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Full Time RV living - Page 10

post #181 of 517
2/21/10 at 12:28pm
Ovens/pans: we have a gas oven but I also use an electric oven quite often. I got rid of my crock pot and just use the elec oven now for all that but it doesn't cook as slowly as a crock pot. We also use all cast iron and have a cast iron dutch oven that I have YET to use! lol

Being green: I use cloth diapers, menstrual pads and recycle. You could also use a menstrual cup if you didn't want to deal with extra laundry. Some areas have no recycling so we've had to throw things away a couple times OR we ended up carrying it around for a month. Space is limited for that. I use laundromat twice a week, it's very expensive! Like $4 per load and they are very small loads! I switched to using paper towels and paper plates but only when we're boondocking and have no water or elec for days at a time.

Plastic: we have also had to accept some plastic usage. It's also much lighter and you will have to watch your weight carefully. We outfitted the storage areas with plastic bins and I switched to using plastic bags for some food storage. We still use all glass plates (Corelle) and cups but have lost a few along the way.

It' is hard to find organic food on the road! I am about to die for not being able to find organic bananas anywhere! We just don't have time to scour a new town for items. I've resorted to stepping foot inside Walmart just because we can't be driving all over with the 5th.

Our carpet is also totally trashed. We will be replacing it very soon with hopefully hardwood but we might have to settle for plastic because of the weight.
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post #182 of 517
2/22/10 at 9:40am
I'm getting so much good information from these recent posts. My son and I will move into our van this week. I'll post picture of my home conversion at some point. I'm just trying to stock up on toys to work on while we are on the road. I plan on doing craft shows while traveling. I will also rent a workshop every now and then to restock. My workshop will remain in my parents barn, and I'll come back up north in the summer time to restock my supply, especially for Christmas time. I also need to finish moving out and cleaning up. :P
post #183 of 517
2/23/10 at 9:48am
Okay, here is our official blog and official announcement to the world about our RV plans. This is the countdown.
http://livinginspiredtour.oxygenaddicts.org/
We finally told friends and family and everyone through my radio show yesterday!
So far, the response has been great. People keep telling me they think it's awesome and that if anyone can make it happen they know that I can. So that's good. Support is always nice.
First things first, paying off debt! Along with getting the word out and aquiring sponsors for our trip. There's a lot to do!
If you would like your familys tour blog listed on my blog, let me know. I think it will be good for people to see other experiences of it, especially before we take off on our own.
post #184 of 517
2/23/10 at 7:38pm

Advice cheap places to stay longer term, and internet service

I am running into a few problems. Some of the Mobile parks don't allow more than 2 people per rv, and the RV parks want too much money, or a newer RV than we have.

If you want to stay put, in an RV, with a family, what is the best way to do it without paying $25 a night for a park, or fancy campground?

Also, anyone try hooking up your cellphone with internet access to your laptop for internet service? What other ways do you guys get internet service if you aren't in a park, again without paying thousands for it?

Thanks!
post #185 of 517
2/23/10 at 10:55pm
I'm looking for your best advice on living in an RV as far as things that need to be done daily/weekly that are different from living in a house. Like do you clean more often? How do you deal with dirt/shoes, wetness? Cleaning stuff/cooking stuff/shopping stuff/etc?
post #186 of 517
2/24/10 at 1:11am
Quote:
Originally Posted by IntuitiveJamie View Post
Okay, here is our official blog and official announcement to the world about our RV plans. This is the countdown.
http://livinginspiredtour.oxygenaddicts.org/
We finally told friends and family and everyone through my radio show yesterday!
So far, the response has been great. People keep telling me they think it's awesome and that if anyone can make it happen they know that I can. So that's good. Support is always nice.
First things first, paying off debt! Along with getting the word out and aquiring sponsors for our trip. There's a lot to do!
If you would like your familys tour blog listed on my blog, let me know. I think it will be good for people to see other experiences of it, especially before we take off on our own.
Checking out your blog! I love reading ones like that!
post #187 of 517
2/24/10 at 7:25am
Quote:
Originally Posted by gypsyfam View Post
I am running into a few problems. Some of the Mobile parks don't allow more than 2 people per rv, and the RV parks want too much money, or a newer RV than we have.

If you want to stay put, in an RV, with a family, what is the best way to do it without paying $25 a night for a park, or fancy campground?

Also, anyone try hooking up your cellphone with internet access to your laptop for internet service? What other ways do you guys get internet service if you aren't in a park, again without paying thousands for it?

Thanks!
I have not run into an RV park that doesn't allow more than 2 people per RV, but we have paid an extra fee for the kids before. It's fairly common to pay more for children over 6. You just have to do a lot of homework before finding the right RV park. (We are limited in our "carefree" ways sometimes.) I think some areas are easier than others to find a good RV spot. Here in Tucson, it was hard to find a family-friendly spot, but after lots of calling and asking, we did. btw, we are in a "big rig," (so we get the premium sites w/ 50 amps) but usually $30/night is about as inexpensive as it gets for us. Occasionally we find cheaper, but usually we pay more.

