Retirement Dreams

Retirement means many different things to many different people. It could be a time of strife. We hope for a time of comfort. Some will be content with the comfortable surroundings in their long time neighborhood. Others will want to travel. Still others will make their goal to live as grandly as possible with limited funds. It was while I was doing research on this very subject I ran into this little gem:

Family Association Campgrounds

Don’t laugh at this idea! These are great, inexpensive alternatives to paying out hotel bills and handing over money to rent a place to relax at.

The intro:

These places are built with the idea to have people purchase a small piece of property therefore being part of an association to make sure it continues to run well into the future. The small pieces of privately owned land are equipped with water, electricity and telephone land lines. Each property has space for a shed to store things in, parking for at least two cars, plus room for a fire pit, a large amount of fire wood, charcoal grill and space still to move around and plenty of seating. People will put anything from a tent, to RVs that stay year round on it with a good sized deck and some use their space to get off the road with their RV buses.

The cost is usually less than buying a new car. Many of the lot owners with RVs put in central air, large sanitary sewer holding tanks and large, free standing LP tanks so they don’t have to frequently run and get more. No reservations necessary as you are the owner of your place. You can have all the comforts of home, only away from home and most are smaller. The refrigerator and stove are usually smaller while some RVs are now built with room in the bedroom for a real queen sized bed and a full sized bathroom.

Your association fees, property tax, most services and upkeep is very low in cost. The association fees usually cover the cost of community amenities such as: pool upkeep, hot tub, electricity, water and upkeep of roads, club house and other community owned property. Local firewood suppliers, holding tank pumpers, tree trimmers, etc. charge very little for their services because so many of your neighbors in a small area have the same needs you do. That’s why you’ll never see a “truck charge” on your bill. They’re already there performing the same service for your neighbors.

Property taxes are low because:

You don’t have a very large piece of property and there are no permanent buildings or foundations you therefore aren’t taxed like you would be for a cabin. People use this little getaway for anything from tent camping to parking their big RV bus. You could be a tent camper, but if you’re located near the wealthy guy down the way with the big flat screen television mounted to the side of his RV bus, you’ve got an instant byob sports bar to visit.

The drawbacks are few and for those who don’t mind “roughing it” will have even less drawbacks. The colder the climate is, the shorter the season.  As the temperature drops toward freezing at night the water is shut off. Up here in Minnesota there are some pretty adventurous folks who can get beyond the frigid winter temperatures, like snow mobile owners, hunters and ice fishing folks. They can “get by” without a few conveniences. We’ve even had a few weekends we’ve spent at our little “get away” when we had to start the furnace.  You have to think a little “out of the box”.  The food you bring won’t need a cooler because of the outside temperature. The first time we went during winter I put the frozen food in the refrigerator. My husband wondered why I didn’t put it in the freezer. I simply stated, “Because the refrigerator IS a freezer right now”. The outdoor temperature was 10 degrees at the time and even if we started the furnace it’s insulated enough to keep that interior temperature till the next afternoon when we planned on leaving.

To sum it up the idea is to have someplace to go you can call your own. The kids can run when they want, where they want and get the kind of amenities they’d love to have in their back yard and in their neighborhood. Children over 16 can go to the pool on their own. Because it’s a gated community all the kids can run around and be safe or ride their bikes to the club house and know their bikes won’t be stolen. During summer it reminds me of the kind of neighborhood we grew up in during the 60s and 70s. Everyone is looking out for each other.

People who are ready to retire as well as retired people enjoy the environment. Many men in the community enjoy working in the out-of-doors so much their wives joke about “keeping an eye” on their husbands activities that way. Any way you look at it, it’s truly a great idea someone had long ago. If you’re interested at all go to Coast to Coast Resorts. You don’t have to own a big 40’ RV to become a member and you don’t have to be a member to discover camp grounds and RV parks across America in their system. You can also go into their forum where anything and I mean anything associated with camping is discussed among people who travel.  I found one discussion about coolers and another about cooking over the open campfire.  Just an idea.