Author: Lee and Tracy

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First Time Going to a Service Bay

We have had our rig worked on only a few times in the last 2 years, but we have never taken it into a service bay.  We have always used mobile techs because it’s just been easier, and luckily we have never had anything serious enough that needed service inside a bay.  But when we knew we were possibly dealing with an axle related issue we decided to take it in somewhere.  I was pretty intimidated by the whole thing to be honest.  We have heard tons of horror stories from people who take their rigs to service centers and are there for weeks, and even months, so we started the process with caution.  We also started with Camping World for a couple of reasons.  We are lifetime Good Sam/Camping World members, we have Good Sam accident insurance, and our experiences with both, although not perfect, have been good overall . We were nervous about going to a local shop without a strong recommendation from someone, because we simply didn’t know what quality of service we would get.

Being full timers of course complicates this, but when Lee called and talked to Jayme, the service coordinator, he felt very reassured.  She was familiar with full timers and their needs and scheduled us a technician that would be dedicated to solving our problem so we could be assured we wouldn’t be left with an undriveable rig in pieces at the end of the day.  Pulling in went fine.  This particular service station was huge, with tons of bays, and we followed the red lines (as instructed) and then dropped the fifth wheel in the parking lot.  Then they bring a cool machine out which takes the fifth wheel back into the proper bay.  We got to see that in action and it was impressive how those machines maneuvered the fifth wheels.  We could use one of those to get into some state park sites!

Pulling up in the service area

Pulling up in the service area

Followed the red lines

Followed the red lines

Here's another fifth wheel being moved

Here’s another fifth wheel being moved

Close up of the hitch

Close up of the hitch

Alas, pulling in turned out to be the easiest part of the day. We started working with  a service specialist and immediately felt like we were being churned through a big machine. His attitude definitely seemed to change for the worst when he discovered we had an extended warranty, and we really felt like he just wanted to get us processed and done as quickly as possible.  I know they make less on warranty jobs, but we came to Camping World for a reason, so Lee and I were having none of that.  After three hours when they told us they couldn’t see that we had any issue at all, Lee asked to speak to the service tech.  When we were told customers weren’t allowed to speak to the techs we asked to speak to the service manager. After initially being refused, Lee finally just stopped talking to the service advisor altogether and walked up to someone else, who went and got the manager for him.  We all walked out to the rig and Lee showed them the visual evidence that the shackle was rubbing against another component and being worn down, and of course we had a tire on that side that was completely bald on one side while the others all looked brand new. At that point the Service Manager, Bill, pulled his senior tech and he immediately said he thought we had a bent axle, but there was no way to tell without a $99 alignment check.  I wasn’t crazy about that, but OK, so $99 later they discovered the alignment was practically perfect (well within specs), so then they thought it must be a bent spindle.  Solution?  Replace the axle. Short term fix?  Put the spare on, which we did.  At this point Will called the warranty company and was told we would need an adjuster to come out and take a look.

Waiting room had coffee, water, and nice bathrooms

Waiting room had coffee, water, and nice bathrooms

They used their products as furniture which is pretty smart but not all pieces were very comfortable

They used their products as furniture which is pretty smart but not all pieces were very comfortable

We knew that was a possibility, so we hitched back up and went to a campground about 9 miles down the road. It was $40, but it was close, and there aren’t tons of options in that area anyway. The campground wasn’t awful, but definitely overpriced.  It wasn’t great, but it would do for an overnight, and we stayed hitched up and drove back in the morning.  This time we left the truck hitched up and waited in the parking lot for about three hours until Lee decided to call the warranty company himself and try to get an ETA. The time wasn’t totally wasted as we worked on applying for summer camp hosting jobs, but it was pretty cold, and not that comfortable either in the waiting room or in our truck.  When we called the warranty company we were surprised to hear they had no record of a claim or an insurance adjuster coming out.  Lee walked inside and talked to the service manager, who confirmed he wasn’t given a claim number, but was pretty specific about the phone call.  We went back and called and spoke to another person, again, no mention of a claim.  At this point we were both getting pretty frustrated, so we went back in and found Jayme, who was great and once again took over.  She has excellent customer service skills and really was genuinely concerned on our behalf, which really is all you are looking for in a situation like this.

Bill called again and it turns out the phone call from yesterday was never registered.  (We found out later that another Perkins had the exact same issue back in May and somehow the help desk person at the warranty company got confused and reopened that same call.  When the claims adjuster came he had two open calls for the same problem for two different rigs, owned by two different Perkins’.  Bizarre)  So we were back to square one, and an adjuster would be coming out Monday or Tuesday.  This time we were smarter and found a Passport America campground for only $21 a night.  Leisure resort was 30 miles away from Camping World, but honored Passport America on the weekends, which none of the others did. Plus, it’s a really pretty campground with a river running through it, and since it was supposed to get super cold, had 50 amp service. As a bonus the work kampers were very nice and Lee was in a much better mood after he checked us in.

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The sites are long but tight side to side but with no one near us we were great

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View across from us

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Pretty river

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After hooking up, I menu planned for the next several days, Lee went to the grocery store, and I finished sending emails to all the jobs we are looking at for the summer, and we just tried to unwind a little. The next day I was planning on just relaxing, but unfortunately we woke up to frozen water pipes.  We had used our electric water hose  which worked fine, but their pipes (even though insulated) were frozen solid.  We had some water in our fresh tank, so we were able to get by until it warmed up enough for the spigot to thaw, and once it did Lee filled out fresh tank, since it was supposed to get down to 25 again that night. Lee also took our propane tanks to get filled, so we could use our newly repaired furnace without worrying about running out of propane. I walked down to the water and took those pictures.  It actually might have all been for the best, because originally we were headed down to boondock at Padre Island, and it was 23 degrees down there as well.  So we took care of household tasks, watched a little TV, and tried to relax.

That was tough for me because I am pretty uptight about the money, but after a long talk with my mom I felt much better.  I know I have money in the bank, and I know we can’t do anything until we find out about this repair, but the self imposed pressure of finding work right away was really pushing on me.  You can be fully aware that feeling a certain way is crazy, but that doesn’t necessarily mean you can just flip the switch and shut it off, at least I can’t.  But this is how things will be sometimes, and I really need to be able to handle that.  Since 2017 is going to be the year of good decisions, I might as well start now.  I have dubbed it that, because this is the first full year of us living off what we make without any “corporate money”.  Obviously that is going to be tight, and since we can’t just throw money at our problems anymore, we really need to be careful and make good decisions throughout the year.  I am not really a resolution person, so it isn’t a resolution, but more of a commitment to give this the fairest shot I can in 2017. I want to find out if we can spend within our means this year, and part of that is minimizing poor decisions that cost money.  Some things you can’t avoid, but many bad decisions are made in the heat of the moment, and just taking some time and thinking them through would stop it from happening. I will say this though, our $3500 “comfortable” monthly budget is a much lighter monkey than the $6K+ per month we spent in our old life.  And I have these signs in my rig to remind me of a couple of important things.

Lee picked this up for $3 on sale at a Target and it always makes laugh

Lee picked this up for $3 on sale at a Target and it always makes laugh

And my mother-in-law DeDe sent this to us and I absolutely love it

And my mother-in-law DeDe sent this to us, and I absolutely love it!

Sunday the saga continued when we woke up to the furnace not working.  Now you may be thinking “What is wrong with these people?”, but truly we have been very lucky with having minimal repairs.  Just like a sticks and bricks though it appeared everything was going to go wrong at once.  This problem was more complicated because we had a remote service tech come out to fix the problem about two weeks ago, so we needed to call him first.  Late in the evening we got a call from his son who told us his dad had been in a terrible motorcycle accident and would be in the hospital for months.  He hated to “leave us hanging”, but obviously his dad was his first priority.  We understood of course but were not exactly sure what to do. So Monday morning I called the warranty company who stated this was the problem with mobile techs, and they would not pay a claim for the same problem twice.  We would need to “go back to the original provider.”  Since that was impossible, we decided to bit the bullet and have Camping World look at it and this is where they totally stood up.

Not only did they fit us in that same day, but they charged us an extremely reasonable labor rate.  They had to pull the furnace completely out to diagnose the problem and it was a “slightly bent” sail switch.  For those who are wondering why Lee didn’t fix it himself, it bears mentioning that we had to wait until the thinnest tech on the property (not kidding here) was available. Our furnace is in an incredibly tight space and super difficult to access.  The tech pulled it out and fixed the problem and we were billed a reasonable amount, only $77, which is amazing considering the entire process took several hours. Also the claims agent came and immediately validated there was a legitimate problem with the axle.  Despite minimal driving the new tire already shows signs of wear that the others do not, so hopefully the claim will be approved.  Both the furnace fix and the claims agent took several hours, so we spent the downtime looking for both summer and immediate positions.

I had sent several emails out on Sunday so we fielded those responses and we had an hour long phone interview for a summer position in Oregon.  The day wasn’t wasted, but I will say as a piece of advice if you find yourselves in this situation, sit in the waiting room.  From what I observed special priority was given to “waiting” customers and although it was a pain sitting there all day it will decrease the chance of your problem getting pushed to another day.  That may not always be the case, but I heard several techs talking about “waiting customers” which seemed like a good indicator.

Anyway it was almost 5pm when we were done, so we headed back to Leisure Resort and tomorrow are headed down to Padre Island.  We don’t like to drive in the dark, especially to someplace we don’t know, and doesn’t take reservations, so it made sense to start off fresh in the morning.  Not sure what the cell coverage will be like down there, and we will be boondocking, so we’ll have limited computer time, but I will definitely keep you updated on both the warranty work and the job searches.  Much more to come on that later!

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First Time Watching A Tent Come Down

After our interview we spent quite a bit of time finishing up errands, writing/rewriting blog posts, and talking.  One positive thing that came out of all this was we had some long discussions about our role in everything that happened.  Dealing with these work issues as a work couple is complicated.  I have an approach that is honed over years and Lee has his own approach.  Because he always worked in a creative environment and I worked in conservative corporations it is not surprising those approaches are different. We are also different people, with different limits and different hot buttons.  What bothers me doesn’t always bother him and vice versa.  But when you are working as a team, every decision you make impacts the other person. This can be difficult to navigate, and unless you worked together prior to going on the road, it is unlikely you will have dealt with how to handle things prior to them happening.

And that’s a problem for us.  Because in the heat of the moment, when things aren’t going well, we don’t always band together.  Sometimes we flatly disagree or other times we know something needs to be done but don’t agree on the approach.  Based on our most recent work experiences though, we definitely knew this had to change.  Essentially we felt we had two basic choices.  We could either accept whatever happened once we arrived on the job site or we could address the issues as soon as they occurred.  Although it’s tempting to just say “as long as they pay us, whatever, we don’t care”  that tactic simply won’t work for us.  Neither of us is temperamentally suited for it for one thing (our friends are all laughing right now and nodding their heads) but more importantly it feels way too much like our old life.

Some people become full time RVers because they want to travel, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that, but we wanted to change our lives.  We wanted more freedom, less pressure/stress, and the ability to have more choices.  We can say we can tolerate anything for short periods of time and there is definitely an element of truth to that, but we have reached the point where we can see where too much compromise would make this the same as our old life, simply one on wheels. That’s not OK for either of us.

