Just two days ago. So we're going to do things a little different today.
The time is actually flying by. And we do appreciate the. Money that we could have saved.
Just plain wrong. We like use two. Upload and download. One of the other things
we've learned with our busy lifestyle is. Don't use that. If you're not retired and
you still work full-time. Never failed, every single time. Vinny was our first.
I'm not a jeans guy, but it's cold. Would you believe it was 88 degrees just two days ago? 54 today,
feels like 47. Yay! So today we're going to take you along with us and uh we're going to talk
about our two-year rv... anniversary... our-verse... our RVersary! And uh, we're gonna do that just
as soon as somebody... Almost ready! So we're gonna do things a little different today instead of
sitting on the couch or standing in front of the refrigerator, we're gonna take you along during everything
we do today and we're gonna discuss a few of the lessons learned along the way. I think I'm ready.
Uh, you're changing your shoes right honey? Maybe.
So it's been two years since we sold our house,
went full time living and working in our rv while we traveled the us. Without killing each other. Yet!
But I think the time has actually flown by. Yes it's went really fast sometimes it seems really
slow i think the first thing on our list of lessons learned the first thing is what we used
to always hear is go big you'll regret it if you don't go big not true for starters the one thing
that we've learned we weren't sure especially michelle if we could downsize so far and live
out of an rv but that's been really easy for us yeah it was actually easier on a pot but another
thing is you're bigger isn't always better you have a lot more expenses a lot more to worry about
one of the biggest things with this lifestyle is you want to be stress-free as much as possible
that'll never happen in any situation but you want to try to lessen that stress as much as possible
right therefore don't do a youtube channel because it's very stressful a class a motorhome
so many different components underneath on the chassis and everything that you just never thought
of at least we didn't i mean we did our research and we're still finding things that oh did you do
this have you done this yet have you done that yet what what it's got that it's what so that being
said there's there's a lot of expenses with it you do want to be comfortable but we've learned that
we got to try to find a happy medium somewhere if you get a fifth wheel you gotta
you gotta look at how heavy that fifth wheel is you need a half ton you need a three quarter
ton you need a one ton the bigger the unit the heavier the unit the more expensive truck you
need the nice thing about these trucks though they do hold their value these diesel trucks
they hold their value very well going big is not the answer it's just basically finding out
what's going to fit your needs the best and guess what you'll never find that out until you just
pick something get out there live the lifestyle and then you start realizing all these different
things that you just can't explain right we can't explain that for you we can't tell you what's best
for you heck we don't even know what's best for us at the time although there are people out there
that think they know what's best for us but that's just because of that's what's worked well for them
and we do appreciate everybody's input yeah very much so even though it may not help us it might
help somebody else that's right so in a sense you're saying size does matter honey of course
it does another lesson we learned that we wish we would have done it right from the start was
to get the tsd fuel cart oh gosh yes save on our diesel fuel yes that we went a whole year before
it was just about a whole year before we found out about the tsd card heard about
it we were a little skeptical especially some of the information they need from you
then we realize well the truckers use it so it is safe found other people that were using it
saving a lot of money so it was just a little over a year by the time we ended up getting it
and ever since we saved so much and all we can think about is that big long trip we did up
california right and all the fuel we spent in california the money that we could have saved
through oregon washington from washington all the way back to visit family in iowa right we save
sometimes it varies a lot sometimes you might just save like six dollars or something
but the majority of time we're saving 20 30 40 60. i'd say our average savings has been
around the 40 range right what we're saving per fill up and we're typically not running our
gas down to empty we only did that one time right don't like to do that yeah so yes um
that was a big lesson learned and it did cost us because we didn't hear about it right
but should we go eat yes i'm hungry it's chilly but out here in the sun it actually
doesn't feel too bad very windy though next on the list we're going to talk about
is the gps apps and what you use for your gps we used to use copilot and that was just plain wrong
just plain wrong just playing wrong it wasn't very reliable one time in particular it took
us down a road that we should not have been on and we didn't know that until we got a little
too far and then there was nowhere to turn around ended up at a dead end at a farmer's
house after that time we used it along with another app just to test it and multiple times
it tried to take us down the wrong road so we quit using that one now we use the rv life app and that
goes along hand in hand with rv trip wizard so rv trip wizard is your planning tool and you use that
on your laptop computer and then you download the rv life app and that's where all of your trips
from rv trip wizard transfer over to rv life they'll be there automatically when you log in and
then you can just click on your plan trips you can put all your measurements in just like any other
gps app and then if you want to use it just for a plain gps you can also just put in a an address as
well but yeah we quit using copilot that was not a fun time we had to disconnect the dolly take
the car off of course we took the car off first before we disconnected the dolly that'd have been
bad so that was a lesson learned one thing i love is because brian has to eat gluten-free
then i get his muffin what this actually reminded me of another thing and that is you will not need
to bring as many items as you think you do you won't need as many clothes you won't need as
