Early Retirement to become a Fulltimer

[streamingairheads]

I searched "early retirement" and could not find a thread on it. Please advise if you know otherwise.

My hubby and I are discussing retiring early to full-time. While we may pick up part time or online work for small income streams, we feel we'll be okay financially until our pensions and social security kick in. My hubby is 56 and I am 51. The one hang up we have is with health insurance. We are both very healthy, but I've never been much of a risk taker. We are looking into the Obama exchange, Medishare programs, etc. I'm wondering what others have done in this area and what other words of wisdom you have about early retirement.

Thanks.

[Lily&Me]

Welcome!

The search function here is difficult, but if you go to the Full-Timing, Winter Living subforum, you will find a number of threads that will help you in your decisions.

Good luck!


Maggie

[GettinAway]

You guys are good savers. I'll be 62 next month, and I'm still plugging away. Main reason I do not retire is cost of healthcare. I'll go to 65 to avoid that. Plus I want to keep the farm, and my wife insists we keep the home we built back in 84, so no downsizing for me. Our property taxes alone are more than our first house payment was..

[westcoastas]

We found a health insurance agent in St. George, UT after departing CA a month or so previously in Fall 2014. He found us insurance that based its premium on projected income for the upcoming year; that was going to be a minimum with just our rental income. We were given a tax benefit for that relatively small income. I felt sheepish about receiving that much of a tax credit but the difference in cost has been incredible. Not to get political but I had changed my life-long voting record based on a single issue - health care for those with pre-existing conditions and it's allowed us to be insured after I quit my job. At the time I hadn't even dreamed of owning an Airstream, much less fulltiming but rather feared for my wife and me if I ever should lose my job. So I recommend an insurance agent - he or she will be knowledgeable about navigating through the electronic paperwork; he had us signed up in less than 30 minutes.

Btw, I'm excited for you and respect your decision. I was 55 when we jumped. Nothing in this life is guaranteed, so hopefully we'll never have to use our insurance for something catastrophic. But that's all the more reason to take that leap - not blindly and solely on faith but with working cartilage and tendons now to lift that hitch...and a bit of insurance. Let us know how you fared. Good luck!

[NOAZRK2690]

Due to circumstances I retired as a SOLO and have been full-timing for 5 years. Count on taking two annual leases, one in the north to beat the heat and one in the south to beat the cold. Baring any catastrophes and assuming that your AS is well maintained, paid for and suitable in size for full-timing it will cost you at least 20k to 25k per year plus health insurance. Even at that, you won't be living high on the hog. Travel as you can afford to. Try joining Workamper.com for job leads. They usually send me about 7 to 10 leads each week day, however I've never workamped so far. Each employer offers different deals, usually including free parking and some amount of pay.

With the amount of pent-up inflation that's currently in our economy and its pending release, just hang on and hope for the best.

[NY24]

Have you seen Workamper.com ? LOTS of good info there including insurance. Many RV rallies have seminars on health insurance. I attended the RVSEF conference (RV Safety & Education Foundation) in KY back in April. I believe they had such a seminar but, I chose a different seminar for that time slot.

[FreshAirStmr]

I assume when you say full-time, you intend to travel full-time around the country. If so, then your choices are few as nationwide network plans are fast disappearing leaving you unprotected when out of network.

We retired and started full-timing this year, and so for now we've chosen Cobra, which is about $1200/month. Later we'll probably opt for a slightly cheaper plan (and with less coverage) available to retirees from my husband's old company.

To read more about the state of insurance for fulltimers, see this post:

http://wheelingit.us/2015/11/04/heal...re-fulltimers/

and this:
https://www.rverinsurance.com/uncate...en-enrollment/

In writing to you, I went to the rverinsurance.com site (from the link above), only to see this message:

"Due to several unfortunate changes in the health insurance industry, at this time we are only offering the Altrua HealthShare alternative to health insurance for those not on Medicare."

We had gotten health insurance quotes from the company (Kyle) in November 2015, so I was shocked to see that message. Read more about Altrua here:

https://www.rverinsurance.com/an-alt...nce-for-rvers/

Joanne

[caseywsj]

Also shocked to see the message on Kyle's site as that is who we used last year also. I'm 56, my wife is 55 and we also coordinate coverage for our son who is still in college. You can see my initial thoughts on coverage here, https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/what-...mp-author-card

I need to update this post as we've had some unexpected health expenses that warrant an update. The most recent being my son needs shoulder surgery & we will certainly hit the out of pocket max copay for a out of network surgeon .... ouch.

But we love being out of the work race! It is a learning experience for sure. A very broken system at the moment.

