TROMhome and some recent thoughts

https://tromhome.com is now live! But what is it about?

This is the motorhome that we want:

I drew that in Inkscape from one of the motorhomes we are looking at to buy.

It is around 6 meters long, so a small one for a motorhome. I think the smallest you can find is 5 meters. But we want to have a proper bathroom with a separate shower, and another place in the back where we can make a desk/room. The inside layout is so important for us and I will share more about it soonish when I’ll make more videos about this new adventure.

But basically we are about to start something completely new and exciting. Maybe a bit concerning for me.

A Dog and a Wolf

All of my life I lived in 3 places. 2 in Romania and 1 in Spain for the past 14 or so years. I like stability and comfort. I want to have my own private place to hide from the rest of the world and do TROM-like projects, read and watch about the world, learn and stay away from normality. I need my room, my laptop, my internet connection, my privacy. I am a house dog….that’s the truth.

Yah I like to go out, but mostly, if not mainly, in nature. I hate crowds, big cities, “going for a drink”, and stuff like that. Sure I can do them thrice a month max, but anything else is causing me a mountain-weight of stress.

The thing is that unless I’d live by myself I cannot achieve this kind of life. Living with my parents or other people in the same place is not fun at all for me.

But for the past 4-5 years I’ve been sharing my room, my place, my privacy and my internet connection with Sasha :D. Surprisingly it worked and I quickly felt very comfortable with her around. But we had to move with our parents for the past few years since we were broke. So that sucked.

But Sasha is a wolf. She does not care as much about the “cage” she lives in. She wants the outside. Mountains, trees, waterfalls, surfing.

So how can a dog and a wolf live together?

A MOTORHOME. A home that we can take with us to different places. 🙂

This is my dream! To be able to have a comfortable and familiar “cage” (house), with a comfy bed, with a kitchen and a fridge where I have food, with a bathroom and a shower, with a little space for me to work on my computer. With an internet connection, power from the sun, and big enough inside to feel like small home, yet small from outside to feel like a big car when driving. This way we can go places, stop for a few days, work on my projects, feel safe and comfortable in this house on wheels, while also go out for some walks and hikes with the wolf to see some cool nature places. 🙂

That’s the dream!

If we are broke how can we to buy one?

A decent motorhome that is around 20-24 years old is some 20.000 Euros. We usually live month by month with very little money. But for the past two years thanks mostly to Sasha who worked a lot, we manage to save some money. Actually 2 years ago I would have not imagined that we would have the money to buy a motorhome. But sharing the living expenses with my parents helped a lot, plus the donations I got for TROM. Basically the donations helped us eat and maybe pay some bills, and Sasha’s money payed for the rent, around 230 Euros our part, and the rest we could save.

We were also able to get some unemployment money from the government for a few months.

We are really cheap people. We dont buy anything that’s not needed, we don’t go out almost at all, we rarely buy clothes, or I think never. Sasha gets all of her clothes from my sister who has more than she needs (right Georgi!?). On top of this my parents kindly gave us 2.000 Euros for the motorhome.

So we think that by the end of this year we would have around 20.000 Euros in savings. And that sounds like we are rich, but we will become poor very fast, again. This amount of money is unfortunately not enough and it is ALL of the money we would have.

Why not rent a place?

After working in Spain for 17 years my parents will retire and go back to Romania. Therefore I and Sasha need to move anyway. Renting a place somewhere is very expensive and it means we will have to make a lot of money constantly. Plus Sasha cannot stay in the same place anymore….the wolf needs to go. And I also want to try something new, to see other places.

Because of visas, documents and the bullshit paperworld, even if we wanted to move to cheaper place in other European countries, to rent something, it would not be very feasible. Probably impossible. Plus we really do not want that. And renting in Spain would cost you at least 400 or so Euros a month, plus water, electricity, gas, or other bills, it is expensive. And 400 Euros a month is a super cheap place that is hard to find in Spain.

The type and costs of a motorhome.

Currently we are eyeing 3 motorhomes. So to give you an idea…

This one is from 2003. It looked ok but had some water infiltration inside that was never fixed. This is not good. People say water infiltration for motorhomes is like cancer.

It costs 20.000, has one solar panel but not a great power system and we need one. The fridge didn’t seem to work that well and were other things that were kinda “meh”….

This is the one that I like the most, granted we didn’t see it in reality and that’s crucial. We will see it on Tuesday:

Costs around 20.000 but the price is negotiable. I am quite sure we could get it for 19.000, but would be excellent if we could for 18.000. It is from 2001 and it too had water infiltration but in the back from the bike-rack and they said they fixed it.