So that leaves us with addressing issues as they occur. That’s the “grownup” thing to do in any event, but it’s not always that simple.  I tend to be too Pollyanna, waiting until it is too late to recognize there is a problem, and Lee takes the opposite approach being very bothered when things aren’t as promised and generally assuming the worst. (I like to think of it more as expecting people to keep their promises and being prepared. – Lee) Basically we need to find a way to meet in the middle, and not only meet in the middle but also construct a joint strategy prior to having the conversation.  Let me give you a simple hypothetical example.  We accept a camp host position this summer and are told where our site will be.  This is an important benefit to us, so we google earth the spot and are pleased to see it is off the main road and in the back of the campground, and overall a pleasant place.  Awesome…looks perfect.  Once we arrive at the job, we are told the owners changed their minds.  They feel we need to be closer to the front for convenience sake and take us to a campsite right next to the road and the dumpsters and dump station. We have two choices in this scenario.  We can either accept the change and make the best of it, or we can talk to the owners and try to work something out.  We also of course always have the “nuclear” option of leaving, but no one wants to do that over something relatively minor.

So most people, ourselves included, just accept the change to the verbal or written contract and live with it. The problem though is it doesn’t generally end there.  More changes are made and before you know it, the job you are doing is not the job you signed up for.  That’s why I think it’s important that going forward we to try to talk it through right from the beginning.  It accomplishes two things.  First and foremost, you might get what you were initially promised, but even if you don’t you have made it clear that you have limits, and are willing to stand up for yourself.  You also get a really good feeling for how the job is going to go, by seeing how the owner/manager handles the conversation.  If they are vague/evasive, that is probably not a good sign.  If they are hostile and shut you down, that is really not a good sign.  But if you talk about it openly, even if you don’t get what you want as an end result, I think it’s a good sign for the future work relationship.   This approach may seem obvious, but for us it’s a stretch, especially as a couple.  We tend to gravitate towards a “give it a pass and wait and see” approach and that has not served us well. Both of us feel like this is an ongoing process, and as long as we’re making progress, that’s something.

In addition to solving all the problems of the world through talk therapy, we also took care of some business.  Lee found a way to replace the hose on the blue boy which was MUCH cheaper than replacing it, ($30 versus $250) and we took our truck in for its 60K mile maintenance service.  It wasn’t that surprising when they called and said the front tires needed to be replaced. The tires had less than 2/32 tread left of them, and are about a year and a half old. Our front end has been out of alignment pretty much since we hit the road, so Lee wasn’t surprised. (This has been incredibly frustrating, because I’ve had three alignments since we hit the road, and because of our travel schedule by the time I realized that the alignment was still off, we were hundreds of miles away from the dealer where the work was done. The last time was when we were getting ready to leave Alaska. They needed a kit to do it, and couldn’t get it fast enough, because Alaska, and we had to leave. Now we are going to be within an hour or so of the dealer for at least a month, so if it isn’t properly aligned I can go back and raise hell. – Lee) So it was $492 for tires and an alignment that we weren’t expecting, but everything else looks great, and we feel very confident in the alignment so far. We also watched the tent company and fence company completely empty our Christmas tree lot, which was actually pretty interesting.  I took lots of pictures, so why don’t I just show you how it happened. The tent came down in about an hour, and the fencing in about an hour as well.

First they took the sides down

First they took the side walls down. They clip onto a rope that runs along the tent, and each side panel is about 100′ long.

And wrapped them up in an amazingly tight bundle. Seriously that was amazing this stuff is hard to wrangle

And wrapped them up in an amazingly tight bundle. Seriously, that was amazing this stuff is hard to wrangle!

Then the unwrapped the ropes on the side poles

Then they unwrapped the ropes on the poles.

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And using a sledgehammer knocked the poles slightly in and loose from their metal holders

And using a sledgehammer knocked the tent stakes loose from the ground.

Next they brought in the forklift and put all the side metal poles (except the corners) on it

Next they brought in the forklift and put all the side metal poles (except the corners) on it

And then the CAT knocked loose the center poles

And then the CAT knocked loose the center poles

The tent started to come down

The tent started to come down

Next they brought buckets for the chains

Next they brought buckets for the chains

I was super impressed by how they used the CAT to minimize physical labor. Efficient and labor saving

I was super impressed by how they used the CAT to minimize physical labor. Efficient!!

Then back to front they started knocking down poles. I stayed outside the tent

Then back to front they started knocking down poles. I stayed outside the tent for this part

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Reminded me of those parachutes we played with in elementary school

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Once the tent was down I saw it was actually multiple pieces sewn together. Lee was suprised I didn't already know this

Once the tent was down I saw it was actually multiple pieces “sewn together”. Lee was surprised I didn’t already know this. (I might have been a roustabout in a previous life, but mostly I just can’t even imaging how heavy the vinyl tent top would be if it were a single piece. Not to mention transporting and storage. The system also allows them to build tents to pretty much any size in 10′ increments. – Lee)

They removed the rope from the seasm which took the longest of any step. Not much you can do to speed that process up, just good old fashioned untying

They removed the rope from the seams which took the longest of any step. Not much you can do to speed that process up, just good old fashioned untying

Then they folded the pieces up. This took some muscle

Then they folded the pieces up. This took some muscle

And rolled them into balls, once again using the CAT for transport

And rolled them into balls, once again using the CAT for transport

My favorite part was when they uses the forklift to lift the tent stakes out of the ground. Amazing control of the CAT was called for

My favorite part of the process was when they uses the forklift to lift the tent stakes out of the ground. Amazing control of the CAT was called for

The poles with no heads took a little longer (but not much) as they had to wrap a chain around them and pull up. That still went super quick

The poles with no heads took a little longer (but not much) as they had to wrap a chain around them and pull up. That still went super quick

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Finis!

Finis! (After two months of having the tent between us and the road, it was really weird to suddenly have a clear line of sight to the road. We felt really “exposed” and the traffic noise was much louder. I can’t even imagine what it must have been like for the most of the other locations that were right next to the interstate. – Lee) 

 

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Removed the fencing on piece at a time

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Stacked nice and neat. This was much less dramatic than the tent but still impressively efficient

We only stayed one night on this empty lot and felt less exposed because the lights from the gas station next door kept it well lit, but I wouldn't want to stay for long periods. The tent not only gave us an illusion of privacy it also helped quite a bit as a wind break

We only stayed one night on this empty lot and felt pretty exposed.  The lights from the gas station next door helped as they kept the lot well lit, but I was glad we were leaving the next day. The tent not only gave us an illusion of privacy it also helped quite a bit as a wind and sound barrier. (Once the fence was gone, we REALLY felt exposed. Having an 8′ fence around you gives you a sense of security, and now at this point anyone who wanted to could walk or even drive their car right up to our front door. We were both really glad that was only one night. – Lee)

So next up is Camping World, and our first visit to a service center. We have been having a problem with extreme uneven wear  on one trailer tire and want to get that looked at before we figure out what’s next. (Oooohhh, foreshadowing! – Lee)

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Second Year Budget Summary – 2016

I’m pretty excited about seeing where we finished up in Year Two, and I will be comparing each category to Year One as we go along along with some fancy charts and graphs. (Happy Birthday Bill!!)  One of the things we tried in Year 2 was to have more categories and this was with mixed results.  We did a pretty lousy job of delineating costs in some categories (groceries expendables versus consumables comes to mind) and in others it’s so subjective what category we place things in,  I am not sure it really provides any value.  Lee and I will be reviewing the categories right after this post is done and you will start seeing the changes in January.  Since we now have 24 data points, we will hopefully be more confident in adjustments to our budget numbers.  In some cases we pick a number and even if we go over consistently we stick with it to try to hold ourselves accountable, but in other categories it becomes clear over time that adjustments are called for.  Then there are the standard cost of living increases (such as higher insurance rates) and those we adjust as the rates increase. 

So how did we do? We were amazingly close in our Actuals versus Budget with a deficit of only $1076!!!  Some individual categories have large variances, but the totals worked out nicely.  We actually spent a little bit more this year than last year with $51,927 in expenses versus $49,410 last year, but before you get concerned about the fact that we spent more this year than last year, keep in mind Alaska.   That trip obviously had a pretty dramatic impact on this years numbers. (And obviously we spent way more than the $2500 difference between the two years while we were in AK, so that shows that this year’s “actual” numbers were really much better than last year. I credit me, naturally. – Lee)

Fair warning for those of you who find all the detail a little boring, you probably want to stop here.  I’ll been promising Lee a trend analysis once I got enough data points, so the rest of this post is going to go into some very specific detail.  That was harder than it sounds, mainly because we changed categories after last year so in order to complete a year over year comparison I had to do some consolidation.  Thus it’s not a perfect year over year comparison, but certainly close enough for our purposes.  I know Bill will enjoy it, but many people might find it a little boring.  No worries if you fall into that category, I promise it won’t hurt my feelings. (This one’s for you, Bill. – Lee)

For those still with me, let’s start with a picture of the detailed break down for this year.

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And a chart showing year over year comparison.  Again keep in mind it’s not perfect because I had to combine some categories.

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Plus the Averages, Monthly Maximum and Monthly Minimum over the two year period, keeping in mind I had to combine some categories to try and make an apples to apples comparison.

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Finally a pie graph with the 2015/2016  totals for larger expenditures. I didn’t include health insurance, because I had corporate insurance all of 2015 and part of 2016. (A pie chart! We’re such nerds! – Lee)

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Still with me?  Alright let’s talk about each category in order of 2016 spend amount.

Groceries – We were over budget in 2015 and saw minimal improvement in 2016 despite increasing our focus.  We like food and I like cooking meals.  The only time we ever see a reduction in a month is when we eat out more than we should, which obviously is not a great way to get a budget category under control.  $8,250 in food costs is rough, but so far we are  unwilling to make the changes we would need to make to get these costs lower. At least we are consistent, lol. (And I think our waistlines clearly show a visual representation of our dedication to this. – Lee) Our two year average was $687  with a high of $1078 and a low of $367.  The extremes were caused by being in areas with high food costs (Alaska and Glacier were the worst) but even taking that into account on average we are almost $100 over budget per month. Obviously this is more than two people need to eat every month and where we struggle is that more than any other budget area when we cut back we feel “poor.” That’s a tough mental obstacle for us to overcome and the budget numbers show it. 

groceries-trend

Truck Fuel – Not surprisingly we went up in this category with $6250 in spend this year.   Considering we spent at least $1500 in gas  to get to Alaska and back, and more gas than usual while we were there, it wasn’t so bad.  I also didn’t have a company car, like I did in most of 2015, so we used the truck for all our traveling.  If you take those factors out of the equation we actually did better than last year, partly due to the extremely low fuel costs in 2016.  Our average was $456 which is only $50 over budget and I think we did great coming so close if you consider all the miles we traveled in the last two years.   

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Cell/Internet/TV – We spent more than $5200 in this category so it deserves some explanation.  We took advantage of a double data deal back when we first started and we have 80 gig of data.  This data level might seem high, but it is for our internet use and our TV solution. Some of that money is tax deductible because we use it for our businesses, but it’s still a chunk of money.  We also have a separate Verizon phone (I used my company phone for most of 2015) with a tiny little data plan which we use when we don’t have ATT coverage.  Since we rarely go without ATT coverage I did look and see if adding a second line to ATT and ditching the Verizon coverage might help, but it doesn’t seem that much cheaper. We have had numerous discussions about going with a cheaper, less reliable option, but that’s a tough sell for us.  I continue to hold out hope that pressure from the Milennial generation ultimately results in reasonably priced data for mobile workers.  In the meantime we are sticking with the devil we know.  

RV Loan Payments – We knew when we chose to sell our house for less than it was worth we would have an RV payment adding up to $4847 a year. Two years later I still don’t regret that decision at all, since the housing situation in Keene is no different now than it was then.  They actually went through this year and lowered the housing values for tax purposes so if we had held out for perceived equity we might still be sitting there.  $404 a month (interest tax deductible) is a small price to pay. 

