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Work camping is where you provide some labor service, usually (but not always) less than full-time (cashier, lawn maintenance, janitorial, trail maintenance, front office staff, trail guide, whatever they need) at a private and/or public RV campground, park, local, state, or Federal facility (national forests,etc.) in exchange for a free site, possibly including hook-ups (the term RV hook-ups refers to water, sewer, electric & possibly cable TV).
For example, we met a couple at a South Dakota state park in the Black Hills last year. The wife ran the front office and he did trail maintenance. They worked 20 hours per week and got a site and full hookups for their rig. They travel the country work camping (north in the nice weather and then south to a park in Texas for the winter) full time in their RV and had been doing it for 20+ years.
Most (not all) parks, etc. have bathroom/shower facilities. That is useful to remember since you may not need a fully self contained RV, but could get by with simply a van outfitted for sleeping and food prep, using campground facilities for personal care. I mention that it as part of the musing I've been doing about a very low cost lifestyle for you to consider.
In addition to the work camping, you might also establish yourself as an itinerant house and pet sitter. Many RV folks, myself included, use a house sitter when we hit the road for extended periods. We also use a house/pet sitter when we do other US or foreign trips and don't take our two poodles with us.
Later this month we'll be on a 2 week+ river cruise in Germany and will have a sitter living at our place and taking care of our two dogs. Obviously we don't hire people off the street and our current sitter was recommended to us by people we know socially. However, there is an established service market of house sitting "professionals" with references, bonding etc. Google should give some more information on that area.
Depending on your talents, physical capabilities and interest - you could also consider including other ad hoc services in a house sitting gig, e.g., interior painting, clean those damn gutters, mulch the flower beds - I think you get the idea. I would jump at chance to hire a sitter who "sits" and also takes care of those innumerable chores I hate to do while I'm off being a tourist.
An addendum - (again subject to your talents, interests, etc.) consider/explore maintenance services in off season tourist areas (e.g., Ocean City Maryland after September) to do repaint/touch-up, fix the screens, redo the bathroom grout, etc. of rental condos in exchange for living quarters, etc.. Many private condo owners might be interested in such services. They have to keep the heat on (typically at 45 degrees) even when the condo is empty so an occupant only costs them the difference between 45 and say 70 degrees of electric heating in winter and a little bit of water - bottom line - its not a huge cost to have someone in the condo and much cheaper for them than paying commercial for repaint, etc.
Hope that is helpful.
Last edited by Pilgrim21784; 10-08-2010 at 10:14 AM..
Work camping is where you provide some labor service, usually (but not always) less than full-time (cashier, lawn maintenance, janitorial, trail maintenance, front office staff, trail guide, whatever they need) at a private and/or public RV campground, park, local, state, or Federal facility (national forests,etc.) in exchange for a free site, possibly including hook-ups (the term RV hook-ups refers to water, sewer, electric & possibly cable TV).
Hope that is helpful.
You bet it's helpful. Better than that, it's exciting.
I was almost resigned to a subsistence life in some inner city slum, here or in Central America but now you've got me dreaming again.
I've got to admit, part of the reason I am so unprepared for retirement is that whenever I was laid off from a job I saw that as an opprotunity to go hiking in the mountains of New Mexico. I used to live in a dumpy trailer on old Route 66 just a few yards from Cibola National Forest. Used to walk out the door and keep going all day without seeing a single soul. Oh, just to be walking on those trails again ...
You're out of line. Ad hominem attacks on OP or sincere respondants will not be tolerated. Read the post from Keeper (a moderator) above and my post that follows. You're on my Ignore List so there's no point in posting here except to see yourself in print.
I think you are getting a little sensitive. I am sure that statement was made to support me with a little humor. Many of us posters go a long way back and understand each others motives.
IMO, the problem with this thread is a derf of actual essential facts. I won't have a low income retirement unless SS dies and my DB pension is cut off. So I'm not looking at that prospect. And I started palnning very specifically back in 1974 to avoid that possibility to the extent this was humanly possible.
But I like facts. So what are the essential facts of living?
Well.... your monthly budget has some essentials which has to be developed:
1. Food costs
2. Shelter costs, including electricity, heat/air, sewage
3. Transportation to get food costs
4. Taxes
5. health costs
6. trash removal/burning
7. Entertainment costs
8. possibilities for the additional $14,000 of extra work outside of SS income in meaningful actions.