It has no solar panels and such, but I learned how to do it myself and I think with 1.000 Euros we can get a very good system in place. The owners had it since 2011 and that’s super important for me. You want to buy from some people who used the motorhome and took care of it.

This next one is expensive at 22.500:

From 2003. Price negotiable. Has a good power system in place with solar power and big batteries. But even in the photos it looks a bit messed up inside. We are yet to see this one. Did not have water infiltration the owner said. At very best you could probably get this for 21.000….but may not even drop it so low.

All of the three have a very similar layout because we really want this layout.

The bed on top of the driving seats:

It is a huge double bed. 2m long and 1.5m wide. As huge as the bed we have now. Granted Sasha takes 70% of it despite being 60% my size….

Having a bed on top like that frees a lot of space in the rest of the motorhome. I cannot accept a motorhome that does not have this. And it is not as tight as you may think…

Moving on, all have the dinette area like most motorhome do, where you can sit and eat, or whatever .. work on your computer. Feels like sitting in a nice train 🙂

These two features many motorhomes have, but the next not many. A bunk bed in the back:

They look like this:

We want to create an office out of this space. This is really important for us. But this office to also be able to convert into a bed because we want to take some friends with us too for a few days, whenever we all can :).

All of the motorhomes on our list have this layout.

So we think one of these could be ok for us. The price can be anywhere from 18.000 to 22.000. I think we cannot afford one that’s more than 20.000 tho…

Other costs.

If we buy the one without the solar panels and a power system, we need to invest at least 1.000 Euros into putting one. Even those that have it need at least more solar panels for our needs if we are to work on our computers. We also need Internet and that opens up a new set of can of worms…but let’s say it would cost us some 4-500 Euros as a one time antenna payment plus a monthly subscription.

We need to buy a new and different toilet that costs 900 Euros….yah….took me a year to convince myself about that. Crazy expensive….I won’t tell you more now, wait for the videos about it. It is worth it tho! Actually without it it would be really difficult to live full time in such a house on wheels.

We need insurance and since my driving license is so new it would cost a lot. I hope no more than 1.500 Euros.

We need to perhaps fix some stuff with the motorhome, buy new things, or what not. And on top of this have at least 1.000 Euros saved for emergency needs since with a car you NEED that.

In total.

18.000-20.000 Euros for the motorhome plus some 5.000 in extra spendings. As I said we may have 20.000 at the end of this year, but we need those extra things for sure. This is why we made a Gofundme campaign.

Why a Gofundme?

I really didn’t want to make any campaign anymore. I hate these already….for the past 10+ years I made several campaigns and for the last few years many failed to achieve their goal. Like when I tried to get the money to work on TROM II….and I understand. How much longer can people help you!?

But a few friends convinced me to make one, and since we really do not have enough for a motorhome but we are so close to that, I said why not…although I feel kinda terrible for making it.

I was settled for 5.000 for the campaign then decided to put 7.000 since I got scared about what we do after we buy the motorhome and all it needs. Now I put it to 5.000 and will leave it as such. Scared or not, even 5.000 is a lot of money that I do not think we will get anyway…

See the campaign here.

I do not think we will raise that much money to be honest, but if we do I would be over the moon happy. Even if we do not succeed with this campaign, we will buy a motorhome somehow. We will borrow money and will see….We have to.

Actually it is a big big mystery about what we do after we buy the motorhome. How do we survive on a daily basis?

So from my calculations to live in a motorhome it would cost us this much:

Parking is free, and Europe seems to be a paradise-land for the motorhome life. Plenty of free places to park. So what will we have to pay for?

Gas of course. But since we will move slowly I hope we won’t pay more than 100-150 Euros a month. Then food is like now, 300-350 Euros a month. Gas for cooking and heating around 30 a month. Internet between 50 to 80…it depends what solution we find. Laundry some 30 a month. Maybe add some extra 50 Euros more a month just in case. That’s some 650 Euros a month. Currently I make around 400 Euros a month, and I am always scared the Webape subscribers will cancel their subscription and/or the people who donate to TROM monthly would stop donating.

Therefore I have no idea how we will make it 😀 – maybe if we get the 5.000 from Gofundme and we find a motorhome at around 18.000 Euros, we can have some 2.000 left to use monthly….

TOTAL TOTAL

18.000-20.000 the motorhome. 5.000 extras. Around 1.500 insurance a year. 1.000-2.000 repairs a year. 650 euros a month minimum. Not cheap!

Now…we’ve always been at the limit and somehow we made it, so I hope that will happen again.

