? or someone to pull me back! 
Hello everyone. My wife and I are nearing 40 and have two young children, 6 and 9. We're in the midst of the realization that these last 9 years (and more so the last 6) have gone by in a flash and have made it an immediate goal to start spending as much down to goodness quality time with our kids as possible.
I grew up camping; starting in a small Coleman pop-up and by the time I moved out on my own my parents were into n-Aire Newmar fifth wheels. My wife on the other hand never camped, nor did her parents do much outside of day trips to the beach or family BBQs. Over the years her and I've been married she's worked up the courage to tent a few times. She doesn't like the comfort level and I really dislike all of the work! Over the last few years, my children have spent a lot of time glamping with my parents and are totally in love with it.
So I decided it was time for us to start camping as a family. I went through the must haves and the nice to haves and I finally arrived at buying a used pusher over all other RVs. I made this decision based on reliability, ease of set-up, and overall flexibility to go wherever we wanted whenever we wanted. I've spent the last year flying around the country looking at units and eventually decided early to mid 2000's Monaco Signatures could not be beat. We intend on spending many weekends doing local trips and one to two big trips per year (Florida, western states, NE, etc.)
Once I finally found the "one", we did some things we should have done earlier like understanding how much plates cost in our state (FYI - its $612 per yer per $100,000 of original MSRP - regardless of vehicle age) and comparing the total cost of ownership per year to how much we think we'd really use it considering our jobs and kids in school limiting the amount of time to roughly 30 days a year. This late breaking exercise put a sure thing into a "is this the right call?" in a hurry.
So here I am, needing to make a call soon before I lose the deal. Its not a matter of whether or not we can afford it - we can. And its not a matter of will we camp - we will. Its a matter of how we will do it (a trip to the local camper show has her thinking travel trailers are a much less expensive option - which they are of course). To sum it up, if I don't make the deal on the current coach, it'll be hard to buy another because the deal is incredible. That'll mean I'll probably end up purchasing a 30' TT - which I fear the difference will just drive me insane, plus perhaps limit the things we can do with it.
So, from the wisdom of all on this forum who perhaps have been here before, what did you decide, what did you learn, and what would you do now knowing what you didn't know then?
Thanks so much for your anticipated helpful advice!
Hello everyone. My wife and I are nearing 40 and have two young children, 6 and 9. We're in the midst of the realization that these last 9 years (and more so the last 6) have gone by in a flash and have made it an immediate goal to start spending as much down to goodness quality time with our kids as possible.
I grew up camping; starting in a small Coleman pop-up and by the time I moved out on my own my parents were into n-Aire Newmar fifth wheels. My wife on the other hand never camped, nor did her parents do much outside of day trips to the beach or family BBQs. Over the years her and I've been married she's worked up the courage to tent a few times. She doesn't like the comfort level and I really dislike all of the work! Over the last few years, my children have spent a lot of time glamping with my parents and are totally in love with it.
So I decided it was time for us to start camping as a family. I went through the must haves and the nice to haves and I finally arrived at buying a used pusher over all other RVs. I made this decision based on reliability, ease of set-up, and overall flexibility to go wherever we wanted whenever we wanted. I've spent the last year flying around the country looking at units and eventually decided early to mid 2000's Monaco Signatures could not be beat. We intend on spending many weekends doing local trips and one to two big trips per year (Florida, western states, NE, etc.)
Once I finally found the "one", we did some things we should have done earlier like understanding how much plates cost in our state (FYI - its $612 per yer per $100,000 of original MSRP - regardless of vehicle age) and comparing the total cost of ownership per year to how much we think we'd really use it considering our jobs and kids in school limiting the amount of time to roughly 30 days a year. This late breaking exercise put a sure thing into a "is this the right call?" in a hurry.
So here I am, needing to make a call soon before I lose the deal. Its not a matter of whether or not we can afford it - we can. And its not a matter of will we camp - we will. Its a matter of how we will do it (a trip to the local camper show has her thinking travel trailers are a much less expensive option - which they are of course). To sum it up, if I don't make the deal on the current coach, it'll be hard to buy another because the deal is incredible. That'll mean I'll probably end up purchasing a 30' TT - which I fear the difference will just drive me insane, plus perhaps limit the things we can do with it.
So, from the wisdom of all on this forum who perhaps have been here before, what did you decide, what did you learn, and what would you do now knowing what you didn't know then?
Thanks so much for your anticipated helpful advice!