Health Insurance – Our costs in 2016 ran roughly $4228 and that’s about what we think they will run in 2017. It’s an estimate though because we really don’t know what we will make this year.  Costs may come in higher or lower.  Despite the cost, this is not an area I am willing to experiment with at this time. Plus I am overdue for a mammogram, pap smear, and colonoscopy, so if I find a way to get those tests done in 2017 the annual cost will more than make up for that. The biggest challenge for us will be finding a place where we can get all that done. 

Home Improvement – Despite intense focus on this category we ended up almost the same at $3714.  Tracking these costs in more detail did help though, because we definitely spent more this year on necessary purchases than supplemental.  We had several unexpected repairs and those coupled with one time expenses to get setup for long-term boondocking in Quartzsite accounted for $2211 in spend.  Two years in I don’t see this category ever going down much (although Lee continues to be hopeful), we ended 2016 with a repair and started 2017 with another and we had some sort of repair almost every month in 2016.  At this point it seems to be a natural cost of the lifestyle.  Our monthly average is $311 which is close to $100 more than we want to spend a month.  As you can see from the $942 maximum though that one or two major repairs can really blow the yearly average, regardless of how well you do the other months.  

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Dining Out – I don’t know that dividing this into two categories ended up making that much of a difference.  We spent $281 more in 2016 than in 2015 for a total of $3251 and since our budget was only $1800 we went over by $1450. That’s just not OK and it’s definitely residual from our old life.  I love to eat in local places for the experience and Lee loves to eat well. (You don’t get a physique like mine from diet and exercise, baby. – Lee) That combination does not serve us well. If it was just Lee he probably wouldn’t go and if it was just me I could get by on water and an appetizer.  Honestly I don’t know how to solve the problem other than just stop going, but that makes me sad because part of exploring a new place is sampling the local restaurants. We do need to figure this one out though, because $1,500 is not an insignificant amount of money in this lifestyle.  Our average is $259 around $100 over budget (I am seeing a pattern here) and we stay pretty consistent here month over month with the occasional highs and lows.  In this case though the average absolutely reflects our normal monthly spend. 

dining-out-trend

Truck/RV Insurance and Registration – Combined these totaled $2769 and the truck insurance at least has been well worth it.  We got a windshield replaced and of course had a brand new truck engine in 2015.  We have never used our RV insurance, but at this point are not willing to give it up. It is essentially our homeowners insurance and covers our RV and the stuff in it.  Since almost all of our worldly possession are in this rig, that’s a big deal.  Also after having seen pictures of two rigs that burnt to the ground last year, this is not something we personally are willing to go without.

Campground Fees –  We only spent $2,633 this year which was a huge improvement from last year.  We have been under budget in this category for both years and it has been a huge budget saver.  Partly this is because of work kamping, but also it is because we invested in solar and a generator and can boondock.  We could do even better in this category, but we tend to choose expediency over cost when we are traveling. The most we ever spent was $778 and those high costs were all when we first started.  This is one area where we have seen a nice downward trend over time, which is encouraging. 

campgrounds-trend

Truck Maintenance – We got whacked in this category, despite having two excellent warranties, spending $1755 on new tires and an alignment.  Both of those purchases were absolutely necessary because of our Alaska trip, but it definitely wasn’t something either of us originally expected.  I had hoped this category would “normalize” in 2017, but as I was writing this post we took our truck in for it’s 60K maintenance and were told both front tires needed to be replaced. The quote for that along with the alignment is $555.  This category like RV maintenance appears to be the cost of doing living the RV lifestyle. This is another category where a few high ticket expenses can really impact your annual budget.

truck-maintenance-trend

Entertainment – We did great in this category spending $1,736 and ending up $64 under budget for the year and $289 less than 2015.  It’s particularly impressive because it not only includes outings but also music and book purchases.  We stayed on budget by focusing on Activities under $10 . We did splurge occasionally but generally every month we are under budget in this category.  That shows a real shift in focus versus our old lives and I wish we could emulate this trend in other categories.  This was probably our most consistent category with the two year average at $146 right below our monthly targets.  We had a couple of high months but those were offset by very low months and it worked out very well in the end. 

Clothing – We focused on this category and actually did pretty well in it considering we had to buy clothes for the beet harvest.  We spent $1305 for the year and this includes T-Shirts (which shows remarkable restraint for us) and normal replacement clothes.  We were within $100 of our budget which is something we can live with.  

Cigarettes – At $1260 for the year we were both under budget and under last years costs.  Lee has taken the state by state cost variation out of the equation by buying in bulk through the mail.  This was something that was not available in 2015, and really helped us keep those costs normal during our time in Alaska.  We actually took in enough tobacco to last for two months and then received the rest that we needed in the mail.  This was a major budget saver as tobacco (like everything else) was extremely expensive in Alaska.   And yes, obviously this is an optional cost, but as compared to the $6700 a year we were spending a year in our old lives this is a huge improvement.  

 Shipping/Postage/Mail Service – Despite intense focus this year we were actually a little over last years number at $815.  Most of this though can be attributed once again to Alaska.  We shipped some presents home, which are in the category and got whacked a couple of times with very high shipping fees to get our mail to us.  Lee continues to make this a priority though and if you take Alaska out of it, I definitely think we are seeing improvement.  

Memberships –  Spending over $700 a year in this category may seem steep, but we have the America the Beautiful Pass, Escapees Membership, Passport America, Costco, Work Kamper News,  and an American Express Gold Card.  We have done the cost analysis on all of them and they all saved us more money than they cost or provide sufficient value that we retain them. We continue to evaluate these every year though. The credit card in particular we have discussed changing, and could probably do better with multiple cards used based on what pays the most points, but we really like the company and their fraud protection.

Gifts – In more than any category we saw YOY improvement with only $669 in 2016 purchases versus $1066 in 2015.  Essentially I adjusted my gift giving to match our income. I really thought it would have been harder to make this adjustment emotionally, but it turned out it was pretty easy. Plus the fact that almost everyone I know makes more than me at this point really helped 🙂

Storage – We reduced our spend in this category to $540 this year by asking the kids to pay their share.  We both really want to go back and clean this storage area out, but New Hampshire is in the opposite direction where we want to be so this is easier said than done.  Also I think its worth mentioning that although I can’t remember much about what is in there, a few items do stick out and we want to hang onto those.  Lee’s parents offered storage space in their basement and we will definitely take them up on that for the remaining items. 

Personal Care – We also saw great YOY improvement in this category spending $448 which was $307 less than last year!  How did we do it?  We both extended the time between hair cuts (pretty easy when the closest hair cut place in Alaska was a couple hours away) and I eliminated most of my extra beauty expenditures.  I still had my eyebrows waxed a few times and I think 2 pedicures, but those events were few and far between.  It’s probably not surpising that I never care about that stuff when we are surrounded by nature.  I only start thinking about it when we are in an urban environment. 

Propane – We included propane costs in campground fees for most of 2015 but this year we separated it out and only spent $225.  The more you boondock the more you spend in propane, but you can also rack up propane costs if you don’t have an adequate electric heat source.  Lee spent some time putting in extra outlets so we can run three heat sources simultaneously (as long as we are on 50amp) so we never have to use our propane furnace unless we are boondocking.  (Technically if we are at a site that has 30 and 15 amp, which is pretty common, we can still run all three. Not much more, but it keeps us warm and snuggly. – Lee) This saves us quite a bit in propane costs and takes full advantage of any hookups we may have.

Alcohol – We didn’t separate this out last year so I have no idea how we compared but we only spent $181 which I think is very reasonable.  Our drinking patterns are odd, because we only drink when we are with other people that drink, but then we tend to buy lots of alcohol.  I do recommend tracking this category though if you are a frequent drinker.  Those costs can really add up.

Laundromat – We spent $164.25 at the laundrymat this year and most of that was while we were in Quartzsite.  We use our Splendide 2100 almost exclusively (with the occasional exception of sheets and blankets) except when we are boondocking.  The more boondocking, the higher the laundry costs.  Our camp host job in Alaska also had the extra benefit of a full washer and dryer which saved us any laundry fees throughout the summer. 

Wood – This was another category we lumped into campground costs in 2015 and this year we spent very little.  We had free wood while camp hosting in Susanville, the Redwoods, and Alaska and lived in “no fire” areas during the Beet Harvest and Christmas trees.  We were going to buy wood for Quartzsite in 2016, but are waiting until we are 100% sure that is where we will be.  We talked about propane campfires, but I just don’t care for them, so we will continue to buy wood whenever it makes sense.  Free wood is always a nice perk though, and we have taken advantage of it when we are given it. So we only spent $20 but we also filled up with wood at the end of 2015 and will buy wood again at the beginning of 2017.  We also intentionally ran out of wood early in 2016 because we knew we would have to cross the Canadian border and we couldn’t take it with us. So really half the year we were abnormally “wood free” in our truck.

 

If you have made it this far, and good for you by the way, you might think this is all pretty hopeless.  That’s how I felt when I looked at other people’s budgets before full timing, but let me tell you what the numbers don’t say.  First, there were lots of expenses in year one I just didn’t report on.  One time discretionary purchase and health insurance costs never made it to that first year, so even though it looks like we spent the same amount of money we really didn’t.  Year two is more representative of our true costs, although I still am not including our business expenses in this reporting.

Secondly, more than anytime in our lives we have choice.  We also have a much better understanding of exactly what we spend and why, and with the exception of repairs and the RV loan we have the ability to impact the costs.  We could in almost every other category reduce those costs.  We chose not to. And that’s a big deal because it means we can choose to do something different in 2017.  I am not saying we necessarily will, but we can and I rarely felt that was an option in my previous life.

At this point we have three choices to make this lifestyle sustainable for us.  We can spend less, work more, or get jobs that pay more.  Pretty simple, and we get to decide.  And every single person I know who is living this lifestyle is going through the same thing.  Even the people who on the surface are making plenty of money, are looking to the future and making those choices.  And that’s a good thing, an important thing.

It’s easy to look at the total dollar amount and dismiss the lifestyle as impossible.  I certainly was guilty of that early on in my research, but I am hoping that if you are a person who made it this far you are also a person who can see beyond the high level. And please keep in mind that despite the cost, we paid our bills. We didn’t dip into our savings and actually managed despite the Alaska trip to break even.  That is no small thing. Is the lifestyle sustainable for us? I still don’t know, but I firmly believe it could be.  We get to decide if it’s worth it to us.  Either way we still have our savings, we still have our contingency fund, and we even had 2016 tax money set aside.  That is no small thing considering all we managed to do in 2016 and a success story in my opinion.

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Christmas Tree Work Kamping Overview

Once again it is important to note that this post only talks about our experience working for one Christmas Tree organization in San Antonio Texas during the 2016 season, which was exceptionally rainy.  After talking to people who have worked here in previous years and hearing anecdotally about the experiences of people who have worked in New York, Florida, and Memphis there is an excellent chance your mileage will vary.  Even the four new couples who worked here this season had vastly different experiences because they all worked on different lots which had different sales volumes and physical lot characteristics. If there is that much variation why bother writing about it at all?  I still feel there is value because I believe it is representative of an experience another person could have and being forewarned is forearmed.  If you are a person that likes to start at the beginning before reading the summary start with this blog post.   

We started this job for four couples who had never worked a tree lot before.  Of the other 11 couples, two had worked the previous year (where they did record sales and sold out midway through December) and the remainder had worked several years for the owner.  I didn’t get a chance to talk to every couple about their experience, but I did talk to the other new couples and their impressions of the job all varied.   One couple really liked it and is definitely coming back.  One couple, who worked at Amazon for 7 years prior to trying this, stated they would be going back to Amazon because it paid better and they had days off.  The third couple was very upset that the “work was misrepresented” and stated they would never come back.  Throughout the season we were somewhere in the middle.  The job had its frustrations and was much more difficult than we expected, but we were waiting until we got paid to make our final determination.  This post was written after we found out how much we got paid. 

