We are Bill and Anna Sick. Full time RVr’s, Explorers, and
Entrepreneurs
Our plan is to enjoy our semi-retirement while living a
healthy, purpose filled life, all while traveling the Globe and having amazing
adventures!!
Our journey began in May of 2018 when we were watching a
sermon on television with our adult children, while visiting them for the
weekend. The pastor had a great message and one that continues to resonate
deeply with me today. I can’t remember every word of his sermon but I can tell
you that it made a huge impression on how I looked at our lives.
In a nutshell he said that sometimes, we people, get caught
up in what “we think” our lives are supposed to look like. We go to church, we
go to the gym, we even serve in one or more areas of our church or community. (My
husband was running two bible study groups). We go to work, we pay our bills,
and we live life the way God intended….or maybe not?
The pastor went on to explain how we can be just 5 degrees
off of God’s true plan for our lives, and still be living a “good life”, but
not really fulfilling His purpose for us. Most people don’t even realize that
they are “off” to this degree but sometimes it comes to us as a feeling of
being “unfulfilled” even though we may be considered successful. It made me really
think about what is important to me in this life and what is not.
The most important thing in my life is my relationship with
God. Secondly, my relationship with my Husband. Most importantly, time with
both.
I realized that in order for us to prioritize those things
in life, we had to give up some other things that were “holding us back”. For
me, that meant unburdening ourselves from a beautiful but expensive house, and
figuring out a way to retire and not work full time for the next ten years! My
husband was 60 years old at this time. I didn’t like the prospect of not being
able to spend as much time as I wanted to with him until he was at least 70.
Yes, that is how long it would have taken us to be able to retire fully,
continue to maintain our beautiful home, and travel. Not that 70 is old these
days, but why not start sooner if you can and it is something that you want to
make a priority!
So, you might ask, what did you do?
Well, I went home that evening and reflected on the sermon
that we had all watched. I prayed and asked God to show me what it would look
like to make our lives reflect the priorities that we held dear.
The next evening, while sitting on the sofa and relaxing
with my husband, I said “Honey, I think we should sell our house and travel”.
Wow…yes that was out of the blue! Especially since just months before this I
was having a conversation with a good friend about how I felt so tied down by
all of our responsibilities and didn’t see full time retirement in our near
future. I became extremely upset about a
comment she made to me during this conversation, she said that I should just
sell my house and downsize since all of the kids were now going to be out of
the house. Our youngest son, Braedon, was turning 18 in June and moving to
Jacksonville. A good 2 ½ hours from home. I literally had a physical reaction
to this comment! How could she possibly suggest such a thing! We had moved in
our home almost 2 years before and had renovated the entire house (mostly all
ourselves) only to have a massive flood 4 months after almost finishing our renovation which resulted in us having to move
out for the next 3 months, and then we renovated it again! We had made this house our beautiful home that we were
incredibly proud of! We worked SO hard for this house! Why would I sell it?? Was she crazy?????
I can’t begin to tell you the difference in how I felt after
hearing that sermon, and praying about what it all meant. I actually felt no
physical tie to the house anymore. Suddenly it just became an object that was
the source of stress. Stress because we had bills from the renovation we were
still paying for, stress because it is a house, and let’s face it, a money pit!
Stress because it meant that if we stayed in it we would have to work for
another 7-10 years to retire. Back to my husband whom was sitting on the couch
with me, dumbfounded that I would suggest such a thing. (It is not unusual for
me to suggest “crazy” ideas, so he is always willing to listen. Remind me to
tell you about the time I told him that God had instructed me to quit my job so
I could focus on building my own business….which is very successful now. He
simply said “explain”.
I shared with him everything I just shared with you and he
said “I will need to give this some thought, and pray on it.” By the next day I
had become so excited about the prospect of selling our house I called our good
friend, a realtor, and asked her if she thought our house would sell for a fair
price. She said “Oh my goodness yes! Have you seen what your house is worth
since you bought it?” Well, no, duh, I wasn’t going to sell my house, remember?
