17. The Maintenance, Checklists, and Freedom Of Full Time RVing @TodayIsSomeday

A Travel Path Podcast

www.atravelpath.com

00:00 Introduction

03:45 How Were You Originally Funding Your Full Time Travels?

05:45 How Long Have You Been Traveling Full Time?

06:45 How Long Was Full Time Travel a Goal for You?

08:15 What Was the Biggest Obstacle Before Going Full Time?

09:45 What Are Your Purging and Downsizing Tactics?

13:15 What Are the Biggest Travel Frustrations You Currently Face?

15:45 RV Maintenance and Repairs

19:45 What Tools Should Every RV Owner Have?

21:45 What Do You Love Most About Your Travel Lifestyle?

23:15 Checklists

29:15 How Do You Get Internet While Traveling?

29:45 Past Mistakes

35:45 Charity

38:45 Coolest Travel Experience

40:15 What is One Thing You’ve Learned You Can’t Live Without?

49:45 Knowing Each Other’s Roles

It was so great having Phil and Stacy from Today is Someday on our show! Phil and Stacy have been going full time in their Class A motorhome for about 6 years. We asked them how they were able to do it and what life is like for them on the road.

They shared all about the importance of checklists and maintenance, and weren’t afraid to share the fact that they are spending more time maintaining their RV than they did on their home.

When I asked them if they were using the funds of their home sale to pay for their travels, they mentioned they hadn’t touched that. They have the foresight to know that one day they will want to hunker down in a stationary home again, so they are keeping money saved up for that.

Tune in to learn about even more!

Find Phil and Stacy At:

· https://todayissomeday.net/

· https://www.youtube.com/c/YouMetheRV

· https://www.instagram.com/todayissomeday_travel/

· https://www.facebook.com/todayissomeday

Charity:

· https://todayissomeday.net/military-charities

· https://give.ourhfotusa.org/fundraiser/3882334

Phil and Stacy’s Videos Referenced:

· Slap Wrist Checklists: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bArIvXHtDCc

· Setup and Break Down Checklist: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hUaxI5X4qHg

· 15 Purging Tips: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uCVixKTokr8&t=356s

Other YouTube Channels Referenced:

· https://www.youtube.com/@KeepYourDaydream

· https://www.youtube.com/@LessJunkMoreJourney

· https://www.youtube.com/@gonewiththewynns

· https://www.youtube.com/@Rvlove/videos

Show #6 With Jim and Michelle from Airstreamer:

· https://atravelpath.com/retired-full-time-rv-living/

Applicable Episodes:

· All About the Banks: https://atravelpath.com/retire-in-an-rv/

Most Popular Blogs:

· Most Popular Travel Hacks: https://atravelpath.com/money-saving-travel-tips/

· Travel Gear: https://atravelpath.com/travel-gear/

· How to Budget For Gas on a Road Trip: https://atravelpath.com/how-to-budget-for-gas-for-a-road-trip/

· Our Favorite RV Upgrades: https://atravelpath.com/rv-upgrades/

· How Much We Made Renting Our RV: https://atravelpath.com/renting-camper-van/

· Never Run Out of Gas on a Road Trip: https://atravelpath.com/road-trip-tip/

Music from #Uppbeat (free for Creators!): https://uppbeat.io/t/abbynoise/rocky-mountains

#fulltimerv #rvlife

*All content from atravelpath.com, including but not limited to The Travel Path Podcast and social media platforms, is designed to share general information. We are not experts and the information is not designed to serve as legal, financial, or tax advice. Always do your own research and due diligence before making a decision.

Transcript:

Tyler: Phil and Stacy, welcome to the Travel Path Podcast.

Phil and Stacy: Thanks so much for being here. Thank you for having us.

Tyler: So, we know you from YouTube as Today is Someday, where you post videos on everything from RV adventures, tutorials gears, gadget reviews. You post a lot of destination reviews, which you're not afraid to share your opinion on certain destinations. On your website, you have raised over $170,000 towards your charity, which is amazing. We're excited to dive into that later on. I do want to give a quick shout out to Jim and Michelle from Airstreamer on episode 6; they mentioned they binged your content while they were learning and leading up to their full-time travel life. But why don't we start by having you share a little about yourselves?

Phil and Stacy: Sure, you want to start? Go ahead. Okay. Honestly, our story is very similar to a lot of full-time RVers. We love to travel, and at some point, we decided to sell everything we own: our house, all of our stuff, and buy an RV to travel the country. Phil's retired Navy, and we quickly discovered when he retired that I actually saw him more when he was deployed via FaceTime than when he got home. I was working full-time as a nurse practitioner, and I was working a lot of hours. So, RVing was our way to make a change and try to get some of that time back. Yeah, and for me, that was the biggest thing. I had toured other countries, I had been on many deployments, I missed a lot of the kids growing up. So for me, jumping into this lifestyle, and we had never camped, never done any of that. So for us, it was getting that time back and taking a leap of faith at the same time.

Tyler: Okay, very cool. That answers one of my questions later on about how much experience did you have before you went full-time. So when you had sold your home to take on this full-time travel lifestyle, I imagine you had the proceeds from the sale of your home, I imagine a military pension, any other forms of income that helped support that when you started out?

Phil and Stacy: It was really just my retirement. Well, you were also a Navy contractor when we first hit the road, so he was working remotely. Now, we did not use the sale of our house to fund any of this because, one, if we hated it, we wanted an out. So, all of that we invested to buy another house in the future, and two, we knew someday that we wouldn't be living this lifestyle. So eventually, you know if it going to break enough to where we're going to have to hit a sticks and bricks. So we wanted that money there just in case. So, we used the income we had saved. We are big on not having any debt, so we didn't have any debt except for our house when we came up with this idea. So we didn't have to work really hard like some people do to get out of debt; we were already a step ahead of that. So, really, we just lived off his pension once his job or his Navy retirement once his job ended.

