RE: 2000 national tropical 6373
I fulltimed in a National Tropical for 9+ years.. It was a 1998 on a ford chassis.. It was a 35ft model..
I thought it was a well built coach and served our purpose.. Company did go out of business.. I think they had some problems with sides of some model years, but ours wasn't one that had that problem..
Just be sure and check the side walls out for delamination..
They changed the Tropical model over to diesel chassis but not sure what year
that happened..
Good luck on your friends search..
RE: Do tires have to be changed at a certain age?
I would call the tire manufacture and see what they say.. Most RV trailer tires will last 5 to 7 years before you have problems, depending on the manufacture of the tire..
Just because they look good or have plenty of tread, they can still have a blowout and cause lots of damage to the RV..
RE: Gated RV Club
When we fulltimed, we had a Campground Membership with gated entrance.. We stayed several months each year there.. Few others stayed year-round but was required to move to a different site in the park every so often.. No RV could be set up permanently on a site..
We paid $800 for the membership and $240 was the annual dues.. The annual fee included 35/days use.. After that period of time, if we wanted to stay longer, it would cost approx. $10.50/day or just over 300/month and included full hookups, elec was included in that price..
When we decided we no longer wanted the membership, sold it on craigslist after using it approx. dozen years... We had the option to sell it, give it away, or just give it back to the park.. The Home park is owned by the Members.. It has been in business over 30 years and carries no debt..
Paid for itself several time over when other parks we charging approx $20/day..
The membership also affiliated with C2C, RPI, and ROD.. We joined C2C which cost $79/annual, and that gave us approx. 300 affiliated parks to use for $10/day up to a week at a time..
There are Memberships out there, just takes a little time to find one that may fit your requirements..
There are also places where you can buy a lot in Parks..
Good luck on your adventures...
RE: Any full timers who home school?
You may want to check out YouTube video's on HomeSchooling.. Plenty info there..
Another website is Khan Academy that has great programs for learning..
RE: Cheap membership campgrounds?
Preferred RV Resort is another park that belongs to ROD as well as C2C and RPI..
They have a website showing their price to join..
You can belong to this park for approx. $1195 and that is the cost of a NEW membership.. You can find a Resale for less..
We use to belong to this park when we fulltimed, bought a resale and sold it on craigslist when we were thru using it.. We owned it for over a dozen years.. It is a member owned park..
Check the ROD website and see what parks belong, then do a search on the ones
may be interested in..
RE: Need start up tips for full-timing!
If or When you decide to buy a Campground Membership, Buy a "Resale" and Read/Understand the contract before signing it...
The Home Parks will have different contracts, but the Affiliates will be the same for everyone using their system, depending on the level of the membership..
The Affiliate memberships I refer to are, Coast to Coast, RPI, ROD, and AOR..
Not all home parks belong to all of them, but most will belong to two or more..
Thousand Trails has a Zone Membership which is quite reasonable without a long term contract... You can drop it or Renew it annually..
We used to belong to a Campground Membership for over a dozen years and as a fulltimer, kept our campground fees quite reasonable, about $10/day, using it around 150 day each year.. We bought a Resale, and when we were no longer using it, we sold it on Craigslist..
The annual fees we paid each year, was recouped within 35/40 days, which was easy for us to do...
Another thing, if you haven't already done so, start getting rid of as much snail mail as possible.. Use online statements as much as possible..
Online banking and bill pay too...
Before Picking a new home base, make sure you health insurance will work there too.. That was a problem for us, as we were not on Medicare at the time we started fulltiming...
Good luck on your new adventure...
RE: S & B or not?
When we decided to fulltime, we sold the house.. Wanted to downsize, and not go back to the same area..
Got rid of household stuff, daughter took some, and we did store a couple boxes in her garage..
We waited to buy another S@B because we didn't want to be burdened with a fixed abode and no telling where daughters family would end up.. They moved twice because of jobs.. We were not interested in another house ownership at the time..
9 years later, wife decided she wanted another house, and our fulltime days were over...
Everyone will have their own idea of what will work for them, that is what we did..
RE: Coast to Coast and R.O.D.
C2C is not a stand alone membership either.. You must belong to a Member park first, just like RPI or ROD..
The thing I liked about C2C, you could make reservations online 24/7... Last time I used RPI you could only make reservations by phone and not during the weekend... That may have changed since I last used it.. They also used to charge for making reservations too, believe it was a couple dollars...
ROD is pretty good, but far fewer affiliate parks to choose from.. You must keep a balance in your account to get the free sites, and they used that money for making reservations, but that too, may have changed over time...
