Everyone you meet within the RV Lifestyle paints a rosy image of life on the highway however there MUST be some negatives proper? We go over a number of the commonest downsides to RV Living so you possibly can plan forward for them.
My Wife and I’ve been dwelling in our Fifth Wheel RV full time for nearly 2 years now, and whereas the downsides of RV Life haven’t been sufficient to make us throw a on the market signal on our Montana and bounce again into the mundane 9 to five world once more, there have been just a few instances when it was REALLY shut.
In all honesty it wasn’t even the Big days that did it to us, it was the cumulative impact of all of the Little Things the few instances that we have been considering of giving it up.
(Wish you could possibly take an honest bathe in your RV? Now you possibly can, learn right here)
I’m a planner, it’s simply what I do, 20 years of being a hearth fighter will try this to ya. I had contingency plans for my contingency plans. Guess what, didn’t matter. When we moved into the RV we didn’t simply bounce proper on the highway and go, I do know higher. We lived in it for six months in a campground pretty near our Home Network of associates, and provides that may assist us by way of any state of affairs that will come up.
The thought was, after 6 months of dwelling in it, we must always have a extremely good concept of issues that should be upgraded, the issues which can be going to interrupt ought to achieve this earlier than we go away so we will restore them, and life on the highway will probably be a cake stroll as a result of we’ve taken care of all of it already.
Let’s go over a number of the issues that we most likely Should Have realized have been going to be points in some unspecified time in the future, in order that your plan for Selling Everything and Hitting The Road, could be a little extra refined and ready for than ours was.
MAINTENANCE
Yeah I believed I used to be completed with having Something to repair round the home on a regular basis once I signed the paperwork on closing day too. The truth of the matter is, Something will should be completed on a regular basis, that’s simply the way it’s going to go. Sure you don’t should mow the garden anymore (I can’t start to inform you how a lot I DON’T miss that) however considered one of your tires will want some air, or the oil change is due, the lights simply flickered bizarre for no motive, or the home batteries should be changed.
There are going to be days when ALL of that occurs on the identical day. There have been days the place if simply ONE MORE factor occurred, I used to be going to exchange Michael Douglas within the sequel to Falling Down.
You are going to need to be sure you have some primary instruments with you to deal with the issues that can pop up all through the day. And for an added bonus, be sure that the instruments you have, are literally the correct ones, like that your tire iron matches your lug nuts for while you get a flat in the midst of nowhere. Go forward, ask me how I do know to place that on the record…
RV Living BUDGET
Getting a weekly allowance in your 40’s sucks. Sticking to your weekly allowance sucks much more. I’m a grown up in spite of everything, I should purchase tickets to go do no matter I need. Hell, the checking account says so too.
Sticking to your finances is SO very important to with the ability to reside on the highway long run that there ought to most likely be a category on it at RV School. I at all times instructed my Son over time that “I’ll know I’ve made it in life when I can just order a pizza without checking the bank account first”.
Those first couple months after we offered our home, we ordered pizza Every Friday evening. Life was nice. It felt like I used to be ingesting champagne, smoking a cigar and throwing cash round within the VIP part of the dance membership in a music video.
Ok perhaps not that nice, however we have been undoubtedly looser with our finances than we must always have been, and it has bitten us within the ass a time or two in the previous couple of months. When your “tickets” finances has to final you for the entire 12 months, and also you throw half of it at Kentucky Derby tickets to examine that off the bucket record, nicely guess what.
There are issues in your finances that you simply even have zero management over, just like the worth of gas.
When we arrange our finances, we had deliberate for two years on the highway earlier than we have been going to examine again into actuality once more. Insurance, meals, tickets, pizza, gas, we budgeted for all of it. 4 years in the past.
Now gas costs have sky rocketed, and 6 months into life on the highway, we have been a 12 months and a half by way of our gas finances. Time to make some changes, however the place do you chop from to fill the hole? You’ll determine it out, since you don’t have every other alternative.
STORAGE SPACE
What a double edge sword. Ask any RV Owner, and they’ll inform you that one of many issues that they purchased their RV for, was the storage. 6 months later they need they’d gotten one thing else, us included.
There are SO many layouts on this trade, and so many variables, that it’s virtually unimaginable to seek out an RV with excellent storage as we speak, that can nonetheless be excellent tomorrow. Both of the RV’s that we had in recent times, we bought as a result of they’d a large amount of storage, and each of them did. The downside is they’d cubic footage, NOT helpful particular person areas.
We at present have the Montana 381TH, a mini toy hauler, so its acquired an honest quantity of storage house below our bed room, we will retailer every kind of stuff! Go check out your personal storage at residence, take all the stuff you’re preserving and cram it right into a 6 foot by 8 foot storage unit, and let me know the way straightforward it’s to get one thing out of the again as soon as it’s full.
After just a few RV purchases and a ten instances as many conversations with different RV homeowners, on our subsequent one we’re searching for Storage Cabinets. Inside AND outdoors.
PRIVACY
There are going to be instances when your RV looks like a jail and your cell mate simply desires to continually poke at you. Now that’s to not say that my Wife and I made a decision we hate one another once we moved into the RV, however when you’ve the equal of a studio condominium to share with one other individual, and it has been down pouring for 3 days, all you need to do is go sit in an open discipline by your self.
Even your neighbors are nearer now than in your previous home. People make jokes on a regular basis about metropolis life the place you possibly can borrow a cup of sugar out of your neighbor by every reaching out your kitchen window. Take a have a look at how far-off the subsequent RV is on the campground. And these items should not essentially the most sound proofed houses on this planet.