Turns out it was worth a LOT more that what we owed.
By the following day, I had put together a brilliant (or so I
thought) plan of how we would sell the house, pay off most, if not all, of our
debt, and travel the world! Okay, I still had to convince my husband. Turns out
though it didn’t take a lot of convincing. The numbers really spoke for
themselves and with my husband having a brilliant financial mind, he had
already begun to put together a massive detailed spreadsheet encompassing ALL
of our current expenses and another one detailing what our expenses would look
like if we sold the house and traveled.
Very soon, and I mean 3 days after I spoke to my husband
about all of this, our home was officially on the market!
I set out making detailed plans for places we would go and
who we would visit, and where we would stay. This was fun but exhausting. Our
house sold very quickly, and we sold 90% of all of our household belongings,
and my Honda CRV on Craig’s List, and Face Book Marketplace. (I highly
recommend that if you take this route that you don’t try to do it all at
once….seriously stressful!)
Our home sold to a lovely Christian couple (This was
definitely with God’s help) who are thoroughly enjoying it still! With our car
and belongings purged, and the rest stored neatly (or not so neatly) in a 10 x
20 climate controlled storage unit, we were ready for our Adventure!
We started out by driving to Michigan to spend a month near
my husband’s parents, whom we didn’t get to see very often. Turns out we had a
fantastic summer and spent great quality time with them which we will never
forget. We stopped along the way to Michigan and visited with many family and
friends that we did not get to see often enough. The whole trip up North took
10 days and it was a wonderful adventure. And it taught us that we could indeed
live in very small spaces together!
We did look at some (a lot) RV’s while we were in Michigan,
because we had formulated a plan to sell my husbands prized Nissan Maxima (she
is a beauty) and purchase an RV, possibly a fifth-wheel and a truck big enough
to pull it. We had pretty much decided that we were going to become full time
RV’rs (at least for a year or two) by this point. We really had no idea what
exact RV or truck, just that we wanted to be free and able to travel the U.S.
There were SO many options, it was decidedly overwhelming!
In September we took a trip to Costa Rica (my husband’s
all-time favorite vacation spot) for 2 months after returning from Michigan. We
had already made these reservations before leaving home, knowing that we needed
a vacation after so much activity. We wanted to immerse ourselves in the
culture and learn the language as much as possible. We had the best two months a person could ask
for and even got to share it with some family members and friends that visited
us there. We hiked to the top of volcanoes, we jet skied in the Pacific Ocean,
we explored beaches, and caves and hiked in Rain Forests. We got up close and
personal with some very adorable Capuchin monkeys. We even had a close
encounter with a Coyote! Look for our blog on our Costa Rica adventure for
awesome, breathtaking pictures!
We returned home in November and have been staying in an
adorable rented Airbnb (yes this was paid for before we ever left on our
Michigan trip because we live in Florida and if you want to stay here during
the winter season, you had better book early!). We have spent the last month
enjoying the Holiday’s with our family and friends. We have purchased our
fifth-wheel, a 32 foot 2016 Forest River Surveyor and our truck, whom I
lovingly refer to as “the beast”. She is a 2015 Dodge Ram 3500 Long Bed with a
6.4 liter Hemi which can pull just about anything. She also came already
adorned with a fifth-wheel hitch installed, which was a huge bonus! We have our
car for sale and are praying that it sells quickly, as our plans are to leave
March 1 to head out West across the Southern United States and into California,
Washington, Oregon, and maybe even into Canada and Alaska during next summer.
God is good and has been with us every step of this journey so I have faith
that it will sell soon.
We will pick up our RV from the dealer in Ocala on the last
day of our lease, January 31st.The dealer was nice enough to store
it for us for free, since we didn’t have a truck yet, and have no place to park
it.
I have already booked us 4 campsites in February
in Florida (strategically next to our family and friends so we can say
goodbye). This will give us “newbies” some practice with our rig before heading
out
