We would all like to but we can't ...... hahahahah

I am planning to start living full time in my motor home in around 4 years.  I had conversations over the past two days about the desire, no scratch that, the plan to do this.  Each conversation was pretty much me saying, "All I want is to be able to report to a job, give my best, and then go sit on the beach with a book and my radio." 

My mother (I am 39) told me, "Don't you think we would all like to do that?  But we can't..." 
Then at work I pretty much told the same idea and was told by an older co-worker, "We get a job, we stay at that job, and that is just the way it is."

My reply to both of them was, "That may be true for you, but I don't live to work. I work to live."

I just don't get the point of being complacent with anything if you are not satisfied.

Well, thanks for letting me rant. :0)

I retired at age 39. I have been full timing since 2003. Go for it, you won't regret it.

Well, by the sound of things, you need to work, and you are fine with that.  You also need to sleep in a bed (most of us do), what's the difference if the bed is in a house, boat, apartment, condo, trailer or motorhome as long as you get a good night of sleep and can do your job?

Don't do it without planing carefully, but if everything lines up, why not?

Great post and perspective.  Your profile doesn't mention where you live.  Could it be mid-west?

I'm from California.  DW is from Minnesota.  The cultural differences are incredible.  These differing points of view are not unique to mid west but that's just where my personal experiences have uncovered them the most.  So many people accept the old "that's just the way it is" and don't feel it can or should be challenged.  We full time now and are currently staying with my father in law at his little farm in rural Minnesota.  With most of those I speak with here, there seems to be the feeling that if you buck the status quo it's because you think you're "too good" for it.  It certainly explains (at least to my way of thinking) why so little changes from generation to generation in many areas.

I think you should go for it... especially the part about being on the beach with a good book... before we decided to do the motorhome thing we moved to Maui for 7 months before DW got Rock Fever because she was so far away from the grandbabies!  :-\

bnlfan said:

  I just don't get the point of being complacent with anything if you are not satisfied.

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Go for it!  Christopher Morley once wrote: There is only one success - to be able to spend your life in your own way.

Many years ago my son passed away at the age of 4 1/2.  Grokking that we are only allotted so many years and that this was not a rehearsal for life, this was IT, I took off sailing, chasing whatever it was that was just on the other side of the horizon.  I spent 20 years in The Bahamas and the Caribbean, and did not regret a single moment of that time (although there were a couple of times in exceptionally rough weather when I asked myself "What am I doing out here?"...there are NO atheists at sea in a survival storm). 

Today, my cutter has been replaced by an RV, but life is still the same in many regards.  I go where I want when I want and take life head on, and on MY terms.

Some folks enjoy sucking the life out of people (and I am NOT referrring to your mother here, she only has your best interests at heart).  Some do this by naysaying our dreams, "reminding" us that it takes money and that the funds just aren?t there yet.  A bank vault full of money is certainly a consideration, but it is not a necessity.  There are far too many people sitting in armchairs waiting to win the lottery before they dare venture upon any trek into the unknown.  Someone needs to hammer home the point to them that drive, talent, and sheer determination can take you anywhere that a fat bank account can, slower perhaps, but better late than never.     

More apprehensive souls weigh the consequences of failure and allow fear to dissuade any attempt that their spirit should even momentarily consider. Content with their current lot in life, some do not wish to put out the extra effort to effect a change that may or may not come about and may or may not be worth it.  It is a gamble and a solid, steady, conservative lifestyle makes no allowances for gambling or adventure (sounds like one of J.R.R. Tolkien?s Hobbits that took so well to adventure once the fear of it is gone).  William Shakespeare wrote that ?Doubt is a thief that often makes us fear to tread where we might have won.?

I don't want to lie on my death bed with a lifetime of regrets flashing before my eyes.  I would rather go out with a grin on my face saying ?Yeah, I had a pretty good time!?

It's been working so far...

I don't want to lie on my death bed with a lifetime of regrets flashing before my eyes.  I would rather go out with a grin on my face saying ?Yeah, I had a pretty good time!?