You can hear all the things happening subsequent door, from each side. The children screaming, the canine barking, the pot that dropped throughout the kitchen at 6am, or thrown at a partner as a result of its been raining for 3 days and they’re getting on every others nerves. Nah, most likely dropped. Once all that noise lastly stops, and you fall again asleep, the man with the large loud truck feels the necessity to begin it and let it idle for an hour with the exhaust pipe going through your bed room at 6:30.
Guess I’ll stand up and go make some espresso. Son of a bitch… we’re out of creamer…
GETTING YOUR MAIL
Pffft. I don’t care about mail. It’s all spam anyway.
Yeah we thought the identical factor. Until considered one of our bank cards expired in Montana, our “home address” is South Dakota, and our Mailing Address is in Texas. Now we have to discover someplace to remain for every week, that isn’t essentially at considered one of our locations, that can allow us to get a bundle delivered, or ask the native put up workplace (if there’s one) if we will have a bundle despatched basic supply, then get ahold of our mail service and have it despatched to us.
BANKING
This is one which WAS on our record of issues to do earlier than we hit the highway, that we simply didn’t get too. We LOVED our native department, of our Local Bank. Still Do.
We offered our kayaks to make room within the storage, our financial institution is at present 1,800 miles from us, and we need to deposit the cash into our invoice paying account. Still haven’t found out how we’re going to pull this one off.
Make positive you’ve a National Bank that you would be able to entry from many of the nation, reasonably than what was your small nook of it.
LACK OF CONNECTION
Well that was the entire level of this wasn’t it? To get away from all the things, out into the center of nowhere and have a cup of espresso subsequent to the river that the Moose is grabbing his morning sip from?
It is, and that’s is an incredible expertise that we hope you get to have. But, mentally our brains have been skilled our entire lives to be a part of a pack. That will be associates, household, neighbors, no matter.
We each have instances the place we get actually residence sick. I miss my firehouse buddies, and the ribbing they’d provide you with over the slightest misstep in your day. I miss my neighbor Dan and BS’ing over a beer within the driveway whereas we have a look at no matter he or I used to be engaged on within the driveway. I miss my Son and the way a lot he drives me nuts making 20 12 months previous choices…
Most instances it occurs on a type of shock upkeep days. The one the place you end up saying, “if only we were back home, my buddy has the tools to fix this and we could have it done in an hour”.
INCONSISTENCY
This is a giant one. People are creatures of behavior. Cup of espresso, head to the workplace, cease on the gymnasium on the way in which residence, residence chore for the day, lather, rinse, repeat.
The inconsistency of the day after day life can begin to get to you after some time. This week you journey on a Monday, and keep for two weeks. Next week you journey on a Wednesday and solely keep for 3 days. The following week its 3 single evening stays in your manner throughout the nation to get to that factor you need to do. Hell I don’t even know what day it’s half the time.
Before we hit the highway we had fairly predictable schedules all through the week, and we as a lot as we hated it, it was truly written into our DNA by the point we left, so altering the schedule every day added to the strain of the week.
Even the inconsistency of the Must Haves, and Must Do’s, and Must See’s will get to be tiresome. You could also be heading into considered one of your stops with the the Ultimate List of stuff we’re gonna do, then cease to seize a espresso and have a dialog with a neighborhood who asks “well you guys are doing this thing while you’re here right?”.
Well, no. We didn’t even find out about that. Can we match it in? Do we’ve the finances for it? If we minimize this half quick, we will squeeze that in, however then we are going to miss out on that…
ETIQUETTE
The final 2 years has triggered an inflow of first time RV homeowners. Many of whom haven’t even camped earlier than. The lack of primary etiquette from a few of them is as astounding because the record of issues they’re willfully uneducated about.
EVERY single campground we’ve been too has a decide up your canine poop rule. ALL of them. So when your 3 mutts are working across the campground when you ignore them and your children, they usually drop a deuce on another person’s campsite, your half assed laughing ‘Sorry‘ don’t minimize it. Run your ignorant ass over there and decide it up earlier than I step in it, and when you’re there shut the storage cupboard on my RV and inform your children to remain out of it.
MISCONCEPTIONS
Look up anybody in your most well-liked social media platform that’s doing #VanLife or #RVLiving or #RoadLife and you will notice all of the superb postcard worthy footage of lovely individuals in stunning locations which can be certainly what each single day seems to be like on this life-style.
If you need to see the fact of it, the subsequent time you go tenting, sit round your campsite all day lengthy and simply stare on the picnic desk. Most days are simply as, if no more than, boring as they’re in your regular home. Sure you possibly can exit and do stuff daily, however then you might be readjusting your finances, once more.
Sure there are free campsites and free stuff to do throughout in every single place. Well most locations. Ok, some locations, close to greater cities. In actuality most of America is that traditional 1 horse city with a single site visitors gentle with out a lot happening. Yeah, you are able to do lengthy drive days to go from one massive space to the subsequent, and remove the boredom, however then you might be burning extra gas. Back to the finances.
And don’t you dare even trace at complaining about your every day life if you find yourself on the cellphone with associates or household, ‘you live on vacation, you don’t know what it’s like anymore’.
Yep… Nothing however rainbows and pet canines with birds chirping within the background of the musical that’s our life.
So why not cease and ‘go home’?
Like I mentioned at first, we’ve considered it, however the professional’s undoubtedly outweigh the cons. You do have to pay much more consideration to your finances, and be fairly useful with the instruments you determined to not do away with on the infinite yard gross sales you had earlier than you left.
But, these mornings that you simply DO have the social media worthy image out your entrance door, the finances is just a few numbers to play with. The cupboard door that has a damaged hinge for the third time is ‘just a few screws’. In the grand scheme of issues all of it’s simply small stuff, and your entire life you’re instructed to not sweat the small stuff, so don’t.
Go and Live Life, simply be somewhat extra ready, and put some wiggle room in your finances.