Like There's No Tomorrow: The Full-Time RV Freedom Podcast

RV Life Uncensored: Is Selling Everything for Full-Time RV Living Really Worth It?

Barry & Darlene Nicholson Season 1 Episode 1

After two years on the road, we're answering the question everyone asks us - was selling our home and going full-time in our RV worth it? In this candid conversation, we reveal the emotional challenges of being far from family when emergencies strike, the relationship tensions of living in 300 square feet ("sometimes I wondered if we'd make it to 31 years of marriage"), and the financial realities of unexpected job loss on the road. But we also share why, despite the hassles of constant setup and teardown, the unpredictability, and the occasional arguments triggered by something as simple as flies, this lifestyle has given us experiences we'd never have with just two weeks of vacation per year. For anyone considering full-time RV living, this is the honest reality check you need - both the struggles and the freedom that make it all worthwhile.


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Hosted by Barry & Darlene Nicholson
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Speaker 5:

I don't wanna paint the picture of RV Life as rose colored glasses all the time. It's awesome. This is the reality that I think a lot of people don't wanna talk about it, but it is, it can get intense

Speaker 13:

Welcome to like There's No Tomorrow, your Guide to Full-Time RV Freedom. I'm Barry Nicholson and with my wife Darlene. We're bringing you real conversations about life on the road. Whether you're dreaming of RB living, we're already exploring alongside us. Join our community as we travel this beautiful country, like there's no tomorrow.

Speaker 6:

in today's video, we're gonna ask the question, is it worth it to live in an RV full time? We have been doing this now for two years, and so we're gonna ask the questions, is it worth the money? Is it worth the hassle? And there's a lot of hassles. Is it worth the uncertainty? Is it worth the drama that you know, and all that? And again, I we're not going to come off as negative. That's not what this is about.

Speaker 7:

Yeah,

Speaker 6:

we obviously do think that it's worth it because we've been doing it for two years. We've had some great times. We're looking, we really don't know when this journey's gonna end for us. People ask us that all the time and we're like, Hey, we've still got a lot of stuff that we'd like to do, so we enjoy it. But we do want to give you a reality check of what it's like to just kinda leave a quote, unquote, normal existence like we had and become nomads. Yeah.

Speaker 5:

This is gonna be great for those of you kicking the tires for full-time RV living. Those of you are already out there doing full-time rv. In fact, if you're already out there, please watch the video and then comment to share your thoughts on being a full-timer. Because we have so many newbies and people thinking about this lifestyle and people who have questions about this lifestyle, this video is for them and anything that us full-timers can do to help these people make their decisions. If that's you, we wanna help you. We wanna make help you make the best decision for you.

Speaker 6:

Hi, we are Barry and Darlene. Nicholson. Our channel is like, there's no tomorrow. And we started full-time RVing about two years ago. We're from Sarasota, Florida. Not originally. We're originally from Indiana. We've been married over 30 years. After 30.

Speaker 5:

He said 30.'cause he doesn't know.

Speaker 6:

It's like around, we've been married after over 30 years.

Speaker 5:

We've been married. 33. We've been together for 38. Yes. We met when we were nine. Right.

Speaker 6:

Anyway, so yeah, so we had two kids when our daughter. Graduated from high school, decided to go to college. That was when we made the decision to, when we became empty nesters, that we, our first trip was literally gonna be to take her from Florida to Northern Ohio to go to college, Orlin College in Ohio. And that was our first RV trip. And when we dropped her off at school, we were instantly empty nesters and full-time RVs all at once. And we went, oh crap.

