The Dirty Downside of Full-time RVing Before Retirement

When it comes to full-timing, you won’t find us complaining about many things. There’s a lot to love about this lifestyle, but I can think of one big downside of full-time RVing before retirement.

Another Laundromat Hijacking 

downside of full-time RVing before retirement
Even retired RVers do laundry on weekends. Why?

It all begins in the laundry room of any RV park. Dare to come by on a Saturday or Sunday and you’ll find a big crowd of women doing the wash. Yeah, it’s almost always all women as you know.

Take a second to look around, and you’ll notice almost all appear old enough to be retired. Which technically means that most of them probably have the luxury to do laundry any day of the week, any time of day. But yet for some reason, they still crowd up the laundry room on weekends. 

Nevermind that for working-age full-time RVers, weekends are the biggest window of opportunity to cram domestic chores into our lives. 

Astute reader, you can probably guess that I’m getting ready to vent. Well yeah, I am. Because for the second time this month, one of those retired RV park residents decided she just was too busy to wait one minute for me to get my clothes out of the machines. I wasn’t being lazy either, I had my eye on the time. I was just in the adjacent spa and was drying off before going inside.

So in this latest laundromat hijacking incident, the woman had other dryers to choose from, but she wanted mine. I guess because it was the only top row dryer with a load that had just ended. The white haired woman tossed our clothes into a rolling cart, not even considering that some of our clothes might not have dried.

The Downside of Full-time RVing Before Retirement

downside of full-time RVing before retirement
At Fountain of Youth, they’re too busy playing poker during the week to do laundry.

Which brings me back to my rant: How can someone living the supposedly slow-paced life of a retired RVer be in such a hurry? And why on earth would anyone torture themselves with laundry (or grocery shopping especially) on weekends, when working people are also doing it? 

Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? 

Yeah, it’s challenging to find a downside of full-time RVing before retirement. But if you decide to do laundry on the weekends in a snowbird RV park, you can add that bummer to your list.

15 thoughts on “The Dirty Downside of Full-time RVing Before Retirement”

  1. I just read your blog on traffic and being present. Then I saw this and HAD to laugh. I find that while I love doing laundry in a laundromat (simply because it all gets done in under two hours), I do see some weird goings on. Your example is a good one. I don’t always stay with my clothes in the mat, but when I do it is fun to watch people, men especially because somewhere someone has told them that this is a good place to flirt. And, one tip I use to avoid such problems as you had, is to arrive about 5 minutes before my clothes are due to be finished so that I can extend the dryer time if needed, and ensure that folks don’t pull my stuff out.

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    • Thanks for the examples Laura, I appreciate your reading the blog, glad it made you smile. I’m going to remember your suggestion to arrive earlier when we do laundry tonight. Thanks so much!

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  2. That’s a whole lot of assumptions to be making about people based solely on appearance. How do you know they’re not working too? White hair? I have white hair, and I’m only 50 and still working. What the lady did was wrong, but please stop with the ageism.

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    • No ageism going on here. After all, Jim and I are both silver foxes and I’m not even 50 yet. And you’re right: I don’t know 100% that these laundry patrons are or are not retired, but when I see the majority of them playing water volleyball every day from 12-4, then rushing down to the karaoke bar at 5, I feel confident about my guess. This has been our general experience in snowbird RV parks during winter. Working full-time RVers are a rarity in these circumstances.

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  3. What we learned ~~~ have your washer and dryer IN your RV. Forget all other laundries! Too many said only go vented so tried that combo, not the best way. Separate washer and dryer is larger and does a better job faster. Not even full time but we snowbird 3 of the 6 – 7 months spent in our 5er. Wife is much happier and that is good for me. We even keep fewer clothes in the camper so the space taken is not missed.

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    • Yeah, definitely. I noticed that when we go to them on weekdays they are pretty manageable. Out here at FoY though, the nearest one is about an hour away, so this is as good as it gets.

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  4. She probably has it on her schedule to do laundry on the weekend (because that’s when she has ALWAYS done laundry). And she can only use certain machines (because that is what she ALWAYS does). Yikes!!!

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    • Totally Cathy. It got me to thinking that when people retire, they just stick to their same old habits they’ve had over the course of their working lives. Even snowbirds, which I find kinda crazy. I’d sure like to think that when Jim and I no longer need to work we will come up with some interesting new domestic routines, even if it means moving our laundry day to other times during the week.

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  5. I’m thankful we are a pair of working RVers who set our own hours, so we don’t usualky run into this issue. Our only issue is when the days run together and we forget, for instance, that food shopping on Christmas Eve is a bad call! LOL!

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    • Hey Jamie, I’m glad you found a way around it. Jim and I tend to cram so much work into the weekdays that we rarely have time to do this domestic stuff M-F. I think we need to start trying though.

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  6. Omg, this made me laugh so hard!!! Actually our senior living park is really busy during the week and the funny thing is, there are ALOT of men!!! They are very nice and even helpful, but the white haired ladies are on a terror in there!!! Rude and oblivious if it is there stuff that is done because ,hey, she is on the phone with Gertrude telling her about so and so who didn’t get to poker on time because of this that and the other thing. Omg, but seriously, it is one of the best people watching sports ever!!! Off to do the laundry! Lol

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