Van Life 101: Where to Make your State Residence While Living in a Van

today i'm standing in front of the beautiful alabama hills which is on the eastern side of the sierras in california and i love being a nomad and a gypsy uh living the full-time life in my van or rv whichever you're living in because i can come to beautiful places like this but uh there are certain difficulties with living this life that we all tend to face and i get those questions all the time well how do i how do i choose a home state how will i get mail on the road what about health insurance if i don't have a home how will i get health insurance how will i get an address for a driver's license if i don't have a home state if i don't live anywhere if i'm a nobody that lives nowhere uh well isn't that really hard to live that way and yes uh there are a lot of problems that it does create and so i've decided to shoot a series of videos to answer your questions now i'm afraid they're going to be talking head videos just me standing here looking at you at least i'm giving you a beautiful backdrop to look at my ugly face but there's so much information to to give to you that i'm gonna do a series there'll be four videos then the videos will be first will be state of residence we're going to cover that today second will be a driver's license how to get your driver's license how to get an address how to get the mail for your address the third one will be on mail forwarding specifically uh how to choose a male forwarder or who they are where they are and um while you travel how do you get mail on the road uh i've never had all these i've got answers for all these things but i'm afraid you're just gonna have to endure these long boring videos to get to them and finally we'll talk about health insurance that's become a really big issue in our world and with obamacare it's finally accessible for most of us some of you are 65 and older have medicare probably many of you uh and so it's not an issue you you face for those younger than 65 and one of my goals in my website and on these videos is to encourage younger people to do this you can do this but health insurance becomes an issue and so we're going to talk about that in the fourth video and one thing i want to make very very clear i am not giving you the answers in these videos since night since 9 11 and the twin towers fell our world has changed radically and then obamacare came in and brought us uh all new changes uh i i as for these videos i've been researching what other bloggers say and i'll go back into a video from 24 a blog or a video even from 2014 and everything's changed i go back and i read that well that's not true anymore this has changed since then i go and i'll read another blog and they'll say this and that's not true anymore either it's all changed what i'm trying to say to you is i'm going to give you the questions to ask and what they are for the most part what they are right now in 2016 but by the time you're going full time and and traveling yourself it may very well all have changed so i'm not giving you the answers i'm giving you the questions and telling you these are the things you need to research for yourself to find out because it is all changing really fast uh home obamacare particularly has changed things um i know our viewers have changed states just recently because of obamacare and uh and now the state they changed to has changed and so it's not working for them there either these are big issues and they and we need to address them i'm going to try and answer them as best i can but it still falls on you to do your research and find out the current information for when you're watching this video you might be watching this video five years after i make it and everything's changed uh and the real id act is coming on in 20 begins some of it takes effect in 2016 some of takes effect in 2020 if your driver's license doesn't have a little gold star on it you can't use that to get on an airplane anymore and so that becomes a big issue and we're going to talk about that in its own video because it's a big subject these are all complicated subjects and i'm afraid i'm going to try and talk fast and go through them quickly i'll try and put up the information on the screen below you it can be a little distracting i know hopefully what i'd like to see that happen from this is you will go about you will watch these videos and take notes and when i put up a note on the screen you'll write that down and so you have a list of things on my website cheap rv living i also have i'll cover all this in posts uh that go along with the videos so i'm really going to encourage you to go there and follow that down where i'll have it all written out for you and so they tied together cheap rv living blog i'll try to put up the links in the videos as we go along so that they work together okay well let's start talking today about it choosing a state of residence and again it's a big complicated subject and i'm going to talk fast so the great thing about a video is you can go back start over and say what did he say and what does that mean and you can write you can email me and comment you can email me uh through my blog through my web my forum cheaprvliving.com forums or uh add a comment on the bottom here and i'll try to answer all your questions to the best of my ability i am no expert i am no lawyer first let me just say that uh one of the big things we're talking about is that your b which domicile in which state domicile is not the same as residents because we all say use the word resident when we actually mean domicile you can have a residence in many states and spend a lot of time in many states but you're