The other thing you should know is how we got this job.  I heard about it while in Alaska from a couple who had done it for several years and asked several very specific questions.  I was told the time period was roughly a month, we would make at least $5K if we weren’t complete idiots, and most of the labor would be done by our employees.  Yes it was hard work, but we were managers of the lot not the employees. Prior to taking the job Lee had a followup conversation with the owners wife where he asked several questions.  He was told staffing was never an issue as experienced people came back to work the same tents year after year and the employees did the bulk of the work.  We would “pitch in.”  In retrospect I think it was important these conversations took place in September, very close to when the season was starting.  After talking to others who got their information earlier in the season, they seemed to have a better idea of what they were facing.  Or maybe we just heard what we wanted to hear, or didn’t ask the right questions.  That’s certainly fair and I would like to think it was misunderstanding rather than deliberate deception.  

Another major event before we started was a conversation we had in training. When I asked a question about commission the owner took me aside, looked me right in the eye, and stated that they knew someone had to work the lowest volume lot, and said “if you work hard we will take care of you. Again in retrospect this should have been a warning sign, but I chose to accept it at face value.  I honestly wasn’t concerned about the amount of the payment, just the timing, but it never occurred to me once I met him that he wouldn’t fairly compensate me. I was a little nervous, because I had never worked a commission job before, but after hearing everyone say what good people they were and how they took care of people I wasn’t that worried. It didn’t take long for us to realize that the job was both much, much harder than it had been represented and that we would have no opportunity to make the same sales commissions as the larger, busier lots.  So that conversation was something I went back to on numerous occasions.  

After the first weekend we knew we were selling less than half the volume of trees that other lots were selling, so of course our associated “sundry sales” were also lower.  This coupled with the fact that we had learned that the couple on this lot last year had left early and we were particularly concerned. No one came right out and told us why they had left early, and when we asked we got numerous different answers.  This was our second warning sign, and came pretty early in the experience.  We actually talked about leaving at that point but the combination of the commitment we had made and the promise made to us, made us hope for the best and stick it out.  Despite our best efforts though we couldn’t quite shake the feeling that last year’s couple knew something we didn’t know.  

Finally, despite the ambiguity around how much we would be paid, we worked hard throughout the season to have the best Christmas Tree lot possible.  Our desire to do a good job exists no matter what we are doing and is independent of the compensation we will receive.  Our work kamping jobs are no exception to this as we live our life by a pretty basic Midwestern ethic.  I grew up living the golden rule, and mostly believe that if you do right by others they will do right by you.  to work hard, and you expect you will get treated fairly.  That’s how we approach every job.  

So keeping all that in mind I am going to dive into the detail. Let’s start with the numbers.   

  • We worked a total of 46 days, including mandatory training on November 5th & 12th, and finishing our tear down  on December 29th.  
  • During the date range above we had 9 days off (a few days in the beginning, Thanksgiving, and a couple of days at the end waiting for tear down) which are not included in the total above.
  • We worked 29 full days (11-13 hours) in a row with no days off.  As a side note, we actually had it easier than the folks on the busier lots.  Most of them worked 15 hour days. 
  • Our total hours worked (this is as a couple total) was 869. 
  • We sold 472 trees. Again, way less than almost every other lot which sold at least 1,000.

Number of trees sold was the most important number because commission is based on tree sales.  We earned $1.50 for each tree (from 0-999, and then it jumps to $2.50 per tree from 1000 and up) so right off the bat, had we been on a larger/busier lot we would have made at least an additional $800 in commission from tree sales alone.  There is a direct correlation between the amount of trees sold and the sundries sold (didn’t sell many stands to people who didn’t buy trees for example)  and since we made roughly $3 in commission per tree I have to assume we would also have sold another $1500 in sundries on a larger lot.  That adds up to an additional $2300 in commission alone, but let’s see what we actually made.

Total gross income as a couple for the 2016 tree season. $6001.65 

The breakdown was as follows:

  • $2500 base pay
  • $1439.45 commission on trees, wreaths, garland, and sundries (stands, preservative, etc)
  • $200 postcard bonus (collected names and addresses from over 80% of the customers who made a purchase)
  • $1,000 performance bonus.
  • Other fringe benefits – Free campsite with electric, water, and weekly sewer pump out; Christmas lunch.  Since our budget for campsites is $600 a month you could add $1200 to the total above, but we never look at work kamping jobs that way.  Especially ones where we are staying in a place we would not normally stay, but some people do so it’s worth mentioning.
    (I vigorously refuse to consider this as part of the compensation. It is possible to stay for free at various places, so we could have done that. I also do not consider the electric, water and tank pumping to be part of the compensation for the same reason. – Lee)

Not a bad chunk of change on the surface, but let’s break that down a little.

  • We made $7.13 an hour, which is less than Texas minimum wage.  Some people don’t care about this figure, especially in a “management job”, but I always compare the jobs we do to how much we could make working a $10 an hour job.  Since this was less what we were paying our employees I really had an issue with it. Some people don’t and I get that so let me put it another way.  If someone said to us upfront “You will be working 70 hours a week, have no days off, and make less than minimum wage” we would never have taken the job.  But that’s just us.  Your mileage may vary.
  • Our “per day” rate was $130 which is actually not a bad day rate for low stress, low physicality jobs, gate guarding pays that for example.  But since this job was both stressful and highly physical,  I personally do not feel the day rate was adequate.  (If you calculate based on all days onsite that number is actually $88. – Lee)
  • Did it cover our budget of $3500 a month?  Everyone had different budgets and we know ours in on the high side, but whether or not we take jobs is dependent on what we will be doing and quality of life.  A job we would really love we are willing to go under.  A job we found hard for extra money is often a fair deal.  To work this hard and not even break even was tough, especially because it puts us in a position where we need to immediately start looking for another job.  It is doubtful we would have signed up for this job in advance if we knew it would put us in the hole financially, plain and simple.

Why did we end up making so little in performance bonus?  Well, to be honest we are not completely sure.  When the check was presented to us, I asked if there was a formula to determine the performance bonus and was told “not really.”  Immediately after saying that, the owner did state it was partly based on our labor costs, and ours were very high.  After reviewing labor it seems clear that every dollar we went over on labor was taken out of our bonus.  This was despite the fact that I spoke to him at length about the staffing and was told “to not worry about it, it would work itself out.” I knew that wouldn’t be the case even when he said it to me and made a conscious decision to staff, so I can kind of live with losing that money, but we never discussed the additional money he had promised to put us on par with the other lots.  Not only did we receive a reduced performance bonus, but our sales compensation was not brought level to other couples.  This was a double hit.  (I have a different take on this. Now that we’ve actually done this, it’s very clear that the base pay and commission adds up to very little in comparison to the hours worked. If we had made the additional $2300 in commission by being on a larger lot, our hourly rate would have been around $9.55.  Based on the amount of work we did, the lack of time off, and all the other factors, even if we had made that additional money it still wouldn’t have been worth it to me. So from my perspective, the bonus is where it becomes worth it, if it’s going to. Unfortunately the bonus is totally subjective and discretionary. You can do all the work, never make a mistake, sell more trees and sundries than anyone else, have a labor rate that is far below the target, or even zero, and in general be the greatest tree lot operator the world has ever seen, where songs are written about you, streets are named after you and statues are erected in your honor, and the owner can still pay a zero bonus. I know that seems like a stretch, and it is certainly the most extreme example, in order to make the point. Reading that, you might ask, “Why would he do that?”  For me the most obvious reason is that if he doesn’t want the couple to return, or if he thinks there’s a good chance that they won’t return, then why not do it? As an added benefit, he gets to keep that money for himself, or use it to boost someone else’s bonus at no cost to himself. Of course, that’s all conjecture, but in the absence of any explanation, conjecture is pretty much all that’s left. – Lee)

The second thing he mentioned in the meeting was he wished he would have talked to Lee more. There were various methods of communication used throughout the season.  We received emails and we received texts on three different phones (our two personal and one work phone we were given).  We also received messages from employees, or via phone calls from either owner.  In turn when we needed to communicate it was often unclear which was the best method to take.  More importantly, at least to me, was who communicated with who.  Despite the fact that I was titled the cashier and Lee was titled the manager, we always treated the job as co-managers.  In the beginning Lee talked to the owner quite a bit, but once he was comfortable directed most of his follow-up questions towards the full-time employee we saw almost daily.

 I called the owner several times about the staffing issues because I was struggling with trying to create a workable schedule and I felt those conversations went well at the time. But in the final meeting the owner stated that he “rarely spoke to the cashiers”, leaving that to his wife I realized that I had crossed a line somewhere.  Lee and I have always worked as a unit and since I had more experience with staffing and scheduling  it made sense for me to take over those duties.  When I ran into trouble I reached out to the owner as the expert, not only to get some concrete help, but to make him aware of the issue.  I knew we weren’t cutting it in this area, but thought based on our conversations that he would make allowances for our newness, difficulty staffing, and my willingness to adjust tactics based on his advice.  Not only did he not make any allowances but it also appears he penalized us for my being the person who was handling the issue. I simply don’t know what to do with that.  

Ok so enough about the money, let’s talk about the experience. When you think selling Christmas trees, almost everyone’s initial reaction is “that sounds fun.”  Heck that was my initial reaction as well.  After doing it, there are moments where it is fun, but it is also extremely hard work.  