9. ability to do things with people and avoid becoming an eccentric hermit.
Any discussion about esdential facts, IMO, must center around decreasing the actual costs for the items. Living in a place with low income taxes like NH, you might find that the other costs take that out.
So you have three choices, again IMO,:
1. make up an index of living costs like City Data already has for each place you might move
2. figure out exactly what you will be able to handle by making up your budget and comparing to the index you made up
3. Move to a place outside of the 1st world, where the Dollar(or whatever your funds are in) is worth one heaven of a lot
I've seen some of #1 and #3, but very little of the one which is the 800 lb gorilla IMO which is #2.
If all I had was SS, then I would be working very specificaly on #2, and I would know exactly what I am able to spend for each item, and thus know exactly where I could not live, and where I might be able to live. I would be searching for specific information in these areas of food costs, rental costs, electricity costs, transportation costs, etc.
In my case I did exactly that. But in may case I added other essential things that are beyond the means of someone who either through lack of planning or through misfortune only has SS as 1/3 of their retirement income. But I looked very specifically for all those items. In my case I chose the coast of Maine, but I had very specific things I was looking for.
To do this at any income you have to know what you have to work with first, and then build your search on that circumstance. Its a very sepcific kind of searching, not a general one based just on general low income.
I think you are getting a little sensitive. I am sure that statement was made to support me with a little humor. Many of us posters go a long way back and understand each others motives.
And how am I supposed to know that? "In" jokes are, by definition, opaque to outsiders. Have you read Keeper's admonition? Have you noticed all the deleted posts? There was a real brawl here over keeping to the subject. Better to be a "little sensitive" than allow things to descend into chaos again.
Besides, it's only me that doesn't see his posts. He's still free to have fun at others' expense and you're still free to enjoy his undecipherable humor. Your post was fine - why would you need "support" of any kind?
Last edited by SelflessGene; 10-08-2010 at 11:22 AM..
Reason: punctuation
IMO, the problem with this thread is a derf of actual essential facts.
I don't see any problem. I've learned quite a bit from the responses I've received - including yours. True, if you thought I was going to supply (as opposed to solicit and consider) "essential facts" then you might be disappointed, but I can't believe you're naive in that regard.
What's a "derf"?
Last edited by SelflessGene; 10-08-2010 at 11:17 AM..
Reason: punctuation
I've followed this entire thread, both "Before" and "After" the housecleaning by the mod, and I'd like to make a REAL out-of-the-box suggestion you might want to explore before summarily dismissing it out of hand:
BUTLING
Except for a working knowledge of English, no previous training or experience is required. Gender and age are not important either. What is very important however, is having a service oriented attitude and the right personality.
Send or e-mail us your Resume (CV) plus a current photo and indicate which course you wish to attend. Make no mistake, success is not a guarantee. Success requires motivation, devotion and the ability to combine passion, dedication and energy.
Approximately 25 percent of our students are female. The youngest student to date was 20 years of age. The oldest student to date was 68 years of age. We placed the 68 year old student with a hotel in New York, USA. Butling is one profession where age is not important.
The personalities, challenges and situations we created for our students are to simulate, and give you the experience of a real household. Rather than lecturing you and then testing your understanding with narrowly focused question sheets, the idea is to set you a large, complex puzzle. This puzzle is modeled on a real household as closely as possible. As you grapple with the puzzle, you are forced to learn the subject matter of our butler training course. This is why 95% of our students graduate successfully and close to 85% end up in rewarding positions, somewhere in the world.
With your obvious intelligence and erudition, you'd be a natural. Besides, you'd look great in one of those morning coats with gloves, and you might get a chance to say, "The butler did it."
(Oh, pardon me, I slipped up and used a cheesy emoticon.)
According to the urban dictionary: The ultimate word that can describe anyone or anything. Can be used for describing how uninterested you are, your friends' personalities, music, the world, aliens, cafeteria food, etc.
A variation on "work camping" might be to live at a mini-storage warehouse and manage it. Likewise some hotel/motel/apartment complexes can include a place to live as part of your "compensation package".
This is really a variation of the "trade your labor for services/goods you need/want directly without involving money.
Note, however, that the above options are likely to involve some real work - cleaning spaces, answering the phone, etc.
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"Out here we is immaculate - stoned ... "