I have not really found a way to NOT pay the expensive campground fees, other than staying weekly or monthly (going monthly can save a lot of money!), or sometimes you can find a very good deal if you pay the Passport America membership fee, which I found to be a worthwhile thing to do. The caveat to that is that often you don't get the 1/2 off discount during "in season" times, or you are limited to a night or 2. Some people manage to boondock a lot, but that just doesn't suit us too well unless we are literally overnighting it somewhere and are on our way the next morning.

afa internet goes, we pay AT &T for a wireless card, and it runs about $60/month. We are on that 3G system they are so heavily advertising. We've been happy with it, and DH uses it for work. However, it's limited in the amount of data that can be transferred, so there's no TV watching when we use it. I don't even use it for youtube. Most RV parks have free WiFi, and it's something I usually require when I'm figuring out where to stay, but because it was so difficult to find a family-friendly place in Tucson that actually had a spot, we had to take this spot. There is free WiFi at the rec center, so when we need to download a big file, we take the PC up there.
post #188 of 517
2/24/10 at 7:36am
Quote:
Originally Posted by sweetpeppers View Post
I'm looking for your best advice on living in an RV as far as things that need to be done daily/weekly that are different from living in a house. Like do you clean more often? How do you deal with dirt/shoes, wetness? Cleaning stuff/cooking stuff/shopping stuff/etc?
I definitely vacuum more often, and we leave our shoes at the door. Even so, our carpet is ragged and I can't wait to replace it with wood. It looks like even though we are planning to move out of the RV sometime between June and December, we are still going to replace the carpet because we want the best air quality in here for our asthmatic DD.

The range is always a mess, so I do a lot more stovetop cleaning than I'd like. (take it all apart, scrub, put it back together.) There are also extra places that require attention, like the vents and air conditioners get a regular vacumming (so make sure you have hose attachments). Our window sills get fairly dusty quickly, so I wipe those fairly often. You also either must stay very organized and disciplined about putting things away a lot, or run the risk of junk everywhere (and our RV is in the latter category! lol!) But, on drive days, we do have to put everything away, so those naturally become our "clean up" days too. I like the German motto "a place for everything, and everything in it's place." (we just aren't the disciplined types, and often we don't know where to put stuff, so it sits in our driver/passenger seats until we have a drive day.) At the moment, homeschool books have taken over!

If you are in a Class A, you have to clean off the front of the RV like you would a car - it gets dusty. (the dash, steering wheel, cup holders, etc.) I like only having one bathroom to clean, and I clean it about once/week like I did in a house. I think everything else I clean up like I would do in a house.

Oh, if we have a wet/muddy day, everything goes straight into the washer. I would go nuts if I didn't have my own washer/dryer. When we spend time at the beach, the RV tends to get sandy, so I just vacuum more.
post #189 of 517
2/24/10 at 7:43am
Quote:
Originally Posted by IntuitiveJamie View Post
Okay, here is our official blog and official announcement to the world about our RV plans. This is the countdown.
http://livinginspiredtour.oxygenaddicts.org/
We finally told friends and family and everyone through my radio show yesterday!
So far, the response has been great. People keep telling me they think it's awesome and that if anyone can make it happen they know that I can. So that's good. Support is always nice.
First things first, paying off debt! Along with getting the word out and aquiring sponsors for our trip. There's a lot to do!
If you would like your familys tour blog listed on my blog, let me know. I think it will be good for people to see other experiences of it, especially before we take off on our own.
Congratulations Jamie! And I think it's great you are taking a good long time to plan for it. We did it all from "decison to move-in" in about 2 months! THAT was a whirlwind! LOL!
post #190 of 517
2/24/10 at 10:00am
What do you know about your childrens experience of being on the road? I anticipate mine would be much happier.
post #191 of 517
2/24/10 at 3:55pm
sweetpeppers, I clean up a few times a day but it only takes a few mins. I do vacuum twice a day. We turn the hot water heater on once per day or sometimes not at all. That gives me a chance to do dishes and showers, or we use the campground showers. Of course there's the whole dumping of the gray and black tanks once a week. It is very important that things go back where they belong when not being used because of the small space. We go to the store more often because we have less space to store food. You do have to wipe the condensation off the windows sometimes if it's cold outside. Hanging up wet towels is an issue and most parks do not allow you to have an outside dry line but people do it anyway.

gypsyfam we haven't run into many issues finding parks. There are lots of old RVs in the parks we've been to. Like I said though we use almost exclusively Passport America parks which aren't five star resorts most of the time. They are usually smaller family owned places with few rules and plenty of long term residents. They often charge an extra couple bucks for the kids. We average $16 per night. Most all parks have free wifi or I use wifi at a library or Mc Donalds. We're looking into getting a Verizon air card though but it's $60 a month!

