MH) fit nicely in an 8'x10' storage shed with plenty of room.

We've been in the RV since last July and don't miss any of our former "stuff". Lightening our load has been very cathartic, and we feel quite liberated. And, to our amazement, when we weighed our loaded roaming home we're still well under our GVWR.

We give full timing a "10".

[tbutler]

Jack & Peg,

I wish you luck in selling your home! Like you, I need to digitize my collection of slides from the pre-digital age. I've delayed longer on that than I should. We were through Maine this summer. We really enjoy the scenery in the summer, we're past enjoying the winter scenery though I'm sure it is delightful. When you get ready to head for Texas give us a holler!

DaSwansons,

I hope your full timing experience continues to be everything you want it to be. We're still enjoying the road after 8 years. Where do you plan to spend the winter?

[rccmkc4743]

Well as I may have previously posted we have been full timing for 1 week. We had our home on the market last year but to no avail. After doing a few updates to our home we put it back on the market mid May. We had an offer within days but that fell thru. But mid August another offer slightly higher than the first was made and Sept 29th we passed papers. We too had 1 yard sale in Aug and then the moving sale in Sept. I gave 8 large bags of clothes to Big Brother BS in August and then several more clothes and bedding to St Vincent DePaul in Sept. When people asked where we were going to live my husband would point to our MH. Then it got to be a joke of 38yrs in our home to a 38' MH. But we made it with just a few tubs of stuff at our son's home and that will probably be reduced when we revisit it. We are still near our former home of Halifax MA but will hit the road the 25th of this month. Russ has had it with leave raking and snow shoveling - warmer climate here we come. Marcia

[tbutler]

Russ & Marcia,

Welcome to the world of road warriors! I guess we should start a survey on the one thing that pushed you over the edge to become a full timer! I hope you have a wonderful journey and don't ever have to rake leaves or shovel snow again!

[Jackhal49]

Hi TBUTLER, We are not sure right now if we are going to sell the home right away or rent it out to our son and his better half. Wish I knew you were here in Maine as you could of stopped by as we have plenty of room for you and your MH. We live near Bath, Maine. I hope you had a nice visit here, it is really pretty in the summer and fall when the blackflies aren't around nor the mosquitoes. We have this last one winter to make it through then we both retire in July to full-time it. We are so ready! Our plans are to winter either in Texas, Az, or NM, where ever we can get a nice workamping position and the winter is mild. In fact we plan to start sending out our applications pretty soon for the winter of 2010/2011. We have been going through lots of stuff and just plain getting rid of things. Important items like paintings my mother and grandfather did we are dividing up within the family. Most of it we discovered is just stuff collected over the years and just haven't used just pack ratted it away. It is amazing the stuff we gather for no apparent reason. We started out with "if we haven't used it in the past year get rid of it", now we are at the point if we haven't really needed it in the past week, get rid of it". Hopefully, by spring we will be cleaned out and by summer ready to head out on the road. I have the feeling it is going to be a very long winter! After this winter I plan not seeing snow at all if I can help it! Peg is just plain tired of the cold winters too, she wants a place that is warm! Oh, my father-in-law winters in Texas at Alamo Palms in the extreme southeast of Texas right on the Mexican border. Hope all is well with you and the misses and you are have an awesome time RVing! Jack

[tbutler]

Jack and Peg,

We didn't spend much time in Maine this time through, just three days. We were traveling with another couple and their focus was Canada. We love Maine and have enjoyed much of the state in the past. Haven't been to Bath but I'm sure we'll get there some day. We do know where Alamo Palms is, we winter in Edinburg about 15 miles north of there. We are through Alamo on the way to and from other areas.

When we sold our household goods and furniture, it really brought home how worthless most of our stuff ultimately was. It makes me look at merchandise a little differently when we are considering buying something. One strategy that I heard a full timer describe when we first hit the road was to put a sticker on everything you put in the RV and then take the sticker off when you used it. At the end of a year anything with a sticker goes. They followed that with the axiom that if you really need something you can find at Wal-Mart!

The winter may not be as long as you suspect. When you are busy and anticipating some life event, time flies. I think the summer will arrive very quickly for you and you'll find yourself walking out the door to the motor home before you know it. Enjoy the journey.

[KENMEYERS@CABLEONE.NET]

We're probably doing it all backward. We always knew we would sell the "too big after the kids are grown" house and move to the country. Well, the house is sold and we moved into a one-room cabin on some land that we intend to build another house. We will RV some when Teresa quits teaching in May. She wants a place "to hang our hats" and come back to ever so often. I said it makes more sense to wait to build until after we go travel some and save the property taxes and insurance. I still have about a mile of road to build, a water well to drill, soil samples to take, etc. before building. Some sage advice would be great. yes: We are in charge of a few mission trips during the year and go on a couple of others. Looking forward to seeing some sights. Ken & Teresa F407204

[tbutler]

Ken and Teresa,

Everyone has their own answer to your questions. I can only give you some insight into my view. We sold most everything almost nine years ago. Not having a home to worry about when traveling, not having taxes, insurance, a lawn, liability issues, etc. to worry about let us be completely free to travel at will. Schedule didn't matter too much, we didn't have to be back home at a particular time, home was where we were. So I am with Ken on this one and I'd suggest just using the cabin and its utility hook ups as another RV park for a while to see what it is like to be on the road.