Speaker 5:

Yeah. And we hadn't really driven a rig this our size or really had any experience. We really went in not knowing anything. And some people think that's irresponsible, but you know what? When you wanna do something, you figure it out. And that's a great lesson to learn about RV life. And let me give you a snapshot. So we were talking about these, this lifestyle and how it changes you and what you're getting into. So a snapshot of what our life was like before. Now might be helpful to you as you, you get going on this. Before we were working full-time. We have been working digitally

Speaker 6:

still

Speaker 5:

work full-time. Still work full-time. Yeah. But we were doing the same thing. We were working at our house digitally, remotely from home. We've done that a very long time. Our kids, one was already flown the coop. Spencer had already graduated college and was living on his own. Sophia was still home with us. Like I said, we. Did this after she graduated. So it was a busy time. I'm busy with her graduating. We both had side things in addition to her full-time job. Yeah. Don't you tell'em about yours?

Speaker 6:

Yeah. So I'm a musician. I play bass, guitar and sing. I had a band that I put together called Reverend Berry in the Funk. I'm sure we'll put a link below.'cause you're people, we always get questions about it and I Sure. If you wanna go check out our music we were a cover band that played for about 10 years and we also did original music. And it was a big band. We had eight people on the band. We had a horn section, stuff like that. And I was the band later. So I, for a long time I booked all the gigs later I didn't it was

Speaker 5:

a second full-time job.

Speaker 6:

No doubt. Yeah. Because we played every weekend.

Speaker 5:

Much, pretty

Speaker 6:

much, for a very long time. But Darlene also had a gig, I think she started doing'cause I was gone so much,

Speaker 5:

he was gone so much. So I had always loved costumes and costuming. Halloween was always my jam. We always had really elaborate costume cos Halloween costumes. And so I remember one day he said, Hey, what are you gonna do with all these costumes? Had sewing machine I had, I really. Created these from scratch. He was into it. I was into it. I always wanted to go to fashion design school when I was in high school, but that never happened. So I came across this crazy idea of taking the costumes and combining it with an entertainment. For special events. So it was a, you're gonna, when you see the video, you're gonna crack up. It is strolling wine entertainment, strolling wine skirts. So basically I would stroll around in my little metal wine holder skirt with all the wine at events and pass them out to the guests. And I also had a table that you could put hor d'oeuvres on where I was in the center of the table. The visuals explained everything, but it was busy. We were constantly going. Yeah. And that's the thing I would tell you about our life before. We were in that busy rut. Yeah, I think a lot of you know what that is. You just stay busy, but are you really enjoying? We would try to get to the beach for sunset, every blue moon, but we were just busy for the sake of being busy. It really wasn't. It was fun. He loved his band mates and his band and playing music, and I loved doing my costuming and stuff, but after a while, you're just sitting there on a Sunday going, I'm so stinking tired.

Speaker 6:

Yeah. Yeah. And obviously when you become empty nesters, it's a major life change. And you think, okay, so now this house is gonna be even emptier than it is now. And

Speaker 5:

is this it? Yeah. I think that's what we were left with. Is this what we're gonna do or what now? And we did the full-time lifestyle and now our life has a little, we're still working digitally full-time during Monday through Friday. But. We're taking our home and we're putting it in these amazing places. So after work, we're going and see on crazy bike rides and hikes and exploring these cities and the local culture. And that is now incorporated. The fun is incorporated into our normal day.

Speaker 6:

Yeah. Yeah. A hundred percent. So it's like I,'cause I think, when we would go on vacation, I might get two weeks, two weeks of vacation a year. And then one of those weeks I was always going back to Indiana to, to visit family, which of course we love to do. So that means one week out of the year I got to go on maybe some type of adventure. We'd usually go on a cruise or something like that, which was great. But again, it was, life was very predictable. And so there was, so as we're making this video right now, we are in South Dakota and we are right on the, on this massive river that I'm gonna go fishing very soon, and I'm thinking I would never be here. I would never get to experience these types of things if I was not. Yeah.

Speaker 5:

We would never have had enough vacation to see all the amazing places and go on all the amazing adventures that we've been gone on in the last two years.

Speaker 6:

Yeah, and that's what this is really about. It

Speaker 5:

really is. So the first thing is it worth moving away? Being away from your family and your friends?