only the domiciled in one state there's one domicile is a legal term that says this state has legal authority over you let me give you an example that will may or may not apply to you but eventually will say you're a michigan resident and you're a snowbird and you travel and spend your winter in arizona you die in arizona you have a will there you have heirs your family contests the will they're going to be a it's going to go to court the judge is going to decide or you don't have a will and then the courts decide everything for you which state has control of you you're you live it you're a michigan resident you have a driver's license since michigan you died in arizona well domiciled means all legal questions like that are decided in the state of michigan you will go to a michigan court that's domicile we interchange the two we and we're going to do that here we're going to talk about becoming resident of a state when actually we mean the legal term domicile just a technicality but i want you to understand that just because you have a residence in a state doesn't make you a resident of it you're domiciled in one state at a time and we're saying which choose state will you choose as a legal domicile okay so i'm going to follow notes i'm sorry this is a lot to talk about and i want to keep on track uh the big thing is you could choose any state uh up till now you lived in a certain place you worked in a certain place that was your state of domicile but now if you're a full-timer you're going to live and travel all the time you're going to be in different states all the time even if you travel slowly and not much and a lot of nomads eventually settle down and spend more time in just a few states you can still choose your state and so there are factors to to consider about which state you choose the four factors to consider are economic costs living in one state will be cheaper than living in another state and so why not choose the cheapest state to live it only makes sense another factor is the ease of living there and becoming a resident some states make it really hard to become a resident alaska in particular because they give away money every year in this permanent fund dividend so they make it very hard to become a resident a legal resident domicile uh and and so you want to choose a state that's easy so and cheap to live in so those are two of the big factors and we'll talk about all these things finally there's the issue of the politics of a state maybe you hate guns maybe you love guns if you hate guns do you want to be a resident of a state that loves guns or promotes them or uh if you love guns do you want to be a resident and domicile a state that hates them uh and one of your politics and that's just an ex one example that i've chosen uh but there are other states there are reasons why other you might choose one state for political reasons uh other than just guns that's a hot button issue a pot if pot's important to you if you need it for medical marijuana or if you just enjoy it then choose a state that makes pot legal i mean it's it's a factor you should definitely consider homeschooling some states if you're young you have children you want to homeschool some states are very tough on homeschooling some states are very easy uh so i know nevada in particular is i'm a nevada resident i'm gonna talk about nevada a lot so i'm not saying that's for you although it might very well be but it's just what i know so it's uh it's what i'm gonna talk about um nevada makes it very easy and very helpful in homeschooling so some people choose nevada for that reason alone political reasons are important uh and so and if you're a very political person take them into account uh and fi and so i have chosen nevada part of the reason i chose nevada was its libertarian viewpoints um there's an odd mixture of conservative and liberal in nevada and a lot of libertarianism mixed into the whole bunch so i like the politics nevada that played a small role in why i chose nevada resident um if you hate guns don't choose arizona or ut or nevada because every day you'll go to a store and there'll be somebody walking around with an open gun on their hip because they're big pro-gun states if you hate guns go with illinois or some other state where they hate them california california hates guns okay so on but finally there's a fourth location that most people never consider in their state of residence and that is location and i personally consider that to be one of the most important factors and i want you to really move it up the list is is location uh an example that is now with obamacare most states do not offer nationwide healthcare plans so you're going to have to return to your home state to get your health insurance under obamacare that's not true with medicare if you're under medicare you can get almost anywhere and so that becomes less of an issue but for us young people not yet under medicare it's a big big issue it makes location very very important so we're going to talk about location first then we'll come back and talk about these other four factors okay so uh location gotta have keep my notes sorry uh one of the things to consider uh is you have to go there to get your driver's license and so if it's uh a lot of people choo there are three three big states that people choose let's say that first state south dakota uh texas and florida those three states meet all the the big issues pretty darned well they all cover them well uh you won't regret going with one of those three states and so if you choose one of those three then the question is well how do i narrow it down from those three i've narrowed it down from 50 to three and it's