Now Teresa has a need for a place to hang her hat. My wife Louise has finally said that recently so we are in the process of establishing a winter home at a resort in south Texas. Someday it will be our full time home. To make this really work, you must both be comfortable with your decision. Not everyone can deal with the fluid nature of such an existence. I think Louise had some early childhood memories come back to haunt her. Her family was "homeless" for a while when she was in early elementary school. Her father was looking for work and they were living in the car. This fall we attended open house at our grandsons school. His teacher asked the parents and grandparents to write something we remembered about our school days and this memory came back to Louise. In fact she said in her statement that she was living like she was when she was in elementary school. It wasn't long after that she initiated a discussion of establishing a household again. How could I refuse? We will still travel during the summers and be living in better quarters through the winters.

We found the community where we'll build our home while traveling on the road. We would never have gone looking for it in this place. It was just a stop along the way until we experienced it and then it became clear that someday it would be home. You might find a really wonderful place that meets your needs while on the road so I'd encourage you to go out and explore even a little before putting down hard roots.

[Jackhal49]

Hi TButler and all. Well we made it through the winter here in Maine and it was a mild one for once. We decided to rent of house to our son and his family at least for a year or more. We will wait for the housing market to recover a bit here before we sell. This August we will head out on our great adventure going to Winnebago Industries to have a few issues looked at on the Journey then head to Sioux Falls, SD to establish our residency and get our drivers licenses. Then it down to southwestern Colorado to see our daughter and family. Oct & Nov we will be in Goliad, Texas where we will be workamping at the state park. Dec thru Apr we will be at Buescher State Park workamping. We are really excited and can't wait to get started! We are still going through our stuff and the closer the time comes to retirement the easier it is to get rid of stuff. It is amazing how much stuff one can accumulate and most of it is just stuff that you just for some unknown reason hang on too. I really feel it is liberating to get rid of most of it and only keep the things you will really need and use. Some hobby stuff like fishing gear, tools, my wife's hobby things, etc. So we are lighting our load and plan to travel as light a possible. Hope to see you all on the road! Jack, Peg, and Annie our golden girl.

[tbutler]

Hey Jack and Peg,

Glad to hear things are going well and your plans are working out. I think you've got a good plan, well thought out and fitting your interests. I'm sure you will enjoy a great experience. I'll be interested in hearing about your workamping experiences. Perhaps next winter we can stop by and visit you at one of your park assignments.

We're now engaged in setting up a household again. Louise decided we needed some place to call home again so we are putting in a manufactured home at the resort where we have spent the last nine winters. Right now the weather has us at a standstill (way too much rain) but we'll have a house on site before we leave for the summer.

[jmonroe]

We're just starting our transition to the full time lifestyle, having talked about it for years. I'm retired effective June 1st, but we have two homes to sell before Peggy can retire.

We've been working to get the 'primary' home on the market for a couple months now and are just about there. We have an appointment on May 3rd for the realtor to come back and take photos for the MLS listing, and sign the paperwork. It's fingers crossed from there.

As I said, we've got not one but two homes for sale and all the stuff in them, accumulated over 35 years, to divest ourselves of. The second home, which we refer to as 'the cabin', we'll advertise as fully furnished. It's in an area that's popular with what we call 'flat landers' (Illinois) as a second home area. It's full log on about 6 acres. The home that goes up in May we're including all appliances, the lawn tractor and even the 61' HD TV in the family room. We've told the realtor to advise potential buyers that everything else is for sale.

When we first moved from the 'dream about it' stage, to the 'start working to make it happen' stage, I lost sleep over what to do with all of our stuff. Some of it has sentimental value, some of it no one would miss. The farther along we get in the process the less attached I find myself to anything. I see it more, everyday, as just an impediment to the lifestyle I soon hope to lead. What doesn't sell with the houses I think we'll just give away. I don't have the patience to do a garage or estate sale and would get upset at people trying to nickle and dime us on things that we spent good money on and meant something to us. I'd rather donate it to a good cause, that is what is left after we let the family pick and choose.

We've set a tentative date at full retirement and hitting the road at two years out, but with any luck it will come much sooner. I should have the cabin ready for market later this year. When it is we'll talk to our realtor about when would it be best to put it on the market, this fall, or next spring. From there it's anyones guess.

[tbutler]

Sounds like you have a good solid plan. I always thought of the house and the stuff as anchors after we made the decision to go full time. After we were on the road for a while I realized how apt this analogy was. Once the stuff is gone and the houses are no longer on your mind, you are free to live in the here and now. The motor home becomes your whole world (well, there are the kids, grandkids, etc. and other family) and your schedule is anything you want it to be. Imagine waking up and thinking, "Where shall we go today?"