  • Physical Exertion –  My number one concern about this job was the level of physical exertion.  We are both hard workers, but are not large musclebound people, and Lee in particular needs to be careful about how much he lifts and how he lifts because of an old back injury.  The only way for us to make our labor target was for at least one of the managers to physically work with the trees full-time, essentially becoming one of the employees. It didn’t  matter if you were on a high volume lot or not, there simply aren’t enough labor dollars to pay for an employee all day, every day and still get the trees processed. Don’t get me wrong  several people did make their labor targets, but they were also pretty open about how they did it.  The man in the couple handled trees, worked alone a majority of the time, and only had helpers on the weekends or when trees came.  The last two weeks the manager had no employees at all. Early on we did make the daily labor rate ($4 per tree) a couple of times and got to see firsthand what that looked like.  Lee was absolutely exhausted at the end of every day and after a few days in a row was seriously hurting.  Partly that was because of an old back injury he has but also because he is not very tall.  Being tall is a huge bonus, because the shorter you are the harder it is to handle the trees, regardless of their weight.  When we discussed this during the  performance bonus portion of our meeting, we were told that we should have made the customers help load the trees.  This was quite a surprise to both of us, but the owners stated firmly this was a regular practice in the tree business.  (Once again, my opinion differs. The overall vibe of the operation is to have the best trees, and an exceptional and high-end experience for the customers, which goes along with the very high price of the trees. They’re clearly shooting for a higher end customer, and these are not typically the type of people who are looking to be part of the process. At the end, however, when we discussed how that costs money in labor, we were simply told “you should have had the customers help you carry the trees and put them on the roof of cars.” This is just ridiculous. First of all, if that were really how they wanted us to run the lot, that would have been explained to us in training. What we WERE told is that if any customer wanted to look at a tree all the way around, we should pull it out into an open area for them to look at it. We were specifically told NOT to let them move the trees. We were also told that once they had picked out a tree, that they should go to the front and pay for it while employees carried it to the front and processed it to go out the door. That’s perfectly reasonable, but it’s completely different from being told at the end that we should not have had employees on site and that customers should help carry the trees.  – Lee) 
  • Staffing Issues – We were told numerous times that employees would just show up on the lot and most of them would be experienced.  (When I spoke to the owner’s wife, right after she told me that we would have employees doing all the heavy lifting, I asked her where I would get these employees. Her answer was that as soon as the tents went up, they would line up looking for work. I was told that MOST of them would have worked at a lot in previous years, and that we would have more applicant than we needed. This was ABSOLUTELY not our experience. When we expressed concern about not having staff, we were told that it was too early, that we shouldn’t worry, that they would come. Simply didn’t happen. I also want to point out that if we weren’t really supposed to have staff, as discussed in the previous section, we would have been told that during this discussion. – Lee) That was the case on some lots, but not on ours, because it was new.  We struggled with staffing from the beginning and were never able to hire the type of people we needed.  If you are extremely limited on staff then it is important you hire tall, muscular guys who can easily handle trees alone.  Our employees were great, but were unable to manage anything above a 6 foot alone which necessitated having two of them there together or Lee handling every tree with them.  The amount of time it took in the beginning to hire, on board, and train employees also was excessive in the beginning.  We hired 19 people throughout the season and had a very hard time getting people who were strong to stay with the job for the $8 an hour we were paying.  The owner was aware this was an issue, we discussed it several times, but eventually I was told to “stop worrying about it”.  He specifically said to treat the daily labor rate like I would “a check engine light” on my car and “mentally put a piece of tape on it.”  (I want to clarify this to make sure there’s no misunderstanding. Once we expressed our concern that our experience was not lining up with what we were told to expect, we were specifically told to ignore the labor target and staff as needed. But again, at the end, we were told the exact opposite. – Lee) The thought was if we stocked the tent then sales would come.  Unfortunately our sales never increased and I ended up with a $9 per tree labor rate, more than double our target. 
  • Selling Trees – With the exception of very few customers this was actually very fun.  The trees were beautiful, the families were happy, and I enjoyed being a part of a special experience for many people.  Yes, we had kids running around (although less of that than I thought there would be) and we had days where everyone seemed cranky, but mostly it was a lot of fun.  There was a ton of downtime though, and since someone has to stay in the tent regardless of the weather or customer traffic, it made for some long, monotonous days. Lee read several books while waiting for customers to come in towards the end. (Another important thing to point out is that while we didn’t count every person who came in the door, I can safely say we sold a tree to at least 90% of the people who came in. We had a fantastic ratio of traffic to sales, but very, very low traffic. Anecdotally, other lot operators seemed surprised by this. They appear to have had significantly higher traffic, with a lower ratio, which is more normal. I mention this because in my mind, THAT should be the basis of a performance bonus. – Lee)
  • Other Work Kampers – The best part of the whole experience for me was how friendly and helpful the other work kampers were.  Although we rarely physically saw each other, we stayed in contact throughout the season and I was assigned a mentor who was very helpful.  The full-time employees of the company were also great, providing tons of support and help for us newbies in the day-to-day.  There is a steep learning curve with this job and everyone we talked to said Year 1 was extremely difficult.  You have to learn how to care for and process trees, all of the products and their characteristics to sell them, the cash register, credit card machine, and a pretty comprehensive daily accounting process.  I spent about an hour a day on paperwork alone and we often received phone calls at 8am.  But people were pleasant and helpful throughout the season. 

Knowing all this what questions would we go back and ask if we could do it again?

  1. Where is the site?  Many sites are on busy roads and there is almost constant noise.  We were very lucky here with our site, but I saw a few others I wouldn’t have wanted to stay on. (On the other hand, we had ridiculously low traffic coming to our location, because it was only the 2nd year it was here, and there’s no access to the road. You have to come into the gas station lot and drive past all the pumps to get in. I would say that we probably had less than a third of the traffic other lots had. – Lee) 
  2. What were last years sales?  This is an important question because it makes you less reliant on a bonus and more reliant on your own sales skills.  You are still taking a risk depending on weather, quality of trees, and other competition, but at least it is something to go by.  If you are going to work this many hours, you might as well be on a busy lot. At least then you are guaranteed to make more money.  
  3. What are the labor expectations? If we were truly managers and allowed to hire staff to do the bulk of the heavy lifting that would be fine.  If the expectation was we would perform the bulk of the heavy labor we would have to pass. I don’t mind working hard, but cannot afford an injury which would impact my future earnings.  Especially since most of these jobs do not have workers compensation.
  4. How much support is provided by the owner? I appreciate not being micromanaged, I actually think this is one of the major benefits of this job, but when I do bring a problem to the owner, support is important.  There were many times in this job when we were completely out of our element and just didn’t feel we had the tools necessary to solve the problem. 
  5. Hours of Operation? We knew we would be working 11-9 everyday, but were surprised by how much work happened during our limited off time.  We received numerous unscheduled deliveries at 8am and were told in training the expectation was that we would have our phones on and be available from 7am -10pm every day. I don’t mind being on call.  I’ve had many jobs in my life where that was the case, but we were contacted during “off hours” on a daily basis.  The contacts ranged from answering a question to hurriedly getting dressed and going outside to unload a truck, but the expectation was always the task would be performed immediately.   This made it very difficult to complete any personal tasks during our off hours and ultimately resulted in only one of us at a time not going more than a few miles away from our tent at any time.  Just having a couple of off hours a day would have made a world of difference to our quality of life, but as they say it’s all about the tree once the season starts and that is certainly the expectation.

I would not do this type of work again unless the pay structure was more equitable. Now that we’ve done it, I feel the job is worth about $15-17 an hour. We made $7.  For me, this experience boils down to a pretty serious misrepresentation of the job, followed by “don’t worry about it” statements during the season to keep us working, very clear promises that simply were not kept, and then being financially penalized at the end for doing exactly what we were told to do. – Lee

In summary, I wish I could separate out our experience here from the job itself, and give a recommendation solely based on the job.  But  since almost every most decision we made day-to-day ultimately impacted our compensation it is next to impossible. It’s quite likely that we are simply not people who do well in a commission only environment, and becoming full-time RVers has not changed that.  I did enjoy learning about the tree business and I like working with the customer and selling them trees. This job is not primarily about selling trees though.  The job is managing a Christmas Tree lot, which is quite a different thing.  The staffing and scheduling alone was stressful enough that I would have serious reservations and couple that with the low compensation and I just can’t ever imagine doing this again. I came in optimistic and excited and am leaving tired and somewhat cynical.  That really bums me out.   I just want to move on to the next thing and hope we learned enough to never put ourselves in a similar position again.

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December 2016 Budget

One of the major benefits of working 11 hour days every day is that you don’t spend much money.  But there is a tendency when the assignment ends to spend some cash, and that’s pretty much what we saw in December.  Overall we did OK in the month of December with total expenses of $3438.61 but we certainly could have done much better.  The good news is we ended the month with around $735 left over from the beet harvest money, so all of the money we made here will be living expenses going forward.  Since we still have not gotten paid, I am not including that revenue in this month.  Details are below. (I want to also point out that we had some expenses in December that normally we wouldn’t see in a regular month. Namely, $142 for our truck registration, $247 for tobacco and cigarette tubes, which is a quarterly expense) $100 to replenish the money in our mailing service account, which is also quarterly, and $250 for the on site tech visit to fix our furnace, $150 of which will be reimbursed to us. If we remove those, then the monthly expenses are more like $2850. – Lee)

dec-expenses

Campground Fees – We had a free place to stay with the work kamping job, so we saved $600 here.  Since we are consistently under budget in this category it will be adjusted for 2017.

Groceries – We stayed on budget and were actually $30 to the good.  Making a big Costco run in January and going to start cooking meals again (need to get that recipe book finished), so we will see.  This category will probably be adjusted in 2017.

Dining Out – $100 over budget for the month which is almost exactly what we spent on our Red Lobster dinner.  I almost consider that a business expense, but since it’s not deductible we are putting it here. 

Truck Fuel – This was our best month ever because we only tanked up one time and spent a measly $76.10.  Another benefit of never going anywhere and working where you live.  

Gifts – For the first time ever we did not buy Christmas gifts for the kids.  I had budgeted the money last year, but since at this point they are all actually making more money than us and I bought them small gifts while we were in Alaska, we decided to stop doing this.  I would never have thought I would be OK with skipping gifts, but it’s a great indicator of how much I’ve changed.  I am firmly in the camp of buying them presents from a cool place regardless of the time of year, which is where my husband and mother-in-law have been all along.

Home Repair – We did well in this category, the only expense being $100 for our deductible on getting the furnace fixed.  This category is always interesting in the yearly view  which will be coming up next. 

So that’s December, and now I can start the annual budget review.  We will be making adjustments in numerous categories and providing lots of info for you data junkies out there so stay tuned!

Camper Chronicles is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, a program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com. We very much appreciate any purchase you make via our website links.  There is no additional cost to you and helps support our blog. Thank you.   Search Amazon.com here

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First Time Selling Christmas Trees – Waiting to Get Paid

New Years Eve we received an invitation from the owners for a “no host” event at Red Lobster.  I had never heard this expression before, but after googling it learned no host means that every person pays for their own meal.  We generally don’t go out on “amateur night”, but since the dinner was at 7pm and we love Red Lobster we decided to go.  Since we hadn’t gotten paid yet and had no idea what we were going to make, I was a little concerned about spending the money, but we decided to roll the dice and go ahead and go.  We were on time, but the last ones there, and the open seat was next to the owner.  Actually this was pretty cool as I had a chance to talk to him about the tree business.

The business analyst in me was fascinated by the parts of the operation we couldn’t see and he was happy to describe it for us.  It’s definitely a year round operation, with selection of trees happening in August and September.  Apparently different trees are pretty at different heights and the only way to know is to walk the lots and hand select them.  That’s what the owner does and is the main reason his trees are so beautiful.  Every tree (whether it is selected or not) is trimmed every year.  Here’s a pretty cool video that shows how they trim them.

Along with care of the trees and tree selection, deliveries need to be scheduled.  Here again the owner differentiates himself from many other tree stands, because instead of just doing one or two cuts a season and having the trees sit, he schedules numerous cuts and deliveries.  The end result is a fresher tree, but the logistics of that are tough as the tree is cut around three days before it is shipped.  The main schedule for the cuttings and shipping is set up in October, but then the owner oversees the process from Texas and makes adjustments the best he can depending on the sales.  There are sales patterns from year to year, but then sometimes outside factors throw a wrench in things.  That’s what happened this year with all the rain on the busy weekends.  The trees come in large semi trucks and then need to be unloaded and separated by what each tent needs.  Really interesting, and clearly a first class tree organization.

So dinner was enjoyable but not great on the wallet.  We spent way more than I was hoping on dinner and definitely put the final nail in the coffin of this month’s eating out budget.  It’s really tough to not eat out when we are working these long hours.  We don’t have nature type entertainment so you sort of default to other kinds, shopping, dining out, which are all obviously more expensive.  Maybe I am just particularly sensitive to it because the year end accounting is looming.  I like providing the budget information, and think it’s important for us to stay on track and to help others contemplating the lifestyle, but I don’t always like seeing it in black and white!

Sunday I was all ready to watch the Rose Bowl Parade and was curious to see how the TV watching experience would be different after I got to attend last year in person, but realized this was one of those weird years where New Year’s Day falls on a Sunday and the parade was moved to Monday.  We did a little research and it turns out the Sunday exemptions started in the 1800’s and was because the parade organizers were afraid the parade would spook the horses that were at the churches along the route.  That “never on Sunday” exemption has continued to today, so no parade on Sunday for me.  That’s OK though because I had football to watch.

