RV

One Night in Savannah

| jamiefeinberg

I’ve wanted to visit Savannah, GA for years. I knew they had an arts college, a charming downtown and a lot of history. What I didn’t know was how easy they make it for (smaller) RVs to visit. In seeking a free or cheap place for us to stay, I stumbled on their Visitor’s Center and History Museum on Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard. For $8 per 24 hours per space (or $16 for us including our car), we could be parked within walking distance of museums, historical sites and the downtown. Does it get any better than that? We took advantage of the designated RV parking to stay put for the night, although there are other lots around town if you want to use them – they all are covered by your pass. Driving into the area, I was struck by both the beauty and poverty of parts of the city as we pulled in. So much history here. Once we got settled, Ross was exhausted, so he set me free to wander and explore for the evening. Since we arrived around 3:30, I had lots of time to explore. First order of business? Take advantage of all of the “free” history and cultural info where we were parked. I took tons of flyers from the Visitor’s Center to assist in planning a return trip, and I was delighted to discover how much information was displayed in free exhibits inside. If I’d had more time and money, I would have returned in the morning to visit the museum, but further research told me there’s a pass that gets you a few days’ admission to this and other museums, including the railroad museum, so I decided to save that for a return trip.

But just the free exhibits were great. I learned about the local jazz musicians, how people used to live and studied how food and agriculture in the area have changed. What a great way to engage people and encourage them to visit the museum! The visitor’s center area appears to be a part of an old train station. It’s beautiful. And it’s right next to the Savannah College of Art & Design too. After exploring for a while, I headed back home to prep for an evening on the town. I said goodbye to Ross and headed out, eventually following my nose downtown after exploring the college bookstore and buying a pencil sharpener for my colored pencils. Downtown Savannah is full of life, a great mix of local bars, restaurants and other businesses alongside more upscale chains for shopping. I passed a comics/gaming store I knew Ross would like and texted him. And after much walking, I stumbled on what seems to be the best ice cream in town. After waiting in line for about a half hour (they gave us water and menus while we waited outside), I got to sample and settle on some tasty flavors to enjoy in this adorable parlor. It’s not the best ice cream ever, but it’s very good and was worth the wait! When I wandered out, Ross was making his way downtown. So we explored further, marveling at some fancy stores and making our way back home.

The next morning, I visited all of the nearby outdoor historical markers to round out my trip. It was a wonderful quick glimpse that had me eager to return.

Ross, on the other hand, wasn’t so thrilled. He noticed tons of confederate flags and other signs that made him pretty uncomfortable as he drove in, and he couldn’t shake the dark feeling as we stayed here. Certainly there is a lot of dark history here, but that’s true almost anywhere, I think. It was interesting that he felt that way for sure. Probably not a place to settle but we will return for a visit.

We left Savannah by 10:30 or so to make sure we could visit Charleston as we passed through. Stay tuned for my blog about our quick trip to Charleston!

We’re Getting an RV!

| jamiefeinberg

Closing is set for Friday, June 10. We’ll be looking at an RV payment of $211ish per month plus whatever we pay for insurance (expecting a quote by the end of the day)…and we are so excited! It’s beautiful and it’s very us and we can’t wait. Keep those fingers crossed that all goes as planned and that we can find a cheap (to us) car under 2K to keep us on budget. Hoping to have her moved in to her summer home (is it a her? Ross, any thoughts?) by the following Sunday!

A Place to Live – But No RV?

| jamiefeinberg

I’ve drafted so many blog posts in my head recently. Blogs about dealing with the extra levels of stress of planning combined with chronic illness & the related battles to figure that out. Blogs about how hard things are. Blogs about simplicity. Blogs about pulling through adversity. Blogs about the fact that Ross was rear-ended and now on top of RV repairs, we have to car shop, but I am really uncomfortable buying a car when we don’t know the status of our RV.

But I finally have some good news to share, so that’s more fun, right?