[akjam]

We are headed down the same path and have the same health insurance concerns. I will retire in October and plan on COBRA for 18 months of coverage. After that, we will have about three years to bridge until Medicare kicks in. Our domicile will be a county in Texas but many of the providers are offering only HMOs. Since we plan to spend most of our time out of Texas and summers in Alaska, an HMO will be problematic.

One idea I have been considering is medical evacuation insurance. The plans I have looked at will evacuate you and your partner back to your "home" and return your AS if needed. I figure if one of us has a medical issue requiring extensive care, we can be transported back to our HMO area for care.

Anyone else doing this or thinking about it?

[Makaira]

We began full time living at ages 64 and 63. We signed up under ACA in California, aka Covered California. What we discovered is that practically no one anywhere, including our original "home" area would honor the insurance. Additionally, most would not even book an appointment unless we had a primary care doctor providing a referral. My spouse needed to get a colonoscopy and what we finally did out of desperation was go to Mexico for the procedure. That, by the way, worked out just great! He is now on Medicare - so the problem has gone away for him. It seems that health insurance wants you to sit in one house in the same place all of the time. No moving around permitted until on Medicare.

[Hittenstiehl]

Akjam.

We have some friends with experience with Skymed. It worked well for them to transport a spouse and trailer home.

[jsutro]

Hello Streamers:

If you scroll all the way to the bottom of this page, you will find several more forums managed by Social Knowledge Communities. I believe that you will find their "Early Retirement" forum to be loaded with good advice for those contemplating early retirement, or dealing with "retirement" earlier than they would have preferred. Though the overlap is going to be inevitable, early retirement is a financial approach to life distinct from living in an Airstream. Enjoy the rest of your lives, it's all you've got! jim

[streamingairheads]

Originally Posted by FreshAirStmr

I assume when you say full-time, you intend to travel full-time around the country. If so, then your choices are few as nationwide network plans are fast disappearing leaving you unprotected when out of network.

We retired and started full-timing this year, and so for now we've chosen Cobra, which is about $1200/month. Later we'll probably opt for a slightly cheaper plan (and with less coverage) available to retirees from my husband's old company.

To read more about the state of insurance for fulltimers, see this post:

http://wheelingit.us/2015/11/04/heal...re-fulltimers/

and this:
https://www.rverinsurance.com/uncate...en-enrollment/

In writing to you, I went to the rverinsurance.com site (from the link above), only to see this message:

"Due to several unfortunate changes in the health insurance industry, at this time we are only offering the Altrua HealthShare alternative to health insurance for those not on Medicare."

We had gotten health insurance quotes from the company (Kyle) in November 2015, so I was shocked to see that message. Read more about Altrua here:

https://www.rverinsurance.com/an-alt...nce-for-rvers/

Joanne

Great information! Curious if anyone is using te Altrua HealthShare. This looks like a great option. Can anyone share their experience?

[Air Apparent]

Originally Posted by streamingairheads

Great information! Curious if anyone is using te Altrua HealthShare. This looks like a great option. Can anyone share their experience?

There is an organization called Escapees that supports people who are fulltiming. There is no cost to be a member of their forums.

Health Share organizations are discussed on the Escapees forum. See Health Insurance and Medical Issues

Also see Any Current Healthcare Solutions for Pre 65 healthcare?

Use the Escapees forum search function for health share.

I have seen a discussion on using health share organizations.

[kb0zke]

Escapees is a great resource for full-timers. South Dakota is a great domicile State, but health insurance options are not very good. Don't know about Florida or Texas, the other two popular domicile States for full-timers. About all you can do is ask.

Our financial plan is to work about a third of the time, volunteer about a third of the time, and be on our own about a third of the time. "Work" is usually working with Laborers For Christ (which is why we're switching from our Foretravel MH to an Airstream TT). Volunteering is either campground hosting or Habitat For Humanity's Care-A-Vanners. Work always provides the campsite for free, and that usually includes full hookups. Volunteering varies, from FHU to electric only.

When we're on our own we try to use COE parks, because we're over 62. You're too young (for now) for the "geezer pass" but that's a great budget stretcher. We also take advantage of Passport America deals.

[TxStreamerz]

Originally Posted by streamingairheads

I searched "early retirement" and could not find a thread on it. Please advise if you know otherwise.

My hubby and I are discussing retiring early to full-time. While we may pick up part time or online work for small income streams, we feel we'll be okay financially until our pensions and social security kick in. My hubby is 56 and I am 51. The one hang up we have is with health insurance. We are both very healthy, but I've never been much of a risk taker. We are looking into the Obama exchange, Medishare programs, etc. I'm wondering what others have done in this area and what other words of wisdom you have about early retirement.

Thanks.

Hi. I found your stream here via a search for information on Health Share ministries. We, too, are retiring early next Spring and have decided to go with one of the ministries, but haven't decided which one. Just wondering how far you got with your research and which one, if any, you went with.