those three and so one of the big factors i would really urge you to consider is location if you have to go back there to get your health care go to a doctor every year you don't want to go to south dakota because it's cold a whole lot of the year and hot a whole lot of the year and it's a very far away it's 1500 2 000 miles away from most of us texas is in the middle of the country and far away just driving across texas seems to take forever um texas is out if you have to go there all the time unless you're a resident of texas already you actually live there but you're a nomad you don't live there if you're not if you're not if you live in texas you're why are you watching this video if you're a nomad to travel everywhere same with florida i live out west now if i lived back east florida would be the top of my list because i'd probably go there every summer every winter to spend my winters there florida would be a great choice for me but i'm out west i spend almost all my town out west i recommend everyone spend all your time out west for numerous reasons free and easy and cheap living on public land is the first easy access to algodones with very inexpensive and high quality of dental care for prescription drugs and and eyeglasses i go there every year and i've been going there for every year for the last six years so it's really cheap it's cheaper and better and easier to live on the west and it's prettier that's my prejudiced opinion uh it's just prettier and it really is gorgeous look at the number of national parks east of the mississippi river and look at them how many on the west and you're just there's no question it's prettier out west than it is back east it's big and it's open and it's got a lot of free public camping so that's why i recommend the west for all nomads and better weather better weather options so uh you if you're out west don't choose florida why choose south dakota it's still 1500 miles from where i winter in arizona to south dakota if i have to go to the doctor i don't want to drive 1500 miles to go to the doctor so i i i chose i eliminated all them and chose nevada because nevada is in this circle i travel in if i draw on a map a circle and i'm going to put one up on the screen for you 750 miles a long day's drive i can go most places out west that i want to go and be a long day's drive from nevada to get healthcare to get whatever it is there that i need that's why i chose nevada first because it offered there was no income taxes and second because of location very important i think finally another question to ask yourself about which state will it be a state i become a resident and never go again that's what happens with south dakota it's so far out of your way you make you become a south dakota resident you plan to never go there again except every five years when you get your driver's license or will it be a home base that you go to every year and why would you want to consider a home base that you go to every year health insurance if you if you're many women and many men especially as you're older want to see a doctor every year for preventative things and that's really wise women have a number of health issues that come up every year and so many of us after age 50 55 60 we should see a doctor every year for certain preventative tests just to gather the information well if south dakota is your home state and you spend your winters in arizona that's crazy you don't want that if you again and the same if you spend your travel all the time west you don't want to drive to california or florida every year that's 2500 miles to see a doctor it's silly same with texas too far out your way but nevada is very close from where i winter in quartzite ehrenberg yuba uh lake havasu all on the colorado river there in arizona i'm about four hours away from nevada and my doctor at any time i got a doctor's appointment it's a four hour drive yeah that's long it's boring but i can do it and i can go to the doctor anytime and so uh without nationwide health coverage it really is important that you chose a state that has a home base you go to every year you see your doctor what else might you do at home base every year you might have a vet if most a lot of us have pets maybe your vet is at your own base you go see the doctor your dog go see this van your cat goes to see the vet uh friends and family if you go a home base every year and you go to an rv park or you can't boondock out on the land and there's lots of good boondocking in nevada that's one reason i chose it it's mostly blm land it's beyond everywhere you just go camp where i camp in pramp i'm a from nevada resident that's my home base i can camp four years from the front door of a walmart four years four miles from the front door to the walmart the home depot i'm six miles from the doctor my doctor's office i could walk i have friends who walk to those places every day i drive i'm not that much of a walker but i'm close that's my point and so you'll get to know people there i and i meet the same people there every year so a home base gives you a grounding you're grounded into a home base and that's a good thing sometimes even for a nomad to have a ground some places will have homes uh uh you could buy a piece of land there and a lot of no bads want to own a piece of land and i think that's very reasonable the two go together there's no reason you can't have both a green thumb and itchy feet and if you have a green thumb that says boy i need to plant things i need to watch things grow in the soil and work the soil but you also have itchy feet and you say man i just got to keep moving those that's a real contradiction but a lot of us have it uh and if you