Jean’s Playhouse agreed to allow an ad trade for a discounted or free campsite for us this summer. Part of the compensation when we work there is housing, but the idea of living in dorm style housing, presumably single-sex and with other people, didn’t seem that appealing to us given that we’re married and much older than many or most of our co-workers will be. So finding a campground seemed like the perfect thing – we get a place for our RV and can try things out and learn with less pressure, and Jean’s gets to save money by not having to house us.

So I sent out a bunch of emails, beginning with the campgrounds in Lincoln and North Woodstock (the next town over), about housing us for a few months. Two out of my three top choices replied – one was positive, but didn’t have any space left (maybe next time); another just couldn’t accommodate a longer-term visitor (KOA). So I emailed our other choices, who were 20-30 minutes away but mostly great options. One of our top choices in terms of livability, Tarry Ho Campground in Twin Mountain, called me within a day or two of sending the email. I was so excited! The more we talked, the more we realized we’d met at a networking events a couple of years back, she knows my father, she had fantastic memories of our conversation, etc…

So after meeting her in person with Ross and touring the campground, I’m thrilled to say that we have a home for the summer! God willing our RV will be drivable and livable so that we aren’t tenting it. Keep us in your thoughts and prayers. As soon as our RV is ready (or as soon as we want to move in), we’ve got a campsite with our name on it. And get this – we’re working for our site! No cash at all. Their seasonal sites rent for $1,950, so between Ross and I, we’ll be putting in 195 hours before the season is over on November 2. (We hope to leave by the beginning of October, but it’s awesome to know we can stay longer if we want to.) We’ll be doing a mix of marketing/social media work (me) and music/working the new food truck (Ross) and possibly whatever else needs to be done. We know it’s a lot of hours to fit in, but we’ll be coming up with a plan to make it feasible, and we can absolutely stay for a couple of weeks at the end to knock out the rest. (After all, if we each put in a couple of 40 hour weeks, the work would be almost complete!) Although there’s a 30 minute commute to Jean’s, it’s only 11 minutes to Ross’ studio, which is great for him and great for us if we need to escape camping for a bit.

IMG_2741We hope some of you will come up and visit us. They have gorgeous river front campsites with water and electric as well as other sites for tents and RVS, plus bath houses, a pool, an ice cream stand, a food truck as of late June and supposedly great wi-fi. They’re also being super-nice about accommodating both of our vehicles. So besides metered electric, which I think we’ll be paying for, we will be living rent free this summer, which will really help justify our 30 minute commute on a tiny salary. 🙂 My goal is to keep saving money even on our tiny income. Whether that’s possible or not will largely depend on what our health insurance costs are. Really hoping they’ll go down significantly when our income changes at the end of the month!

My last day of work at my current job is May 27. I’ll be so glad to be able to move on. Thanks so much for reading, and please send us happy & inspected quickly RV vibes, as well as a good cheap car for Ross!

Planning and Plotting

| jamiefeinberg

It’s out! The word, that is, about my departure from the Arts Alliance. I am also deeper in the planning stages of our tour. After some dramatic back and forth with Judy, I have learned that the Carpenters booking hasn’t gone as planned. So we have two gigs in September, hopefully followed by a performance at Contact East, a booking showcase in New Brunswick. After that, we leave New Hampshire. Whoo-hoo!

Our itinerary is purposefully loose right now. My brother lives in Kalamazoo, MI, so if it isn’t too cold yet, we hope to drive through upstate New York (or maybe Canada) and visit him. After that, we will head toward Iowa to visit our friends. Depending on the weather and our mood, we will stay for a few weeks or even a month. After that, we continue south. We will stay in Arizona for December, primarily the Phoenix and Tucson areas if everything aligns, and then I’m thinking the San Diego area for January, which is typically the coldest month. Plus my sister lives there! After that our options open up as it warms, so our exact path can be adjusted based on booking and our interests. We also may need to visit Florida to become residents there at some point….time will tell. We’d like to make our way towards CO, OR and WA in the spring or summer as we think there are a lot of towns with potential there.

