First a word from your sponsors…
Dan and I are not particularly strong financial planners.
I love planning some things. Hikes and road-trips and organizational systems (that often fall into disarray after a few days) are my jam. But money scares me.
Dan is ridiculously/awesomely Zen about most everything. As far as he is concerned, if you do what you love, the rest follows. This was not my life experience before I met him, but I have learned a lot from his approach and– so far– it has worked out for us, more or less.
So, here we are: The metaphoric (and literal) wheels are in motion. We ARE going to move into the van. I AM going to stop my regular teaching gig next year. Do I have work lined up or a definite plan for making ends meet?
Nope.
Many “vanlife” folks are younger than we are, with few obligations or expenses. Then there are retirees, with pensions and bells-and-whistles RVs. Others seem to fall into this lifestyle out of the sense of desperation the film Nomadland depicted so well. We don’t fit into any of these categories.
But, we have fewer obligations than we had when our kids were home. Though, Syr Van is a budget vehicle, this is the most financially stable we have ever been: two steady teaching jobs, a manageable mortgage, independent and capable college-age children. We are feeling pretty lucky… and pretty ready.
In our 23 years together, we’ve found that sometimes it’s just better to jump in and learn to swim. We did this when, a few months after meeting, we traveled cross country on a motorcycle to live in Colorado, and when we moved back east to start a family with no jobs or place to live. We did it when again, when we gave up our suburban life to raise sheep (and our three children) in rural Western Massachusetts. And here we are again.
If we pay too much attention to the “what ifs” and “why nots”, every move seems impossibly risky. But there is risk in NOT going too, the risk that we would wish we had. If we stayed comfortably at home, we would regret missing this Crazy Brave Adventure, whatever it turns out to be.
So as we often do, we have a general plan… that includes winging it a bit. Here it is as of April 20th 2022
The Big Picture:
The general plan is to buy the van we can afford without having car payments, build it out simply, with an eye for cost-saving measures, and budget the heck out of our daily routine, stretching Dan’s remote work income while I (Perri) figure out how to contribute to our finances.
We hope it will look something like this:
- Boondocking (free, off grid camping) at least 4-5 days a week (We are hoping to stay move slo-o-o-wly and stay in spots we like for the whole 4-5 day stretch)
- 2(ish) days at low cost campgrounds with wifi (for Dan’s online work) and to get real showers
- No (or few) restaurant meals
- We will be thrifty with our groceries and reduce the number of times we shop. We will definitely report on how this is going. I have a fantasy of working online in small town coffee shops and take-out pastries from small town bakeries (looove them!) but maybe this is not in the cards right now
- I will work on developing some sort of income this summer, with a firm(ish) plan in place by late September. I am a special education teacher by trade, so my current thought is to tutor, consult or edit papers online. (There’s a lot of figuring to do here and we’ll definitely share more about this process as we go)
- We will rent out our house for at least a full year. This will cover the cost of our mortgage (but won’t provide any other income)
- We have expenses related to our kids (all three are in college) that amount to about $1000 per month. So vanlife is not cheap for us, but neither is sticks and bricks life. We think that Dan’s income can cover this AND our van living budget…. but this remains to be seen.
Wow! Writing this out sure makes us look more than a little flaky! How can we take off with so many unknowns? With so many obligations? Are we crazy? Brave? Both? Will this plan (such as it is) even work?
I guess we’ll find out?
When we nail down some numbers, I will share the particulars with you. Then we can all back look at this optimistic post and chuckle a bit.