Theresa was working out of a cubicle at the US Department of Veterans Affairs when she got the urge to retire. Working on Veteran’s Disability Claims exposed her to this unpleasant fact: retirement in old age in not guaranteed—life can change in an instant. For more than fifteen years, disability cases moved across her desk. “That’s a long time to be stuck,” Theresa said, “even if you love it. I loved helping veterans, but I decided I needed to do something more with life.” She searched and found a way: she could retire early by living full-time in an RV.
There were just a couple of problems. First, Theresa was only 56, too young by most standards (and her budget) to retire. Second, she was, to hear Theresa describe it, “pert-near a hoarder”, with a four-bedroom house full of stuff she had been collecting for years.
“I thought, when I retired, I could keep working to keep my house, but that defeats the whole purpose,” she said. “I decided, you know, life is too short. Time is worth more than money.”
So Theresa began to research the Nomadic Life, following RV and Van Vloggers on YouTube. She discovered that people can downsize, live on less and travel.
“A lot of people don’t know about this option,” she said. “You don’t have to be working so hard. I retired on a lot less money than I would have had I worked to 62,” she said, “but I could do it. I went ahead and sold the house, got rid of everything and bought the RV.
Theresa drives a 2003 Fleetwood Flare. It’s a 33’ Class A with magnificent windows. Behind that, she tows a small red car named Ruby. She chose a rig this size because, as she explains, “I could have the things I thought, at the time, were necessary for my happiness. I had no idea of Minimalism. I had no idea of that.”
Before retiring garage sales were her thing. She would find a bargains and stow them away in that house thinking, “you never know, I might need that someday.” But all that stuff wouldn’t fit in a 33’ RV, so she downsized.
“I went ahead and sold the house, got rid of everything,” she said.
Now that she’s had almost a year in her Class A, she’s planning to downsize even farther into a cargo van. “For me to downsize to a cargo van on one fell swoop was mind boggling,” she said, “but now I don’t need all that much. I’m fine with less.”
“If you are going to plug in you can go big,” she said, “but I might go smaller because then I can get to the beautiful places in the mountains.” A Class A is great in flat places like, Arizona, she explains, but Theresa likes to Boondock on BLM and in National Forest Locations t’s difficult for her to get to beautiful, high-elevation locations with her tow-car.
“Not everybody is going to get it right the first time. Your ideas change when you’re out here on the road and then you find out what it’s really all about,” she said. “A cargo van has simplicity. Not as many things can go wrong. An RV was a completely new idea to me. I wasn’t really thinking about the maintenance side of things.”
Because Theresa likes to go to beautiful free campgrounds and stay the full fourteen days, she chose a portable solar set-up that charges both a portable battery and the house batteries inside her rig. She runs a cord directly from her 600 W Suitcase Solar Panels through her kitchen window and into a Portable Lithium Battery, which can run a bunch of her devices and simultaneously charge her house batteries. Theresa chose this elegant solution instead of having solar permanently mounted on her roof because she can take her solar set-up with her when she switches to a cargo van.
After almost a year as a full-time solo RV Nomad, what does Theresa think?
“I have no intentions of going back to the Stick & Brick,” she said with a broad smile on her face. I am finding joy in my journey. I can find joy in this.”
When I asked Theresa for any advice she might give to anyone thinking about a Nomadic Life she offered this: “Don’t let money hold you back because at the end of the day you can’t take money with you.”
Thank you Theresa for giving us a tour of your rig and sharing how you retired early by choosing an RV Life! To see the full video tour and interview with Theresa, click HERE.
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Be Happy. Create More. Set Yourself Free .
Robin
CreativityRV