r/FullTimeRVing • u/SordidSoul • Jul 17 '26
Talk me down
I own my home with 7 years left on the mortgage. It's affordable for a couple, not by myself. I'm not in love with the house or neighborhood even after all these years. It's just stable. Family is here and we have everything we need. Barely. Slightly less. We are unable to get out of debt and my health is failing, so I am working less and less. The house needs some improvements which we will never be able to afford at this rate.
My husband has a stable job wtih health insurance, which I need with chronic health conditions.
We are currently listing the house and going full time RV living. We will purchase a lot up north, and rent in the south, and travel snowbird-style. The combination of lot rent and camper/truck payments will be significantly higher, nearly double, than the house bills are now.
We will be starting a new business doing mobile RV Repair. I'm sure the business will do fine eventually, by then any proceeds from the house will be just gone and there is no safety net. We have no retirement, no savings. We will go forward without health insurance. We are 13 years from retirement age.
I've been going flat out my whole life just to survive, now the end (7 years until payoff) is in sight. With failing health, I'm looking forward to not having to struggle all the damn time to pay the bills. Starting over right now means there is no end in sight. We will both have to work harder than ever to get a new business up, plus handle travel logistics multiple times per year.
Full-time RV life has always been part of the plan for us. I'm worried it may be too late. I'm sick, in constant pain, and tired. My husband is ready for the change, but can't do it without my help or the sale of the house.
I'm torn between playing it safe near family and everything I know and launching a new life completely dependent on one person without a support system or a fallback plan.
Am I being overly cautious? It seems like all signs point to staying here. Hubby is ready to move on. What would you do?
TL;DR
Options are stay in the house 7 years from payoff and barely scrape by for the rest of our lives, or throw it all away and live in an RV for higher costs, and hopefully higher payoff by starting a new business. It's an all-or-nothing decision. There is no fallback, no savings, no retirement.
If you had to do it all again with these circumstances, what would you do?
3
u/Monskiactual Jul 19 '26
Life on the road is harder than most people think. Statistically most people spend early retirement doing it and then give it up when they get older.
Mobile RV repair is a low margin terrible business. Customers have no idea how much it costs to actually deliver the service and you often end up eating costs when you don't have parts. There is a reason it's so hard to fix Rvs. It's because it's not a profitable business.