have a home base you can do that you can combine the two you can buy a piece of land and and have your uh grow some things and then do your traveling also it can work really well so uh that works now if if you're a real hunter fisher uh forager if you like hunting and fishing and you like to gather from the forest well if you establish a home base you can be your resident there you can get a hunting and fishing license cheap you can go fishing you can go hunting every state has stocked fishing somewhere and you can do your foraging in your home state so those are the reasons why you might want to have a home base and not just a state you go to once a year and that's or once every five years uh most south dakota residents never go to south dakota ever once every five years uh and so it's something to consider where will your doctor be if that's true and that's why a lot of people have left south dakota and gone somewhere else because their doctor's too far away they can't go for a yearly visit okay so that's location next we're going to talk about uh why you choose one state over the other you've got the big three and i'm saying four and i'm actually going to include tennessee and making me make that five uh the big five uh you narrow it down which are the big fives uh south dakota texas florida nevada tennessee tennessee's iffy but some people do choose tennessee and for good reasons which in state which state is cheaper first i choose a state that doesn't have an income tax why do you want to have to file an income tax every year but it isn't really that simple uh there are different kinds of wages let's talk about the four kinds of income there are four kinds of income the first income is uh wages if you work you go to work your boss pays your money that's a wage if you're young you're going to have wages and if a state has tax and income tax it will tax wages so you want to choose a state that does not have an income tax if you're young then you're working jobs and you have wages uh and you also might think about this if your state has an income tax and you work at a state that does not so you work at nevada you you're a resident of colorado which has an income tax and you work at nevada nevada does not have an income tax colorado may insist you pay them the income tax i don't know that true i'm not saying that's true you're going to do your research and find out i do know there are people who tell me that their state will insist that you pay them if you don't pay income tax where you work something to look into and consider second some you may only have you might be older that's for younger people working you may be older have a pension some states have an income tax but do not uh tax pensions if you're sure that's all you ever have you can consider those states it has income tax but you won't have to file because they don't tax pensions there's too many variabilities here i'm not going to do that research you have to do that research finally another one is not finally but another one is social security disability if you're on social security or disability many states 36 states do not tax social security if your only income is social security if that will always be your only income then you can go to that state that has an income tax and never have to pay it so that opens up a whole new world of states to you uh and interest i know people who worked hard saved up a whole lot of money and have re and retired and are just living on the interest and pulling a little bit out of savings every year some states tax interest and some states don't so a state that uh doesn't tax interest may be of interest to you if you were in that particular situation uh again it's research you have to do it's just not as simple as don't go to a state that has an income tax maybe you have such a low income you don't care if you have to follow and so that opens up all many more states than just these few i'll put up a list of the seven that states that do not have an income tax and most of them will eliminate them for various reasons and you come down to the big three and i'm including nevada and some people are including tennessee okay so once they will be cheaper than another that's what we're looking at that's the topic and the big one is income tax if they have an income tax and you burn rate wages you're going to pay a lot more to live in that state than another state so why not go to a state without income tax second is sales tax if you think you're in the future you're going to be buying a a new trailer a new new to you van you still have to pay taxes on these vans a twenty thousand dollar van would you want to live in a state where they don't charge taxes in sales tax on that because that's a lot of money and i haven't done the research and a lot of the you just have to do that and on my blog forum post i'll have um information on all that but again that's just a question to ask and research for yourself that's my point inspections does your does your state have a vehicle inspection if a state has an emissions inspection and you have to go back every year to get it that's going to cost you a lot of money uh if you're one year your vehicle doesn't pass inspections and you have to pay 400 500 000 sometimes there's a limit on how much you have to pay uh then that's going to cost you a lot of time and effort and money and so you want to get a state without them the big uh the big three and nevada either don't have them or or they're not intrusive in your life and so that's one of the big factors uh one of the things to consider is that a state will have some counties will have an emissions and a safety inspection on your vehicle and so you just