Speaker 6:

This is a major life change. And again you're going from being, living a normal life to being a nomad. And, it was a big deal obviously for me to leave my band, not just because it was an established business. We were very popular, well known, and it was a big deal. Like what do you mean he, you're ending the band and, but obviously more than that, it was a lot of friends. It was not just my band mates the fans. I had people that, that came to our shows that I would see and and it's like I'm leaving this situation, I'm putting this behind and just moving on to a different phase in my life. It's never gonna be the same. I'm never gonna come back and reform that band, or it's not like I won't get into music again at some point. But, that was a phase that I was living outta my life, but this isn't, again, this isn't just about us. So what I'd encourage you to think about is there stuff in your life, maybe it's not just a work kind of thing. That was more of a side hustle, but it

Speaker 5:

could be church.

Speaker 6:

Yeah, you could be doing stuff, women's

Speaker 5:

groups, things that you're involved with,

Speaker 6:

yeah. Like if you're a volunteer, if you're, I think about church. My, my brother's a pastor and we were heavily involved in church at one time and a leadership sort of volunteer position. To just uproot and leave would've been like, what do you mean you're leaving? You can't leave. You're in charge of this and that and the other thing. So you have to consider is it worth doing that?

Speaker 5:

Yeah. Yeah. Another thing to think about when it comes to family for us, a big decision was you heard Barry say, we took, our daughter, dropped her off at college and we took her home base away.

Speaker 6:

Yeah.

Speaker 5:

So we knew that was gonna be. A big deal. So I sat her down way before we even got super serious and I said, what do you feel about this? If we did not have this house anymore for you to go to, and we're different places across the country that you'll have to fly to instead. How do you feel about that? And honestly, she was all for it. I think she was excited to go to different places. Sure. And now that I've talked to her after it's been two years she does miss her room. That comfort to come home to. Yeah. But she gets it and she's excited for us. She always likes to hear about what we're doing and to be honest, it's a little juggle flying her to where we are and. That kind of thing. But she's gone to some cool places on her spring breaks and her summer breaks. If that is something, the home, the family, the kids, the grandkids, if that is a big deal to you that you feel like you've gotta be there, right there all the time. You do really need to put some thought into that. Now we know people with grandkids that do constant FaceTimes with the grandkids. They circle around to spend longer periods of time with them than they ever would've gotten before, which is super cool. So there are solutions to that. I think it just really depends on you and what you want. We don't have grandkids yet, so that isn't something that we're have to, we haven't had to figure it out yet.

Speaker 6:

Yeah. And it's kinda hard to explain this, how you could ask if it's worth it, but I, we found ourselves in a position about a year in that we didn't see coming. Yeah. Which was, we were all the way in Northern California. We were really far away

Speaker 5:

from Indiana,

Speaker 6:

From Indiana, our hometown. And we got the phone call that my stepdad had passed away. I ended up having to fly back to Evansville to obviously go to the funeral and all that. Darlene had to stay behind and she had to stay'cause she, we had the dog. You have to ask yourself if a family situation like that happens, is it going to be worth it to you? If you find yourself in that type of situation.'cause we all of a sudden were like we can't drive back. We're not gonna be able to drive. We're too far away. We'll drive from California all the way back to Indiana. Mean we could, but we, it's gonna be a couple weeks. Yeah. If that, and still that was completely unrealistic. I, again, at both, at the time, both of us had full-time jobs, and so just the logistics of doing that were impossible. Yeah. And it's, again, these are things that you don't. No that are coming. I was able to get a flight. I was able to fly home. It was fine. Everything worked out fine, but Darlene was unable to go to the funeral.