many shoes you won't need as many kitchen items i don't know how many mugs we brought with us
coffee mugs and we don't even need that we like use two but um so anyways just think minimalistic
that was good i am full so what's next on the list how about finding campgrounds with good
cell service yes that's that's a big one a lot of times when you do your campground reviews a lot
of these websites that you will find have reviews from most of them come from other campers they're
putting the reviews on there of one specific site that they're in in the campground a lot
of times you wouldn't think that it matters what site you're in but it does so a lot of times what
you're going to see is at t three bars verizon two bars and that's all it's going to show on there
that gives you an idea that there's service in the area but a lot of times what we have found
out and what we've learned that really doesn't mean anything because we can literally move from
one site to another just a couple sites down and all of a sudden we have a really good speed
so what we recommend is if you go to a campgrounds that you can choose your site drive around the
campground a little bit and stop and do a speed test at every site that you go to when you stop by
and if you find a good cell signal somewhere and if you have a good speed don't risk it
don't try to go to another site because once you get back around to that spot
again somebody might have that spot already taken if you're going to a campgrounds where
they assign a site to you you can ask the ranger if they know of an area of the campground that
has better cell reception michelle has a lot of zoom meetings so it's very important for her to
have that good upload and download speed for me of course i need it for mainly uploading videos
to youtube the editing part i really don't need it just the research i needed before we used to get
to a site and we'd get all set up and everything and then realize that we had poor cell service
because we were listening to the these reviews thinking you know in the beginning that no matter
where we go that campground's got a good cell service well not the case one of the other things
we've learned with our busy lifestyle is how hard it is to keep up with the maintenance on the rv
oh yes yes especially with her working full-time i'm working full-time and then the channel
in the evenings she tries to help a lot of times with keeping up with some of the
you know the comments and that we find ourselves basically constantly working weekends come
that's our time to enjoy ourselves but we're also working at the same time because we're
trying to plan shots and we we really try to just go along with the flow and just add
live everything right we really don't do a lot of planning i guess we yeah we really do and it shows
but so with that being said a lot of maintenance um is hard to keep up with
um of course that's really on me to try to keep up with that and uh so the lesson learned is
i really need to try to remember to write down things that need to be done otherwise if you try
keeping it in your mind you just get overwhelmed and you forget things at least i do we do so
make a list of everything that you need to do if you're not retired and you still work full time
and even if you don't recommend doing that and then when you do get free time just try to
you know take off one of those items if you can some items take
a little bit more time than others and you might not have time so just move on down the list
to something that you can knock off that list quickly if you have an hour whatever so yeah
that was a big one yeah all right we're gonna go inside walmart here and show you what our next
lesson learned is another big lesson learning this is a big one the tp you use for your bb
don't use that we've tried everything best place to get it come to your local walmart go to your
rv section and look for this can't get any better oh lessons learned
the dolly the dreaded dolly we're not saying don't get a dolly because for some people the dolly's
the right thing to have or their only option but for us it kind of became kind of a pain the straps
as soon as you tighten them down you always had to drive a little bit stop the coach and
get out and tighten them up never failed every single trip i had to lay something down on the
ground get underneath and put the safety chains underneath the car i always feared if my back
went out because i've had knock on wood i haven't had my back go out for a long time but i used to
a lot of had a lot of back problems always worried that that was going to be an issue if michelle had
to do that and then the dolly is something that you if you ever get in the situation you have to
disconnect the car involves getting underneath the car taking the chains off all that stuff
pulling the car off then disconnecting the dolly and pushing it aside whereas if you tow four down
just disconnect real easily and move the vehicle and it's cumbersome you always have to find a
place to put it even though our dolly was the car caddy ss and it would fold up it made it easy some
people just slide the tongue of their dolly if they're not foldable right underneath their coach
so was it really helpful having it being a folding one maybe maybe not if we were to do it all over
again we definitely would not get a dolly but as you probably know we've talked about This before
we're in a situation where we just bought the car and we didn't know when we bought the car that we
were going to go full time in an rv until just a few months later and everything went so quick
and we didn't want to lose money on the car since we just bought it brand new
so we we went with the dolly but that was a lesson learned if we ever go with a class a again or
anything pulling a car yeah we would definitely tow four down find something
that we could tow for today we are almost home so we'll catch you there we're home
running around so yeah two years full time now and guess what we do have somebody interested in Vinny
so we're keeping our fingers crossed everything goes through we're kind of sad about it too
yes we're a little attached to vinnie but then he was our first i know there's a lot of lessons
that we learned this isn't even half of them but we had to decide on a few to choose and
that's what we chose we hope you liked today's video and hope some of our lessons
learned helps you we're going to call it a day we'll see you guys next week
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