register outside that's uh that county and nevada is like that the state doesn't have an emissions or a vehicle inspection but a few counties do las vegas and reno those the counties with those state cities the big cities same thing with arizona the big cities phoenix metro and tucson metro those two counties have uh inspections but no other state does no other county in that state does so that's something to look into also but you want to avoid having an emissions you don't want to buy the hassle of it every year you don't want to have to return to it every year to get one and it'll cost you money in the long run to get them inspections and then in the long run to do all the work for them how much will it cost you to register your vehicle in that state uh it varies tremendously by state uh how long is the registration good for uh do you save i i am a nevada resident got a bad driver's license they are my domicile legal authority over me i register my vehicles in arizona and so arizona has a five-year registration and it's much cheaper i have a 2001 chevy of chevy van one ton big issue commercial is it a one ton is it a commercial vehicle and so uh nevada insisted that it was a commercial vehicle and i'd have to convert it to an rv if i to not pay commercial insurance it was very expensive and so arizona would let me register it as non-commercial i save 200 a year by registering it vehicle insurance and registering it in arizona which is why i registered in arizona so vehicle insurance and registration are very very important issues now let me let me address a side issue here when it comes to choosing the state if you're thinking about a commercial vehicle that you turn into an rv then you have a big question of vehicle insurance and full-timers insurance on that vehicle and so insurance in one state will be much more than another so that's a big issue that's why again what we're talking about cost of registration and vehicle insurance uh one state versus another so for example i know people who live in a school bus a box fan a box fan has a box in the back and a band nose great to live in big huge space uh a box truck a truck in the nose and then a box behind it a one ton van i have a one ton van it's extended it's long it carries a lot of weight a step van step vans make great homes some of them have diesels get good gas mileage they're huge they're pleasant to live in a shuttle bus you know an airport shuttle bus or a short school bus those are great things to live in they're big they have lots of windows they're commercially built they're industrial built they'll last forever they almost always have come with diesels so maybe you want to move into a a commercial vehicle don't do it now it's oversimplified don't do it until you found out if you can get it re-licensed non-commercial and you can buy insurance i'm afraid i know people who bought a commercial vehicle in their state found out they could not turn it into an rv the state would not reissue the title they had to carry commercial insurance it was so expensive they sold the vehicle at a loss and they really regretted the decision some states make it easy to turn the vehicle into a commercial vehicle into an rv i mean some states make it very easy some states make it almost impossible the majority of states make it difficult and so find that out before you buy a commercial vehicle i have a friend who bought a school bus in tennessee and it was super simple to re-register it as an rv he went in the i think he filled out i don't know these details for sure uh well you have to do all your research i'm giving you the questions to ask he went in he filled out some forms and voila it was a uh it was registered as an rv another state it would be impossible so find that out before you make any decisions about getting into a commercial vehicle if you want insurance on your vehicle on the things inside your vehicle you you live in your vehicle everything your owners are in the vehicle you want to carry insurance on that stuff many states will make it impossible if you don't if it's not listed as an rv you can't get insurance on the stuff in them never never never tell your insurance agent that you've taken a van and turned it into an rv you modified it you will i know numerous people who called them and said i want to insure my belongings in my van i've made it into a camper i live in it now they said that's fine this will be your last in your last payment we're dropping you you'll never get insurance with us again i know i know several people that's happened to don't ever tell them you've converted a van to a an rv and you're living in it because that'll cost you your insurance almost always these are big big issues and so i want you to be aware of them one state will make it very easy one state will make it very hard most stakes will make it hard a few states will make it impossible of course you just buy an rv you're going to have to live with the fact find out how hard it is to turn a vehicle in from a regular vehicle commercial vehicle into an rv before you do anything like that okay i'll move on that's complicated i know it is but it just has to be said you need to know that while you're making these decisions uh finally there's the general cost of living california has one of the highest costs of living i'm in california here in the beautiful alabama hills on the eastern side of the sierras uh where i was at in nevada i drove from nevada to here my home base from nevada i paid 220 for gas i got here and it's three dollars a gallon it's 80 cents a gallon more for gas here a lot of places in california is a dollar more per gallon some places it's dollar 52 if you get remote