Yeah, and we started saving and planning and prepping, you know, probably a good few years before. We didn't know what we were planning or prepping for, but we knew we wanted to do something. So, we had already been on that track to have enough money saved to do whatever we wanted to do. And then it just kind of came to a front, and we sold it and jumped. But I definitely recommend if somebody's thinking about doing something like this, people don't realize how expensive it can be, and being out of debt and not having that pulling you down really enables you to do all the things that you want to do when you travel to new locations.

Tyler: Yeah, well, I think it's really smart of you guys to sell that and not use the proceeds, having the foresight to know that eventually, you know, this is sustainable but at some point if you want to transition back into sticks and bricks, you have that lump sum there you can put a down payment down. And you started about five years ago, right, full-time?

Phil and Stacy: Almost six. This May will be six years since we've been on the road.

Tyler: Yeah, so you're doing the remote work before co, before it was cool.

Phil and Stacy: Yeah, before it was, yeah, yeah.

Tyler: Great. So, what did your kind of day-to-day look like while you were working, and are you still working remotely full-time or part-time?

Phil and Stacy: Well, I do consider "Today is Sunday" to be full-time now. I actually spend more time on that than I did as a nurse practitioner. But the difference is I get to do it on my own time, you know, when and how much I want. So, we definitely, that's definitely a full-time job for us now. But when we first started, really, it was his Navy retirement, and we, I mean, we really had to live on a budget to make sure that we could survive out on the road. And thankfully, there are so many ways to RV; you really can RV on a tight budget, which is what we did. Yeah, and we were used to having a budget, which is key, I think. And if you can live within your existing budget when you first start, that also helps kind of jump you.

Tyler: Yeah, that's great. You had mentioned you were kind of saving up and planning preparing for something but you weren't sure exactly what it was for a number of years. How long was the time frame between when you learned that you wanted to hit the road and travel full-time and till the point that you actually started doing it?

Phil and Stacy: Initially, it was going to be four years. So, our son was graduating from high school, he was starting college, so we gave ourselves four years to really figure out what we wanted to do, what RV we wanted. Phil had just started researching RVs, and then our son decided that college was not for him. So, he quit school and he joined the Navy. And when he joined the Navy, that just boosted up our timeline. We went from four years to just over a year and a half, not quite two years, for us to really research, find an RV, and which really became Phil's full-time job for a while, and sell everything, and move in, including our house, and move into the RV.

Tyler: Great. Well, I think it helped that you were able to propel that because you were planning, preparing in advance, you already saving up and doing like I said, you were saving for something just weren't sure what it was. So during that process, the year and a half it took you to make the decision we want to go full-time, what was the biggest obstacle you had to face to get there?

Phil and Stacy: I'll let you take this, Phil. For me, I was my own obstacle because we had built, there was actually, we had built our retirement home, and you know, we were able to put in the features and design it the way we wanted to. So I was happy, I had my three-car garage, I had my man cave. But Stacy kept telling me, "It's just stuff, we can get more stuff later." So, for me, purging and getting rid of all of the things that wouldn't fit in a 300-foot box was really hard for me. The flip side of that though is we did travel and move quite a bit in the military. So, we were used to having to purge and you know, get rid of things, pack up, move to the next place. So that was, I guess, my biggest obstacle. Stacy didn't have one other than me. I was just ready to go, let's just go. She started this whole room by room purge, and it made it a lot easier for her. And I'm sure I'm speaking out of line, but it made it easier for her to purge and get to where she needed to be because she started doing it one room, you know, a closet at a time, and just built on it.

Tyler: Yeah, I think it definitely helps when you're, when you have moved around quite a bit. We're not in the military, but we move around with our rental properties pretty frequently. So when people tell us they're moving, like, it's, we've moved so many times in the past like five years, it's just, it's just easy to us for some reason. We accumulate less things. So, that's good. So, having that experience of doing that. I know you've posted videos in the past on some of your purging and downsizing tactics. Do you want to share any of those?

Phil and Stacy: I should probably take this one. Yes. So, I think some of the hardest things for people to get rid of, and Phil was this way too, are the things that you connect to people, and we connect those items to people and think that's the memory or that's a part of them. So, whether it's Grandma's antique furniture or photos that have been in a box for the last 20 years, I think some of the easiest ways to go through those and get rid of them is to actually take a picture of the item. You can create your own memory book with these items and actually talk about the memory that you have attached to that item and keep the photo and get rid of the stuff. So, you know, Grandma is not a part of that dresser, but she might be a part of the memory that you attach to the dresser, sure.

Tyler: That was a great tip. And we were watching some videos to prepare for this; you had another tip, I think, didn't you, like take your clothes and put them reverse on a coat hanger, and then like after a couple of weeks?

Phil and Stacy: Yeah, so I did that with Phil because he had like 400 t-shirts, and he kept saying, "I wear every t-shirt." And I'm like, "No, you don't." So, we take all the hangers, hang them backwards on the rod, and then as you wear them, you hang them up correctly. And then in three months or six months, you'll see exactly what shirt you're wearing, and it makes it really easy to purge. And you can do this really anytime; you'll be surprised how few items in your closet you actually wear on a daily, weekly basis.

