Why I Bought an RV

As many who follow me on social media already know, I recently bought an RV and moved into it! It sounds pretty crazy, even to me, and I’ve fielded a bunch of questions so far about who/what/when/where/how, but wanted to put this together for those who might be considering doing the same thing, or who are wondering how anyone could do it at all.

I ended up in the right situation at the right time to do this. Anyone can, really, but it takes some planning and is much easier when you have less strings attached. I don’t have kids, a house/mortgage, or an office job anymore, so it just made sense to take the leap.

Here’s the rundown of my current situation and the biggest reasons why I bought an RV to live in full time!

1. Newfound Freedom (And the urge to take advantage of it)

After a few years of participating in the rat race, April was my last month at my job as VP of Operations at a marketing agency. After leaving school, moving to LA, working crappy part time jobs, becoming a social media manager at the company and then working my way up over a few years to VP of Operations, I’m now location independent and work for myself online. This is the biggest goal I’ve ever had, and I achieved it. Maybe someday I’ll get into the story of how I dropped out of college (cough.. more than once), learned about online marketing, how I was inspired by other location independent entreprenuers, and ended up here…. but that’s a story for another day.

2. A Longstanding Desire

This is something I’ve wanted to do for a long time. After I finished going to college and before I moved to LA in 2011, I seriously considered buying an RV at that time. I’m happy I waited because now I have a career and experience I can build better and better things off of, but this has been something bumping around in my head for about 6 years.

3. Questionable Rent vs Opportunity Cost

Living and working in Los Angeles, I was paying $$$ rent for a very nice apartment (my favorite ever! I was VERY sad to leave), but no longer needed to be paying that sky high rent in the area since I was no longer location dependent. I did the calculations and realized that if I budgeted, I could live and travel in an RV for 6 mos to a year and actually save thousands of dollars. In short: The RV life might be a more financially responsible choice for me! If I really budget, my living expenses can actually be about $12,000 less over the year than living in LA. I imagine I will want to splurge a bit to enjoy my newfound lifestyle, though, so I will be happy with breaking even. 🙂 But after looking at everything initially, it almost seemed financially irreponsible to stay in my expensive apartment without a solid location-specific reason, as opposed to having a great life experience for the same (or less) cost.

4. A Traveling Boyfriend & Empty Apartment

Being in the music industry, le mister travels a lot. I mean, A LOT. Tour comes often, has unpredictable timelines, and his schedule is going to be especially full this year with his new album coming out. I went into this knowing that he already wouldn’t be home most of the time. Sitting in an expensive apartment by yourself and working for yourself doesn’t really make sense if you can do your work from anywhere! He leaves for tour again in about 2 weeks and isn’t expecting to be done (for this round, at least) for 3 months.

5. Enthusiastic Support

Somewhat to my surprise, when I told le mister and le mother about my idea, both were not only supportive – they were majorly enthusiastic about the idea. What better time to live in an RV than when you’re young, can make money on the road, and have nothing serious holding you back? The second I knew they were both fully on board, I knew it was happening.

That’s the quick and dirty version of why it was so easy for me to make this decision. It’s definitely not for everyone, and I have no idea how long I’ll stick with it.. but for right now, this is where I’m at with life and I’ve never been happier! If you have more questions, feel free to ask in the comments. 🙂

Oh, and make sure to check back soon to see my solar setup, the start of my RV renovations, and what happened on the first trip!