Last summer, my husband and I had the same short dialog nearly every day for a few months.
Husband: We live in a bus!!
Me: Do you like it?
Husband: I think so. How about you?
Me: I LOVE it!!
(And then, of course, we would laugh.)
We don’t actually live in a bus.
We live full-time in a Recreational Vehicle (RV). An older Fleetwood Flair to be exact. No slide-outs, no frills, just good bone structure. 🙂 How we ended up living full-time is still a surprise to both of us! I get tickled when I read RV blogs and social media posts about how couples are planning years before to move to this lifestyle. We’re not knocking it. We think goal setting/planning is great! However, the Lord had us “set up” for a quick takeover. You know, the kind when you pray that He will lead and guide you AND that you want His will done in your lives, not yours? Beware, He WILL answer!
I’ll try and start at the beginning. And I’m sticking to the facts for now. So many emotions and happenings went into the time frame from house to an apartment, to full-time, however, I’ll save that for later!
Gene and I lived in a small three-bedroom brick house that the kids were raised in just south of the Dallas-Ft. Worth area. I was working as an elementary school teacher and later administrator. Gene was an estimator with a company that was a 20-minute commute from our home. Two things happened. I retired and Gene’s company moved their office to the north side of the metroplex. His commute time increased to a minimum one hour…one way!
We prayed and felt led to sell our home. We put our home on the market and three days later it sold! Twenty-five days later we moved!! It all happened so quickly that we rented a one-bedroom apartment in Coppell, Texas near Gene’s job until we could pray about what to do next.
You have to downsize to go from a three-bedroom to a one-bedroom apartment. No duh. It “just so happened” that the realtor’s daughter was getting married and they had nothing. (I love those “just so happens”!) So we kept the bare minimum and gave the rest away. The minimum for us at the time was most of the small kitchen items (not the refrigerator), one bedroom mattress set, the washer/dryer, and a lot of books and photos. Plus our clothes. If you are downsizing, I realize to some this would be extreme. It was the path to the least amount of stress within our time constraints. And it was our first step to living an uncluttered life.
“The first step in crafting a life you want is to get rid of everything you don’t.” — Joshua Becker
www.becomingminimalist.com
Our time in the “tree house”.
After taking care of a home for over 30 years (complete with lots of home repairs, yard work, and taking out the trash), we were thrilled with our time in the apartment. We were located on the 2nd floor. (We thought we’d really like the exercise…ha!) The view out the main windows all along one side of the apartment were trees. Huge, beautiful, three-story tall trees! Hence, my husband said we lived in a tree house. The amenities were great. A pool, workout room, hot tub, walking trail, basketball court, etc. And you know what? If anything needed fixing, they’d send someone over to fix it! Put the trash outside the door and it would magically disappear by the next morning! And you know what else?? We didn’t even change the air filters!! Woo-hoo! The little things in life became huge! 🙂
We got spoiled. And we also acquired more stuff. New stuff. We bought new furniture and new dĂ©cor. We follow Dave Ramsey’s Financial Peace University which means no debt so buying was actually a lot of fun. We also purchased an older RV (Gene called it the bus) at this time, too. We would take it to Lake Lewisville which was about 20 minutes away. It was close to where we had it stored. We were leery of traveling in it more than a few miles as it needed new tires.
The time in the tree house was for us a “staycation” even though Gene was still working. I was working on my online stores and having a great time. (See how you can work while being full-time in an RV here.)
Side note: It was not all fun and roses. I was diagnosed with hypothyroidism and adrenal insufficiency/fatigue during this time so it was a time of rest and recoup for me.) We lived in the apartment/tree house for 2-1/2 years. And then…
For many reasons, Gene moved on from his job in the metroplex to take contract work in Saint Joseph, MO for two months. This was something we again prayed about and followed the peace we felt. He took the RV (after we replaced the tires and put a new carburetor in the generator!), towed his work vehicle, and left for St. Joe. Gene had done this type of work before (catastrophic insurance adjuster) but lived in extended stay hotels while away. He reported that it wasn’t as bad being away from me as he took something familiar with him…the RV now dubbed the bus!
For those of you that have lived in an apartment, you already know the rent does not stay the same. Ours went up every contract year. And then they switched management, got rid of the hot tub (what?!) and CUT DOWN THE TREES!! No longer did I live in a tree house and Gene, being good at the job he was doing, kept getting his contract extended in St. Joe. This was the ultimate “set up” to catapult us into full-time RVing!
It was time to downsize…again!
We have four grown adult children. We gave almost all the new stuff to them, plus photo albums, and special items that we had from our parents, their grandparents. We joked that they didn’t have to wait for us to die to get our stuff, nor did they have to sort through any of…you know…STUFF! It was a little easier to give away the second time than the first. I even boxed up all our precious books. I took forty(!) small boxes to a second-hand bookstore to sell. That was difficult for this ex-educator…especially the children’s books! I then made one trip up to Saint Joseph to see Gene. I also went to measure and figure out what was going to fit into the RV. Back in Texas, I realized how great it felt to get rid of material possessions – again! We have found this truth for us…when you own less, you can live more.
We are full-time RVers!
This past week I was talking to a lady who found out we were full-time in an RV. She thought that was wonderful and adventuresome! Then she asked me, “But what do you do with your home when you’re traveling?”. Her eyebrows went up, her eyes popped, and the mouth dropped open when I told her we didn’t have one. HA!
Was she thinking we were homeless?
I understand. Even my Dad said he’d still have to have a home-base. And I think we will…eventually. But what we’ve come to realize since we are now full-timers, the bus IS home. I believe my sweet husband was still trying to wrap his head around the fact that we didn’t have a home-base the first couple of months when he was exclaiming, “We live in a bus!”.
He has adjusted. It warmed my heart this week when he said he was thinking that it didn’t matter where we are, he wakes up each morning and he is HOME.
Lead joyfully,
Gail
p.s. Are you considering downsizing and/or moving to full-time on the road? Tell us about it in the comments. We’d love to connect.
p.s.s. NEWS! We updated to a new-to-us rig and remodeled. Check out what we bought and see the remodel here.
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