Yeah, and come to find out, I only wore like 14 to 20 of them at any one given time. I was like, "Wow, that I mean it was kind of eye-opening for me." And then what she did, she didn't just say, "Okay, the rest have to go," she said, "Pick the ones that mean the most to you." And I had a lot of work T-shirts from being in the military; we had T-shirts that were designed by students at my last command, so I had quite a few of those. So, I took the ones that I really liked, and that meant something to me, and Stacy turned them into a quilt that we now carry with us on the RV.

Yeah, so we still have it.

Hope: Oh, that's really cool. And it's a great tip. Not even if you're not traveling, it's something you can do seasonally, every, you know, spring, fall.

Tyler: Yeah, even start a season with them facing the same way, and then at the end of the season, you'll know which ones you didn't wear.

Phil and Stacy: Yeah, we try and do that, but we're not very good at it. I mean, I just, I don't know, I get attached to things. I mean, I like my stuff. I spent good money on my stuff. And then she's over here, like, just get rid of it, we can get something else later. Like, so, but it has gotten a lot easier. We're, we're the opposite, we'll throw, I'll try and throw everything I can out as possible, and then she'll like, save some of it, and then I'll, I'll find it, and then I'll be wondering where something I threw out is, and she's like, you threw it out. I do over purge.

Yeah, that's what we call, I'm an over purger. I'm like, oh, that one thing, man, I think I got rid of it. She also was a little sneaky, and she would get rid of my stuff that she didn't like, and she would do it, you know, a little bit here, a little bit there, and I, you know, I had so many shirts and so many different things that I never even missed it. And it wasn't until she told me, you know, we were arguing about keeping something, and she, you know, would bring up, I've thrown away three things that you haven't even missed, like, I would never do that.

Hope: That's funny, good teammates then, exactly, good balance over there.

Tyler: Yeah, yeah, as we can fast forward a little bit to your current life on the road now, what are some of the biggest frustrations you currently face while traveling?

Phil and Stacy: Well, what's your biggest frustration? I think maybe everybody's frustration as RVers, I think the only thing really is just the repetitiveness of RV repair and maintenance. So when we sold our house, we really thought, okay, well, no more lawn, no more maintenance, no more repairs. And little did we know, we actually do. I say we, but I really mean Phil, does more RV repair and maintenance than he ever did on the house. So, I think really that's everybody's frustration and everyone's surprised when they move into their RV.

Yeah, it's, I mean, you have to have some kind of knowledge in being a handyman to kind of stay on top of it. I mean, these things are rolling, you know, hurricanes going down the interstate, so they're constantly shimmying, shaking, and, you know, you're hitting things on the road that jar things loose. And I'm not talking just nuts and bolts, I'm talking wiring, you know, electrical connections, things like that. So, I mean, it's a little different for every type of RV, but for us, you know, we will stay on top of it, and as long as we do that, she'll continue to take care of us. Along with that, I think our other biggest issue would be just agreeing on where to stay sometimes.

Well, the easiest way is just not to let him look, because, yeah, Phil is the spender, I'm the saver. So, I like to balance the budget, so sometimes we'll stay at expensive places, but then we have to cut back and balance it all out. So, we'll stay at somewhere inexpensive. Phil would be okay staying at the expensive places all the time.

Well, not the, like, super expensive, but just nicer.

Tyler: Yeah, yeah, that's funny. I've learned to kind of just take the back seat with planning and just drive the car, drive the van, that's it.

Phil and Stacy: Well, I do, I agree with you, I'm just the driver. And it's not until we get there that I'm like, really? She's like, yeah. And I'm like, okay.

Tyler: So, you bring up a good point about the maintenance with RVs, and it doesn't really, it doesn't matter if it's brand new or used. We bought a brand new RV, and like you said, it's bumping down the road. We have a wire that came loose that's tripping an outlet, and we've tried, we've hired RV techs trying to find where that short is, and you can't find it. So, there's all sorts of, just be prepared for the maintenance and, you know, all that that comes along with the one RV. Have you found, like, a certain number of days or even, like, a price point that you're spending per month or so on repairs and maintenance?

Phil and Stacy: Oh, um, I don't know if we've looked at it that way because it definitely goes, it ebs and flows. I think our other, other than regular diesel maintenance, which is according to the miles, we had one huge cost recently. Um, as we left, um, Newland, you want to tell them about that?

Most of our, our maintenance is or repair work is, is usually done annually. So, little things I stay on top of, and they're not, you know, it's not a huge out-of-pocket card because I already have some of the equipment or I have parts on hand if I need to replace something. So, that, to put a dollar amount to it, I really can't say. Um, it's just like, you know, at your house, you have things in the garage, and, you know, you have extra filters and extra whatever, so you just swap them out. But our annual maintenance, I would say, for our diesel pusher that we have, um, anywhere from 2,000 to 2,500 for the year. And that's the engine, the chassis, the generator, all the big-ticket items that are required, um, to be done annually. And then, our big, um, oh, and then the issue that we had coming out of Maine. So, um, I don't know if it was the roads we were on or what, but we had a, a super expensive manifold exhaust leak on our engine, and we were, we were losing boost pressure, you know, we were almost rolling backwards going up the mountainside in Newland. Pretty scary when you don't really know what it is, and I'm not an engine guy. So, we, we limped into the Freightliner of Maine once we got back to the US, and they discovered what it was, they got us in and out in like five days, which was pretty good, they did amazing. Um, and that one was dang near a $7,000 repair. Um, however, we were prepared for any kind of major event, so we had a specific, uh, repair fund set aside, and that we just, you know, ever since we, even before we started, we just, we started putting money into this, this fund. So, we called it either the repair, the emergency fund, yeah, it's the repair fund, um, so that we have it in case something like this came up, and it did. And a retire fund, yeah, because tires cost so much for these things, so we just, that's what we use, we, we, we started with different, you know, funds that we started doing, putting a little bit of money into all these different places because we knew eventually we would need to, you know, something is going to jump up and bite us, and that was our big one, and that's, and that's pretty much it in six years. I mean, other, other than that, it's been just normal and normal things that that Stacy can tackle up on the roof herself, sometimes.