lightinmyhands my kids have been super excited about all of our travels. They love it! We've had so much fun and learned so much.
post #192 of 517
3/2/10 at 9:10am
One of the things I've been wondering most about lately is how the kids transistion and what a routine looks like on an RV. Mostly because of being in different places a lot. When you first got on the road what was it like with the little ones (Mine will be 5 and 3.5 when we go)? I imagine you just find a new routine like what it's like to wake up in the morning on RV and not have very much space. My children wake up b/n 5-6AM. This is actually one aspect I'm not looking forward too b/c at least on the weekends, hubby and I take turns sleeping in. But I am a light sleeper and will not be able to sleep in with the children being noisy 5 feet away. It's not too big of a deal to me. But it is something I'm thinking about. I know our experiences will outweigh the negative. But I'm a thinker and I am def. thinking about all aspects of our upcoming journey.
post #193 of 517
3/2/10 at 9:57am
What are your accessory must haves?
post #194 of 517
3/2/10 at 12:39pm
We found a new routine so easily. It's just like back home really. You're right though the noise is an issue with two kids. If we stay up late watching a movie it's easier to watch it in our bedroom so the noise is further away from the kids. It was nice at first because I could cook our meals and keep an eye on the kids so easily! lol

Accessories like RV accessories? A tankless water heater would be so nice.
post #195 of 517
3/3/10 at 10:57am
I'm checking out http://cheaprvliving.com/ and all the van dwelling blogs and yahoo group. Very interesting stuff!

I have some RVing books available if interested pm me.
post #196 of 517
3/4/10 at 9:22am
Quote:
Originally Posted by MoonStarFalling View Post
I'm checking out http://cheaprvliving.com/ and all the van dwelling blogs and yahoo group. Very interesting stuff!

I have some RVing books available if interested pm me.
LOL, I live on that site. That and someone's post on here about vandwelling inspired me to take the plunge. I'm about 3 days in, and it's going okay. We're trying to make it down to Florida where it will be warmer, so we've been doing a lot of driving. I haven't managed to hook up my inverter so I can't use my blender, which is the only electrical thing I really miss. Right now I'm on Tybee Island, Georgia. My parents are actually staying down here while my dad is on business in Savannah, so we were able to stay with them for the night. We should make it to Florida today. I'm having trouble keeping everything organized in such a small space though. I took a lot of toys and stuff to sell at craft shows/online/etc. But I'm doing it! I still can't decide whether I'm crazy, inspired, or just desperate.
post #197 of 517
3/4/10 at 9:51am
Sweetpeppers- Definitely INSPIRED!
Congratulations getting on the road. Many blessings to you and your son. I hope you do very well!
post #198 of 517
3/7/10 at 4:52am
Sweetpeppers - Congratulations! FL is very nice this time of year, but expensive too if you go far south enough (where it is the nicest! LOL!) But my FL friends have been complaining about the cold this year.

afa how children adjust? Naturally, that answer will depend on your children's personalities and the rhythm of how you do your travels. Both of my children are highly social and love having other friends to play with. I'm so glad that they can both just "hook up" with just about any other little girl at the playground. However, departure days can be tough. My 6yo wants to be bff with everyone she meets! But, she's now used to it that departure days are a little sad and a little exciting. We talk about it. Also, for the first year that we were in the RV, we visited a LOT of family, family that my children had either never met or not seen in years. That was also rough on my older DD to be leaving family all of the time, especially her Mimi!

Departing this spot we are in now will be particularly difficult. We have sort of "hit the jackpot" with a circle of friends, and we will have stayed here 2.5 months before we leave. I'm so glad that we'll be heading to visit my parents next, because that eases the sting of leaving here to have something to look forward to.

Other than that, I think the kids get a lot out of life on the road. We go/see/do as much as we can, so there's usually something exciting to look forward to. Now that DH is actually working, we spend 5 days a week doing "normal" stuff around the RV (like schoolwork, playground, shopping, playground, chores, playground - just like you would in a house.) And then the weekends we try to go do something exciting at least one of the days.

The one big thing I miss is having a yard. I think I may have mentioned it before. With my 2yo wandering all over the place, I can't just "send" the kids outside, and I'm sure they would get more outside time if I could do that. DD1 likes to do her schoolwork outside, so we get out as much as we can, but I still am chasing DD2 around. I would *love* to be able to just sit and relax and have the kids just "be" outside playing without having to be on duty like that.
post #199 of 517
3/7/10 at 2:50pm
*subbing*
post #200 of 517
3/7/10 at 8:57pm
My son has been adjusting okay. He still wants to go home and see his Nana and Poppop. But we've been going to the beach every day, so that's something he can't do in NJ.