First it is important to know a little about us, my husband
and I are both military (Air Force) veterans; I served 12 years and my husband
retired after 21 ½ yrs. We have three
children, Kayla is 17, Erica is almost 16, and Sean just turned 7 yrs old. I currently homeschool Erica and Sean while
Kayla will be finishing her last year in public school. We live in northern San Antonio, Texas and
love it here; although the traffic is a bit of a downside. My husband and I both joined the military
shortly after graduating high school and have both traveled around the United
States and each stationed overseas (me in England and my husband in Germany).
Like most Americans we have worked hard and thrived to have
the American Dream. You know, the big
house (bigger and “nicer” is always better, right!), nice cars, toys, nice
pool, nice vacations, and spending, spending, spending. Well, we thought the ‘American Dream’ would
bring us fulfillment but instead it brought restraint. We found ourselves ‘living to work’ instead
of ‘working to live’. After obtaining
all the ‘things’ that we thought we always wanted we started to feel suffocated;
yes, suffocated in almost 4,000 sq ft.
Suffocated by the responsibility to maintain this lifestyle and keeping
it clean and organized (even when we had a housecleaner it seemed too
much). We probably use maybe 1/3 of the
rooms in our house on a daily basis.
With the girls almost off to college or the military, we started contemplating
downsizing in a few years. However, we
couldn’t decide if we wanted to live in the country or live in a gated
community again so we pushed the idea aside for a little. I can’t even remember what triggered it but
we started talking again about going RVing full-time.
Note: Years ago we had a Class C motorhome and spoke about going
full-time but with three kids (two of which can barely stand to be in the same
room with each other) we felt that if the kids didn’t kill each other we might
(this is sarcasm, please don’t take it literally). We did however live in our motorhome for a
few months while in transit between Maryland and Texas; we all survived.
We started thinking about how we could continue homeschool
our son and show him the United States instead of reading about it in
books. How my husband could retire, again,
but for the last time at the age of 50 years old. We could see the country that we served
jointly for over 33 years. We enjoy
moving around so this was not a factor that concerned us. We started thinking that we could sell our
house and most of our personal belongings and go RVing for a year. But then we started figuring out that one
year is not enough to really see the US; I’m not talking driving through
states, I’m talking REALLY seeing the country.
So we figure why set a deadline, just go for it and if it doesn’t work
out then we can just come back to Texas and buy a new house. So, we have about 2 – 2 ½ years until we plan
to make this new dream happen. We are
waiting for the girls to be off either in college (Kayla) or the military
(Erica); once they are settled we plan to hit the road full-time until we want
to stop. This could be a month, six
months, a year, we don’t know.
Meanwhile, we have a lot of stuff to rid ourselves of over the next two
years. It’s unbelievable what you can
pack a house with and don’t even realize it until you start thinking of
downsizing to a 400 sq ft home. We have SLOWLY
started to purge stuff that we don’t use or won’t be using over the next couple
years. We haven’t even made a dent but I
can’t express to you enough how good it feels.
On top of that, there are so many things that I HAVEN’T purchased. When I go to buy something now I stop and ask
myself “am I going to need this in the RV”, if not, “is it worth buying just to
have for the next two years”. There are
SO many things that I have stopped myself from buying.
You know, I don’t know for sure what is going to happen in 2
– 2 ½ years. Something might change that
will cause us to rethink our dream of living a nomadic lifestyle; we do tend to
be a BIT fickle. But even if so, the
feeling of freedom that I am feeling ridding myself of the ‘stuff’ surrounding
me is all worth it either way. The money
that I am saving by thinking twice about purchases can never be a negative
thing. I don’t want my life and dreams
to be about ‘things’; I want to truly feel freedom and enjoy my family and the
natural beauty that surrounds us. So
many people die without even leaving the state or even town that they were born
in. How amazing would it be for a 9 year
old boy to see, I mean REALLY see, the country that his parents served. To later in life, read about places or see
them in movies/television and know that you were there. That is the gift that I want to give my son. Although, our girls will not be able to accompany
us on this journey, I hope that we can be an example to them to not fall into
the ‘American Dream’ pit but to create their own dreams. Regardless of what happens, I want to find
the joy in living a more minimalistic life.
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