Why Full Time? – Jon’s tale

What made us decide to live in an RV as our Primary Residence?

* Pat Flynn’s SmartPassiveIncome podcast with Jessica and Cliff Larrew.
* Sean Ogle’s LocationRebel community, which I joined at the start of 2012.
* The Tropical MBA podcast – These guys are great, and hugely inspirational to me.
* Receiving 3 corporate emails over a 6 month period mourning the unexpected death of retired coworkers…
– they were all between 55-62.
– they all died within 18 months of retirement,
– one of them retired, and then kicked it within 8 weeks.

EFF. THAT. NOISE.

I’ve got 7 more years here before I could retire at 55 with a retirement of about $32,000/year. ¹

I am the Captain of my own life. It’s my journey, and not anybody else’s.
I’ve been ready to stop trading my time for a fixed pittance of cash while working for someone else and work for myself since I was 19 years old. I lacked the technology and the know-how, and to a certain extent, the chutzpah to do so before now.

I *could* stay here at this City Job, comfortable apartment, etc. It’s quite a nice life I have here…and I could warm the chair I’m sitting in for another 7 years and be rewarded with $32,000/year until the day I die.

Which might be 6 months after I retire.

No thanks.

That’s not to say I don’t have fears…

* I’ve still got debt – that scares me, and is why I’m keeping The J-O-B (for at least part, if not most of) 2015.
* I’m still spinning up the side business(es) to something more than “poorly paying part time hobby” – that scares me.
* I’m still trying to figure out how to run a proper business, but “poorly paying part time hobby” doesn’t really cover the services of an accountant or other advisor-type professional. That scares me.

But I also don’t want to be my mother.
She’s always dreamt of traveling around the country, seeing the sights.
She’s 71, and will probably not ever get the opportunity to do so. She doesn’t trust herself to be able to handle the physical aspects of setting up and breaking down a campsite, so she wants to do it with a Full Time Travel Partner – which I don’t know that she’ll find…presuming, of course, that she can afford a reliable RV with the sum that she could get from selling every other thing she owns.

I’m really hoping she can – I think she’d love the hell out of life on the road. =)

So…that’s the (quite long) explanation of why I, personally, have made the decision to get out of this chair, leave the safety and comfort of an apartment, and figure out how to make money on the road – until the day I drop dead.

-Jon

¹ Adjusting my current salary for 7 years of predicted inflation, by looking at inflation from 7 years ago; presuming I don’t change job title in a manner that results in a substantial pay increase between now and retirement, and multiplying the total by the “40% of the highest average pay in the last 3 years” that I could retire with at that point.