The Process and its Rewards

To date, the most daunting, yet oddly rewarding, aspect of making ready to go on this trip has been exactly that, "MAKING READY TO GO"

Perceiving the task of getting ready to split at the end of this November as too big for us to handle while still having our life go on daily, we hired a life coach back in July.(http://www.strategiclifeplans.com/). The goal was to have assistance in the process of organizing all of the aspects of our life so that we could leave in a managed manner. So that all of the facets of our created existence (like our house, mortgage, insurance policies, tenants, kid at college, youngest sons education, etc.) would not crumple by the first week in December. And also to prevent our families and the rest of the people we know, love and interact with, both socially and in business or who count on us for something from finding a phone number that no one answered upon our departure. As often as I just want to chuck it all and leave now, this is what felt right for us to do.
The coaching consisted of meeting for approximately 2 to 2 1/2 hours once every other week. We used the coaching time as the structure to list and review all of the items of our lives that we determined were important or necessary to review, manage or modify in someway prior to leaving. We have gone on our extended trips, as previously mentioned, and forgotten more than once that something that was supposed to have been done or paid and wasn't. Only to find it desperately waiting for us or worse yet canceled or over drafting when we returned. Sort of takes the fun out of what we had experienced. We intentionally decided that this time we would take a full assessment of all areas and manage them, as best we can, prior to our leaving. Avoiding getting blind sided or smacked in the back of the head by something once we began our journey.
We did some fun stuff too, like discussing and planning our itinerary. It is amazing to me how just taking the dedicated time to discuss an item brought things to light that may have been un-thought or un-said. We changed what we thought was a set initial path for the outset of our trip because after saying it aloud to the coach and living with it for a while we realized that it wasn't really what we wanted to do or were excited about. We also created the criteria for the motor home that we wanted and had some fun figuring out what it should have in it that would make it work for us. This list was invaluable as I headed into conversations with folks who had them for sale because I didn't know squat about them before these conversations. As a matter of fact I had not ever been in one.
We created budgets for our home life and for our trip life
We looked at all of our expenses and came up with a plan for being debt free prior to leaving with the exception of our mortgage and another investment property we own,
We created a price we were willing to pay for the motor home and I'll be damned if it didn't allow us to shop well over our intended budget and get the RV for exactly our budget number.
We also decided that we would finance the RV for the year trip instead of buying it outright. This allowed us to keep more available cash on hand verses spending the purchase price amount up front.
We reviewed our life insurance policies for what was appropriate for the now verses 4 years ago and adjusted them to fit our current needs.
We reviewed our health insurance and reworked our plan to better fit what would serve us on the road and Sara in college in the City.
We had to find a house/property manager for the main house and the rental units and decide how the rents would get paid. Who would mow the lawn, shovel the snow take the trash and recycling to the curb and how we would get our mail all seems so trivial on a daily basis living here but had to be hamdled for living on the road.
We had to decide about getting a new bank account that we could use nationwide without charges and that we could also manage online.
In the process of shopping for RV financing and Insurance on line I discovered a way to save a bunch of money on both rather than doing business geographically locally or through our normal everyday companies.
I also discovered a legal way to establish our Limited Liability Company in Montana and to have the company purchase and register the RV there saving thousands of dollars in taxes.
We will also be registering our auto there (Montana) that we intend to tow behind the RV. More about the car in the next Blah, Blah, Blah...
The picture below is Two Medicine Lake in Glacier National Park in Montana

Photo is courtesy of http://bigskyfishing.com/ go there to see more photos of this beautiful country. I can't wait to go there and take some of these photos for myself!