We retired early – but our tiny home on wheels is more than we expected

We’ve all been there. You’re exhausted but not ready to sleep. You climb into bed, ready to lose yourself in your latest riveting read, only to discover you’ve forgotten the book in the living room. The last thing you want to do is run around a cold, dark house (possibly without clothes) looking for your novel.

This was the scene last night. We had just finished a 78-hour shift taking care of our 2-year-old grandson. I spent the day writing for a few hours and then mowing over two acres of dusty grass.

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We retired early — but our little home on wheels turned out to be more than we expected.

Dragana Gordic / Shutterstock

The only great thing about this situation is that my living room is four steps from my bed. Three steps on a good day. Who says living in a small house doesn’t have its perks? I told my wife when I finally crawled into bed how grateful I was for our small space in this situation, and then I laughed out loud because I was so fucking tired.

I’m the first to admit that this lifestyle isn’t for everyone. I’ve written about this often, so I won’t go into detail, except to say that we all have to do what’s authentic. Living in a tiny house was more than I expected, in the best possible way. I didn’t think I’d like it, but I was wrong. This lifestyle has allowed us to retire early.

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Living in a small house was a concession for me, but I figured I could do anything for a year or more if I could retire.

Traveling around the United States was also tempting, so this lifestyle made sense. My wife and I are energized by learning and seeing new places. Having never towed or owned an RV before (and never owned a truck!), we learn and see new things every day and we love it.

It’s exciting to meet new people and spend time getting to know them at the different campgrounds we stay at. We’ve met some wonderful people and you know what? We don’t have to maintain those relationships because there’s no expectation to do so. I love that; it’s almost like having a lot of situational friendships that don’t require any work.

There’s something wonderful about not having a lot of stuff or responsibilities. I almost forgot about our storage unit where we store things that need to be temperature controlled (like my drum kit and our framed art). We’ll get back to it someday, but I suspect it’ll be a few years before we do.

The only thing we are responsible for is our truck, a bright white Ram 1500 called BABBS, which stands for things I can’t repeat here, and our camper, Teardrop. That’s it, BABBS, Teardrop, and the two of us; what could be better?

One of the benefits of our lifestyle is that it requires very little money and stuff from us.

This was necessary because we retired early (at ages 62 and 59) and didn’t want to collect Social Security until we were at least 65. Our trailer and truck are paid for, so our expenses are minimal and we’re free to roam as much as we want. (The average retirement age for women in the U.S. is 63, according to statistics from the Center for Retirement Research (CRR) at Boston College.)

We have found that RV parks can be expensive, but not as expensive as hotels. They can also be crowded and offer little privacy, so we often stay in unusual places that we find through an organization called Harvest Hosts. With our HH membership, we stayed at some super cool places, including wineries, horse ranches, and a loofah and lavender farm (the first photo was taken at this farm in Northern California).