Speaker 5:

Yeah. Yeah. So these are, these are just things you have to think about now, would that keep us from doing this lifestyle? Does it? No. We've figured it out every time our daughter was injured. We had to do some calling and checking and that was really hard not to be there. But it all ended up working out. I just, we have this thing if our, our mothers are still alive and they're in their eighties and we know at any time we may need to either. Pull the jacks up and hit the road to go to them if something happens or be ready to fly out like Barry did, and we're okay with that. It will not keep us for doing this lifestyle. And I don't think they would want us to not do this lifestyle because of the what if. And that's a big, that's a big one. There's a lot of what ifs. But you just have to decide, are you the kind of person that can go, we'll figure it out, we'll make it work. Or are you someone that. Really needs to be there and not have that kind of pressure. So these are just things for you to consider.

Speaker 6:

Yeah. And then you also have to ask yourself about friendships. This gonna sound terrible, but to be perfectly honest, I didn't have a lot of great, a lot of real close friends. I did, I'd have one in, in Sarasota that I consider to be, a super close friend. And he was on the road all the time anyway. So we didn't see each other all that much.

Speaker 5:

And honestly, a lot of our closer friends are all over the country and now we get to drive our rig and visit them.

Speaker 6:

Yeah. Yeah. But I we've said this in other videos, so I don't wanna belabor the point, which is, this can be a lonely existence. Yeah. If you're not a super social person, and even if you are. You're still around a whole bunch of other nomads. If you hang out with people, like we went to these Escapers events, we've met some new people, spent, quite a few evenings sitting around campfires, getting to know people, and it's been great. But then you lose touch because you don't see each other. Yeah. You have to cross paths

Speaker 5:

again, you have to purposefully cross paths again. So we have some folks that we've met, some other YouTubers, actually, the border hookups. Awesome people. So we have it scheduled to meet up with them later at an event they're doing. And you have to do that when you meet people on the road. You have to be willing to really put yourself out there, be personal, meet the people, and then keep up with the people or do like we do, and visit all your friends that are all over the country, which is pretty awesome. We would only get to go home to Indiana to visit family almost for. A week or less at Christmas with travel time, it's less than a week now, the summer, or this actually spring. We were able to spend almost three and a half weeks there, which we never would've been able to do when we had our house and our sticks and bricks and. Vacation was limited. We just worked from the rig during the day and then went and visited everybody in the evenings on the weekends. So it was really an awesome change for us to be there sometime other than Christmas and to just really hang out and be with them for an extended period of time. So that is a definite plus that you should put in your book for full-time RV living.

Speaker 6:

Okay, so next big question is. Is it worth drama? And there will be drama.

Speaker 5:

There will be.

Speaker 6:

So we've talked about this in another video and I encourage you to go back and watch it. But the thing is, again, we've been married over 30 years, but we spent a lot of time away from each other. Just our daughter is a swimmer. That's how she got on with Oberlin College and a lot

Speaker 5:

of meets, yeah, a lot of hours at the pool. Just busy a any mom that has a sports kid can tell you how much work

Speaker 7:

is, yeah.

Speaker 5:

Yeah. And then with his band life, there's a lot of practices though. A lot of gigs. There's a lot of work that has to be done there. And so we weren't with each other, even though we worked at home remotely, we're in different rooms. We didn't sometimes even eat lunch at the same time. We, it's crazy. We're not talking to each other a lot. We're working.

Speaker 6:

Right, and so to go from that type of lifestyle to a lifestyle where you're living, even though we have a 44 foot to toy hauler, which is really big compared to other. Campers, you're still in a very small space. Yeah. Regardless

Speaker 5:

of what you have, it is smaller, tiny, every time it's tiny, it's a tiny

Speaker 6:

home. Go from a tiny home and situation, and you're also in a situation where you're there's like this vibe that you need to do everything with each other all the time. Which little hint

Speaker 5:

you don't,

Speaker 6:

you don't,

Speaker 5:

you can get away from each other. You need,

Speaker 6:

you need alone time. Definitely. Yeah. That's why I talk about fishing all the time. Fishing is a time where I can get out of here and go do my thing in nature. Nobody's watching me. Nobody's what I'm doing. And I get outta her here. Yeah.

