Financial guru Dave Ramsey offers advice to man who calls into his radio show to ask if it makes sense for him to sell his home and travel full-time with this wife and children in an RV. Dave is, shall we say, less than enthusiastic, and explains why.
##RVDT1428
Keeping stix and bricks gives you best of both worlds. When you get rid of everything you are very limited to your activities. At home, we have a boat, hunt, fish (no out-of- state license fees), access to medical and vet care, active clubhouse with every activity. For us, it’s a Recreational Vehicle, not a house.
Totally agree with Dave. I constantly hear people on camping and boondocking you tube sites telling everyone to sell their “Brix-N-Stix” , get a van and go live on BLM land for free, a guy named Bob Wells is the worst. “Brix-N-Stix” “Brix-N-Stix”, must have heard it a hundred times, as if having a nice home for your family is a bad thing. After the novelty is over, “”3 days max””, they are going to be miserable, plus my experience with RV’s is that they are to be used 3/4 times first year then stored dwindling down to one trip a year and in 10 years, they sit. The average RV cant take the abuse of 365 day living, OK stop, yes, yours can. I had several neighbors live in RV’s during post Harvey repairs , they were so happy to get back in their homes,, sorry “Brix-N-Stix” . And they didn’t even touch base on the price of RV parks, my god, get an apartment if your going to go on the road for months at a time. I love RV’ing on my terms, to travel into the wilderness.
I thought it was interesting that he didn’t mention schooling for the kids, or if they had considered what kids and wife would do while he was at work each day with their only vehicle. I agree with his 6 month wait before implementing the plan, but I would base that on being sure the new job is right for him and his new employer. I think Dave is out of touch on the number of transient workers residing in campgrounds while working at their current assignment. And he is under estimating the strain that will be put on his wife assuming the majority of the parenting duties. I’ve been the wife of a traveler with only two kids. It’s hard, really hard if those kids are anywhere near their teenage years. That’s a challenge for a two parent household.
I completely agree with Dave. The guy is in a crisis – in serious debt, losing his business and home while taking on a brand new job that will have him running up and down the east coast on the employer’s schedule. Cutting his debt is a great step. Jumping into RV’ing with 3 kids and a wife as another step in this emergency is asking for trouble. What happens when that new “home” of theirs breaks down and cannot be moved to the next job because the RV dealers can’t even get them an appointment for two months. He’s in construction so he’s probably handy. What’s for sure though is that, with the magnificent build quality we see in RVs these days, it will break. Then they end up renting a house or apartment for the family anyway. In addition, the economy is anything but certain and so is his new job. They could load up with a ton of new debt on the new truck that will pull that new fifth wheel, and have to unload it at a huge loss if his job falls through. Recipe for disaster.
Interesting call, I and my wife were thinking about semi-retiring and traveling in our 5th wheel. As we have all read over the last couple of years the availability of places to park an RV has become tougher and the site costs are rising. Chuck has shown many pictures of campgrounds where the trailers are cramped in like sardines. If I was this fellow I would look for ways to bring in income from his current home to pay down his debt. Real estate value’s, in the long run, are going to keep rising. Like Dave said RV’s and Trucks lose their value very quickly. You have to avoid owning highly depreciating assets in life.
I think Dave’s focus is staying out of debt and minimizing the change for the family, which is good advice. The caller’s new job sounds like he could be moving from coast to coast between jobs, which is an awful long way to pull a 5th wheel and a family over the weekend, or even a week, between jobs when his employer probably wants him there yesterday.
The man said he would be working between Washington (assuming) DC and FL.
Why do you assume DC? I assumed State of Washington.
Dave is bang on to me,some folk can make good callsoutside looking in,great advice.
We have 3 children because we got to an age where we could not have more before we did have a fourth.
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I think Dave doesn’t really know about or appreciate the possibilities here. A per diem allowance basically pays for rv park rent. That’s free rent. Keeps the family together, kids benefit from travel a lot. There are very good on-the-road homeschooling programs as well as a vibrant fulltime homeschooling community. One can always find church if one looks.
The main difficulty would be going into debt for a trailer and truck, but a used truck and fifth wheel could be possible for less. Sounds like an improvement over what’s going on now. Certainly, if wife and kids are adamant about not doing it, that would be different. Basically Dave’s asking this guy to spend more on rent and be away from his family for weeks or constantly fly/drive back and forth. That’s a recipe fir stress-induced illness.
Off topic here, but I’ve always wondered why so many people insist on having three kids? I see this all the time and wonder why? Sure seems like two would be easier, money and management-wise. Plus, no one has to be the “middle child”. I have no kids, so of course know next to nothing about it. But I’ve always wondered. Can anyone explain?
I have 3 children and am very glad and proud of each of them. We wanted children, so our first , a beautiful girl, four years later we decided to try and have another child. We did and by the grace of all things holy we had twins, more girls! So as you can see sometimes blessing come a pair at a time.
In my case I had two by my first wife, after a divorce in which I had custody of my boy and girl I remarried a wonderful loving woman who adored my children but something was missing. She wanted one of her own, the first number was six. After birthing a 10lb8oz boy she was satisfied with just one.
Was we married to the same woman? My story exactly, her name was Brenda, she’s gone now God rest her soul.
I’m very happy for those that have two, three even more children. As humans we attempt to control and improve our lives which in many ways goes against nature (medicine, vaccines, extreme life-saving surgeries, etc). In doing so, the world has become overpopulated and is having a negative affect seen by climate change, deforestation, expansion of housing and we are literally crowding out many species even to extinction. It’s time for future generations to reconsider having children and in many cases limiting it to maybe just one.
Please, we are not here to be political. I feel your comment is that: political.
China did that several years ago, now they are reaping what they sowed in the fact that in their quest to become a world power they are short on available personnel for their military which personally I find beneficial for their enemies but not for them.
I’m thankful that you didn’t have children, there’s enough people in the world who think the same as you. Children are a gift from God. I won’t assume what your beliefs are, and I respect your beliefs, but don’t expect everyone to live by your beliefs.