Ever
since we returned from our Road Trip Ramble, Tim and I talked about
retirement. I was fortunate to retire
early when I was 55 years old, but Tim was still working. In early 2013, he set a target retirement
date of age 60 – 2016, two years earlier than he had originally planned. This became our plan.
Imagine
my surprise when Tim began to seriously consider an even earlier retirement
date – earlier, as in March 2014! During
the fall of 2013, Tim and I had taken another look at our situation and our
finances and had determined that we could really make his early retirement plan
a reality. On October 22, 2013, Tim
informed his supervisor at Rocky Mountain National Park that March 21, 2014,
would be his last day of work. Whoo-Hoo!!!
The question then became – what were we going to do after Tim did retire? Were we going to remain in Estes Park? Were we going to sell the house and move? If so, where? Might we consider full-timing in the RV?
When faced with a major decision, Tim loves to prepare a matrix. So, we listed our options, as well as the pros and cons for each possibility. Although we loved living in Estes Park, we had always planned to move to a place with two or perhaps three months of winter, not six. But where might that be? Our plan had been to check out possible destinations on our Road Trip Ramble, but no one place really seemed to be the “one.” So, we really didn’t have a place to go. It made no sense to simply pick a place at random, not knowing if we would really want to live there.
The more we considered our options, the more full or part-time RVing rose to the top of the list and became a very real possibility. We had loved our nine months as “temporary” full-timers. Maybe that was the direction we should take. Nothing else seemed to make any sense.
The question then became – what were we going to do after Tim did retire? Were we going to remain in Estes Park? Were we going to sell the house and move? If so, where? Might we consider full-timing in the RV?
When faced with a major decision, Tim loves to prepare a matrix. So, we listed our options, as well as the pros and cons for each possibility. Although we loved living in Estes Park, we had always planned to move to a place with two or perhaps three months of winter, not six. But where might that be? Our plan had been to check out possible destinations on our Road Trip Ramble, but no one place really seemed to be the “one.” So, we really didn’t have a place to go. It made no sense to simply pick a place at random, not knowing if we would really want to live there.
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| What Are We Going to Do? |
The more we considered our options, the more full or part-time RVing rose to the top of the list and became a very real possibility. We had loved our nine months as “temporary” full-timers. Maybe that was the direction we should take. Nothing else seemed to make any sense.
Since we
couldn’t afford to keep the house in Estes Park and spend the majority of our
time RVing, selling the house was a necessity.
I’m a gypsy at heart, so I had no problem with not having a home base to
return to. In fact, after I retired and
moved out West, I was “homeless” until I met and married Tim. I loved the freedom of not having a real home. It took Tim a bit longer to come to terms
with that concept, however. But eventually
he did embrace the idea, and our future direction was set.
If it
seems that we simply fell into full-time RVing, you just may be right!
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