If we have the motorhome then this is our home. We don’t have to pay rent and most of the energy needs we can get from the Sun. In the worst case maybe we find a place to park and stay for a while, and hopefully have money for food and Internet. But at least we know we have a place to stay and we only need to make the minimum to pay for food, fuel, Internet and some repairs.

TROM

So far I talked about the “home” part, but this is called TROMhome for a reason. TROM is tattooed in my brain and I will continue to do things for this project(s). That’s why I need a space to work on TROM from. But this time maybe it will force us to take TROM on a different adventure.

You see we have a fuck ton of materials for TROM. Many books and videos, so much so it is overwhelming. And so many projects. And although I will create more content (still working on several books at the moment) would be fantastic to got to events and present TROM, organize meetings, and overall talk to people about it. I want to put a TROMhome sticker on the motorhome with the website, to “advertise” it everywhere we go.

We will make videos about our adventures, and although the first months would be a lot about how to live in a motorhome, I hope they will evolve into more TROM-like videos. TROM on the Road :). Maybe we can meet new organizations and volunteer for hem, maybe we do some presentations and so forth.

We will post them all on our Peertube.

My concerns.

Of course my main concern is always the money situation like I explained above, but on top of that I have some other slight concerns.

When you live in a motorhome you can’t just park somewhere and stay for like a month. For one you are not allowed, and second you need to empty your grey water (water stored from the kitchen and shower) but also fill up the tanks with fresh water. So we will have to move move move….every other day. And I am concerned to not start to feel like I cannot relax and have time to focus on some TROM stuff for longer periods of time.

Speaking of moving, you get to sleep in new places all the time. So what if you park in a sketchy area, noisy, windy, cold? I always struggled with my sleep and any little noise wakes me up. Would I be able to adapt to having the home be in a parking lot all of the time?

Also….what if things break and you need time to fix them? Thus less time for TROM. What if you have to send the motorhome to a repair shop? What do we do? Go rent a place to stay for a few nights? What about our stuff?

What if we go for a hike, come back, and notice that our motorhome was stolen or someone got in and stole our stuff?

Many concerns as you can see…BUT….

Life is short, give new things a try!

When I made TROM in 2011 I was 23 years old. Now I am 36. In the past 13 years I did so many projects. Wrote so much, made videos, projects. So busy. Nonstop most of the time. I also had kinda the same life: me at the computer doing things. You know you can get cancer, or get hit by a car, or go to sleep and never wake up. I would like to experience new things as well, and this motorhome life is something I’ve been dreaming for quite some time now.

Despite all of the concerns it is beyond FABULOUS to be able to look at the map and say: let’s go here. Then there. Then over there. And to know that it is a continuous adventure. I write that with a genuine smile on my face. There are amazing caves and mountains, great lakes and wonderful forests. I want to see them :).

In 2026 there will be a total solar eclipse visible in one part of Spain, imagine being able to go to the best spot with the motorhome and observe it. Or go to the darkest places in Europe to see the night sky. Go visit our TROM friends, take them with us for little adventures, meet new people…let things evolve and emerge out of these experiences.

We have a microscope and a telescope. Let’s look at the small and the big, from different parts of the world.

And let’s share our experiences with others. Maybe we will inspire. 🙂

Follow us

We will make a lot of videos about this TROMhome adventures and we will post on our lovely Peertube https://videos.trom.tf/c/tromhome/videos.

This Tuesday we go see some motorhomes and we will film some stuff. If we buy a motorhome before December then we can already start to do some work on it and make videos about it. If not we will buy a motorhome in January. In December we will be busy with some personal stuff – we will go to Romania to help my parents move and we may spend the entire month there before we start our adventures with the motorhome.

I am both excited and stressed. I am sure I will feel a lot of stress when I’ll see our bank accounts empty after we buy the motorhome. But maybe once we start living in it, the excitement can grow for both of us.

End.

Right now, while writing this article, I have my headphones on just to cancel the insane amount of noise coming from outside. My parents….as much as I care about them and I want them to live forever and be healthy, stress me out beyond belief. They are noisy, scream at each other frequently, and overall are these normal citizens that make me depressed to be around. Our neighbors scream, their dog barks non-stop. I feel so stressed. But that makes me so eager to fucking go go go. Fuck it. If you live in a motorhome and have noisy neighbors just drive somewhere else.

I really hope this new home would be a great home for us, and that TROM will continue to live through my actions, me, others.

At times I read my old blog posts out of curiosity to see how things have changed. I know Tio you will read this post in the future….where are you now? You happy? I hope so. I hope you have a great motorhome and got used to that lifestyle. I hope.