The RV Lifestyle Dream...or not

The economic conditions of today enhance the allure of chucking it all and heading out on the road in an RV. The hard truth is that you must be creative and resourceful to succeed at it. I have written previously about workamping and the difficulties we encountered when first starting out. That perhaps explains why you find those that still maintain a stick built home and hit the road part of the year. You will be better served if you have some sort of income to fall back on - maybe a pension or social security or both. One of my regrets is not having made the plunge into gate guarding to begin with. I had made a call to Timekeepers from their posting on the Workamper News website. At that time they required you to make the trip to Boerne to apply with no promise of employment. I just wasn’t willing to risk it and our funds really wouldn’t allow it. After discovering Andy’s site at www.myoldrv.com I realized the potential of the job; but that’s another story. Our experience with workamping was mostly disappointing, with pay at or below minimum wage. Also most places won’t work you more than 35 hours to keep you from becoming a fulltime employee. That keeps you from earning any benefits. Some do not even offer workman’s compensation. We do know a few folks that have established a rotation between jobs working up north in the winter and south in the summer. That is another difficulty in Workamping. Winter employment is difficult to find as everyone wants to head south for the winter. You must acquire summer employment by late fall and winter employment no later than spring or early summer of the year previous to the one you wish to work. Occasionally opportunities present themselves that do not require such advance planning. Either way it pays to have a resume typed up and saved along with some pictures of your rig, wife/partner and any animals you may own. We really enjoy gate guarding and have modified our lifestyle and plans around it. We have just not been able to find a job that pays as well in the workamping world. We are working on taking about 60-90 days off next summer. We may or may not work, depending on the pay and/or location of the opportunity. That will hopefully help us miss some of the extreme summer heat here in south Texas.

Unfortunately, there is no update on the motorhome. We are at the mercy of our mechanic and he does not like to be rushed. Payday is just around the corner and I’m sure he won’t mind a visit from us then. I am a bit concerned that the motorhome has set so long-they do not like not being used! I’ll update you as soon as I know something.