House Price

Great day today. A realtor came to look at our house and she told us a realistic price that would easily pay off all mortgages and loans and give us at least $75,000 in our pockets tax free. That means we can buy an RV and a tow car (both used) and put $30,000 in the bank. That works for me! We should certainly be able to live on a lot less money. So, if we can stick around and do the same amount of work for a while - we can save some more - while we learn how to make a living from the RV. Jim is now leaning toward establishing wireless 'hotspots' as the way to go. Sure seems like a win-win-win proposition to me. We incur all the expenses to establish a high-speed wireless internet connection at a campground. Campers with their laptops get to connect to high-speed internet and we automatically collect a percentage. The campground owner gets to advertise that high-speed internet connections are available and draw more customers. We continue to collect the connect charge percentage for the foreseeable future. I'm so excited I can hardly stand it. The realtor says that our house will sell quick - so we'd better be ready to go when we put it on the market. Perfect! So, we buy the RV and park it in the driveway. We outfit it with all our stuff. When the RV is completely stocked ... that means everything else in the house has to go! I still think 28 foot class C is the way to go. A little small for living, but still manageable for driving. The best compromise. Just be sure it has a full bedroom and a place for an 'office'. Our work phone number needs to transition to our cell phones. And, I'd like to receive my email on my cell also - for those times when we don't have high speed internet available.

Fear

Fear. That gnawing feeling in your stomach when you think ... "what are we doing?" "why are we doing this?" "Why are we getting rid of our comfortable home?" The answer is "why not?" We are so conditioned to seeking greater comfort in our lives ... to work hard and make money so we can relax and take it easy. Why do we want to 'take it easy'? What fun is that? It just breeds lethargy. The more you 'take it easy', the more you lose your ability to be active. It's easy to get so complacent that even going away for a weekend seems overwhelming. You hear so many times that folks at the end of their lives have only one regret ... that they didn't take enough risks. Life is for living. Why are we doing this? Because we want to. It really can be that simple. We don't have to wait for external factors to push us into making changes. We can be proactive. Ok, I feel better now. I just needed a pep talk.

RV Books and Websites

Another good website with lots of info about the RV Lifestyle. I can see that these folks are retired but still making some income by writing books and giving seminars. They say their most popular seminar is about receiving your mail, paying your bills etc. while on the road. I'm sure it's a no-brainer that books and seminars on using your computer on the road won't be far away!

Income or not

OK, so Jim works from our RV being a campground computer hero and connecting them to broadband internet connections ( see CNET article on Broadband choices) What am I going to do? I will have some clients that I support over GoToMyPC - but that's really not much. I'll continue to build our website and join affiliate programs. That's still not bringing in much income. What are people asking me for without my even trying? Websites. They don't know how to do it ... I do. They want me to do it for them. Register their domain, set up a hosting account and a couple emails, build a simple website, and be available for making changes. It's not a very novel idea for a business - seems like everyone and their cousin is into it - but it's something that people want, and are willing to pay some money for. So, I need to pursue it more fully. And, with hosting sites like catalog.com at $25/yr - people's $500 budget can go to me - rather than to the host.

More RV Shopping

Yes, I felt really comfortable in Rusty's RV, and it DOES look like it's in great shape. Rusty and her husband Lee wanted to chat about their life and all sorts of stuff. It was good to just sit in the camper and absorb the feeling. Something that hit me was how inviting the bedroom area loooked ... no I didn't feel like using it right then, it just seemed so clear that a separate bedroom area was important for a full-time living space. I didn't want to get rid of it in favor of an office. hmmmm - so, can the couch come out and make an office space?