Speaker 5:

And this is just marriage in general. You gotta work things out. You have to compromise, you have to be willing to work together, hear each other out. It's just more intense sometimes with the RV lifestyle, we've all seen the people lose their, you know what, when they're backing in and one person's yelling at the other. Okay, that's happening. Yeah you lose your patience. It's hot outside, you're sweaty, you wanna get this over with, and you snap at the other person. You don't mean to. It happens to us all the time and it is one of those where sometimes you just have to suck it up. Apologize. Talk it out, but it's just different in an rv, it's, yeah. More intense.

Speaker 6:

Yeah. Because this is, again, this is your life, this is your lifestyle. And we've said it before and other channels have said this, and it's a hundred percent true. If you're having problems in your marriage right now and you're not on the road. This lifestyle is not going to fix your problems. No. It's probably gonna make a worse and it's probably gonna lead to the end of your relationship.

Speaker 5:

Yeah. Yeah. So it's not gonna save you. Yeah. But if you're the kind of couple and the kind of people that, and that can work things out together, hear each other out. I think that's the biggest thing is you have a, we just had a blow up the other day. And it was just like, it was a, there were

Speaker 6:

bugs, There were lots of bugs. We were at this place that there were flies. What it is about flies. You ever notice that flies tend to congregate on one side of a vehicle? It's like, so you're getting in and out of the truck and there's all these black flies and you're trying to keep them. I hate.

Speaker 5:

He hates bugs. He is a very,

Speaker 6:

hate this, I hate this thing that bit my neck. He

Speaker 5:

gets bites. Anyways,

Speaker 6:

fricking it was,

Speaker 5:

it was a whole situation where it was tense and he snapped and I was like, and it, it was not nice. It was not nice. However, we did what we had to do. I got in the truck and the first thing he said was, I'm sorry that was uncalled for. Yeah. I warned y'all could get emotional, but it is, it's something that happens. And I don't wanna paint the picture of RV Life as rose colored glasses all the time.

Speaker 7:

No, it's not. It's but

Speaker 5:

it's awesome. Like, don't get me wrong, I'm emotional person. So there's that. But, this is the reality that I think a lot of people don't wanna talk about it, but it is, it can get intense, but is it worth it? A hundred percent. You can overcome this stuff if you're the kind of person that's willing to put the work in to overcome it. And that's really the point is that's us. We've been together this long because we've worked it out many times. We've worked it out. So you know, yes, you'll have those moments, but overall what it allows you to go out and do it is life changing. This has been a life. Changing two years of amazing adventure, seeing amazing things, and are these little moments worth it? Yeah, it is. Absolutely. Absolutely.

Speaker 6:

Okay, here's another magic question. Is it worth the hassle? There's a lot of hassles. One of the big assholes is just moving and setting up,

Speaker 5:

tearing down, setting up,

Speaker 6:

up. We usually try to do two weeks at a time. Most location. But that doesn't always work out. No. So right

Speaker 5:

now we're in the summer it was, we couldn't get two weeks at some of the places'cause we do need electric cook up'cause it's getting really warm. But we can't always do that. So we feel like lately we've been setting up and tearing down that. Now given, if you have more simple setup. This may not be as big of a deal to you, but for us, move days are exhausting.

Speaker 6:

Yeah. We watched some of those influencers, KYD, we see you, they're too

Speaker 5:

mobile, they're too air, easy air. They got the

Speaker 6:

Airstream and then it's like pop in and one day, two

Speaker 5:

days there. I'm like, no, that's not us. We have no. We have a lot of stuff. We have

Speaker 7:

a lot of stuff

Speaker 5:

and we probably have too much stuff, but nonetheless, it is the way we like to live and travel. So we own it, but it can be that it is a hassle sometimes moving around so much. And I think some people prefer to stay months at a place and I can see why. Yeah.