This adventure requires a lot of faith…particularly in my own abilities to pull this off. It’s a good thing I have never lacked for self-confidence….

In the coming weeks, we need to start pitching ourselves to local campgrounds…discounted site for program add at Jean’s and maybe a bit of work is the hope. Keep us in your thoughts, and thanks for reading!

The Big Reveal and the Beanie Baby Purge

| jamiefeinberg

Well, it’s done. I gave my notice at my full-time job. While I am not yet ready to announce my RV plans to the world yet – we need to wait until the summer so I can keep my church job – I am delighted to announce that after May 29, I set arts administration aside, at least for now, and can focus on other things.

Am I excited? Ridiculously so! I wouldn’t say a giant weight has been lifted yet – much of the weight was definitely caused by financial stress – but for whatever it’s worth, I am not as tired or quite as stressed. So yay for that.

I am also happy to report that last night, as I ran a purchase by my mom (fleece t-shirt quilt to use all my old tees) and talked about how much progress I am making with purging old clothes and my grandmother’s beanie babies, she sees genuinely happy for me. She encouraged me, congratulated me on my progress and asked thoughtful RV questions. I am so glad I got the telling her part out of the way to give her room to do her mom thing. She’s a good mom, even if she doesn’t always understand my way of thinking, and she’s usually right about things. 🙂

Handling Ross’ finances is proving to be exciting, in that we can try new things to pay down debt, but also disappointing in that there isn’t nearly as much room to trim our budgets as I’d like. So I need to get back to work for Judy and hustle some more lessons ASAP. My first north country voice student (minus a few vocal coaching sessions) is tomorrow, so I am looking forward to that.

It’s also hard to make frugal food purchases when you are trying to lose weight (both of us) and hoping your diet can help fix your body (me). I have been doing a great job so far – trying to keep my food budget to $30-40 per week – but Ross is buying a lot of his own food too…and it is just a lot of work to choose which fruits and veggies you can afford if you need a lot of dairy products, for instance. I know we will keep refining it though…lots of things will get easier when we are on the same schedule too.

The next step for Ross is promoting his solo album. Meanwhile, I need to not only make more money, but start getting on top of RV planning. Hoping we can set up an RV appointment this week for the spring.

That’s all I have for now. Thanks for reading!

Our First RV Show – And Our First Time Looking at RVs in Person!

| jamiefeinberg

I was really excited to attend the annual NH Camping & RV Show. Given that we’ve gotten serious about touring with an RV over the winter months, we knew we wouldn’t have a lot of options (and it wouldn’t be under ideal conditions) to look at RVs locally. And unfortunately from what we’ve found, there is only one “nearby” dealer that carries RVs we would be interested in (presumably small class Cs and class Bs,  up until yesterday) – and that dealer is still over an hour’s drive from us, so with our crazy schedules, even that will take some planning.

So it didn’t take too much convincing for me to convince Ross that we should catch an RV show. We’d already missed the big ones nearby like Portland, but we figured the NH show, while likely on the smaller side, would be a good start. I had a pretty clear idea in my head of what RV shows would be like (lots of people, lots of booths, pretty chaotic and less than ideal parking), but apparently Ross had no idea what he was getting into.

Since I just got a church job, Ross and I drove separately to the show. Kind of a mistake. The poor guy was kind of traumatized at the crowds, so he left to grab cigarettes (and something relatively healthy for us to eat) before braving the crowds. Ross is not a crowds person. I’m not particularly, but for Ross, they incite anger and panic attacks, so it’s a bit more problematic. And in his defense, I really should have thought to warn him about the crowds.

I’m proud to say that Ross handled things extremely well, articulated clearly when he needed to get outside, etc., and it was a very pleasant visit!

What I liked about the show: It was straightforward to navigate. We didn’t bother looking at our maps. Turned out the show was in two buildings, but it was clearly indicated that way. They also had a nice variety of vehicles, so we could look at everything from the A-lines without a toilet or shower (yeah, not really an option for the long-term for us) to the gargantuan toy haulers that made us feel like little people.