During the day,  I also had a friend send me a picture of a political ad that showed up on my blog.  I have been paying $20 a year for the site and getting close to running out of storage, but never really worried that much about the ads.  I assumed if they appeared they would be generic in nature and not offensive to anyone.  Once it was brought to my attention, I looked at the Word Press site and discovered it would be $79 a year to turn the ads off.  I could participate in their ad program to help offset the cost, but since you have no control over what type of ad content occurs, Lee and I just decided to pay the extra $79.  The Word Press version that allows you to pick and choose your custom ads is much more expensive at $279 a year and frankly I don’t think there are enough products at this point I would want to advertise to make it worth it.  I was contacted a few times this year by people wanting to place an ad on the site, but in every case I didn’t feel the service/product was something I would use. I’m old school that way, believing an endorsement should only be provided if the person actually uses and values the product.  Anyway, that’s where we stand right now.  I own the domain and at some point I could just move the blog to a different provider, or create my own website, but that task is pretty daunting since it is outside of my skill set.  2017 may be the year to tackle it though, if for no other reason than I have to have the space to upload pictures.  For the time being the ads should be completely turned off and if you see them, please send me an email at camperchronicles-at-gmail.com and let me know.

Simultaneously, Lee noticed that the hose on our blue boy was completely broken.  It happened from age and exposure to the elements and unfortunately since the blue boy has been discontinued we are not sure we can get the parts.  This is an absolute necessity since we are headed to Quartzsite, so the best thing I can say about it is better now than later. We discussed just getting a standard holding tank, since we leave it on the back of our truck anyway, but Lee really likes that it has wheels just in case.  So Monday morning this will be on our list of things to take care of.

On the positive side, one of our readers lives in the San Antonio area and she reached out to me when we arrived to see if we could meet up for dinner.  We love talking to people about the lifestyle and we love meeting readers so we were happy to go.  We met at Crystal Springs Restaurant which claims to have the best catfish in Texas.  That may be true, and Lee said it was pretty good, but he still likes Anna J’s catfish in South Carolina better!  The conversation was great and we were thrilled when we learned they had signed up for the RV-Dreams rally.  Just in case I haven’t mentioned it lately if you are thinking about full timing, we absolutely think the best thing you can do for yourself is attend an RV Dreams rally. We had a great time talking to them and really appreciated them buying us dinner.  So glad Linda reached out.

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We sat outside on these picnic tables and talked after dinner for awhile in the courtyard

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Loved the sign

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The inside was super cool and just packed with memorabilia

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A mound of yummy onion rings

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My shrimp was outstanding

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Lee’s catfish

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Larry and Linda!!

 

Camper Chronicles is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, a program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com. We very much appreciate any purchase you make via our website links.  There is no additional cost to you and helps support our blog. Thank you.   Search Amazon.com here

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First Time Selling Christmas Trees – Tear Down

Tuesday we had the guys come in and the first thing they did was knock all the remaining trees down.  I think everyone enjoyed doing that, although at the end it did look a little sad.  We had 78 trees left on the lot and needed to push them down and remove the stands and wash the bowls.

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A stack of bowls drying before they go back in their boxes.

All done

All done

The tear down process is actually pretty complicated.  I had three different ending inventory sheets and everything was counted and put in separate piles.  Some items for our trailer at the end (tarps, signs, stands, bowls, office supplies) and everything is carefully counted and inventoried.  Each tent has a “kit” with a prescribed number of items and the extras or items that are damaged are removed and placed into a different pile.  Just doing my office supply box took a couple of hours as I had a three page checklist I had to check off.  It makes sense, because then next year everyone will have a complete box, but it was time consuming.  While the guys did the stands and bowls and Lee took down all the electrical lines, I counted and made separate piles.  Most of the excess new inventory goes back to the warehouse to be redistributed, but some items (like floor covers) stay in the trailer.  I also was missing one inventory sheet that included how many trees we had left, but thankfully called Greg with a question and found out I was missing something.  The guys pulled all the tags from the downed trees and then we did one last inventory.  The owner called and said he thought the trees would be picked up the next day and we were also told the trailer for all of our equipment and inventory would be arriving Wednesday or Thursday.   That was OK though, because we had plenty to do.

The four of us worked 9am- 2pm and made pretty good progress.  My booth was disassembled, signs were taken down, and two nice sized piles (one for trailer and one for warehouse) had been formed by the end of that time.  It was incredibly muggy though.  It didn’t rain again, but it was 80 degrees and pretty soupy.  Lee had the worst of it as he was outside taking down the electrical and his shirt was drenched by the time he was done. This is where his live event experience was a huge plus though as he has tons of experience “striking” an event.

I unfortunately found a tree tally sheet that I had totally spaced on earlier in the year.  I had to go back to December 1st and hand write in all the trees (by size and type) we had sold per day.  The company is in the process of going paperless, but in the meantime there is some double entry, but the exercise was sort of interesting as I got a bird’s eye view of our sales.

For those who are interested we sold 472 trees in total and the breakdown is as follows:

  • 256 Nobles
  • 151 Nordmanns
  • 34 Douglas
  • 31 Grands

Of the trees we sold 45 (or a little under 10%) were 9 feet or larger.  We sold the first big one November 23rd and the last December 21.  Why that matters is because of labor.  We were originally given a rough estimate of $2700 in labor for the lot but completely blew that, spending $4550.  This is a huge discrepancy and is mainly due to needing a second guy to help with the big tree sales.  Since those sales were spread throughout multiple days we never knew when a big tree sale would come and I simply couldn’t help lift anything larger than an 8 footer.   I also took a look at our gross sales.  Unfortunately I had no idea what the benchmarks are for sales versus trees.  I also have no idea of expected costs.  But I am preparing myself, the best I can, for the bonus conversation.  Plus as you know I am a data junkie, and I found it all pretty interesting.

Wednesday we just waited.  When the city came and took our trashcan (somewhat unexpectedly) I did call and ask what we were supposed to do with the remaining trash and was told to put it in trash bags and haul it out.  I asked at that point if we were on the schedule yet for picking up our leftover trees, and packing up our trailer, and was told we were bumped because the tent company wanted to take the tent down in another location.  They thought it would be Thursday.  No word yet on when the guys would be coming to pick up the trees (I had originally heard maybe Tuesday) so we just waited.  I went and did laundry (sheets, blankets, etc) and Lee organized our desk area and then in the afternoon we started looking at summer work kamping jobs.  We had applied for a job in Oregon (and have an interview scheduled next week), but felt this was a good time to really dig in.

We use Work Kamper News primarily for camp host jobs and I look at their job hotline emails almost every day, but once every two months they put out an online newsletter and that has a more comprehensive list.  My friend Kelly is an absolute whiz at finding these jobs, but I find the whole process pretty daunting.  There are tons of ads and unless you know specifically where you want to be, no good way of sorting through them.  Ultimately we printed out the newsletter, read them all, and then circled ones we were interested in.  Since not all the ads are clear on the hourly wage or the amount of hours worked, followup is usually called for.  That’s the part that is super time consuming, so I like to narrow things down quite a bit before contacting the employer.  That involves looking at their web page, checking out their location on google earth, seeing what cities/attractions are nearby, and looking to see if they have ATT coverage.  The process is somewhat similar to campground searches, but since you will be staying there an entire summer more detailed research is required.

Since we found about 15 ads we were interested in though that was a ton of research, so Lee wanted to take another approach.  He is planning on writing a somewhat generic email with our resume attached and then sending it to the employers to try to get a little more information.  For us, there are three main factors in how we choose a camp host job and they are location, type of work/schedule, and wages paid.  Depending on the desirability of one of those three things we are willing to have less in another area.  That being said we need certain things in each category to make it work.  We need to get paid, we need to work 32-40 hours a week, we need tolerable weather, we need some type of cell coverage, and the job has to be somewhat interesting to us.  I’m not willing to work 40 hours a week just cleaning for example.  Just finding a job with our minimums is harder than you would think, and since Work Kamper News is for all types of RVers who want all types of jobs, we have to narrow it down.  It’s actually easier when we need a particular location (like when we were looking in Alaska), but this year it is somewhat wide open for us.  Anyway, it’s a process, and we’ve started it.

Thursday morning we got the call that the trailer was coming so we called in our two remaining employees to work.  About 20 minutes after the trailer came, the people just showed up without warning to pick up the trees.  Now at first glance this might make sense, but we couldn’t simultaneously load the trailer and get the trees out of the lot, so one thing would have to wait for the other.  At least it was all happening on Thursday.  We finished up the little bit that was left and verified the ending inventory then I sent the employees on a half hour lunch break.  It took over two hours for the trees to be loaded, but they finally got it done, and at least we didn’t have to lift, carry, or load them. Then we pulled our trailer in and set to work.  It took 5 hours for 6 of us to load the trailer and truck and then clean the lot, but a lot of that time was figuring out the jigsaw puzzle of the trailer.  In order to make everything fit each piece went in a certain way, but at the end it was all loaded.  Lee had a good time, he said strike is his favorite part of every show.

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Waiting for the trailer

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Tight squeeze but they backed it in

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Loading the trailer

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It was amazing how much they fit in there

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View from the top. I loaded the truck with items that went back to the warehouse so both the trailer and truck were packed

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Some stuff was left, but getting there

Friday morning they came with a different trailer and picked up what was left.  They also took down the electrical panel, but we still have power and water from a separate source.

 

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The second trailer

Empty tent!!!

Empty tent!!!

So everything was checked out and we were ready to leave, except…no.  We were told the port-a john and wastewater tank were getting picked up on Wednesday of the week, but the owner extended the service another week so people could stay longer.  Problem was we were never told, and now we are blocked in. Our tank was originally supposed to go behind our trailer, but there was no room to get it back there so it went in the front.  It’s completely full, (since we thought it was being picked up we did a last flush of our tanks) and where it is located blocks our ability to hitch up the truck.

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It’s hard to tell from the pic, but there is no way to back in the truck and hitch because of where the tank is located.

 

It can’t be moved (weighs about 1K full) and no room to hitch.  Even if we could hitch, the tent is so close that we couldn’t easily maneuver out.  Needless to say I was not happy.  We made an appointment to get our axle looked at on Monday morning and had plans to start heading to Quartszite.  The timing of all that was tricky enough since we can’t stay at the Camping World location and we were dealing with a holiday weekend.  Lee called the owner who said to call the company and see if they could do a supplemental pump out (Lee thinks he could move it out of the way empty) but they said they were nowhere in the area and they were closed Saturday – Monday for the holiday.  At this point I was really starting to feel trapped and that was NOT a good feeling.

Lee though was oddly fine with it.  For him we  had a free place to stay until January 4th, he could move the repair appointment to later in the week, and we wouldn’t have to deal with the holiday.  It would give us time to take care of more housekeeping items including my end of year financial review, which always takes a while.  We would have time to explore the area, which we have had no time to do prior to now.  And possibly most importantly to him it will be much easier to get the rig out once the tent and fence are down which should be happening Tuesday and Thursday respectively.

I saw his point but still wasn’t crazy about it.  And then the sewer company just showed up.  They were pretty clear to Lee it wasn’t going to happen, but they must have changed their mind.   We talked about it and Lee still wanted to stay the few extra days and I was totally fine with that.  Now it’s a choice, which makes it totally OK for me.

Camper Chronicles is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, a program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com. We very much appreciate any purchase you make via our website links.  There is no additional cost to you and helps support our blog. Thank you.   Search Amazon.com here

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First Time Selling Christmas Trees – Taking a Day Off

Monday we both woke up feeling…well good..since we were pretty confident we wouldn’t be getting a trailer that day.  Several people went straight into their tear down, but since we weren’t first up on the schedule we decided to take a day off.  We had a windshield replacement scheduled between 7:30am – 12pm, but after that we were free and clear.  It was funny that we made it all the way through Alaska without a chipped windshield (pretty rare), but then as soon as we hit Montana we got a chip.  Lee kept track of it using a magic marker and by this time it had spread halfway down the windshield.  Since Florida insurance has $0 deductible for windshield insurance (it’s a state law and a great benefit of residency there) it was going to cost nothing, we just needed a place to get the work done.

