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THE BEST DESCRIPTION for my career would be “corporate vagabond.” I moved the family six times to five different states over 42 years.
Because we never settled down in one place, my wife and I spent 15 years visiting potential retirement locations. We visited sprawling metropolitan areas, small towns, retirement communities and the town where we both grew up. We also considered the areas where we’d lived, but nothing appealed to us.
One evening, a TV commercial prompted me to ask my wife if buying an RV and traveling the U.S. might be a starting point for our retirement. We’d never camped or owned an RV, so I expected a sharp “no” and the discussion would end. But instead, a quick “yes” led to a conversation that extended through the weekend. Five months later, in 2020, we purchased a 35-foot motorhome.
To be clear, our goal wasn’t ”living in a van, down by the river.” The freedom to travel and visit the vacation spots we missed was compelling but not necessarily simple. Living fulltime in an RV has unique issues, including designating a legal domicile, having a mailing address, and dealing with water, sewer and electricity. Still, those were relatively simple problems to resolve.
Filing for Social Security and Medicare while on the road, and the journey’s emotional issues, proved more difficult. After 44 years of marriage, we have few secrets, but learned new things living in 300 square feet.
We built a flexible financial plan with an exit route for when we found the right retirement location. The financial plan focuses on an RV lifestyle now and an exit to a more traditional retirement later. This started with three buckets of short-term investments: the RV emergency fund, the exit fund and two years of cash for spending. The rest of the portfolio consists of widely diversified longer-term investments with a target total return of 6.5% a year.
Our budget highlights the nature of the RV lifestyle and is focused on three highly variable RV items: campsite costs, fuel and repairs. It’s not if you’ll need repairs, it’s when. Many folks have a perception that the RV life is inexpensive. While that might have been true in Nomadland, the reality depends on your lifestyle. Do you travel fulltime as a lifestyle or do you vacation fulltime in an RV? While living off the grid on public lands allows us to roam the country at a very affordable cost, visiting Key West is a vacation splurge. We try to strike a balance between the two.
We used the IRS’s required minimum distribution calculation as the guide for our withdrawal budget, setting our annual budget at around 4% of our nest egg’s year-end value. This forces us to react to market fluctuations and adjust our travel plans accordingly. We also need to maintain the RV emergency repair fund.
The exit plan gave us the wherewithal to purchase a home for cash on short notice without changing our withdrawal budget. The exit plan began with the sale of our house at the start of our journey. We used the proceeds to build a ladder of two-year Treasury notes. I also checked with our credit union in case we needed a bridge loan between purchase of a home and maturity of the bond ladder.
Has this been a success? After 20 months, we’ve traveled to 27 states and visited friends across the country. My wife and I have enjoyed the diverse geography of the U.S., from the Jersey Shore to the Badlands of South Dakota. We’ve experienced the challenges of driving an RV through downtown Atlanta and the serenity of country roads in West Virginia. Winter on the Gulf Coast was memorable. The list of unfamiliar places we want to visit continues to grow.
Financially, we’re spending slightly less than our budget. While the financial markets have gone down, the fundamentals of our investments appear strong, so we have few concerns. A hit-and-run driver challenged our budget and our resilience. Still, repairs on the RV have been about what we expected.
An opportunity came up to buy a home near our first grandson in Iowa, so we went ahead and purchased our retirement home. But we plan to spend winters further south as we continue our travels in the RV. This may not be the lifestyle for everybody. But for us, it’s made for an amazing retirement.
Mark Eckman is a retired CPA spending more time traveling America in an RV than at home. In retirement, he’s realizing that saving and investing were just the start—and maybe the easy part. His priorities: family, food and fun. Follow Mark on Twitter @Mark236CPA and check out his earlier articles.
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Seems like a great way to start retirement actually. See America first then decide where to put down roots for the later years.
I’m writing this from my RV – parked at Tomoka State Park in Ormond Beach, Florida. Mine is a 23-foot Winnebago Boldt. I have found that with repairs, you’re likely better off doing what you can yourself, and you’ll find that the things you can do yourself will expand the longer you own your RV. I don’t think there is anything that can’t be repaired with the right tools and access to Youtube videos! Continued happy travels!
Amazing! I’m glad you’re living your dream.
Hi Mark, interesting story. We’re houseless and nomadic for now as well. I like the notion of your exit fund. As you held it in a ladder of two year T-bills, I gather your plan was to be ready to sell most of them before maturity to come up with cash for your house, or to take the bridge loan while they matured, according to what seemed best at the time?
Yes, to be ready while the funds remain available and still earn something. The reality of 2021was money market funds paid nothing and rising rates almost guaranteed a loss, even with T-bills. So staying short-term was the choice among bad choices.
Hey Mark,
You state in your article that you use IRS RMDs as a guide for your withdrawal budget and that, “This forces us to react to market fluctuations and adjust our travel plans accordingly.”
Christine Benz at Morningstar has this excellent piece:
https://www.morningstar.com/articles/1068819/should-your-retirement-portfolio-withdrawals-vary-with-the-market
on different flexible withdrawal mechanisms and their positives and negatives.
I would suggest looking into the guard rail mechanism to allow a little more flexibility.
She writes excellent articles so give it a look see.
Thanks, David – I did look at several options, and found that the amounts in dollars we needed to withdraw were far less than the percentage offered. The RMD formula at 67 is over 5% and the actual withdrawal was a bit less than 4%. So by taking less than the maximum, we keep flexibility and continue to grow the portfolio.
We traveled full-time in our motorhome for almost 5 years. Sold our house in Colorado and hit the road. Finally built our retirement home in Georgia just before our first grandchild arrived almost 2 years ago. #2 grandchild is on the way, and our middle son just moved here to start a new career. We downsized to a travel trailer and were on the road last year for 4 months. Still have a few places to check off our bucket list, (Alaska and eastern Canada), but life is good. Best of both worlds!
While an RV is not our style, it seems you did it the right way and achieved the best of both travel and roots down. Enjoy many more years.
Mark, thanks for an enjoyable article. It sounds like you and your wife have developed and executed a great plan. We have friends who did a similar plan. They sold the family farm, bought an RV, and hit the road. They expect to continue for a few years before settling down somewhere. Their biggest challenge – three adult daughters in Pittsburgh, Houston, and Portland, OR. Figuring out where to settle will be tough. RVing allows them to travel, see North America, and spend seasonally appropriate long stretches with each child.
I know several people who are into RVs, and I’m sure they would echo your comments on repairs and maintenance. As one of them said to me, you are combining a truck with all of the systems of a house.
Enjoy the road!