Tyler: That's interesting. So, you guys not only have like a repair fund set aside, which is smart in the first place, but you also, you go one step further and have like a tire fund or an emergency fund on top of that. So, you even, you kind of further layer that. That's brilliant.

Phil and Stacy: Yeah, well, and it's because, you know, we could have just one emergency repair fund or one emergency fund, right? But then you take for granted, oh, I've got enough in that one, right? So, then now we started another one, so we make sure that we have enough in that one.

Tyler: Yeah, no, it's great. Everything with you guys is calculated, and there's a reason for everything. I like that.

Phil and Stacy: It was by accident.

Tyler: So, we talked about some of the, you know, the frustrations, the downsides of full-time RV travel. Let's transition a little bit to some of the positive. So, what do you love most about this lifestyle?

Phil and Stacy: The freedom. There's so much, yeah, it's the freedom to, to go and do what you want to do when you want to do it, on our time. Um, for me, that's, that's the most rewarding because for almost 30 years, I was told what to where, I was told where to go, I was told when I could go home. So, you know, flipping that, that switch to now being free to move about the country whenever we want, or I should say the world, it's amazing. And I think for me, what we've discovered, and we used to hear people say this, and we didn't get it until we went full-time, and that's the community. I think once you start meeting the people, and you really make connections with RVers, other RVers on the road, you'll realize that the RV community is pretty darn amazing.

Yeah, so I think for, for us, finding that and, you know, meeting our people out on the road, it's so different than any community we've ever been a part of. So, I, I think for, for me, that's pretty high on the list. And you get to meet them and run into them all over the country, you know, so you may meet them at one specific place, and then everybody goes their own way, but you're all crossing paths, even those that are not full-timers like us, they still get out, they still, you know, we're in their neck of the woods, and they're like, hey, you got to come over, we've got this great ice cream spot we want to take you to.

Tyler: Yeah, no, it has been great. And like, even like, every person we talked to on the podcast, like now we have people, every episode, there's some other place when we're traveling, they're like, oh, next time you're out, you know, give us a shout, we'll grab lunch or something.

Yeah, it's been great. Um, yeah, you, you talk about on your channel quite a bit about preparation and checklists. Not just your channel, you talked about it a lot in this podcast as well. What are some things every RVer should do before they hit the road?

Phil and Stacy: Definitely have a checklist, yeah, um, and your checklist is going to be everything you do when you go to break down and pack up to hit the road. Um, most accidents and injury can happen at set up and breakdown if people aren't paying attention if they miss something. So, having that list and not getting distracted when you're going down the list, um, talking to your neighbor is really important, and I think it keeps you on track, and you know, it keeps you from busting your satellite or, um, the awning being out, which we just saw, we just saw nobody leaving the campground with their awning open. Or even a big mistake that we made early on is, well, we've made a few, but Phil forgot to put the pen in our dolly, so we're driving down the road, and the dolly's like dragging.

Yeah, so I mean, you can make so many mistakes, and you just, one little blip where you lose track of what you're doing, you can, you can make a major mistake.

And you know what, I tell people all the time is, with having a checklist, the minute you get interrupted, whether it's on, you know, your spouse or your significant other calls you in for something, or somebody outside comes over and wants to say, hey, and, and talk to you, soon as you're done with whatever that interaction is, go back to step one, because inevitably, you know, we're all human, we figured, oh, I've already done that, or I think I'm here, and then you'll miss a step or two, and then that's when catastrophe strikes. So, for us, is have that, go back to it, um, and if you're in doubt, just start all over, you know. But having that checklist before you hit the road is, for us, is it's been huge, and we've been doing almost six years, and we still pull out that checklist, and we use it every time before we drive away.

Tyler: Yeah, and we, and it sounds like you guys are, you're physically getting out, you're walking around your RV. We know people that do that as well, um, but what are some of the big ones, people, like, are you checking your tires, you're making sure everything's retracted?

Phil and Stacy: The big thing is, is our tires are, um, TPMS, TPMS, and make sure we're aired up properly, um, and that's not only for safety, but it's for, for fuel consumption. Um, we always do a final, one of us will always do a final walk around, and we always check our lights. I don't know how many people, if they check their lights to make sure, because we have a toad, we want to make sure the lights are hooked up properly, we have brakes, we have blinkers, so the people behind us, um, can, you know, see where we're going and what we're doing. So, we've, we've gone and stepped completely behind the Jeep as it's attached to the RV, and we've gone further back from it to physically, physically see that, or make sure that we can see our brake lights right from cars behind us coming up on us, um, and I use the checklist for unhooking and hooking up the Jeep, we both do. We pull it out of the console, and we go by it step by step. We've been doing this for five years, and there's only, you know, a handful of steps to do on that Jeep. But if you miss one of them on your Jeep, you're going to drag your tires, you're going to have, you're going to have the parking brake on, whatever it is. So, we go through that checklist, and the last thing we do is we make sure that all four of the Jeep tires are rolling freely. So, we don't just check one side of the Jeep to see that the tires are rolling, we check both sides, um, to make sure. And that's just kind of our final check before we get in, put the seat belts on, and, and hit the road.

Tyler: Can you explain the slap wrist bracelets?

