“We survived the recession!” “The job market is back up!” “Unemployment is at an all time low!”
I am sure you have heard all of these discussions over the last 6 months in the media. I have first hand experience on the topic. Struggling with unemployment and now underemployment, a surging rental market that does not even make sense compared to my underemployed income, rising healthcare costs, food expenses – the list goes on and on. It is enough to make people do crazy things…
Being a divorced, single mom for years and not having a college degree, I have struggled to find the right job that wanted my skills without that piece of paper to prove that I was capable, smart and had an amazing work ethic. Since I brought up divorce, lets touch on that for a minute. The x-man in my life was not a big fan of paying child support. Ever. But he was a fan of screwing me financially in the divorce. After moving out of state and trying to start a new life for me and the kids (who are absolutely AH-MAY-ZING, BTW) I never had a chance to get back to school. I never had a chance to pay off all of the medical expenses I accrued while being unemployed. I had found myself with crappy credit, a car that I had ran into the ground for 10 years and kids that I was sending off to college empty handed. I met my new husband about 6 years ago. TOTALLY opposite kind of guy – he would give his left arm for his kids. And about $150,000 in child support – which we pay religiously every single payday. With the bills, the child support (and lack there of, on my end) living expenses and kids off to college – what is left to pay off all of the other debt? Shhhhh… bankruptcy. What other choice do I have?
After my youngest kid graduated high school and went off to college last year, my new husband and I had another 6 months left in our rental lease. I am a research girl – I was on the hunt for a new rental before the kid was even pulling out of the driveway. But, with the Bankruptcy in the works and the bills still piling up how were we going to move? Our credit scores were crap, we could not save a dime to come up with a down payment and our lease was coming to an end. The Property Management company emailed me an offer to renew our lease… with an increase of about $300 a month. WHAT? $1500 for a 2 bedroom apartment with COWS living above us that sound like they wear cement boots every moment of every day and night AND are thoroughly enjoying their handy medical marijuana cards… video games till 2 in the morning and a dog that pooped in front of my patio and of course, it was too much to ask them to pick up. Not to mention a parking lot that had “At Will” parking vs assigned spots. Cardio, anyone? Let’s go grocery shopping and make 17 trips back and forth to the car parked in the back 40 to drag it all in. No thanks! I have a better idea. Lets get the heck out!!
And the craziness begins….
Being in our 40’s and empty-nesting, we found the local Elks Lodge as a sweet spot to hang out and drink for cheap. After mingling with the 60-something crowd for a couple of years and seeing how they survived the recession and embraced retirement, I started to get an idea. If these folks can sell everything they own and buy a motor home to be their full time “home sweet home”, what am I doing in this over priced rental farm with the cows upstairs?
My husband has been talking about it for a while – I cannot take ALL of the credit for the idea. I have to admit that I was stuck in the materialism zone and loved my stuff more than the idea of going to a tin box that we would live in at the RV park. But one morning as I was in the shower getting ready for work, It hit me! (All greatness manifests in the shower, right?) I literally stopped mid suds of the shampoo – I yelled out loud for no one but the cows to hear – “We are buying an RV!”
If you could only see the looks on my co-workers faces when I started talking about this crazy Idea I had. It was not possible for them to mask the fear and judgement that was so evident on their faces. One of my co-workers was visibly disturbed. I started researching that day. I think my husband was even a little taken back by my new found enthusiasm about this project. I had been trying to get him to look at rental houses for weeks. The cheapest we could find was $1200 a month with 1st, last and security deposit – depending on credit rating. So, I started hunting on Craigslist, RV Trader and several other used RV sites.
I noticed that there was an RV show scheduled in March of this year at the Portland Expo Center. I was so excited! I knew a brand new RV was out of the question, but the thought of walking around and seeing all of the options was going to be so fun! Till I got stung by a wasp waiting for the doors to open that morning in the lobby of the building – but that is a different story! An hour later after the EMT’s let me go when they were convinced that the huge stinger in my forehead was not sending me into anaphylactic shock, off we went to go get some research done. I found the wine garden. (Sorry, another story.) Then we found a Dealer that was showcasing Arctic Fox. OMG! I fell in love with these RV’s. Then I saw the price tag. $40+ THOUSAND Dollars for these RV’s. And that is just a basic. What? And the financing options…. 15 year loans? I don’t even want to talk about what that amounted to with interest. It was unbelievable. People were signing up left and right.
I am so glad they did! Most people that are RV-ers, trade-in what they have for something bigger and better. I love these people! If it was not for people like that bringing in their used crap to the dealership, I would be homeless right now. The Owner of this particular dealership was super nice. He wanted to run our credit, just for kicks and giggles I guess. I knew it would be bad and I was right. I wrote them a $100 check to hold the beautiful Arctic Fox that I fell in love with and pictured myself sitting on that little couch, watching “the Biggest Looser” next year. I kissed my trailer when we left and assured him that a new mommy would come along with amazing credit to take him home. After saying my good byes, we left. That following Wednesday the husband called me at work to tell me (shocker) that we did not qualify for a 15 year loan for my little fox. But, the owner called him personally to ask us to come by the dealership sometime and see what trade in’s would be dropped off from the people that were purchasing the pretty new trailers at the show. Husband was super discouraged and much more let down than I was.
The kids came home for spring break in the next few weeks and were going to bus it back down to school on a Saturday. I had been sick, so the amazing Mr. Husband offered to drop them off for me at the station while I slept in. About an hour later he called me very excited. He went by the dealership and shopped around checking out the trade in’s that had been coming in since the RV Show a few weeks prior. He found a deal.
An older couple had literally just pulled in when he did with their 2006 model. The owner saw the husband scoping it out and went over to say hi. He told the guy that we had been looking online for deals and were pretty discouraged at how expensive everything was. He gave him a run down on the Bankruptcy and our current financial situation. We had previously discussed that if we were going to do this, it was going to be a cash deal. We came up with $5,000 that we could pull together with paychecks and selling everything we own. When the husband called, he spoke the magic number. We were going to get it for $5,000! He put $500 down as a deposit and signed a promise to pay the rest by the end of the next month. We had 4 weeks and a few days to come up with $4,500. I went to work.
I started packing and selling like a mad woman. Craigslist, Facebook Groups and a new ap I learned about called “Offer Up” were my tools. We made more than $5,000 and paid off the trailer and moved into it a week earlier than scheduled. We handed in the keys to our rental on April 24th and headed to the trailer park to start our new life.
I could not be happier with our decision. It was such a whirlwind adventure in April getting rid of so much and downsizing to what we actually needed with us at the trailer. We still have some things in storage that we didn’t get a chance to sell yet and not everything fits in the trailer the way I had envisioned it. But I can tell you that I appreciate the space I do have and the items I thought I needed, I really don’t need at all.
I decided to start this blog to share the wisdom of the initial experience and the things I am learning along the way. Now that we have been in the little tin house for almost 2 months, I am really starting to figure things out. I hope that this blog inspires people to take the jump to smaller housing and simple living, and also to connect with people that have experience to share. I hope you enjoy the blog and please let me know if you do!
Simply Yours,
Michelle
Penny-Wise Living 