Hey everyone welcome back to another edition of RV Odd Couple my name is John
and I'm Mercedes and this is the second part of a two-part series that we're
doing the first part was mistakes we made when we bought our RV some pretty
embarrassing ones and this this video is about the wins the things that we did
right so if you're new to our channel please subscribe and if you're not
welcome back long story short we sold everything to live in an RV full time
with a toddler and a dog alright so number one do your research and stay
organized we were really good at this we did a lot of research on all sorts of
things YouTube is excellent and we each had our own notebook dedicated just to
RV things so we had one place that whenever we wanted to reference back to
something later all of our notes were in one place yeah and I'm not organized one
of the things that why we're so different you know or some different but
she keeps me organized she gave me a little book for my RV notes
my notes were a lot different than her as mine yeah if I weren't a structure the
company yes how they will build yes and so on so spear research stay organized
number two yes okay so be true to yourself so like for me for example I
knew that I was not going to succeed in this lifestyle if I tried to rough it
all the time the middle of nowhere less people the better
yeah the bear would eat me you know so so be true to yourself um so when we
picked in our view I knew that I needed certain things like washer and dryer I
needed to be able to do laundry yeah and it's a little bit bit different
from everybody we have chose to this to do this to try this the full-time
lifestyle so if you're gonna be doing this in the weekends it's gonna be a
completely different setup but you got to be proud of yourself
how are you gonna use the RV how much space do you need you know play with
with the places you want to get into the some places we can't get into with this
RV we're too big national parks and we were too big for those so we're more
you're weighing everything out we picked an RV that was gonna work for our family
and yeah and we like what we did so number three be true to your partner a
happy wife is a happy life a happy spouse a happy house compromises and
there's a couple things so once I got clear on myself like I'm not gonna be a
long-term Boone daughter you know I had to communicate to him and he had certain
that he had to communicate to me and had to be patient and explaining them to me
because I didn't understand or see things from his point of view
immediately right and I'm all about exploration and new things I love new
experiences so I am like jumping and go on Mercedes is not quite everything
journals different color markers all communication is a big deal we had our
fights about what she wanted what I wanted and we'll get into more of those
as we go on so fully okay that brings us to number four and I have to credit John
for this because frankly I wouldn't have given this really important thing the
importance and the time and the research that it deserved and that is the type of
the build the company the structure the structure you know I did the research on
this most most manufacturers use the same chassis a big manufacturer which is
the foundation and a lot of them use the same panels for the sides which are
aluminum vacu steel structure so it's funny because when you go out and you
walk the RV's you walk on them and they look absolutely gorgeous you know the
design is pretty it's beautiful everything looks great the colors are
just right but a lot of it's built pretty cheap on the inside and per thing
right now I knew that I could fix everything on the inside I'm good with
my hands and I'm good with tools if I was concerned about the structure you
know the engineering and I want any any major problems with that because
I couldn't fix those things and if we did need to get them fixed I knew it was
gonna cost a fortune so I did my research on that stuff and I'm really
really grateful that we did yeah absolutely and then number five this is
another one that I have to credit my husband for because it's not that I
don't care about these things but I was just so focused on the pretty-pretty
that I forgot the importance of focusing on like the safety to safely pull and
having the right vehicle so I'll let you talk about that yeah one of the reasons
we did not want a clam what was it a trick
travel trailer yeah is you need sway bars you need all this stuff it's a lot
more dangerous to pull because of the the wobble you get sometimes at high
speeds and lots of accidents because of that and in that style and because of
safety for me I wanted to make sure that if I was gonna pull you know pull
something as large as what we purchased which is then being just under 42 feet
I wanted the right truck to pull it fifth wheels are the safest outside of
class ease as far as the trek trailer goes yeah because it puts the center the
weight of the RV directly over the bed of the truck or the axles of the truck I
bought a truck that has dual wheels it's gut it's got a diesel engine it's got
dual ewilson the back it's ready to hold over 20,000 pounds it's diesel so it's
great on gas but the torque is unbelievable and the other thing you got
to understand is it's one thing you do want a truck to pull your RV but you
also want the truck to be able to stop the RV that you're pulling behind so
yeah I went for a truck that she thought man
she's like you just want a new truck man I'm laughing like this because I didn't
understand why the truck that we had at the time that wasn't nearly as strong as
the truck that we have now I didn't understand why that truck wouldn't work
I'm thinking he just wants to buy a new truck and you know my priority is like
having a nest I still want to have a home even though
it's in an RV and it moves around and he's thinking safety so he had to very
patiently help me understand the importance of having the proper vehicle
and I didn't even I didn't even consider about how with all that weight having a
strong enough vehicle to stop yes you know and you know now I totally get it
but yeah number six number six this is something that we did really really
really good we bought our RV offseason and the reason this is so important is
because the dealerships we're trying to clear out inventory so they could bring
in the next year's models just like cars yeah so we still got a new RV I mean it
still had a little it still needed maintenance even though was brand-new no
one had ever owned it before but the price that we got it at had we had
purchased it six months earlier in season it would have been $20,000 easily
easily so buying off season and season changes depending what area you're in
absolutely we're so offseason that was a big one number seven
take your time moving you know we made a decision together through a lot of
late-night talks and a lot of YouTube videos and a lot of shopping yeah both
feel comfortable and satisfied with what we were gonna do we need to and I credit
Mercedes 100% of this because when we sold our home I was like let's just buy
an RV let's start this lifestyle yeah we're gonna go slow so we went in a
place and we made a decision that we would transition into this lifestyle and
she needed to feel comfortable with the lifestyle so Mercedes gets the credit
for taking our time so well because it's really tempting when you buy it to fill
it with stuff but you want to take your time and really see what fits and then
if you have some time and camping it you'll actually know what you might you
know cuz that's a big one just because it fits doesn't mean you need to bring
it exactly and so we've been able to you know buy the things we need and get all
the additional gadgets and stuff we want her organising me safety yeah we'll do
some more videos on we've got the tire pressure safety that
right kind of hangers she's the right party hey guys I'm tired pressure safety
I'm having the right tools on board Jackie or anything they could go wrong
and we just look at it a lot differently but together we make a real good team
okay we're pretty much unstoppable so that's it I hope you enjoyed this series
we'll be releasing more and more videos about our experience as we go forward
from here yes and if you haven't yet subscribed please do so please do that
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do you think you think also in the comments section yeah your experiences
what you do right when buying your RV or are you going to what are your question
yes yes anything let us yeah we're really excited to get involved with this
community and thanks for watching thank you have a good day bye