Speaker 6:

If we're leaving on a Sunday, which is most of the time, that means pretty much our Saturday nights are. Burned,'cause because I'm setting up all the stuff. We're making sure everything's packed up.'cause we usually wanna leave in the mor early in the mornings, especially if we want to dump, we want to get to the dump station for everybody else. Stuff like that. And it just, so it takes over your weekend to a certain degree.

Speaker 5:

At least the one weekend. That's why we do two weeks. So we have one full weekend of. Just enjoy yourself, kind of thing. So yeah it can be challenging now, re trip planning can also be a hassle, especially when you're first start out. It is a lot to take on. I feel like after the two years now, I've definitely found a groove with it. Plus we boondock a lot more. So that's a lot easier to trip plan. You do have to scout out the places and all that, but I don't have to, like, if I don't wanna stay a little longer, we stay a little longer. We don't have check-in times, so it, it gets a little easier with that. But trip planning can be, I. Kind of exhausting sometimes. Where are you gonna go? How long are you gonna be there? Can you get in? Okay, I can't get in that one. I gotta go to the next one. Things like Trip rv, trip Wizard help a lot with the planning. But you still have to put the time in and do it, and yeah, routes, you just have to make sure you're. Your routes are safe. You may have to reroute due to roads collapsing in the Tetons. Things like that. Weather, that's another big one that may reroute you. It can be a little bit of a hassle that way if you're moving around. If you're not moving around a lot, then it's obviously less.

Speaker 6:

Yeah. And and then the other thing, again, we're just trying to help you in your mind, compare this to the life you're living now if you're still living in a sticks and bricks. And living full time where this is what you have to deal with all the time now. Things just annoyances, frankly. Like, your air conditioners are loud. I

Speaker 5:

mean, you can get things to make'em quieter, but again, I. You don't always have to do that, that kinda that great. And maybe

Speaker 6:

they don't work all that great. And look I hear you on the comments about getting many splits. I'm probably going to install many splits on this toy hauler if I could just figure out how to do it, or heat pumps, whatever you wanna call'em. That's a whole other topic. But in the meantime, we still have these, we have three of, we have these old, and just

Speaker 5:

at campgrounds are, they're sounds, there's. We've been near trains. There's, there's smells, there's maintenance. There's so much that you don't have to do when you live in a regular house or deal with. So it's just things that, to keep in mind the differences is enough to make us not like this lifestyle. Want this lifestyle? No. No way. What we have found is we actually made the decision to not go to campgrounds as much. Go out into nature more to eliminate some of the things that we didn't like.

Speaker 6:

Yeah. But, and again, with those things, you also have to think about bugs. You gotta think about mice. Yeah. I got this thing. New thing that I'm doing now to try to prevent mice from coming in. I spray. Water mixed with mint all over the entire RV at the bottom, just because it's for ants too. I watched a YouTube video where some lady said that she did that. They kept the mice out of her rv.

Speaker 5:

So it's just stuff like that. It's just a lot of little juggle, but a, you do find your groove with it. It's not that big a deal, but when you don't know, when you're still sitting at your house and you're trying to make that decision to go full time or not, we don't wanna scare it. We're not trying to paint the negative, it's just the reality. Stuff breaks constantly. Little things, usually not big things. Hopefully you don't have big things, after a while if I find one more screw or a piece of paneling that's come a jar or a dink in my flooring or it's just like, darn it.

Speaker 6:

Yeah, we had this thing where the rubber seal thing on a, on the top of our slide. Like when we put the slide out it, or it was not flipping, it flips under. And so we come out one time and there's just this water just like

Speaker 5:

pouring right down here in the middle of the kitchen.

Speaker 6:

And we're like, oh my God. Thank God, that's all it was.

Speaker 5:

Yeah. But

Speaker 6:

like, so now I have to make that part of my checklist. I go up there with the ladder and I looked, and sure enough, yesterday I had to flip that rubber back from under.

Speaker 5:

But it's just like. Those little annoyances, they're just, that, they're just annoyances. You can work through it. Just, yeah, this RV life can be a little bit of hassle, but is it worth it? Yeah. Okay. So this one is it worth the unpredictability in this RV life?

