Living and working full time in a Class C motorhome
It's almost June and we got quite a bit of fresh snow yesterday! It was our first time in the snow since we were kids so we were thrilled. Once Jared got his snowman made, we walked around town and grabbed some breakfast. Amazing day!
We finally made it! Over four years of planning and saving and we drove into Montana to start our first workamping job in West Yellowstone this week. We will officially start our jobs on the 25th. Most businesses are still closed here due to Covid-19 but they expect things to be opening up soon. Because of the restrictions due to the virus, we were unable to do much exploring at most of the stops we made on the trip but we were able to do self guided tours. More to come on those stops soon.
Before we left, we estimated our cost for traveling and we ended up pretty close to our estimate. Gas prices were much lower most of the way but because we couldn't stay at COE or state parks we paid higher prices for camping than we had anticipated. We took a total of 12 days traveling from North Florida to West Yellowstone so we were able to have a few rest days with no driving. With our stops, we drove about 2800 miles.
Here are the costs for gas and camping on the way out. Gas - $522 RV Hookups - $402
This Christmas marked two years in our full time journey. I love everything about this life. I still wake up every morning grateful and in awe that we actually did it and cannot wait to see where the road takes us.
When we first decided to take the plunge three years ago, we immersed ourselves in everything RV. We watched hundreds of videos, listened to every RV podcast out there, read so many blogs and joined all the FaceBook groups. We worked feverishly to save up a down payment, found the perfect RV and downsized our life to fit into it. I had a direct sales business that had blossomed into an excellent income and we were set to travel the country selling our wares. Within a few months of moving into the RV, that business took a turn for the worse. At six months, I was selling the product for less than I paid for it. We still had our Etsy shop and we both found jobs locally so we buried our heads in the sand and continued living as if nothing was wrong.
I knew we were getting into debt, but it upset me every time we talked about it so we just didn’t talk about it. My business failed, my plan didn’t work and it hurt. Facing the mounting debt meant facing my failure. When I finally got the courage to add up the numbers the first week in January 2018, it was more than I’d imagined. We immediately decided to make a change and turned to Dave Ramsey’s Financial Peace University. We made a budget, stuck to it and paid off over $12,000 in debt in just 6 months. We are currently working on building our emergency fund. This was the missing part of our original plan! An emergency fund is the umbrella that covers you while you work a new plan.
This year we plan to focus on expanding our business and explore the southeast region in short trips while we continue to work locally.
We hope your 2019 is full of love and adventure!
Angie & Jared