Rain was in the forecast every day this week, and since we don’t have access to a garage that could be tricky.  We did have access to a tent though, and after talking to Safelight Autoglass and getting their OK we pulled the truck into the tent.  The whole process of setting up the appointment was super easy by the way.  I called Nationwide Claims and through the use of simple prompts was sent to Safelite.  The messages made it clear we didn’t have to use them, but since Lee actually worked on their live annual competition last year and got to see them in action he was a big fan.  Now I have to say I am also.  They communicated clearly, worked with us on the tent, showed up on time, and did a great job.  Actually it was our absolute best repair experience on the road to date.  I went up and talked to the guys and asked them if inside a Christmas tent was the weirdest place they had ever replaced glass and they said no, but it was the best smelling!!  They didn’t elaborate on what the weirdest was and I didn’t ask, but I should have because I have been curious about it ever since.

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Fixing autoglass in a Christmas tree forest

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They spent time cleaning the area

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Took two guys to remove the glass and put the new piece in. Glad we didn’t have to pay out-of-pocket for this

After they finished we had to wait 30 minutes before driving the truck (24 hours before going through a power wash), so we ate some lunch and then we headed out.  Whether we are gate guarding or in Quartzsite, we will probably be doing a lot of reading and luckily we are near many Half Price Book Stores.  I know most people go to e-books, but I spend too much time looking at screens as it is, plus I like to hold a book in my hands.  We had a huge library in our old house and over time have crammed books in all kinds of places in the RV.  Now we pick books up and then drop them off at campgrounds we stop at, but we have missed bookstores over the last several months.  Also, once a year, the Half Price Book Store offers an additional 20%, so we were both excited to be near one and have a day off to grab some books.

Lee has always been a fan of nonfiction, but he starting reading Louis L’Amour and really likes them because they are a fast, easy read.  He wanted to read them in order though, so took advantage of the book stores to grab several.  Armed with his list we went to three different books stores and had a great time.  It was like a scavenger hunt.  I was looking for a couple of good Asian recipe books (found one Chinese and one Vietnamese that looked good and I paid more than I normally would, but they are hard to find at library sales), and any complete fantasy series I had never read.  I am a big fantasy/science fiction reader, but these aren’t the most common books found in local campgrounds.  I have better luck at library sales, but the Half Price Bookstore has always been a great resource for fantasy books. I used to buy pieces of series and then hang onto the books until I could find the missing books, but I don’t have the space for that any more, so now I have to find the series in its entirety.  That’s harder than you would think, but the multiple store visits helped me find a couple new authors to try.

We also passed by a Tanger Outlet mall and braved the crowds to get me two new pairs of Skechers.  My tennis shoes and slip ons are over two years old and since I use them so much they have taken a beating.  I thought I would take advantage of the post-Christmas sales to replace and although the prices weren’t as good as I had hoped, I did get the second pair half off. I found a pair of Skechers Go Walk in a wide width on sale and they are a hug for my feet.  I splurged on the second pair of Relaxed fit Breathe Easy Shout Out tennis shoes  and again, super comfortable.  I have my Merrills for hiking, but for everything I just wanted comfortable shoes, and although $83 was more money than I wanted to spend it’s not that bad for two pairs of good shoes.

While we were in San Antonio, I also reached out to Cori and Greg to see if they were free for the evening. We had talked about going down and seeing the lights on the Riverwalk, but with the shopping crowds we were all a little tentative about that.  Plus I got an email from my aunt Cathy with a gift certificate for Montana Mike’s restaurant.  My aunt has been reading my blog posts and really enjoying them and she reached out to say she and my uncle wanted to buy us dinner for Christmas.  I was incredibly touched by this.  Not only because she was reading the blog, but also because she wanted to do something nice.  It made us both feel closer to my grandmother Betty, who would definitely do something like this, and it made me feel closer to family.  She went to some trouble also, finding a local steak place and then getting a gift certificate sent to us.  Unfortunately the certificate didn’t arrive as expected to general delivery at the post office (I think it was because of holiday mail traffic) but instead of just letting it go she called the corporate office and got them to agree to an email with the gift card number on it.  Really amazing.

The dinner was great, the company was great, and the gesture was much appreciated.  We had appetizers, steaks, and shared a desert and it was all delicious. I did take a bunch of pictures though, because I knew she would want to see them, and wanted to share the experience with her.  Thanks so much Aunt Cathy!

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Montana Mike’s

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Pretty wood

Stuffed Mushrooms were really good

Stuffed Mushrooms were really good

Greg and I had potato skins

Greg and I shared potato skins

Lee’s delicious steak

Cinamon apples with pecans and ice cream was awesome

Cinnamon apples with pecans and ice cream was awesome

Me, Lee, Cori, and Greg

Me, Lee, Cori, and Greg

So it was a nice day off, and tomorrow we are back to tearing down the tent and finishing up.  We were both really needed to get out of the tent and a day of books, shoe shopping, and dinner with friends was perfect!

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First Time Selling Christmas Trees – Working the Holiday

Friday was the slowest day yet and the first day we didn’t sell any trees.  We did sell the remaining 18 feet of garland which was nice, and brought us to a grand total sold of 356 feet and $70 earned in commission on garland.  We also had a family come in just to look at the trees (this has happened several times) and they explained to Lee that although they want a new tree they like to setup prior to Thanksgiving and in the past the trees they bought died before Christmas Day.  Since they could clearly see our trees were still healthy maybe they will rethink that for next year.  It was a super slow day though, with only those two customers, although the owner did stop by our tent first thing in the morning after we opened. This was the first time the owner has been to our location and I was glad that our tent was neat and tidy.  We have moved all remaining trees to the front, kept litter off the ground, and finished most of the pre-close activities per their emailed instructions. I am not sure why he waited until the very end to visit, but at least things looked nice.  He gave me a little bit of feedback and I showed him my concerns regarding lot access (folks have to drive through a busy gas station parking lot to get to us) and then he left to visit another lot.

We also for the very first time watched TV together during working hours.  We have made sure at least one of us was in the tent this whole time (Lee has read a ton of Louis L’Amour books), but since it was so very slow we decided to go ahead and give it a try.  Our one employee Mitch couldn’t have cared less, so we watched Independence Day Resurgence (seriously what were they thinking?).  I felt a little guilty about it, but since we had zero customers during the movie and of course would have stopped if any had come in, it turned out OK.  I’ve also removed those four hours from our hourly analysis just to be fair.  Speaking of which, as of the end of Christmas Eve we will have worked a total of 851 hours and have made (pre-bonus) $5.75 an hour.  On the plus side, we did get to try out our new fryer that my brother-in-law Josh sent to Lee.  He had read in the blog about how much we missed having a fryer and found a very small Presto fryer which is just perfect for the camper.  It gets very hot (unlike many of the smaller ones) and is the perfect size to fry for two.  It was incredibly sweet of you Josh… and Lee loved it.

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What I wasn’t counting on was having to work 9am -9pm on Christmas Eve.  That’s just bad luck, as Christmas Eve falls on a Saturday which is our one long day, but for some reason that really stings.  I actually woke up for the first time really angry.  I’m self aware enough to realize that my anger isn’t really about the extra two hours, but it took me some time (and a McDonald’s breakfast sandwich) to get those feelings under control enough to write this.  I’m angry because this is how we are spending our Christmas, and on this count I have no one to blame but myself.  It’s not so much working on the holiday (I’ve done that a time or two in my past jobs) it’s being away from family, which has nothing to do with this specific job.  Several customers have been curious about why we would choose to do something like this and my common story is that we have three kids in three states and someone is always upset when we choose a place for Christmas so this year we decided to sell Christmas trees instead.  That always elicits a smile, and it’s a cute story, but it’s not very factual.  The reality is we were already in Montana and headed for Arizona for the winter and traveling back east for the holiday and then turning around to come back west for the winter didn’t make a ton of sense.  We discussed it.  My sister and oldest daughter are both in South Carolina and that was super tempting, but with the Alaska expenses we didn’t think it was a good financial choice for us this year.

We also could have made plans with friends or done something special with just the two of us, but when the Christmas Tree job came to us decided to do that instead.  I knew it would be a stretch for me.  Being away from family is tough, but throwing work on top of that doubly so and Lee had real concerns about how I would handle it.  I just thought it would be a great way to set a new tradition for the holidays which is something we have been trying to do while on the road.  I had visions of wearing a Santa Hat and selling trees to happy families, which I thought would help with missing my own family.  It probably would have if the picture in my head was the reality, but instead we are probably going to spend 12 hours sitting in a tent in the rain getting on each other’s nerves and it made me angry.  I have to own my choice though, and get a grip. Yes,I think this is the least Christmasy Christmas I have ever had (odd considering we are sitting on a Christmas Tree lot) but there’s nothing to do but make the best of it and see how it plays out.

Lee actually sold a tree within the first hour of opening the lot.  It was a little 5 foot Noble, but hey, it was a tree. Then nothing, I mean not one person, and around 3:00pm I sent Cori a somewhat plaintive text asking what she was doing.  She’s a good friend and she and Greg stopped by on the way to her mom’s which really cheered us up, and they invited us to dinner.  They knew we probably couldn’t come, but it was super nice to be invited, and the menu of ham, green beans, potato salad, and deviled eggs made me drool a little.  That’s my kind of family dinner.  They were also going to play games afterward, which also sounded very fun, and again it was super nice to know we would have been wanted.  We did have time to make some of our Christmas calls though, since we knew we would be at the work “party” the next day. Lee had a very nice long chat with Kay (who is making dinner for 8 of her friends in the military who aren’t traveling for the holidays) and we just waited for 9pm to roll around.

Then at 4:45pm I got a text stating we could close at 5pm.  A Christmas miracle…seriously.  I never in a million years thought that would happen.  Texted Cori who said dinner was at 6pm and not to bring anything, and we closed up real quick and over we went.  We ate an amazing dinner of ham, green beans, potato salad , and deviled eggs and then participated in the Whitacre family tradition of playing bingo.  It was a lot of fun, although I am not sure Greg as the caller was the best choice (just kidding Greg), and I asked Jan’s permission for a family photo since they have been so good to us by taking us in Thanksgiving Day and Christmas Eve.  I told her my mom and Lee’s mom would want to see who had been so nice to us (I know, shameless)  and she graciously agreed.  Being with them did me a world of good, and I am super grateful.

Greg was very serious about calling the Bingo!

Greg was very serious about calling the Bingo!

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Don, Cheri (holding Olive), Kennedy, Cori, Jan, and Greg

We cam home around 9pm and for the first time ever I had the AC on during Christmas Eve.  The rain held off, but it was muggy and I actually slept really good. The next day we got up and talked to Kyrston then left at 10am for the 11am meeting.  The meeting was at the Budget Inn in San Antonio and I have to say I was pleasantly surprised.  The business part of the meeting was OK, but afterwards we had a buffet and the food was really good.  Then we sat and talked to Scott and Stasia another working RVer couple (and first time Christmas tree workers) and afterwards we felt a lot better.  It was good to hear the learning curve can be steep in year one for everyone and we exchanged funny stories with them and Brad and Monica (the veterans) about things we had seen.  I also picked us presents in the gift exchange and Lee got a super nice Dewalt drill bit set.  He was pretty excited about that.  I got a makeup bag set, which I am sure I will find some use for other than makeup which I rarely wear and it really was tons of fun.  One of the tough parts of the this job has been the isolation and getting to know other managers better was a good thing!!

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It was nicer on the inside than out and the staff was super nice. They had their kids there which was sweet

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The gift exchange pile. Gifts were tagged boy or girl and you just picked one

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Dinner with the group

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Turkey, ham, stiffung, corn, green beans, rolls. Was all really good and tasted just like mom made it

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Even had a salad bar. The deviled eggs went fast but I snagged one 🙂

Afterwards Lee and I came back to the camper and I talked to my Dad, Lee’s parents, and our middle daughter Kat.  We had discussed going down to the Riverwalk but decided it might be super crowded and instead made some tentative plans to go Monday night with Cori and Greg.  We aren’t getting our trailer tomorrow, so we can work at our own pace during the day to tear things down.  Lee is pretty excited about knocking over all the remaining trees, and since a group of young guys (who are trying to set a Guinness Record for the largest bonfire) are coming to pick the trees up we have a little time.