Phil and Stacy: So, we didn't actually invent this, we, there's another couple we saw using them, and it's really great for all dribbles. Um, instead of having a physical paper or a physical list, we just take those '80s old-school slap wrist bracelets, we got a Sharpie, and we put all of our checklist on the bracelets, and then we just smack them onto our steering wheels so we know all the things that we need to do before we hit the road. And you can just pull them off your steering wheel one by one as you complete it, and that way you know if you go to drive away and something's still in that steering wheel that you forgot to do something on your checklist.

Tyler: Yeah, that's brilliant. It's something so simple.

Phil and Stacy: And so many people have said, "That's brilliant." We can't take, you know, credit for it, but we love it because it's, you know, you could take them while you're walking around outside, doing your, if you're by yourself. So you have a handful of them and as you're doing whatever outside, just smack it on your arm and you're good to go. You know you've done it.

Tyler: Yeah, yeah. No, it's simple, it's effective, and unlike an iPad, if you have a list on an iPad, the battery's not going to die. You're always going to have that there.

Phil and Stacy And we've marked through them, we've added new stuff as our situations changed, as we've gotten, you know, upgrades and done different things to the RV. So, you know, your checklist is not going to be set in stone once you start. You will evolve and change and add stuff on like, you know, you forget something a couple of times in a row, and you're like, "Oh, I better add this to the checklist," or you, you know, like we changed our satellite or whatever. So just remember you can change it as you go along and definitely keep it up to date as your RV Life Changes.

Tyler: Yeah, no, it's important. And like you said, you guys are still doing it now, but I think it's even more important starting out because when everything is new to you, you can get nervous. Once you get nervous, it's hard to think, and that's when you can easily forget something.

Phil and Stacy: And another great benefit of having that is Stacy's had to do everything by herself. So, like, normally I will do everything outside, she'll do everything inside. So the one time that I couldn't do anything, she had to do it, the entire checklist was right there. All those slappers' bracelets were there for her to use and to go through, and she knocked it out of the park with that.

Tyler: Yeah, that's great. How are you getting internet when you're traveling?

Phil and Stacy: We have a Peplink modem router, and we use a T-Mobile SIM card for that. And that's our main internet means of getting internet into the RV. And of course, like many RVers, we have Starlink as our backup.

Tyler: Great. Do you want to share any mistakes that you or anybody you know have made in the past that could potentially help a listener?

Phil and Stacy: Plenty of mistakes in the very beginning. Our biggest one that still, to this day, I don't know how we didn't damage something. We actually moved the RV while we were still plugged into the pedestal. Oh, wow. So, yes, we got really lucky. We were, and of course, it seemed like every time we got underway in the beginning or loaded the car on the dolly, it was raining. So I was in a hurry to get the dolly connected to the RV, and it was pouring down rain. So I'm out there soaking wet, and I finally got the dolly to where I could hook it up, and I told Stacy to move the rig forward, not realizing that now I'd already tripped the breaker, and why, I don't know. Normally, when I trip the breaker, I pull the power cord. It's two steps, trip, pull it. That day, I tripped it, and I didn't pull it. So, in my mind, we're good, and I told Stacy to go ahead and move forward. I came around from the passenger side to the driver's side, and there's my entire power cord laying out with our surge protector still connected to it, laying... I mean, just straight as it could be on the ground. And I quickly looked over at the pedestal to make sure it was still upright, and it was fine, the cord was fine, the pedestal was fine, both of our hearts were in our throats. I mean, it really scared us.

Yeah, I mean, we could have ripped out the pedestal. That would have been major money to repair. We've seen instances where people have actually ripped the plug off their power cord, so then they have to get that repaired. So we really dodged a bullet on that one. But then again, that's how mistakes happen when you're in a hurry, you're not following your normal routine. And that's why those checklists are so important. If he had the checklist out there that day, he would have known that he didn't follow through on what he normally does. And the slap wrist is waterproof, so there's no excuse. I should have had it with me.

Tyler: That is true, very true. I was going to say, was that the day that your checklist was born when that happened, or was that just not on there?

Phil and Stacy: Yeah, we already had it, but I think we added to it that. Yeah, really. And this was like really early. We weren't even full-time yet. We still had a house we were just visiting. We were doing some shakedown trips. So it really honed in and made us realize how important those checklists were.

Tyler: Yeah, it is, yeah. Oh, it is, yeah. Um, well, thank you for sharing that. Appreciate that.

Phil and Stacy: And yeah, you can find all kinds of mistakes on our Channel. We're not scared. Well, we did the dolly. Um, let's see, what else did we do? What other big mistakes did we make? We're happy to have other people learn from us because, honestly, that's the whole point in sharing some of our content is because when we discover new things that either we've been doing wrong or new ways to do things, that's what we like to share, because, you know, that's the stuff that's of most benefit to our community here.

Here's something that we do because we got burned by it one time, not literally burned, but it was a bad deal, and nobody had ever mentioned this when we were doing our research, and that's getting into a site and before you do anything in your site, check the pedestal, make sure you have good power. So normally, we had been doing it that way, and we had been boondocking for a while, so we hadn't been plugging into anything. So we get into this nice State Park, we get level, we open everything up, I go to plug in to the pedestal, and the pedestal is bad, no power. And we had already, we're all open, we had everything open, and normally, I would plug in my surge protector and let it do a diagnostic check on the pedestal. And that day, we didn't do it, you know, so that was another one of our mistakes. It was like, okay, from now on, doesn't matter. This is what we're doing first. And it didn't cost us anything, it didn't hurt anything other than time. So we just had to close back up, we had to readjust the rig, we actually stole power from a pedestal next door empty pedestal until the state park could come out and repair. But you know, it's just one of those steps that it just reinforces, is following through.