[jmonroe]

Imagine waking up and thinking, "Where shall we go today?"

A couple days ago, shortly after waking up and realizing that, yes, it is a work day, I was thinking how nice it will be not to care what day of the week it is. Who cares if the lake is over run with drunken idiots over the weekend, I can come back out in the middle of the week. Who cares if it's raining today, I'll just extend my stay to take advantage of the good weather that's sure to follow. Who cares if...

You've got the idea.

[Jackhal49]

Hi All, I'm with you all I can't wait to leave the stress of teaching behind me especially in these times. To get up in the morning with just thoughts of that day and the wonderful adventures awaiting. Looking forward to see just what is over that hill or around the corner and to meeting new people who share the same life style. One of the most enjoyable things to MHing is meeting all the nice people at rallies and campgrounds. Also look forward to doing new and interesting things volunteering and helping out. Have a great day all and a great year ahead!

[karenandcollins]

My husband & I are planning to start full-timing in August. We just bought our beautiful 41' RV. We took driving lessons from someone who teaches long haul truck driving at the local community college. It made me feel a lot better about driving it, which I plan to do! We too have a home full of stuff. Our plan is to store what we want to keep in climate controlled storage & rent our home until the market improves. I'm having a bit of difficulty knowing exactly what to take in the RV. I'm open to any helpful suggestions. We want to put the mattress on our home bed in the motorhome. Anyone know of any problems trying to do that? We are planning to attend the midwest rally in WI in June, not sure what to expect.

[tbutler]

The mattress in our motor home is custom made. We can't even switch it head to foot. The foot of the mattress is rounded to allow the mattress to fit when the slide out is brought in. If reversed head to foot the corners of the mattress are compressed against a cabinet. Also, the queen size in our motor home is slightly smaller than the typical queen size mattress.

When it comes to storing goods, you have to ask yourself how long you expect to stay on the road and how do you see this ending? We are currently in the process of setting up household after nine years full time on the road. I have no regrets in getting rid of almost all our furniture. Our old furniture wouldn't have been useful to us in our new digs. The analog TV's would have been worthless today. The furniture wouldn't have fit the space or style of our new home. The furniture would have been used and then stored. The storage costs would likely have outweighed what we paid for new furniture that fits the style and space of our new home.

Everyone has their own answer to these situations. I'm sure you will find a solution that fits your level of comfort. As to the question of the midwest rally in Wisconsin, I think you will be pleased with the rally. Get out and meet people, make friends, attend classes and workshops and enjoy the rich resources offered at the rally. The more you put into the rally, the more you will take away with you.

[DaveViolette]

Here we go - "stuff-free"!

Elaine and I decided at the end of 2010 that the market for home sales was not going to recover soon and we needed to sell the one we had. We had bought a motorhome in 2006 and had planned to sell the house at the end of 2007, but prices started dropping so we thought we would wait for them to recover. Huh!

Now to the stuff:

We have moved several times in the past and remember having boxes of stuff five years after the move that we had never even opened, so we knew that keeping stuff was not worth it. We carefully selected items such as family photos, memorabilia, etc, and packed them in boxes and are storing those at a family member's home. Only about a dozen boxes of that.

We have spent considerable time living in our motorhome (6 months in 2006, 8.5 months in 2007) so we knew what we needed for living there and moved that out to the motorhome. We moved into the motorhome at that point.

Then we hired an estate sale company to do an estate sale. They organized it, advertised it, handled it for two days, and took 25% commission for their work. Well worth it. Yard sales would have taken much effort and we would have prolonged the pain of parting with special items. We sold furniture and everything at the estate sale, but still had much left over, which we donated to Goodwill. Made almost $10K at the estate sale and will take almost $5K in charitable deductions for the donations. Hauled some to trash as well.

At this point we have the house under contract, expecting it to close late next month.

[army48ret@gmail.com]

We bought a Class A motor home that had a King Size sleep by number bed. We have had that kind of bed before and didn't like it then. While at Shangra La Ranch in Arizona we decided to get rid of the bed. We traded the bed for our camping bill and bought a Queen Size mattress from a regular store.

After a lot of measurements we found a carpenter, I didn't have enough tools with me to do the job myself, to cut down the bed base to fit a Queen Size mattress. We droped the mattress on the bed frame and have slept soundly ever since. We also don't slam our fingers on the bed side tables when we make up the bed. There is room to stand in front of the closet and look for what you want.

My suggestion is to replace the mattress and sleep comfortably.

Chuck

[Guest BillAdams]

We have had 2 motor homes and we were lucky enough that both had bed platforms that fit a standard size queen bed (this was a requirement before purchase). In both cases we immediately discarded the mattress that came with the coach and replaced it with very nice household bed. The last one we bought almost requires a step stool for my wife to get into but that is due to the height of the platform where the bed is located. I would highly recommend a household bed if your coach has the room to install one.