Speaker 6:

Yeah.'cause stuff happens. That you don't necessarily see coming. And it involves money you're gonna need, you're gonna need a backup fund. Yeah. There's just no two ways of looking about it. And I would say that if you don't have a good chunk of change put back it's probably not a good idea. It's a little

Speaker 5:

risky. At any time, depending on if you, even if you have a new rig, stuff happens hopefully it'd be under warranty. But if you don't your rig is a little older. Things in the suspension, the tires, big things going out if you need to be prepared, at least with some way of paying for it so it doesn't take you off the road.

Speaker 6:

Yeah. And then, let's talk about just making money, we've had a lot of people ask us questions. Probably one most popular questions we get is about how we make money on the road. Yeah.

Speaker 5:

And that's why our video on remote jobs has been. We've gotten so many messages from you about it. In fact, I'm thinking about doing another one with even more ideas. I'll put the link to the first one and be sure to subscribe because I'm gonna come out with a second one too.

Speaker 6:

Yeah. And again, if you're new to our channel you may be wondering what we do. We have both been in marketing for most of our careers. Probably going on 20 years'cause we're old. But we've actually worked from home for most of those years. Yeah. And so we were working from home back even before with

Speaker 5:

the OGs. Before Covid, yeah.

Speaker 6:

Before 2008. So we've been doing that for a long time, but still it's doesn't mean it's like total job security because again, unpredictable. We didn't see this coming. Darlene lost her job not too long ago.

Speaker 5:

Yeah. Yeah. I had worked with the company for five years as their marketing manager, and I knew that there was some issues, but I didn't think I was gonna be the one that got let go, but I got laid off. So it happens. You just never know. I really did not think I would, I thought I'd leave them before they. They let me go, but yeah, it was a rough road. Yeah. And I, all of a sudden I was let go immediately. I got a little bit of severance, but the most painful part is we lost our benefits. Yeah. Various company does not offer medical benefits. So that was a huge hit to us. Yeah. And so we luckily had money put back. In fact, we haven't had to tap into it too much because the positive of this lifestyle is we were able to completely change our spending by changing the way we were camping. So we got rid of all the expensive campgrounds that were booked. We went with state parks where we could city parks and boondocking is now in our immediate, our future for a while, and we reduced a lot of our expenses on the fly immediately, and we've been able to be fine. And if you wanted to know, I am doing freelance work, but I'm also dedicating more and more time to our channel. And we'd like to thank all of you people for subscribing. If you haven't, go do it, ring the bell and all that stuff. Because you are, the reason we're going right now, the more you watch our videos, the more YouTube rewards us and s you know, different people come at different companies want our sup to support and be featured in our videos and us. To share with you. So it, it opens up a lot more opportunity. Is it what I made before? No, but we're working on it and that's the thing is I can do freelance work and do this at the same time and keep it going. And I was able to shuck and jive because we were able to change our expenses because. Sticks and bricks. You can't change your mortgage.

Speaker 6:

Nope. Can't change your rent. You can't do all that. When you were living in rv, and again we've, again, you haven't watched our videos. We do have a nice solar setup that we bought when we were both gainfully employed. And we got a nice little tax return too that helped. So we did invest in solar. Probably one of the best investments we've ever made. And we love boondocking and we really love boondocking now because it's actually getting us out out of a bind.

Speaker 7:

Yeah.

Speaker 6:

And so having the ability to do that, to just drop your expenses like a rock because you can go and stay places for free. That is a cool thing. Yeah.

Speaker 5:

Yeah. Just I guess the takeaway from this is life can change, jobs can change, situations can change. Having that backup fund. Is very important. But this lifestyle allows you to be a lot more flexible and that makes it totally worth it for us.

Speaker 6:

Yeah.

Speaker 5:

So what are you thinking after you hear all this? Do you think it's worth it or thought through some of these questions?