Tyler: And of course, of course, it was the one time where you didn't do it first. That's how it always works.

Phil and Stacy: Always. That's when it's not gonna work. It's, it's like it's like pulling when you hook up your sewer hose. You don't just open up your black tank and let it flow, you open up the gray tank to make sure you have a good connection. Ask us how we know. You know, I mean, it's those kind of mistakes that people don't think about, um, that jump out and they, they bite you right in the tail. I forgot, I fell out of the RV. A lot of people fall out of the RV. I fell out of the RV because when the rig is running, you open when the rig is running, the steps are retracted. So when you open the door, the steps come out. Well, you have to wait a few seconds for the steps to come out. Well, I got impatient. I, well, I didn't get impatient, I just opened the door and did not stick The Landing, I can tell you that learning experience, right?

Hope: Yeah, Tyler did something similar.

Tyler: I did?

Hope: yeah, when you fell, when we were winterizing.

Tyler: Oh, yeah.

Hope: Ours were old school, so they didn't Auto, oh my gosh, because we were winterizing, and he forgot the step was half retracted and it slid out and I went down.

Tyler: And it was one of those and knocked the wind out of me. I was trying to say I was okay, but I was like, I couldn't even talk,

Phil and Stacy: Oh my gosh, yeah, you just never know for sure. No. And we've, in fact, somebody in our community, our crew, he just broke his leg. He's a solo guy, and he fell out of his rig, and we've heard that from a lot of people and broke his leg. So now he's sitting for six months. Well, the one, our one crew, she had to have surgery after she fell. It's crazy. You just never know.

Tyler: That's true. That's true. That's why you need to just take your time and not be in a hurry. Yep, easier said than done. It is, yes, it is very true. Do you want to share a little bit about your charity?

Phil and Stacy: Oh, sure. So we actually don't have our own personal charity, but there are several veterans charities that we've rallied around. The biggest one is homes for our troops, and they actually build custom homes for service members with severe injuries. These homes are amazing. So it is totally free for the veteran, and it's one of the biggest charities that we've rallied around and where we've raised the most money. But we're up to over $170,000 now. We're working on 200,000. But we've done all kinds of crazy things to raise money, from dunk Booth to we did a pie in the face, we did auctions and raffles and all kinds of stuff. So it's been really amazing to see the RV community rally around us and really dig deep to donate to these veteran charities. So it means the world to us, and it's not us that's doing it. It's the RV community that's doing it. That's the important thing. We're just two people with a voice using our platform to help, you know, help veterans. And being that we were in the military for so long and connected to it, it hits home with us. So we, you know, if the channel dissolved tomorrow, we would still do whatever we could to help, that's how, that's how much it means to us.

Tyler: Yeah, no, it's great you guys are doing that. And I know people can help by purchasing t-shirts, right? And I guess this is, if you're watching on YouTube, we'll do our big reveal. We're wearing our, uh, today is someday t-shirts right here. How does that work?

Phil and Stacy: So if somebody orders a shirt, there's proceeds that go towards your charity, right, or the charities, right? Anything from our veteran line, we have veteran cups and t-shirts and hats. Anything from the veteran line, all the proceeds will go toward homes for our troops. So about every quarter, we get a statement from our, um, the company who runs our store, and we just go straight off the list, and we donate it over to homes for our troops. So it's been, it's been really great, a nice easy way for us to raise money. The other really simple way is our crew. We have a membership and a big portion of our membership funds that we raise also go over to homes for our troops. So it's, it's really rewarding.

Tyler: That's great. And it's amazing you're were able to raise that much money in just this, you know, five to six-year period. That's incredible.

Phil and Stacy: Yeah, it is. It's very incredible. We are loving it, and

Tyler: We'll put a link in the show notes for the links to the charities, your website, everything people need to know to, um, to donate there.

Hope: Um, what has been your coolest travel experience so far?

Phil and Stacy: Oh, the coolest. It's always hard when people ask those questions because, you know, you go to so many different locations, and you like different locations for different reasons. So I do have to say, Yosemite is one of our favorite places. We were at a National Forest campground just outside Yosemite, and that's where our jeep was broken into by a bear. So it was the most very first night momentous, and the one of the most beautiful places we've stayed, yeah, that one was really cool. It's the bear break game, but my one, my other one would be Creed, Colorado. We Boondock on top of a mountain U there in Creed for a week, uh, with a couple of our friends, and it was absolutely breathtaking up there and so peaceful, yeah, unhooked all of us on our own power, everything. I mean, it was just to wake up and see the sun peeking over the mountains every morning. I mean, if you haven't experienced that, you got to get out, go find the mountains and check it out. It's amazing.

It's, yeah, the, and the towns around there are just, you know, very nice, quaint, quiet little, just, yeah. And I grew up in Colorado, my, in my teen years, and I didn't, um, I didn't appreciate what Colorado had to offer as a teenager. And now that I've gone back home, it's like, man, this is, I mean, it truly is a gorgeous place to visit.

Tyler: Yeah, wow. So after spending just about 5 years traveling, what's one thing you learned you can't live without?

