Work

Living the dream full-time RVing nomadic lifestyle working as location independent entrepreneurs.

June Road Trip Expenses and The Economy: What, Me Worry?

by

Giant Puppet in Truth or Conesquences FiestaJune numbers are in, and it was a cheap month thanks to our summer workamping gig. Check out our RV Road Trip Budget Expense Report for June 2008 You’ll see in the “Fuel” line item, that we went over budget. But those costs were actually from May, when we had to go to Salt Lake City to get our Motosat dish worked on.

We haven’t spent one single dime on fuel since we got to Lake City. We arrived with a half tank, and we’re trying to see how long we can make it last before we have to drive 55 miles one way, to Gunnison, the nearest town where we can do some real stocking up. Diesel fuel here is $5.01/gallon.

I’ve Got More Faith in My Mattress than The Stock Market

Meanwhile, we listen to NPR’s economy report every day, and just cringe. And today, when I reconciled our retirement funds statements, I wanted to cry. What little money we do have tied up in mutual funds has been whallopped. At this rate, we’re going to be working to support ourselves till the day we drop dead. Jim thinks I should stop looking at our statements for a while.

Read more

Funniest. Comment. Ever.

by

Al Workamping at Vickers dude RanchWe just received the funniest comment on any of our posts, from someone named Harvey. (Sorry RhodesTer.)

It made me laugh. And it reminded me of fellow workamper Al, who we met working here at Vickers Ranch.

On the post I wrote about trying the NextGen Gallery Worpress plugin, Harvey said:

“You got a picture of canned pork brains, and everybody wants to comment on what program you?re using!”

ROFLOLFYIETATBD! 😆

Read more

Our Radical Sabbatical: The Real Work Begins

by


Road Trip Stops at Capitol Reef National ParkThe idea of taking a long break first occurred to us in 2006, when some mindless channel surfing led us to the TV show, Radical Sabbatical. Each 30 minute segment would tell the story of someone who had suddenly woken up to realize they hated their career, life was passing them by, and they needed a change, fast.

While reality shows are generally crap, watching how these people worked to make their dreams happen provided much of the inspiration we needed to get moving on our own dreams (well, that, and Jerry’s illness).

Neither Jim nor I had ever taken an extended break. In my 20s, my friends went backpacking around Europe after college, but I had student loans to pay, so I took the first dumb job that I could get. By the mid 90s, I was handing over my paycheck to student loans and credit card debt. And as for Jim, well, he’s always been too responsible to slack off.

Now that we had paid some dues in life, we became giddy at the thought of reverting to slackerdom. But the more we thought about it, we knew we couldn’t just split without some kind of goal in mind.

Read more

Live Work Dream: Our List of Small, Liveable Western Towns.

by

Arkansas River Valley Colorado After a year on the road, it seems clear to us that if and when we settle down, it will be somewhere in the West.

We gave the Midwest and East Coast a chance, and even fell in love with a few places, like Wisconsin, and Vermont. But ultimately, there’s just too many people crammed into the Eastern states. And in the Midwest, the mountains aren’t nearly tall enough for us. Many places we spent time in were beautiful, and quaint, but all along, I couldn’t help but drawing comparisons to my favorite places in the Western states. Nowhere else could measure up.

When we first hit the road, I didn’t want to consider Colorado as a future home, because I knew I would love it, but that real estate is expensive, and there were better deals to be had throughout the rest of the country.

But, the old adage “You get what you pay for” is so true. While you can get 100 acres with a home for less than $200k in the Midwest . . . it’s the Midwest. The people are the nicest, but the land is flat, the area is homogeneous, and the scenery just can’t compare to the kind of western mountain landscapes that take your breath away.

With this in mind, I’m willing to admit that I love the familiarity of the west, and would consider buying something in these parts. For now, here’s a list of places we want to investigate in depth.

