Why Our Goals Failed, Until We Did This…

When we started our RV life in 2021/22, we wanted to be debt free and not have to work full time jobs. Sounded great and reasonable. But then we started traveling and, when reality met the dream, and old habits kicked in. In spite of us constantly saying to not treat it like we were on vacation, we did. We had a budget but constantly blew it. By September of 2023, about 18 months into being full-timers, we looked at our habits and realized we had amassed more debt than we realized and that many of our goals weren’t being met. We knew we had to pivot.

This wasn’t the first time we had failed to reach a goal we set, but we were determined for it to be our last. A quick Google search told me lots of statistics about goal setting, success and failure. They basically come down to this–a majority of people set goals that they never attain, but success rates increase when we write them down and make them specific and achievable. Don’t keep them a secret, but also make it something you can measure, as well as something within your control. You may want to have 100k followers within a year, but you can’t control that!

We decided on a goal that by Labor Day of 2024, we would be debt free, except for the RV, and we’d find other income so I could leave my job since my health was a constant struggle to balance work and life. We prayed for this a lot, too, since it was a major step for us, but we just had faith it was what we were supposed to do.

But we didn’t stop there. We wrote down all of our debt and expenses, current and upcoming, and created a more realistic budget (that I still tweak monthly, as I see trends). We crunched numbers to determine how much we needed in our Emergency Fund, and then we created a 3 phase plan and dates to achieve them by. BJ also started researching and putting feelers out for alternative work he could do while traveling that would offset my income. He found something that worked (the mobile RV Solar installer), and started working that in around work he was already committed to.

So here was our plan:

Phase 1: Pay off all debt except the RV loan. This included credit cards, medical bills, and our camping memberships that were on a payment plan.

Phase 2: Pay cash for upcoming expenses and projects like our son’s braces, adding solar to the rig for our trip, and a few other odds and ends on our list.

Phase 3: Build our Emergency Fund. We factored in supplementing our income for up to 12 months, just in case jobs weren’t coming in regularly, and we wanted to have a start over fund if we left RV life. We also vowed to not use credit, only using our cards like cash to earn the reward points (which we set up as an auto transfer to another savings so we never see that money).

We also set realistic dates for when we wanted to reach these goals before the year was up, and did regular check ins. This is where my videos on our monthly spending stemmed from this past year, as a means of holding us accountable, as well as providing a realistic view of this life for others. I also created a 2024 Dream Board (photo above) of places we wanted to see and things we wanted to achieve, then set it as my desktop as a reminder. (More on that in my end of year recap next month).

When this past August came around, a month out from our goal, we were excited to have completed all 3 phases early, to have jobs lined up for BJ, and a good feeling, especially since my health was really challenging us. It really felt like we were living God’s plan for us with the way everything fell in line.

Now, 3 months out from having left my job, we are still in a good place, even though work has slowed down. We have been able to use the time and save cash for the projects we have been completing since we’ve been home. If you missed the November Travel and Expenses blog, you’ll see we had some pretty big items and it was an expensive month, too. We consider ourselves semi-retired, something we never expected to be in our mid-40’s. We spend time with our family, which is our priority, and why we even started this in the first place, and travel flexibly.

So, what about you? What is a goal you are working towards, or have dreamed of? Write them down. Break them into phases. Make them measurable and attainable. Check in regularly–if it is just for you, have an accountability partner, or a blog, or just post to your social media with updates. Even if you don’t nail it, forward progress is still progress and gets you that much closer, and with someone to talk to about it, you always have an ear to bounce ideas off of and a voice of encouragement.

You’ve got this…