Phil and Stacy: Oh, wow, that'd be for you, because I could probably live without everything. No internet, I would say internet. I think this day and age, it's got to be internet. Um, because, um, you know, you hear the stories where you pull into a campground and they have camp Wi-Fi or park Wi-Fi, we would, we would, we would be kicked out because of the amount of bandwidth that we use. Um, but we have having our own internet, um, system with us. So we could pull in anywhere, for the most part, and our internet works perfectly fine for us. And it's not just for our channel, it's also for our family staying connected to our kids and our grandkids. That's how, I mean, that's how we communicate with them. And even though we're far apart, we always feel connected because, I mean, I talk to my daughter several times a day, even when, even when I don't want to, she's always FaceTiming me, um, and then my son too. So I think staying connected, um, that's the number one way. Yeah, everything else, I mean, the, you know, we have a lot of safety features that um, that we've added to the rig that, you know, we absolutely stand behind and it would not drive down the road without them. Our TPMS being one of them, um, but yeah, other than that, I think, you know, most rvers have the same type of stuff, um, you know, they got into this lifestyle because they wanted less stuff and more freedom, yeah. So for us, we don't have a lot of stuff, but we have everything we need. Like if we were in our house, just on a smaller scale, sure.

Tyler: So the internet, and then maybe the TPM, TPMS that reads the tire pressure when you're driving, right?

Phil and Stacy: Yep, okay, pressure and temperature, yeah.

Tyler: We might end up changing that question to besides internet, what can't you live without. I think like the past four episodes, it's been internet, which we agree with.

Phil and Stacy: Yeah, especially if you're doing this full-time vlogging, doing a blog and a website, you, you inter, we started out with all the things we thought we needed, you know, an outdoor carpet, you know, big comfortable chairs to sit outside, but we found those things just took up space and we weren't utilizing them, yeah, everywhere we went to. Um, so we, you know, we purged again. And so we went to smaller chairs, a little more compact, um, we have a barbecue, or we have a Blackstone, wait, we don't, we, it's not seen the sunlight in almost two years, I think. It's, it's funny how you think you need stuff and then you shortly find out that not there's very few things that you truly need, yeah, we we did a video a couple years ago. We were camping with my mom in Upstate New York. And we were in the site right next to hers. And they have a, you know, bumper pool, uh, travel trailer, and it took them two days to set up their camp. They're not full-time, they're part-time, they're just weekenders. Took them two days to set up camp, and we were right next to them and we showed, you know, a shot of our campsite had two chairs outside and that we drug them over to her campsite. We go over to her campsite, and she's got everything out, you name it, she had it out, um, so I mean, you could walk through a campground and you can really spot full-timers and weekenders, you know, because they're coming out play, you know, they're coming out to play for the weekend and pack it all in with the kids or whatnot, and full-timers are just kind of there, you know, they're, they're out in town, they're hiking, they're seeing thing, um, so it's just, it's for us, that's, you know, we thought we needed that stuff, and come to find out we didn't need it after all, yeah.

Tyler: It is interesting we had one neighbor, they took like a week to set up, it was the most insane, and then they were gone, they took like seven days to set up, and they left, it was like the craziest thing, they get it just right and then it's Sunday, yep, and then time to go. They didn't even enjoy it.

Phil and Stacy: I never saw them sit down outside on the chairs they put out. They were setting up all day and next thing you know, we've seen that where people have come in and, you know, they've got the kids are running around riding bikes and doing kid things, which is cool, and mom and dad never got to relax because it was setting up the whole time, yep, yeah, you can make it very simple as long as you try to don't over complicate it, I think is the biggest thing.

Tyler: I know I mentioned before like the most popular answer has been internet and I think the connection I just made was it's been internet for people who are traveling in larger class A's or fifth wheels where they have more things but when we talk to like van lifers or people who aren't traveling in a larger motor home they tend to have more because they're they're getting rid of more things to make room for their smaller living space so maybe that's the connection um and like I said too yeah we definitely could not get away with doing this on campground Wi-Fi there's no chance.

Phil and Stacy: No, and you know for us, most things that come in the RV have to have a dual purpose whenever possible. Yeah, you have to have so we can see van lifers have to have, you know, if they have a slotted spoon, that thing is for 18 different things, not just, you know, you know what I mean. So, for us, when we were thinking of things to bring into the rig, a lot of them had to have multiple uses because you didn't need for the same thing to do the same thing, yeah.

Tyler: If you could have listened to this podcast when you first started out, what is one question we didn't ask tonight that you wished we had, and how would you answer that now?

Phil and Stacy: It's really hard because we're looking back over six years and this is honestly, we've been doing it so long, it's just a way of life now. It's all we know and it's hard to remember the beginning. Um, I think a couple of those things that I mentioned earlier, checking the pedestal, checking the sewer hose connection because, you know, those could be maybe just the safety, more safy... Well, I knew even before we had our RV, I knew I needed a TPMS system, I knew I needed a surge protector, so I had those two things before I even had my RV, before I even knew what RV I was going to get, I knew I had to have those because, you know, being in the military for so long, safety on a ship was in the front of your face every single day, so we were prepared, safety-wise, yeah.

I don't know. I don't, that's a really hard question because there's so much to learn when you first hit the road, like you're being fed to a fire hose, yeah. And the biggest thing though is, is, you know, we were just talking about it how people, you know, they get to a campground and they're setting everything up and they, you know, they're packing everything in in three hours. For us, we were trying to do a little bit of that in the beginning, we were move, move, move, trying to go, go, go and we didn't need to, you know, because we're full-time, we were doing this on our own terms. In fact, every single time we were to leave one spot and go to another spot, whether it was three hours down the road or six hours, which we don't do anymore, I told Stacy we got to go to the grocery store, you know, we, we got to pack up, we're going camping, we have to go to the store and she was like, we don't have to, we can go get it when we're there. So, it was a mindset change that we had to go through, um, and the first six months, we, we called it the RV and then shortly around the six month mark, we, we stopped calling it the RV and started calling it home.

