Every RVer needs a place to call "home" -- even the fulltimer. The fulltimer has an advantage over those who are not mobile to choose the state in which to live. We sold our permanent residence in Virginia but needed an address where we could receive our mail, a place to register and license our vehicles and a place to have the opportunity to vote. After weighing many factors, we narrowed our choice to two states -- Texas or Florida. In this article, we'll tell you what state we chose for our legal residence, and why. We'll also tell you what we're doing about other concerns, like insurance, road service, banking, budgeting, and other matters.

Legal Residence

Marilyn: Some of the major factors we considered were taxes, insurance costs, and costs of vehicle registration/licenses. It was really a toss-up. Both Florida and Texas have no state income tax, no property tax (in the areas of the states we were considering), almost the same state sales tax, and vehicle insurance and license costs were only a few dollars different. We chose Texas for our legal residence because of our relationship with the Escapees and their very reliable mail forwarding service. They offered a physical address, not just a post office box. In Texas, you need that physical address to register to vote, for insurance purposes and for driver's and vehicle licenses. We made this official by filing an affidavit of domicile with the clerk of court in Polk County, TX. We also registered to vote, obtained library cards, driver's licenses and registered our vehicles in Texas. The last piece of legal work we had done was to have Carol Richards, the Escapees' attorney draw up wills for us in our new state.

Insurance

Tom: We found that many insurance policies do not cover your RV if it is being used as fulltime living quarters. When we sold our house we canceled our homeowner's policy. When we were vacationing RVers, our personal possessions and personal liability needs were covered by our homeowner's policy. But now, as fulltimers, we needed to make sure we had adequate coverage for personal liability and also for our personal possessions. Everything we own is now in our RV and we needed to make sure we had the right coverage limits.

We were amazed to find that only a small handful of insurance companies understand the needs of fulltimers and write special polices. The best known are Progressive, Foremost, and National General. All three advertise nationally and are considered sound companies. Each does have its own differences, so shop for the coverage and company that fits your needs. Ask up front if the company writes fulltime insurance for your state; we found that some companies do not write in all states.

When shopping for insurance be sure to think about replacement cost. This coverage allows you to replace your RV with a brand new one of the same make and model, subject to the limits of your policy. Without this insurance if your RV is totally destroyed or stolen, most insurance companies will only pay the claim based on your RV's value the day of the accident; this is called an actual cash value settlement. There is a good article in the March/April 1997 Escapees magazine explaining the difference between actual cash value and replacement cost. If you don't get the magazine please Email us and we will snail mail you a copy of the article. (Thank you, SKPs, for allowing us to do this!)

RV Emergency Road Service ("ERS")

Marilyn: Most road service policies have limitations where large vehicles are concerned. With so much depending on the use of the RV as our home it is important that we fulltimers have a road service that is prepared to handle large vehicles and get those vehicles to a proper repair facility. For those of us who have a rig still under the manufacturer's warranty, be sure your ERS will take you to an authorized repair facility, not just the closest repair facility. Additionally, some ERS will tow your tow vehicle or toad but leave your trailer or motor home sitting at the place of breakdown. Again, there only a few companies that handle this type of service and these can be found advertised in any RV publication.

Handling Finances on the Road

Tom: We will not be on the road until July 1, but from what we have read and heard, handling finances on the road should not be a problem. Modern services such as automatic teller machines (ATMs), telephone banking, banking via computer and credit cards makes fulltime traveling more convenient than ever. ATMs can be found almost all over the US, even in small towns. These machines can be used for nearly all banking transactions, but the most important use by us will be to obtain cash. Our credit union where we do our banking now lets us direct deposit my monthly retirement check, transfer money from savings to checking and vice versa by way of telephone (800 number) or even online by computer. We can check our balances and can get a summary of all transactions. We have a Visa credit card from the credit union and will use it for most of our purchases (gas and food) and the total charges incurred will automatically come out of our checking each month. There is no need to send a payment in -- other bills, including other credit cards can also be paid automatically. We just need to request the forms from each credit card company, and submit them to our credit union. We've heard that ATM transaction charges may be going up, so we'll probably use plastic for our groceries and have the grocer add some "extra" to the bill and give us the difference in cash.

Both our Discover and Visa cards send us a cash rebate each year, based on our total purchases. We started charging all our groceries over a year ago. We got past the embarrassed feeling and happily ignore those "shame-on-you-can't-you-pay-cash?" looks we sometimes get in line. It's convenient, quicker, we don't have to pay for as many checks, we get annual rebates, and we never pay interest to the credit card companies.

Budgeting

Marilyn: A major concern to us and to many contemplating fulltiming is, "Will we have enough money?" Tom took early retirement so we needed to know if we could live on the monthly retirement check and not touch our 401Ks without paying a big penalty. We have constructed a budget that we think we can get by on. We have read the experiences of other fulltimers and carefully considered our own spending habits. From what we have read, fulltimers can get by on as low as $1,300 month by doing a lot of boondocking and always eating at home. Or, you can always stay in 5-Star resorts, always eat out and have a budget of $3,000 plus each month! We feel that an adequate budget for us will be around $2,000 a month -- this seems to be the average budget for most fulltimers that we read about. We've mentioned before that we plan to do some workamping several months of the year to help out our budget. We feel that, by being careful, we can "play" several months a year, too. We'll just have to find the right balance for our particular circumstances.

Legal Papers, Medical Records and Other Stuff

Tom: We bought a fireproof safe when we moved into our rig last year. In it we keep our important legal papers, tax records, insurance documents, etc. A fulltiming author had a good suggestion that we'll follow: Each spouse carries ONE credit card (for example, I'll carry Discover, Marilyn carries Visa). That way, if one of our wallets is lost or stolen, we only have to cancel ONE card, and we'll still have the other one to use. We'll stash our second cards in our safe. We obtained copies of our medical files from our doctors and dentist, which also went into the safe. Non-critical documents go into a small carry-case file box. Both safe and filebox reside under our bed.

I think we're ready to roll! We'll check back in periodically and let you know our progress. Happy trails!

RVers Online greatly appreciates the outstanding contribution Tom and Marilyn Clark have made in putting together this living, breathing chronicle of their many months of preparation for their new lives as fulltimers. We know we speak for all our online RVers in extending our sincere thanks for there informative and educational series of articles. And we wish them the best of happiness, health, and success as they embark on their new "life on wheels". We look forward to hearing from them periodically with respect to their experiences and impressions in actually living the fulltimers' lifestyle...Tom & Stepnanie

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