A new (temporary) hunt

Due to the logistics of the impending move to British Columbia from Alberta for my work, we had a plan in place, but need to adjust it.

Christmas with Family on Vancouver Island

So we have made it to Vancouver island for Christmas with my family, and we'll be staying in my parents fifth wheel while we're here. It's a toy hauler, and really only designed for my parents use. it has one bedroom up front, and a bathroom off of that room. There is a couple "bunks" in the back, but it gets chilly in that room as it's designed for hauling your toys, not living in.

Moving soon!

Well, I got the job that I mentioned, and we'll be moving from Calgary, AB to Vancouver, BC sometime in Q1 of 2015. Q1 means the first quarter of the year, of three months. We are planning for a mid-March move, and have moved out of our old place and in with my wife's mother in order to try and save money prior to the move.

We originally wanted to move out to Vancouver Island, and stay with my parents for a year to aggressively save money and buy a house on the Island where I could be centrally located to work, and family. However, my company doesn't feel that will be a viable option for them as my job will have me in Vancouver more than anywhere else.

This gets us back on the path that we were looking at previously, which is a travel trailer, or even a fifth-wheel. Exciting!

Saving up is going to be tougher right now as we are trying to catch up on bills that got away from us due to some financial issues thanks to losing employment for two months. we're almost there! We'll also be consolidating our debt's in order to get one lower monthly payment, and have more money to work with every month.

So, it's back to the drawing board, and looking for a great starter bunkhouse model!

Stay tuned!

~Arathi

New job lined up!

Just had my second interview with a company yesterday, and we seemed to really hit it off. Here's hoping! The best part is because of the nature of the job, it's almost entirely remote work, which is what I'm looking for!

They are talking about some training here in Calgary, before sending me to Vancouver where they're hoping to open up more services. Based on my experience, and ambitions, and the fact that I do want to move to somewhere much warmer in the winter, they were pretty excited!

Fingers are crossed!

[UPDATE]

Having met with the CEO (first meeting), CTO, and a Director (second meeting), CEO just emailed asking if I found the second meeting as pleasurable as they did, and would like to meet tomorrow or Monday! Yay! 

[UPDATE 2]

Got the job! A few months of training, and then moving to warmer climates!

Found a great blog post on another blog

Having a look through my stats is always interesting, and seeing how readers get to my blog is interesting as well. One that recently afforded me a few visitors was a post from 2008 that I think is pretty good, and provides some food for thought:

http://selousscouts.blogspot.ca/2008/05/van-dwelling-is-it-for-you.html

An excerpt:

Renovations

Renovations are not really that hard in a trailer. We have some stuff to do in the bathroom, and a couple windows to replace, but it's nominal.

Making it feel like home is a different story. Over the past few days, we have been sanding down the clear coat and I started painting today. The wood finish is so 1970's, and we're not. We're starting out with a base white, and going from there. I need to move stuff out of the trailer while I do this as it was getting in the way.

The new home

So we traded my beloved van today to a wonderful young couple who had a 24' trailer that was too big for them. While I am sad to see the van go, I'm excited for the new journey! There's some work to do on the trailer, but it's not really bad. Then there is all the updating that my wife wants to do. Me, I'm on board for the updates, and I'm also going to update the electrical. Replace the lights with LED's and set up a swivel for our computer monitor that will serve as the TV.

I have a Raspberry Pi computer that will work wonders with it, and external hard drives for our media. Netflix will be great! With a swivel we can watch from the couch or from the dinner table.

So here is our future home! It is still more or less going to be temporary as we save to pay cash for a bunkhouse model, which we should be able afford in six months or so as long as I have steady work and no more budget cuts...

Taking a look at a travel trailer this weekend

Chatting through email back and forth and as I mentioned previously, we're hoping to trade up to a bigger travel trailer. We found one online and after getting some pictures, we're going to go have a look at it.

The race is on

Recently, I lost my job due to budget cuts. It sucks. I haven't been on EI since I was 19 with no skills. It does however, present an opportunity.

We're still selling off our stuff, and it's honestly a pain in the backside. I post something, and get questions about it, and have to try and figure those questions out. Some of the questions, I should have known would be asked, and posted them when I made the ad, but I didn't, so that's my fault.

Dear Spammers

Dear Spammers,

I know that you won't read this simply because you are bots, but for the few that are not....

Your posts that end with your stupid link to your garbage? Yea, it gets stopped by my filter, and waits approval. I then mark you as spam, and then delete you.

Stop doing it. You lame tools.

Nobody likes you, and you should just stop breathing.

My job is to stop losers like you. Seriously. I get paid to track you down, expose you, and have you criminally charged in your country.

Do you really want to test me? I do this on my free time too.

Start small. Work up.

Recently, I was let go from my job due to budget cuts, and thinning out each department. No big deal I suppose. The writing was certainly on the wall, I just didn't know when.

Looking for what we need, we would have to take out a loan, and I really don't want to do that if possible. However, buying something smaller, and dragging the van around for minion to sleep in is silly as well. He's been enjoying staying in the van for the past few weeks since we had visitors for a night. It's getting colder now, so he's decided to come back in the house. Being 14, I don't want him to be able to have run of a place, and come and go as he pleases without being able to hear him.

The hunt for that perfect home

I have to say, looking for what we need at a price we can afford is not that easy. There are a LOT of RV's for sale that are basically weekender models, and then there are what we would like, but it's not a four season model (meaning that there isn't any insulation or heated tanks).

We're not really planning on being up here in Canada during the winter, but there will be times that we'll need it anyways. I once was camping, went to bed in 25C weather, and woke up to a foot of snow around my tent. Was not pleasant...