Hope: But I think those are some really good points that you brought up, especially the if you're going to go full-time, it's no longer your RV, it's your home.

Phil and Stacy: Yeah, yeah, for sure. I think just the mindset shift is something you have to work towards as you start and you don't have to, you don't have to go, go, go, you know, you can go to a spot, our sweet spots around seven to ten days, um, in one spot and that's enough time to get out, see it, see, you know, make sure we've, you know, punched the right boxes, um, but it's enough that we say, you know what, we liked it so much we can come back, we don't need to cram everything in because we're free to move about the country, sure.

Tyler: And for somebody listening to this podcast right now who wants to set up a lifestyle similar to yours but isn't there yet, what is one thing they can start doing today?

Phil and Stacy: Um, I think there are a couple things they can start doing today, um, it to work toward the goal of full-time RV life and first is, you know, do your homework, do your research, you know, what's your goals, what kind of RV are you going to need based on your needs, are you going to work from home, do you have kids, you know, kind of start your research for that and then the next thing I would suggest is, um, get out of debt. If you're in debt, that is the best way to enable you to have the experiences you want to have on the road, so, um, obviously the less money you're spending on bills, the more money you have to go play for tickets or whatever activities, so experiences, yeah. Um, I know not everybody has the same opinion of me as far as being debt-free but that is definitely my number one and then probably the last thing and we actually have a video on this and that is before you sell everything you own and your house, make sure you have an Exit Plan so if something happened to you tomorrow and your health failed, what are you going to do if you can no longer RV, do you have an Escape Route, you need to be able to know what you're going to do, are you going to move into an apartment, are you going to get a house, are you moving in with family because emergencies happen on the road all the time, we've seen it, we've seen the death of a partner, we've seen where people physically have an injury or a stroke or so many things and they cannot RV so make sure you are prepared for that next step and you don't trap yourself to where you don't know what you're going to do, yeah, yeah, very good point.

Hope: Now speaking of what you just said, like the death of your partner, right, so does that mean both of you should equally know how to hook up that camper and drive away?

Phil and Stacy: Yes, 100% because, you know, I something could happen to me, I'm, I drive this thing 24/7, um, Stacy knows how to, I have driven it, yeah, in the event that she had to for whatever reason, um, but it is good to know each other's roles, she can do, Stacy can do everything on this RV by herself and she's done it, had to do it, um, she's done it on video so there's proof, it was actually in the hospital, um, a couple years ago, um, he had surgery and we had to move SES, um, so he, it was during covid, I couldn't even be at the hospital so I literally packed up the RV, got in it, moved to the next site, um, it's got us all set up, um, I mean I didn't have to drive it that far but I was able to close everything up, shut it down, move it, and then open everything back up again to include hooking up the Jeep, I mean she knows how to do all of that, it's our setup for the Jeep is super easy, it's five minutes each way, yeah, um, but that, you know, and we've been in places and we've known people or met people on the road that, you know, the husband did all the work, did everything and when he wasn't there, they were stranded, yeah, she did not know what to do, no means to get anywhere, um, but the good thing about the community is they rallied around her and they got her the help she needed but um, it is imperative that you know each other's roles and we've practiced like we switch jobs where I'll do all the outside, we do it as a refresher, um, I, I actually put on video where I was hooking up the Jeep and those stupid toe arms were kicking my tail because they were so tight but um, but we do know how to do it, we do switch off, um, every quarter every six months or so.

Tyler: Yeah, really good advice, yeah, you guys could teach a course like it's been, there's been so much new material and new ideas, New Concepts in this podcast our audience is going to find it really valuable thank you for sharing everything and um, were there any when you were starting out and even to the state were there any YouTube channels that helped inspire you or either even books or other influences that helped inspire you to travel?

Phil and Stacy: Well there were quite a few out when we started there were like four main ones cuz um um we we've been around for a minute but our main ones that we watched was um kyd less jum more Journey the wind gone with the winds and they were when they were still rving not in their boat and then the biggest influence on us is RV love and the reason is because I was trying to convince Phil that we could do it and he was working remotely for the Navy and he was like no I have this job how am I going to work on the road and at the time Mark was working in his office was this closet he turned into his office in his RV took the bunks out and turned it into like look Mark is doing it they're traveling and they're going all over the country and he works a nin to5 he has to clock in and literally clock out and if he can do it you can do it remotely where you know he Phil's job enabled him as long as he put in his eight hours he could do it how and whenever he wanted to do it so um they really proved to him thanks to Mark um they proved that we could could actually do it and that was really what launched us.

Tyler: Yeah that's great yeah YouTube University can be quite convincing.

Phil and Stacy: Yeah it I made it my my part-time part-time job um because I was working from home I had the time to you know scour the interwebs looking for different RVs because we didn't know what we didn't know about rving um so we would start you know we started doing our homework then and and then it got to a point where we weren't allowed to watch those YouTube channels unless we are both there to watch them together because we got that you know ingrained into what you know their videos what they were saying how they were doing things um so they they are the ones that really you know indoctrinated.

Tyler: We'll put a link in the show notes for all the channels and links we talked about in today's show uh one last question for travel tips part two you guys are coming back on just so we don't leave our audience in too much suspense where are we talking about next time?

Phil and Stacy: We are talking about Newfoundland.

Tyler: All right perfect and one last question Phil and Stacy where can our audience find out more about you guys?

Phil and Stacy: You can find us at uh todayissomeday.net with our website and our blogs and then of course our YouTube channel Todayissomeday.

Tyler: Awesome thanks again guys

Phil and Stacy: Thank you, thanks.