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I like your attitude, Steve! 

I know this is an old post but I feel compelled to reply.  Just in case anyone is still reading this and thinking the same as Luca.  I am new here but have a story, which I just may post in  new topic when I am finished here.  I think it needs to heard.

We are from the Midwest.  We have worked our rumps off trying for the American Dream.  We did a fairly good job of it. We were getting some place.

Then, at 39, my husband was diagnosed with Glioblastoma.  Sounds nasty because it is.  Terminal Brain cancer.  He was given surgery to remove the brain tumor, radiation, chemo and a year to live.  That was 5 years ago.  He is not cured. You do not get cured of this particular monster.  But he has been on an experimental drugs and for some reason, he is still here and doing fairly well.  This is his second fight with cancer. His first was the curable kind (Hodgkin's in his 20's).

We have always had that work ethic.  That drive to spend your youth working and acquiring stuff.  We always did it unconventionally, self employed and used to pull down 6 figures.  We were always tired, always stressed. 

My husband was waiting until he was 40 to get life insurance.  Due to his Hodgkin's, he could have gotten more for less or something like that.  He was 4 months shy of that when they founds his tumor and put an expiration date on him.

We have spent the last few years in a lot of anguish. Trying to secure my future without him. He cannot work because if he does, he loses his medicare. As one of his very frequent check ups is thousands upon thousands, and when this does return, we may be facing another 100000 bill, this is not an option.  No one wants to hire him and put him on their insurance either.  So I now work 4 jobs just trying to keep afloat here. I am done with it.

We could spend whatever time he has left, being angry, shaking our fists at fate (we do this sometimes honestly) slogging away, trying to make the good life work. Or we can be masters of our own fate. We choose the latter. In this way, his cancer has freed us.  We no longer feel we need to explain anything to anyone.  We have encountered some negativity, even in the form of envy.  To which I reply that maybe that person will get cancer and be freed too.  I can be pretty sassy when I feel I have the right to be.

Most people will tell you that we all want to do this and cannot do this.  The point is, we all can if we choose. I am not saying anything bad about anyone's mom.  We choose to let go of our home, yard, property. 

You can plan your whole life, as it SHOULD be. Maybe it will work out for you.  Maybe it won't.  I know so many people who do this and get to into their 60's and retire and begin the good life.  Then, within a year, something happens and someone is too sick.  The dream is gone. 

It is just a house. It is just a yard.  It is just STUFF.  If you need all that stuff, that is fine.  If you get 80 healthy years, great. But what if you don't? Is 80 years enough? How about if you only get 45? Would that change your way of life? How you think you have to do things?

We each get one go around here.  We each get a finite number of years.  We can choose how to spend them.  If you want to full time it and can figure out a way, let no one and nothing stand in your way.  Because Gary is right.  No one wants to lie on their deathbed and wish they had done things differently.  That is too sad to contemplate. I have a framed quote in my home. It says LET NOTHING OR NO ONE STEAL YOUR TIME. Amen.

Thanks for sharing your story and God bless you both!

Rick

Thank you for that. All the best, you deserve it.
We had a recent wake up call. Two weeks ago today DW had a cancerous kidney removed. I brought her home last Saturday then it was back Tuesday with breathing problems, blood clots in the lungs. She is feeling much better now.
I still have my nose to the grindstone dreaming of the freedom of retirement in early 2014 but we are also trying to make the most of what free time we have now. I don't want to be like my parents, dad died at 57 so mom did all the things they wanted to share on her own. She had a good 30 years but it was not the same. All of you with seemingly insurmountable challenges, all I can say is ROCK ON. 8)

Thanks! I usually do not share these things but it makes me a bit crazy when people do not do what they really want to do.  Roy, I am happy DW feels better and hope that all you plan for comes true!

Take the time and do get out and enjoy life NOW.  40 years ago my wife and I had started planning, doing things as we could and setting aside the funds so that when I took early retirement we could go RVing.  In 1981 we had a wake up call when she was diagnosed with terminal breast cancer so we did as many things as we could along the way.  20 years ago, I lost her so I didn't retire for a few more years and in the meantime I met another lady who agreed, with some restrictions, to marry me and go RVing. We have done many of the things I had planned and are continuing to do so.  Right now we are grounded because of my medical problem but plan to get back to it as soon as we can.