Speaker 6:

Yeah, that's the real question. Is it going to be worth it for you?'cause we do get some people who. Make comments. They're like, oh, you guys are being irresponsible. Or, but we're just different types of people. Yeah. We, I,

Speaker 5:

on that note, we've always been that kind of people, we got married very young. We immediately moved to Dallas, Texas, had a band there. We moved that band to la, we lived in la we went back to Texas, back to Indiana, and then to Florida. We've always been searching for. Something greater, something better, something, good. Yeah.

Speaker 6:

We're not afraid of making big moves. No. And that's why our channel is called like there's no Tomorrow.

Speaker 5:

Yeah.

Speaker 6:

Because we truly believe that you're not promised tomorrow.

Speaker 5:

No.

Speaker 6:

Darlene's parents are the perfect story.

Speaker 5:

Yeah. Yeah. Oh, I'm gonna cry again. I must, oh, so I grew up, my parents, all they ever talked about was retirement. I think a lot of us can relate. They worked their fingers to the bone waiting for retirement,

Speaker 6:

factory jobs.

Speaker 5:

Yeah. Hard work. Yeah. And they finally got it and they RV for a while, but they were gonna kill each other. So they stopped doing that. And then they went to Florida and daddy got sick and that was that. And they never got that ending. No. So you have a choice. And I think that's what made us make this decision. It's like we're in a good place. We can do this now before retirement. We don't have to wait. We can do it now and live this life now and see this stuff and enjoy each other now, because you never know when that story's gonna end.

Speaker 6:

Yeah. We're, thankfully, we're healthy. We we try to stay healthy. We try to work out and eat right, and do that because a, our motivation is that we don't want to get sick. We don't want to get injured. We don't wanna, screw this up. And that's important too. Yeah. Is take care of yourself when you're on the road. Because, if you're, if you go to the doctor and he is like, look, you gotta get outta doing whatever, this nonsense, because you're gonna about to drop dead because you're gonna have a heart attack or something. Come on that's. So that's important as well. Yeah. But we looked at it like, look, we have this time, we're not promised retirement after the age of 65 or whatever. And we would be in a very different energy state at then. I would like to think or most likely. And,'cause this again, if a lot of work when I'm setting up and tearing down, I'm doing a lot of physical things. I'm getting up under the RV plus

Speaker 5:

the adventures. For us are physical. We love the hard hikes to the big peaks. We love all the big long bike rides. So this is a choice we made and is it worth it? Is selling everything we had and selling our home and getting rid of all the stuff and living way more minimally in a, in an rv. Was it worth it? Yeah. Yeah. We've seen some amazing places that and I honestly can't wait. When I see our schedule for the rest of the year, I'm thinking so much incredible stuff is ahead of us, and I think that's an amazing way to live. Is always know that there's an amazing adventure next week. Yeah. Or the next week, or the next week.

Speaker 6:

It's about incredible experiences. It's about, this lifestyle enables you to do things that you would not otherwise be able to do. If you're just going on vacation maybe a couple times a year, it just does.

Speaker 5:

Yeah. Was it a lot of sacrifice? Yeah. Yeah. Is it sometimes hassle? Yeah. I think that's what we wanna get across to you is you need to ask yourself these questions and see if you think this kind of move would be worth it to you. Maybe you're not that person and that is totally cool and weekenders. And so timers have the best times too. But full-time RV living is a lot of work. It is. Unpredictable sometimes, but it is truly amazing and we hope that our video today helps you make the right decision for you.

Speaker 14:

Thanks for tuning in to the like, there's No Tomorrow podcast. I'm Barry Nicholson, along with Darlene, and if you enjoyed this episode, please take a moment to leave us a five star review wherever you listen to podcasts. It really helps others find our show and allows us to keep creating this content. Visit like theres no tomorrow.net to join our free community and learn more about our going full-time RV course. Until next time, we encourage you to get out there and explore like there's no tomorrow.