The journey continues

We have been selling off our "stuff" for a bit now, and we have a few hundred dollars in a jar now. We're still selling stuff, and we're not in any rush. We've had people contact us looking for a 75% discount on what we are selling, and we don't even need to respond. We are not in any rush.

Getting rid of "stuff"

Today I posted about 20 ads on kijiji.ca (Canada's version of craigslist, only way better) of stuff we are selling. Occasionally, I'm sure that we will start to get emotional over certain "stuff", but right now, we're getting rid of a lot of stuff that we either do not use or won't once we move.

Dealing with the stress of wanting to go NOW

Yesterday, I worked from home as I do twice a week and I was sitting out on my deck while my daughter played in her little kiddie pool. It was a great day. We played, and cleaned and I was just happy.

It made me really want to get going now, not next year, and now today I have some anxiety about having to stay for at least another nine months in one place. Aside from that, we're making sure to budget and get our bills paid and that is making me think about all that money and how it could actually go to us instead of others. Seriously, rent, utilities, assorted bills.... Rent could be our monthly payments on our trailer, utilities could be filling a propane tank and the sun giving us free electricity. Water is typically free if you fill up somewhere with a hose. Then there's gas for the vehicle.

Selling your worldly possessions

One part of getting ready to live full time in any RV is the downsizing of your possessions. The first time I did this in my van, I was pretty certain that I wouldn't be staying in it permanently as my son would be coming back to me. So I rented a storage unit and stuffed it full of everything but the very few essentials I needed. Even at that, I ended up putting more stuff in the unit after a week in the van. Believe it or not, I didn't actually miss anything I put away, but that may have been because I knew it wasn't gone forever.

Dealing with naysayer family members

I expected that some of our family would be resistant to this whole idea, and it's expected naturally. We're planning on something that is outside the norm.

However, today was something special. Nothing can prepare you, not a single thing that anyone, including myself can say to help prepare you for some people's reactions...

Time to really look into solar

Last night we had a rain storm roll through and we lost power at the house as the sun was setting. What a pain! This happens more often than we would like, but we're out in the country and well, apparently it happens a lot according to the neighbours.

I was heading outside to the car in order to charge my phone and my garage light turned on. It's solar powered, and the only thing that was providing light. We couldn't cook dinner, and had no running water either as we're on a well system, and it requires power too.

These are issues that I will not miss when moving into the RV. We will need to have a source of power though that is reliable, and as we're not always going to be in areas where we can plug in during our travels, we need to get power another way, and that way is solar.

Today's outing

Today, the wife, Princess, and I went out to look at some RV's. Minion was dropped off to head out to his cadet camp. We first went to the RV lot in Balzac to look at the RV I previously mentioned. It's great!

The size is quite nice, and we think that we could do quite well with the trailer for a few years.

 

First thought on a new home

While we're looking, I think I'll post the one's that we are considering.

Currently, we are going this weekend to have a look at some trailers around the area. One that we like is the Forest River Rockwood Signature Ultra Lite 8312SS.

It's 34 feet long, and has two rooms, as well as a bathroom with a tub! The pics below are from the 2014 model, and there's only one bathroom, but the 2015 model has two.

What we need in a home

While we're in the process of looking for a place to call home, it occurs that I should write down what it is that as a family, we will require. This is a very important part of trying to find something.

So, what do we need? Keep in mind this is now, and needs may change.

Places to visit

While we are still in the planning stages of this possible new journey, my wife is looking at possible places that we could stay while we travel. As I had mentioned before, IF we do decide to go forward with this plan, we'll be working remotely. Well, I'll be working remotely as my profession is capable of it. My wife would like to remain home with our children. This is an amazing opportunity! Our children can grow and learn about different areas by experiencing them rather than just reading about them, and homeschooling is not too difficult with a stay at home mom! ;)

So here are our thoughts on places to visit! Many will be blank for now, but I'm listing all of our provinces. Any thoughts on beautiful locations would be appreciated!

Possible comeback?

So it's been over two years since my last post and a lot has happened in that time.

I got married, and had a beautiful baby girl come into my life, changed careers over to a new company, and make better money now. Recently bought an SUV, and live on a three acre acreage that we are renting an hours drive from the city.

Still, we're sadly watching our money vanish into someone's equity that is not ours. My wife has already stated she doesn't ever really want to buy a house as she doesn't like the idea of being stuck in a mortgage on a single piece of land for the rest of her life.

Today, while driving into the city to go to work, my wife mentioned how she had been thinking about my idea of living full-time in an RV, and that the more she thinks about it, the more she wants to do more research into it, and figure out if it would actually be feasible.

After all, the company I work for prides itself on remote collaboration, and I work in an area that doesn't interface with customers. I could theoretically work 100% remote, which would permit us to wander, giving our family new experiences and a well rounded, happy life full of adventure!

Well, I myself am cautiously optimistic. While it is something I would LOVE to do having lived in my van and enjoyed the freedom it afforded me. My wife is a city girl, still getting used to living in the country. She's accustomed to living in houses that are too big, and having more stuff than she needs. For example, the closet is filled with her clothes, many of which I have never seen her wear in the nearly four years we have been together.

Shortly before this post, my wife texted me saying that she feels that we should really look into this seriously. That was after I sent her some links to blogs and websites of families already living the lifestyle.

We have a year on our current lease, so we have a year to planning to see if this is something we can actually do. I promise to do my best to keep up with our progress on here for others to read about as they consider making their own step into full time RV life.

~Arathi