At age 57 this article has been on my mind since first reading it this morning. Slowing down seems to be a hot subject today where it be to save fuel or save your life. I have been slowing down the last year by choice and working more from the house than the office but it seems my mind like the last 57 years still runs wide open.
Our box sits in the drive in need of a wash job after setting at the shop of a month awaiting its turn on the lift rack to have the last remaining area checked out and signed off on. Thankfully after a year our MH has been gone over from top to bottom. Plus we have had fun trips along the way but there has been a lot of work as well to get to this point.
It was really too hot (mid 90's) today to was in the sun and while we can wash after dark the mosquitoes are now active and huge after the wet spring.
My thought is there may be a fine line between a RV being a tool to help 'slow us down' vs 'speed us up'.
Do others of you ask yourself what roll of the RV in your life is on your stress level?
In our case much of the stress (if you want to call it stress) is due to buying an older unit (1993 32" Pursuit on a 1992 P30 with the 454 engine with 94K miles, 2002 transmission and 2007 engine cooling system). The only major issues were the "normal" big block exhaust manifold issue, alternator and radiator that required outside help to fix. The plus side is after spending another $3K cash on top of the $8K purchase price we have after driving it over 3K miles a checked out MH that should be ready to go from shining sea to shining sea for $11K we are told.
As some of you are thinking if we would have spent 10x-20x more then we could have sided stepped a lot of manhours of work over the past year doing roof repair, tune up, fluid changes along with a lot of washing and cleaning but the kids have been in on all of this. I our case we have all of our eggs in one basket (company) and no two sources have ever come up the same egg count so spending $80K-$160K for a MH while front loading the company would be too costly long term.
The fact remains the kids turn 11 later this year and will be gone before we known it. From the best I can tell they seem to enjoy the MH trips as much if it was a $110K rig and I would be stressed with a $99K note on a big box setting in the drive.
I am very happy we have our MH and would not take $15K in cash tonight for our rig because after 11 months of working with it and driving it I think it is good for another 8 years (50K miles) with very little expense.
Back to the question does an RV slow us down or just speed us up especially those of us have yet reached the point where we have more assets then we ever expect to spend the rest of our lives?
I don't know about slowing down, but a trip in our tt definitely allows me to "ease up, chill out" as you mentioned. At 40 years old, I've been thinking lately (just diagnosed with high bp) I need to learn to relax. I've got 7 kids, 6 still at home, I homeschool them, plus all the regular day to day stuff. I'm a type A, stressed out person. Just thinking of spending a few days in our tt (even in the back field of our property if nothing else!) relaxes me!
The Dittos
(Dad, Mom, Dusty, Dewdrop, Doodles, Bear, Turtle, Ladybug, Tommy, and our furry baby Smokey)
I have a pop up and as with tent camping, the priorities of each day are pretty much meals and weather/sleeping (other than when on the road or cleaning the unit). This 'back to basics' allows one to relax and enjoy ones surroundings moreso than the pressures/responsibilities of the stick-n-brick. And, yes, I do believe RVing to be a slower pace than other lifestyles.
Having only 11k tied up in the box in your driveway that will provide your family just as much fun as a 200k box seem like a great approach. After you invest the time to bring your MH back to operating condition, you will know how to keep it maintained yourself. As long as you can get the needed parts, I prefer the old and slow approach. There are many new plastic rigs on the road today, that I would not consider trading for my steel bucket. Different approaches... Whatever makes you happy is the right approach for you.
After having our own TT vor over a year now, finally got each outing down to a routine that is fairly easy and I take my time doing it. We can transition to Fully Deployed at a site and be riding bikes and crashing in chairs outside in an hour. Tear-down is a little more stressful due to time and wanting to do some last minute bike rides, lunch and back-flushing the tanks.
