We Finally Launched!!!

We finally did it. We launched into a new chapter of our lives as full-time RVers. We also changed our employment status to “retired” for me and “semi-retired” for Mike. It feels like the sun has set on a major chunk of our life and we are beginning a new dawn. We sold our beautiful condo in March and I retired in April.

We have planned to retire early since the beginning of our marriage. As we were preparing for our new life on the road, one thing I had to do was digitize an entire cabinet of memorabilia that we had kept over the years from events in our life (no filing cabinet in the RV). While doing that, I ran across something fun–a paper where Mike and I had written down goals for our life together only a few weeks after we got married over 30 years ago. One of those goals….RETIRE EARLY. We lived our lives to be able to do that and now it has happened. It’s a little bit surreal.

You may ask, how are you able to retire at the ripe old ages of 53 and 49? Well the answer is really what inspired me to call this blog Deliberate Lives. We deliberately planned for the future we wanted. That meant saving a large percentage of our income for our whole married life. It also meant creating and sticking to a budget each month. It meant being thrifty (frankly penny-pinchers) but still enjoying life along the way. It meant getting out of debt as quickly as possible and staying out of debt. It meant keeping life simple without a lot of encumbrances. It meant a whole series of little decisions along our journey together.  

We did not start off perfectly, but over time we figured out what worked for us. I hope to be able to inspire anyone reading to do the same. Figure out what you are devoted to and want in life, design your life to obtain that by making a plan to get there and then live that plan no matter how hard it may be or what obstacles get in your way–DO IT. You won’t know all of what you want from the start because when we are young we really have a narrow view of life and possibilities, so be adventurous. Go out and discover the world around you. Learn and experience new things. And most importantly pray about it. Seek answers from that Being who created you. He knows your potential better than you do. For us, the answer eventually led us to giving away most of our “stuff” (selling some too) and moving into a 36 foot Class A motorhome. I know–CRAZY!

When people look at you and say, “Are you crazy! You sold or gave away everything but what would fit in your RV (and a few things in family members houses–thank you very much) and are living in an RV full-time. You were a successful executive with a great job, making good money. Mike had a great job making good money. Why would you give all that up?” You need to know what your answer is to those questions or it will bother you every time they ask. For us the answer is–IT FELT RIGHT. It felt right deep in our soul. With our foundation or devotion, we feel that feeling came from God. I have heard from other who chose unconventional paths and they often say, “It just felt right.” Find what feels right for you. God will speak to you.

We could have kept working full-time from the road. After all, for a year before we pulled the trigger, we were all working remotely due to the pandemic. However, that didn’t feel right. Mike was already working part-time and my job was very demanding and I had little time or energy to do other things. My health was also declining because I just didn’t take time for myself. So another motivator was to be–TIME-RICH. I wanted to be able to choose what I did with my time, not be “punching the clock” so to speak. I wanted to be able to work on things I felt were important and not have anyone else decide for me what my precious time should be spent on. We all have only so much time to live our lives and so much energy to expend on things. After working for over 30 years, and spending between 40-80 hours a week doing what others needed or wanted me to do, I wanted to be able to choose how I spend those 40-80 hours. 

Don’t get me wrong, I loved my job! I worked for FamilySearch which is a non-profit sponsored by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. We help people discover the stories of their ancestors and we do it for free to everyone. It was awesome! The work was awesome–but more importantly the people I worked with were awesome! The bottom-line though is that I was exhausted all the time. My health was declining. I was under a lot of stress and I didn’t have enough time to do the things that were most important to me in my personal life. After giving almost 30 years to that job, it was time to do something different. 

Mike loved his job too, but less and less each year, especially during the first quarter of the heavy work weeks with taxes. For similar reasons as me, he was ready to walk away from full-time employment. We knew he had to quit in order for us to go to Alaska in 2018 (you can read about our adventures by clicking the link), so he let his boss know. Then his boss asked him if he would stay on part-time if he could work remotely. Mike decided he wanted to keep working for a while, so he still does accounting work for a few of his clients. He chooses to keep working. 

We planned to quit and go on the road in April of 2020. The world changed for everyone early that year with the COVID pandemic. We went into lock down in March, and shortly after there was an earthquake that rocked our neighborhood. 2020 was not a good year to make a major life change, so I kept working for one more year. You have to be flexible and adjust your plans sometimes. I had a moment of disappointment, but then I thought about how blessed we were to be safe, secure and just fine. 

One year later, in March 2021 we sold our condo, sold or gave away most of our possessions, and moved into the RV (we call him “Beast” and the Jeep is “Beauty”) we had purchased in 2018 and taken to Alaska in 2019. I thought about continuing to work, in fact, I had arranged it with my employer, but it just didn’t feel right. So I quit my job in April. We didn’t actually get on the road until three months later due to several set backs (future blog posts about opposition in all things) and needing to help my in-laws (my mother-in-law broke her leg and could put no weight on it). But we made it and we love it so far. 

We believe that living a deliberate life includes what we like to call the 4Ds:

DEVOTION–Figure out what you are passionate about and what is important to you and put your time and energy into it. 

DISCOVER–Don’t sit around home waiting for life to happen to you, go experience new things.

DESIGN–Make goals or objectives for your life and make a plan to make it happen.

DO–Get busy making your dreams reality.

Watch for future blog posts about the 4Ds, as well as, our adventures in this new lifestyle–the ups, the downs, the places we go, the things we do and more importantly, the people we meet. So now this blog will start to be what we wanted it to be from the beginning–a place to share what we have learned and experienced getting here, what we are learning since transitioning and hopefully inspire you to figure out how to live deliberately–to be what we like to call: 

D-Livers (Deliberate Livers or people who live deliberately).

Live life deliberately!

Diane