Oh Man. 2019 is going to be full of changes and transitions for us. First, check out what we decided to take and trash for this year here.
We have some big plans, well actually they are more like plans to go tiny and get mobile.
Our Opportunity with Job Loss
Charles’s company will be shutting down in 2019, with lights out by January 2020. Thankfully we know this ahead of time and therefore can plan accordingly. With his job loss comes a large 6 month severance package and for us an opportunity.
We have been wanting to move and live in another part of the States for sometime now. Like we have said before we were both born and raised in the PNW. While we leave the country every year and enjoy travel – we want to try living other places.
With this job loss, we decided to leave our roots and work in other areas and start the ball rolling for our dreams. I have always had major wanderlust and now Charles caught this bug as well. We are looking at the job loss as an opportunity, not something to dread.
Charles will be leaving his work in October of 2019 or December of 2019. Since we will be moving eventually, I will not be signing another contract for the following school year.
The Big Dreams
We want to be RV/Travel Trailer Living full time. We also want to work remotely full time. This includes seeing every National Park, heading into Canada in the Fall all with the company of our pets.
We are so excited to downsize and head towards living non-traditionally. We need to get some things in order, including our finances, before this dream becomes full reality.
Steps to Get Us There:
1. Sell Everything in the Home
We will be selling everything in our home that we can not fit into a travel trailer. We will no longer need any furniture or many of the things we have collected in our home in the travel trailer.
2. Minimize and Save
We will be selling most everything, but we will also be minimizing the things we will be keeping. Such as our wardrobes and kitchen items. We will be creating capsules and essentials for these to really minimize the amount of items.
Additionally, we will be saving for emergencies and to have a buffer for our big transition. Just because we know nothing ever goes quit as planned.
3. Find New Positions
Charles will be finding a new position to have for at least 2 years, perhaps 3 years. We are willing to move anywhere but so far have found some options in California and Texas. There may be a chance as well we stay local for those 2-3 years.
One of the reasons we will be stationary for a few years is to finish paying off my student loans.
I will be finding a part time remote work and continue to build my freelance business as well. I will be looking for a new part time remote work and additional freelance gigs starting in June of 2019 when we get out for the summer. My paycheck and insurance will still be coming in until August of 2019.
4. Sell the Home
If we move for Charles’s new work (or after we pay off debt) we plan on putting our house on the market. At this point we will have owned over two years and therefore will not have to pay any taxes on our gains. We have built quite a bit of equity since we bought the home in a good neighborhood and did some of our own re-model- so this amount of cash will be funding part of our venture.
I am also a little excited to not have this debt attached to our names. I in no way regret buying our home as we have built some equity like I said, however it is still a large amount of debt and it will be nice to be free of this for a bit.
5. Buy the Trailer in Cash
Using the funds from the house plus a little of our savings we will be able to purchase our new home, the travel trailer in cash.
We have already picked it out (we think) and will update you all once we know for sure!
6. Sell my Car
We will be selling my car and keeping only Charles’ Prius for the next few years. This serves two purposes. First saves us extra money from insurance and general auto cost. Second, it saves us time because we’ll eventually need to sell both cars and transition to a truck and trailer.
7. Buy the Truck
We will be purchasing a truck around the time we plan on getting the trailer. There is a potential we will buy earlier and use an auto loan if the one car situation doesn’t work out since this will be an eventual purchase anyway.
8. Move and Work
Hit the road to our new location if Charles can’t find local work. If we do end up moving we will most likely rent until we can fully transition to full time RV living.
9. Pay off all student loans
We will jump into paying these off in full force. This will be our biggest debt payoff to date. We have been really dedicated to no auto loans or consumer debt since starting our journey to FI. However, we have not put as much focus on my student loans and instead put our blinders on to fully funding retirements. The severance and our money from new positions will knock these out in 1-2 years.
To be honest, I was banking on the loan forgiveness. I decided I did not want to teach forever, and certainly not the 10 years it would take for forgiveness (if it even stays around). This opportunity was too good to pass up and so paying off my student loans is now going to take center stage so we can be 100% debt free.