What I didn’t like about the show: $10 each was worth it, given our predicament, but would have loved if the fee was more like $5. Ross doesn’t believe in fees for stuff like that, but I do understand that the campground association needs to get their costs back. We were also really disappointed that there weren’t any class Bs, or class B+s, at all! So we’ll need to visit one in the coming months to make sure we don’t need to consider those as well. If we found a nice one with good mileage at a good price, I would love to consider it, but I think realistically for us, we’ll need more space than they can provide so we’ll need a second vehicle (or some sort of trailer) if we go with a class B – which would eliminate a lot of the fuel efficiency, but not all of it.

So what came out of it? Well, we kind of fell in love with a Minnie Winnie. Minnie WinnieTurns out we were looking at a larger one, which had a super nice outdoor kitchen setup, but we liked their layouts overall and if we can afford it and can afford to upgrade to a tow vehicle (MAJOR ifs at this point), I think we’d happily take their smallest model or whatever we could do. It would make us pretty long with the tow vehicle, longer than I would prefer, if we went with the fancy one, but the shortest versions are about 19″ in length, which isn’t too shabby! We also really liked a smaller Winnebago class C that we looked at, which may make more sense for us. We’ll definitely be on the prowl to find these guys used or to make some megabucks in the coming year so that we can afford one new!

Biggest takeaway, besides that, is that it really bugs us when RVs don’t have incredibly efficient storage built in. Upper space should get used, and if there’s a couch, we’ll probably take it out and use the space as side by side desks.

Here’s hoping we’ll have enough banked to look at purchasing one next year, maybe even at the show!

Gearing Up for the Long Haul

| jamiefeinberg

Well, the long-shot job was just that, a long-shot, and it didn’t happen. Bad news for the part of me that was nervous about the craziness ahead, but great news for the part of me that is anxious to get on the road and do something different, and figure out what is next for us in this crazy life.

So I’ve been busy in the past few days now that I have a clear goal in sight again. I’ve created lots of spreadsheets, including touring locations, budgets (current and when we’re touring), charts comparing the advantages of a Class C vs. Class B vs. a glorified van, tips for traveling, a packing list (including both must haves and wants, to help us discern just how simply we can do this) and perhaps most importantly for right now, an outline of the money we’re making and how we can save over the next year and four months, if we want to stick to the plan. Which is the goal, of course. I have another job interview on Monday – this is for a local, part-time church gig. It pays well, I’m incredibly qualified for it, and they seem really nice – and perhaps most amazingly, it is practically always a one-day-a-week gig.

I figure if I can get this job, keep up my part-time freelancing for as long as that pays and help Ross get some steady employment for at least a year before we leave (enough that he can sock a little money away and help a little with expenses would be perfect), we can save a LOT of money. If some of those things don’t happen, it will be harder – and in particular, if something doesn’t change quickly, we’re in trouble, as we’re currently losing $300-$500/month.

But I absolutely know we can do this, and boy, it sure seems easier to motivate myself to work (and give up some of the fun stuff) when there is clear goal and start date for the new adventure on the other side! I hope we can both keep each other motivated and be willing to make the tough choices. Ross is almost done his EP (whoo-hoo!) which will give him some extra time to devote to making money in the arts, getting the business side of things up and running and whatever else needs doing to make this thing happen.

So far I think the toughest part is keeping all of this to myself for the most part. I’m seeing big changes in store for the theater (in all likelihood, we’ll stop everything but the tours and special events, like wine dinners, after 2015) so that Ross and I can do awesome things like write shows and record CDs together. Worth it? I definitely think so!

Feeling really thankful for all of the amazing blogs and articles out in the world to help us with the planning. Will have lots of resources to share here in the coming months.

Oh, and did I mention we’re going to Disney in January for our wedding present from Ross’ sister and husband? Cannot wait. One more thing to save for, of course, but we can do this.

Thanks for reading!