All in all, I'm learning to slow down by starting trip preps a week before on the weekend and doing a little each evening after work. That makes the departure way less stressful. One problem for me is, as soon as I take the afternoon off from work to finish up and head to the campsite, I get lots of TXT Messages and Calls about all the things that just went wrong with systems at work. Can't ignore those since we only have two Techs and I am the main Administrator. I even have to be On Call for technical solutions and advice when away, even if I'm all the way to the top of Michigan on the big trip. Hoping this will be less of an issue as the other guy develops more systems knowledge over time.
I've also been applying the Slow Down at work over the last couple of years because making decisions under panic levels is bad. Trying to calm down others around me that I work with and make them think out better low impact solutions instead of working in a frenzy and making rash decisions that bite us later. Bigger Picture and Out of the Box.
So I would say we are definitely working on Slowing Down! Ours is 11 also and she loves going camping now because riding our new Mountain Bikes on park roads and trails is Awesome! She is really into art and seeing beautiful places and things outdoors inspires her to draw and photograph more. She has a real God-given talent in that so we are nurturing it this way.
RAGster wrote: Having only 11k tied up in the box in your driveway that will provide your family just as much fun as a 200k box seem like a great approach. After you invest the time to bring your MH back to operating condition, you will know how to keep it maintained yourself. As long as you can get the needed parts, I prefer the old and slow approach. There are many new plastic rigs on the road today, that I would not consider trading for my steel bucket. Different approaches... Whatever makes you happy is the right approach for you.
Glenn
Glenn I see from your Wanderlodge photo you practice what you preach. One similar to yours was on E-Bay some time ago and I quickly development a respect for a MH built on that foundation.
With our 1993 32' Pursuit built on a 1992 P30 means we can get the parts and any part store that we need because millions of these 1 ton versions from GM have been produced with many still on the road. The house parts are from their parties anyway's and replacement parts are easy to find. A major accident totals them out due to their low values so one never does major reworking of the house part of an old MH.
The kids have down a lot of the work themselves with my instructions because of my physical limitations. One day after tuning it up we took if for a spin and coming back my 10 year old son out of the blue stated if on a trip the MH breaks we can most likely fix it on the side of the road.
Using the MH as a project to teach home and auto repair to our kids and instilling a "can do" attitude in them makes the $11K a good value just for that on benefit in my mind.
I had better get outside because they have the wheel covers off and steel wheels washed but I want to adjust some tire air levels before they put the wheel covers back on. I forgot what my dad had me doing by that age. Kids can do more than we expect a lot of time as long as we watch the safety issues and teach them safety as we work with them.
RV'ing and having fun does not have to destroy one's retirement plans because like eating out you can get a good meal for $10 or pay $50 and the next day not really know the $40 difference.
Teaching kids things for them to pass down to their kids is very important to the wife and me. The MH is a tool that makes it easier for me to pass what my father thought me many years ago on to our kids. For them to know you can fix up old stuff to save money and still have fun should serve them well after I am gone. It is not a video game but better. We did actually watch the EternaBond RV roof repair videos before we did that project and it was amazing how they would correct me if not doing it like the video.
On the subject of slowing down I did cover some of that in my April CEO Message on our website in my profile that some of you have read. Letting go of company you built is not easy but I know I will have to do the same with the kids at some point. To give our president and her staff some breathing room for the last year I have worked most mornings from the house because I can do the email and some returning of phone calls just as well from my office at the house and somedays I work from the MH in drive.
Getting the MH last July was one of the best moves I have made in letting go at the office and putting more focus on the family. Wives love it when we fathers get directly involved in our kids lives. After years of 100 hour weeks I do not think she thought I would let go of daily operations and focus more on the family. Seeing how little some of the new hires understood about the simplest of things in life drove home the window to build a good foundation under your kids has to start long before they start driving a car. Home schooling helps me understand there are areas where I can offer the kids a lot and since the wife still works on Sat and Sun as a pharmacist at the local hospital it gives me a lot of one on one time with the kids.
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