My new wife, Pat, and I had another wake up call in 1995 when I was diagnosed with prostate cancer.  She learned to drive the MH and we still made her grandson's basketball tournament a thousand miles away.  We did have to postpone a trip to New England in the fall of '95 but took it in '96 with Pat in a wheel chair, back surgery, and me severely restricted in what I could do because of the radiation and chemo side effects.  WE HAD A BALL!!

Things happen but pause, resolve them as best you can and move on enjoying life as you go.

BTW, plans change. we now have 8 grand children, 7 great grand children so we now travel to see the kids and catch the sight seeing along the way.  Some are in VA, others in OR, some in TX and our children are in other locations so we have a lot of traveling to do and lots of opportunities for seeing places and Rving friends along the way.

I whole heartedly agree.  I came from a profession where tomorrow was promised to no one. And some didn't get a tomorrow.

Make the most out of the time you have NOW.  We never know what tomorrow holds.  Two analogy's that a buddy of mine and I just shared yesterday:  "I have never seen a luggage rack on a Hearse"  and "One thing I have never seen on a headstone,  I wish I had spent more time at work". 

Good luck!

Jim, I am sorry for your loss andyour trouble.  Cancer sux. I hope I can say that here.  You did not let it stop you though and that is GREAT!  Sarge, LOL! No I have never seen a luggage rack on a hearse.  That is right on.  We have wasted the last years trying to make things as safe as possible, from a convential way of life.  It may work for some people and for those people I say great. But it is not working for us.  I just refuse to try anymore. 

Just goes to show ya..never too early to work on that bucket list. I've been on it for 3 years now, started off with a new Harley, then our RV. these are not material things only, really just things that make the rest of life more enjoyable

8) 8) I have been fulltiming it since 1994. Thought life handed me some lemons in 1985 when I had a back injury working for a state agency as a heavy vehicle mechanic. By the end of 1987, lost the newly acquired house bought in 1981. The new vehicle, my toy 1979 Z-28 Hot Rod car. Then in early 1988, I decide it was best for the wife an children to leave with her as i was rather quite depressed as a dream of mid-fifties retirement and a new motorhome vanished before my eyes. BUT, All of a sudden acquired some sugar, ice cubes and water, a pitcher, and glasses. Made some lemonade, shook off the depression. I bought an older motorhome, started working and traveling and gaining new friends along the way. Many of my siblings say I am crazy still. What will you do when you can no longer work? I tell them I am not worried because I will have seen most all of what my visions were. Well, the two girls have there own life and when I do visit my daughters and grands enjoy me more, as we don;t have time to get bored with each other, and I really have a great enjoyable time spent with them. Thanks for the letting me rant!! irover  ;D ;D

Irover said:

8) 8) I have been fulltiming it since 1994. Thought life handed me some lemons in 1985 when I had a back injury working for a state agency as a heavy vehicle mechanic. By the end of 1987, lost the newly acquired house bought in 1981. The new vehicle, my toy 1979 Z-28 Hot Rod car. Then in early 1988, I decide it was best for the wife an children to leave with her as i was rather quite depressed as a dream of mid-fifties retirement and a new motorhome vanished before my eyes. BUT, All of a sudden acquired some sugar, ice cubes and water, a pitcher, and glasses. Made some lemonade, shook off the depression. I bought an older motorhome, started working and traveling and gaining new friends along the way. Many of my siblings say I am crazy still. What will you do when you can no longer work? I tell them I am not worried because I will have seen most all of what my visions were. Well, the two girls have there own life and when I do visit my daughters and grands enjoy me more, as we don;t have time to get bored with each other, and I really have a great enjoyable time spent with them. Thanks for the letting me rant!! irover  ;D ;D

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Life is good!  That's a great attitude and outlook on life.  Thanks for sharing.

Rick