I believe any of them will work if one uses the membership system enough to justify it.. We did and worked well for us..
RE: Windows 8????
After January 31st, I don't think there will too much upgrading going on..
The price will jump to $199 and that does not include the price for media center pack.. That was posted on the Windows eight forum, but things can always change..
So far, glad I upgraded for $15 and the media center pack was free..
I haven't missed the start button, but if I do at a later date, can always download one off a third party app or go with Classic Shell..
RE: Windows 8????
I upgraded to W8.. I still like learning new things and it is not that difficult for me to use.. I don't have a touch screen computer.. The $15 upgrade was reasonable to me..
I did go to several forums on W8, to understand what I was getting into before the upgrade thou..
Windows 8 is not User friendly. Even the classic screen they give you doesn't work like a Windows 7 machine. As others have said MS makes mistakes as other businesses bo-and this is one of them IMHO!
If you trying to use W8 like you read what I wrote, no wonder you are having problems with it..
I said it is not that difficult for ME to use... and it is working very well for me...
I did not load the Classis Shell yet, can use my computer just fine without it...
My desktop side is just as friendly as it was on W7, FOR ME...
I did take the time to visit other forums on W8 before upgrading so I could understand the OS better..
I used Windows eight forum, Windows Secrets Lounge, How to Geek on W8, and even used YouTube to educate myself first thou....
Learned a lot there, so my computer and I get along just great...
Sorry you are having problems with W8....
RE: What did you miss most
The things we missed from our ole S@B was.... NOTHING.... I do have a long list of things that we don't miss at the ole S@B..
We did buy another house after 9+ years of the fulltime lifestyle.. However, if wife ever said lets go fulltime again, this house would be on the market before
the sun had time to set...
RE: Windows 8????
I upgraded to W8.. I still like learning new things and it is not that difficult for me to use.. I don't have a touch screen computer.. The $15 upgrade was reasonable to me..
I did go to several forums on W8, to understand what I was getting into before the upgrade thou..
RE: One Step Closer
Our house sold a little too early too, but we used that time to pack everything
in the RV..
We stayed on a relative's property in the RV, and worked well for us.. Wife's employer wanted her to stay on a little longer, which she did..
Gave me a chance to get everything in order, have a couple of minor repairs done to the RV..
Even planning our fulltime for years in advance, still always last minute details to take care of...
Good luck on your new adventure...
RE: Life after FTing
You can FT without outlay of 100K+ for the RV, We did.. And I could do it again..
We sold our house, we wanted to downsize anyway.. That money went into an Investment Account when we went fulltime...
We did use the interest it made, but the principal was not touched...
We fulltimed for 9+ years, bought another house, and sold the RV...
I wished we never owned another house, but was out-voted by the wife..
The daughter and son-in-law may move and we would take a major hit on this house if wife wanted to move too..
I did mentioned to her I would NEVER own another house if that happened... We would rent or buy another RV...
We will be long dead before this house recovers and becomes an asset, but I would be one happy guy to fulltime again and eat the loss on this house...
The house we live in now, is OK and fits our needs, but I just don't like being tied down to Real Estate at my age.. Just don't see the reason for owning a house and putting up with being in the same ole rut...
RE: Retirement at 55??
We quit our jobs at 55, went fulltime, sold the home and put that money in Investment Account.. We did use the interest off of it for our budget, but never touched the principal..
Before we decided to quit our jobs, we paid off all bills, saved like crazy and put a plan together that worked for us..
We decided we wanted out of our vocations at 50 and had a 5 year plan..
We needed to work part-time in the summer time of offset our budget, which we did.. We enjoyed doing this, and was stress-free because we could walk away if we wanted too.
Wife was able to "retire" from her job, keep her insurance, and had a small pension.. I was lucky to get into the state insurance pool which took care of my health insurance, but it did go up each year.. I offset that by raising the deductible..
At 62, we both took our SS, and at 65, medicare kicked in..
Looking back, would do the same thing again, our health inproved even thou we aged.. Staying in fair-weather year-round had a very good effect on us..
RE: Thinking about early retirement and full-timing
We got out of the rat-race at 55 and went fulltime...
Looking back, was a very good decision for us.. We did a little part-time work during the summer months to keep our budget in line..
We were able to stop part-time work when we reached 62 and start receiving SS..
At 65 medicare kicked in, and that was like getting a nice payraise each month..
RE: Did the World End for Fulltimers?
Well, I must have overslept and missed out on the end of the world thing..
Can now look forward to see if I go Over the Cliff at the end of the month..
Too much excitement so close together is not really good for the ole ticker..
Might as well sleep thru that too...