After talking to Kat we decided to try for Chinese and luckily the Garden Buffet was open. It was reasonably priced ($11.99 and really good crab legs on the buffet) and we got a free Christmas present which was a bamboo calendar for the year with a peacock on it.  I’m going to give that to the person who recommended it to us.  Then we came back and watched the Magnificent Seven remake which was also really good.  All in all it was a nice Christmas and we both feel pretty good that we have a little free time prior to tear down.

Camper Chronicles is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, a program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com. We very much appreciate any purchase you make via our website links.  There is no additional cost to you and helps support our blog. Thank you.   Search Amazon.com here

 

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First Time Selling Christmas Trees – I Finally Get That Pedicure

Before I say anything else I wanted to mention that this blog hit 200,000 hits and I am humbled  by that achievement.  It matters very much that what we have to say is worth clicking on our posts and pages so many times, and you all made it happen.  Thank you very much for the support, we are truly grateful.

Wednesday morning started out with some great Texas winter weather and we jumped in and started cleaning bowls, tearing down what we could, and basic prep to close the tent.  We also had a customer call looking for a big tree and he ended up getting one of the remaining 12-1/2 footers cut down to a 10 and then paying half price.  Quite a bargain. We also ended up selling a second one (again cut down to 10 feet) so I was really happy that both those beautiful trees in the front will fulfill their Christmas purpose.  Yes, goofy I know, but they were beautiful trees and deserve to be in someones home. We also dealt with a couple more return issues, but everyone was super nice about it and although it seems like a lot of returns all at once we sold well over 400 trees, so the return rate is less than 1%.  In all cases we called the owner and he went to some lengths to make the customer happy which I was very glad to see.  These trees are really important to him and they are his brand so on the rare occasion something goes wrong he always makes it right.

It was slow enough that I even got to leave for a few hours, and even though I still haven’t been more than 1-1/2 miles from the lot I did get that pedicure!!  Cori stopped by and we had a Green Tea pedicure which was awesome (my skin feels great) and then went to HEB where I bought a few groceries and picked up a gift for the gift exchange.  The limit is $10 for a girl present and $10 for a guy present (I didn’t make the rules) so I decided on Lottery tickets for the guys (that always goes well) and Cori found a cool electronic wine opener on sale. Score!  We also chipped in on the present for the owners.  All in it was $40 we weren’t planning on spending.  None of it was mandatory of course, and I I like gift exchanges and it’s been a long time since I have been able to participate in one. (I’m going to weigh in with my opposing view. I’m OK with the gift exchange (well, not really, I think it’s stupid to do a gift exchange between 15 couples when you don’t really know any of the people at all, but I sort of get that they’re trying to do something nice and fun for everyone for Christmas, so I’ll let that slide.) but to ask a bunch of employees who are working, to make money, to chip in $20 each to buy what will amount to a $300 gift card for the owners of the company is just bad form in my view. Things like this are always described as optional, but they never feel optional. It was presented this way to me: “We’re collecting $20 from everyone so we can buy them a gift card, so whenever you can get that to me, that would be great. Oh, and it’s optional. Is tomorrow OK?”. It certainly doesn’t help that overall I’m not feeling very “givy” to either of the owners, but even without that I think it’s just a bad practice. – Lee)

It was a whole three hours of freedom (I will remove those hours from the final wage analysis) and it was definitely needed.  We are in the home stretch here and that is a beautiful thing. I also made one of my favorite dinners, sirloin tips and noodles, so between the pedicure and dinner I am a happy woman. We only sold 3 trees, but at least I had a good day.

Thursday was more cleanup and our slowest day by far.  We only had 2 people come in all day and sold 1 tree, 1 wreath, and a bottle of Keeps It Green which is the solution you put in trees to keep them fresh.  I get lots of questions about whether this product really works (we have the scientific study results to show people), whether 7up or Sprite works (I have no idea), whether anything is needed at all?  It’s only $3.25 for the solution and since I have personally never used it I say it has been scientifically studied, it’s like a vitamin supplement for your tree, but that’s it. Lots of people buy it, and it certainly won’t hurt anything, but I don’t really push it.  I actually don’t push any particular product except for the stand if they buy a heavy tree. The stands are lifetime guaranteed and our trees are drilled to match the stand so the tree stands up straight in them with minimal adjustment. It’s a solid product and those plastic stands that are rated for larger trees, just aren’t going to cut it.  I always say the same thing when people don’t want to buy the heavy duty stand though, give yours a try, but if it doesn’t work put the tree in a bucket of water and come back and get one of ours.  This happens pretty frequently when people get home and discover their stand isn’t going to work. We have sold a ton of stands that way and I really feel like that’s good customer service.  Why buy an expensive tree and put it in a crappy stand so it leans?  Makes no sense. (We’ve actually made more in commissions on stands than we have on trees, so that tells you something. – Lee)

Every day we are getting calls on how many trees we have left ( we are down to 78 at this point) and I know they are in the process of determining which lots to close in which order.  This requires some coordination, because one of the full time employees oversees the removal of the last trees and the packing of the trailers, so it’s complicated.  They closed Laredo first because their sales historically stop early and it’s farther out of town.  Not surprisingly we have no idea where we are on that list, or when we will close so I have kept one employee during the slow days and the other on call in case we get “the call.” I feel bad about paying an employee when there is minimal work to be done, but we have talked about it several times (and I discussed the situation with the owner) so it is what it is. It’s only $80 a day in labor, so it’s not like we are robbing the bank here, but we certainly could be running leaner on labor if we needed to.  We still have some big trees left, but I heard what other lots sometimes do is cut down the bigger trees into manageable size and then the manager couple runs the lots themselves at this point. Like I said, we have talked about that, but at this point we have scheduled labor out until Christmas Eve.

The other reason we would like to close is the weather.  It was absolutely beautiful Wednesday and Thursday and since we have so many trees that need removed that would have been the perfect weather to take care of that.  We did get all the tasks completed that need warm weather though, bowls cleaned/dried and signs taken down and inspected, but we are facing at least 6 days of straight rain now so I am sure we will be loading trees in that weather.  Could be worse of course, we are getting the tail end of a massive storm that’s due to dump tons of snow on the northern states and thankfully we are just getting rain.  I miss the desert though.  More and more of our friends are hitting the desert for their winter and they are experiencing some amazing, sunny weather.  How funny it is that after all of my concerns about Quartzsite last year I am actually thinking of it with longing.  It’s not just the weather, but also the people who are there, and most importantly it’s a break from work.

We figured out this week that since last May we have not had more than four non-working, no travel days in a row.  We have either been working or traveling to get to a job and the pace has finally caught up with both of us.  We are still waiting to hear about whether a gate guarding job will be available and if there is one we will certainly take it, but if not I wouldn’t mind just taking a break.  I’m tired,  Lee is tired, and we really miss nature.  One of the great things about our Alaska job was we had time off to explore and see cool things, but aside from one trip to the Theodore Roosevelt National Park in Montana and one trip to the Riverwalk here to have lunch with my brother we have done nothing fun in months.  If I judge my life by the pictures I take (and to some extent I do)  it is falling woefully short. Where is the balance?  And to be super clear, now I am talking about more than one specific job.  We judge these jobs based on their own individual merits in our summary’s but this is more about the pattern. Most people who take these jobs have income coming in, so this infusion of cash supplements them for the entire year. Plus it helps keep costs down, which again helps manage the annual budget.  Any or all of these jobs may make sense for them because they are only doing them for a portion of their year.  Our situation is different.  We take these jobs in the hopes that we will earn enough funds to coast for a little while.  Work a little, play a little has been our goal, but there has been precious little play.

Let’s step back a minute and take the “50,000 foot view”. We left Alaska essentially breaking even, and needed to use a little savings money to travel to our next gig. Considering the costs for Alaska that’s a huge win in our books.  Then we made enough at the Beet Harvest to pay for our time there, then to get us to Texas, and then to cover us through November and December while we were waiting to get paid for Christmas Trees.  From a strictly financial perspective that is a pretty good deal.  At this point we have roughly $800 of the Beet Harvest money left which will be plenty to get us through until we get paid. When we leave Christmas trees, we will definitely have at least enough to cover our costs to get to our next job and at least a month, if not more.  We will either be in Quartzsite or gate guarding, and both would have a very low cost of living.  So from a strictly financial perspective we are staying ahead of the curve.

But you also have to look  at what we had to do to get here.  We had to work long strings of 10 plus hours days with no days off. We had to do physically demanding work under less than optimal conditions.  We had to travel quickly to get from point A to point B with no time for exploring in between.  We didn’t make enough to splurge on a special campground or a special trip at the end. Well, we did, but if we decided to do that it would put more pressure on us to get the next job sooner, plus to be honest I am to tired to do anything, anyway.  We briefly discussed Pedro Island or somewhere on the coast of Texas, but at this point I don’t have the energy it takes to plan something like that.  It could change, but I would much rather just go to Quartzsite, which at least is a known quantity.

Don’t get me wrong, at any time we could dip into our savings and take a break.  Heck, we could say “screw it” and live off our savings until they ran out.  Many people do that.  But we are really trying for a sustainable lifestyle.  It needs to be sustainable, but it also needs to have quality with quality, which of course is completely subjective to us as a couple. We seem to be behind others in figuring all this out by the way.  Lots of our friends who started when we did have figured out a good work/life balance.  Of course most of them have some income from other sources, but even that aside they seem to have a better handle on it.  Maybe in this case our desire to build a better mousetrap is working against us. Actually that’s mostly me.  I’m just not willing to settle into a pattern until I know what my choices are.  I think in all fairness that’s making Lee a little crazy, but so far he’s been pretty cool about it. Plus all these new jobs give me something to write about, which is important to me.

Anyway, I wanted to lay all that out for you, because that’s how we have to think about things.  It’s not just this job, but this job, and the next, and the next, and finding a way to balance those with the things we actually want to do.  Sure, it’s cool trying something new in the work arena (at least for a little while), but who wouldn’t choose staying in a national park over living on a vacant lot if they could?  I know I would, which I suppose is progress of some sort.  I have been a big proponent of volunteering/working even if you didn’t have to for a long time now, but if nothing else I now understand why some people prefer just hunkering down somewhere and living frugally over working.  If (and I am not saying that is the case, but maybe it is) your choices are to not work/not spend money versus working this hard, I would pick the former as well.  For us though that option is not on the table.  So we will keep plugging away and see where it leads us.  I haven’t given up on finding the perfect combination for us by any stretch, and I am sure ultimately we will get there,  it’s just not going to be as easy as either of us thought it would be.

Update:  After Lee proof read this post we had a long discussion about how things were looking for us.  These posts often spark conversation between us, which is a really good thing.  He found it all a little depressing, as we are working our way down the list of traditional jobs RVers do and not finding anything that really works for us.  The fact is though there are lots of jobs that can be done and truly the Millennials are my guides on this.  We could find mobile jobs, we could move to an area and find regular temporary jobs, we can pour more resources into our small businesses, or I can start consulting.  These are all options, and all things for us to explore.  We have no idea what this will end up looking like for us, that’s part of the adventure, but we are together and we love each other and we know we can make money.  At the end of the day those are the important things. – Trace

 

Camper Chronicles is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, a program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com. We very much appreciate any purchase you make via our website links.  There is no additional cost to you and helps support our blog. Thank you.   Search Amazon.com here