Read more

Living Free in a Van Down by the River

by

Florida Traffic SceneThis just in: every minute you spend sitting in traffic to get to a job you hate, one more young adult decides to quit the rat race, sell everything, and hit the road.

Ok, maybe that’s a slight exaggeration. But the longer we’re on the road, the more we keep meeting crazy kids our age who are also fed up with running on the treadmill of job/home/stuff/debt.

Hitek Homeless Hits the Road
Take for instance, Johnny and Jenn, aka Hitek Homeless. We met this couple online last year, while their escape plans were coming to fruition. They bought a killer Arctic Fox truck bed camper and a diesel dualie, sold their stuff, and finally hit the road a few months ago. Recently, Truck Camper Magazine interviewed them about their decision to fulltime.

Read more

Show Me the Money: Hard Numbers from a Year on the Road

by


Jim with Trucker Cap Leaving Eureka CAOne year ago this week, we drove away from Humboldt County in a daze. We couldn’t believe that we had really pulled our sabbatical off, and year on the road seemed like an eternity. Little did we know that it would fly by seemingly as quick as a two week vacation. We have so much to say about our epic journey. But for now, let’s start with the hard numbers.

Thanks to the meticulous Quickbooks expense tracking I’ve done over the last several years, and Carol White’s Live Your Road Trip Dream book budgeting templates, I was able to put together a budget that works for us. In short: we came in under budget, and the money we’ve saved will enable us to continue to live this lifestyle for at least the next year if we choose to.

If you’d like to see the technical details, a PDF with summarized numbers is here. But if spreadsheets make you snooze, then here’s a quick summary of my numbers for the year, and some ways we saved money:

Read more

Look what I found!

by

surprised cartoon invitation proposalWe’ve found ourselves back at the campground in the grove at the trailhead to Cohab Canyon where I proposed to Rene about a dozen years ago on our legendary motorcyle tour of the southwest.

We are just feet from where we tent camped. We probably would have moved if this big ol’ rig parked next to us at the time.

I also just found the following autobiographical early “web page code” and have hereby salvaged it from becoming internet detritus….

Surprised? I saved the cartoon shown for many years before giving it to the woman I knew would marry.

Read more

Our Love/Hate Relationship with MotoSat

by

Motosat F2 Satellite Internet Dish in SnowJust the other day, I was thinking of writing about how much I love our satellite internet system. It provides us with connectivity even when we have no cell phone coverage camped deep in a National Forest campground, alongside a roaring stream, in the snow.

Then our Datastorm F2 refused to deploy. Luckily, we had made it back to civilization at Mountain Views RV Resort in Creede, CO with full hookups and WiFi. But now we are taking an 900 mile round-trip detour to Salt Lake City for a factory repair at MotoSat.

Read more

Not In Such A Twitter About Tweets

by

Rene Tweets on Twitter Social NetworkIt was that funny RhodesTer guy who first turned us on to the whole Twitter thing. Though I must say, I was never really that turned on.

It was Ren? who insisted we add the Twitter badge that shows what we’re doing at every instant.

I fought and stalled, but eventually conceded.

We compromised by placing yet another widget at the bottom of our sidebar. You see … Twitter is only good if you tweet.

Read more

Happy Anniversary Baby!

by

Beautiful Rene Atop Hecla JunctionPlease allow me this brief moment to shout out to the entire world just how much I love my wife. Isn’t she beautiful?

Living together in a trailer on the road, it’s hard to surprise someone with anything. But since steel is the traditional gift for an 11-year anniversary, and Rene isn’t really into jewelry ? the modern choice ? perhaps I can steal her heart once again with a few heartfelt words.

I recently expressed concern to Ren? about her dancing on the precipice at Black Canyon National Park. OK, she wasn’t dancing. But her scrambling made me nervous nonetheless.

Read more

Yes you can earn an Income Anywhere!

Get Book

@LiveWorkDream

Subscribe for blog updates and receive free gift!

? 2025 Agreda Communications