enough a lot of places it's 50 to 80 cents more per gallon everything here is costs more the regulations in california are much more uh so most people it's an automatic you wouldn't even consider living in california however california has a lot an incredible safety network and there are people who live here and endure the entire cost of living because the safety net is so good that it's worth it to them they get more on on their disability they get more on unemployment they get more on on food stamps if you have a reason to legitimate reason to be on all those things take them into account before you choose the state as well the social safety network of a state can can really be important in your overall decision you have to take all these things into account uh maybe no one issue is so important but if you do the research on all these you call the state that's how what you're gonna have to do you're gonna have to end up calling your insurance agent and find out if i if i move my v if i move to california how much is my insurance going to be how if i move to florida how much is my insurance going to be find that out call the dmv if i register my vehicle there in your state how much will it be per year to renew the driver's license to get a new title on and on and on uh you got to do that down the list of all these factors and find out the total number for each state it's it's not the individual parts it's the total number and some factor may be so big that it overrides all the others and i can't answer your question about your vehicle and your life uh they're all different so you're just going to have to do the research these are the questions you need to ask before you choose a state one state will be cheaper than another um which is going to be the best for you i can't answer you're going to have to find out for yourself okay so and then another thing to consider is one state is easier to become a resident uh with the real id act that has become a much bigger issue most states are now requiring you bring in proof to get a driver's license south dakota is still the king here one day you've got to take in a rental receipt for one day at a motel at or an rv park and that to them and they make you a resident uh state south dakota is the king here and i think it probably always will be it's easier to become a south dakota resident they have an abundance of really good male forwarders uh just in every way becoming a south dakota resident is super super easy they want you to become a south dakota resident why because if you're a resident of the state they get federal money based on the population of the state and so you're a resident but you never use any of the resources or cost them any money money comes in from the feds for you they may even get enough uh rvers full-time rvers that they'll get another seat in the house of representative that's based on population and so uh they have everything to gain by having you a resident and nothing to lose really because you're never there uh and so they want you to be a resident although alaska does not want you to be a resident and most states want you to prove it need you to prove it so in that way south dakota is kind of still the winner and why so many two people choose south dakota uh texas is pretty easy with escapees the escapees will help you and have any answer any of your questions escapees is a big rv group that's based out of texas so a lot of people choose texas because of the escapees and it's a good reason if you've already going to become a member of the escapees you can use their really good mail floating service uh texas used to have really good health insurance options i think that's changed they don't now uh and so there are a number of reasons why you would choose uh texas over over the other states uh if you don't want to become escapees if and as a member of the rv escapee club uh then it's going to become a little it's been more expensive because you got to become a member of the club and then to get their mail forwarding and to get all the other access to all their other information cost you a little more so maybe it's not worth it to you i don't know florida is a very good state and has lots of makes it easier they do require a lot of proof now that's the real id we're going to cover a real id and what kind of proof you need to get a driver's license still south dakota is by far the winner here it's by far easier i be i'm a nevada resident too and to get a driver's license in nevada you have to bring an affidavit from someone saying you aren't a resident they can they've vouched for you your resident do you know anyone that will do that probably not um or you have to bring in a uh here's how you can do it in the south in nevada if you want to get become a nevada resident get the get a real id driver's license uh we're going to talk about this later i don't want to talk about it too much now you have to become uh you have to move into a motel or an apartment or an rv park for 30 days and then take that rate seat and to get your driver's license well it's 30 days in nevada it's one day in south dakota south dakota is cheaper and easier and so that's why that's an important issue to you you have if you decide now you can save yourself money and hassle uh the cheapest rv park i could find near corrupt nevada my home base was 220 a month i'm going to spend 220 there versus 20 in south dakota it's one of the factors in which you choose to become okay uh how easy is it to get a uh and get a driver's license and then to renew it how often do you have to renew it if it's commonly states are four years five six or eight years if it's an eight year driver's license that's easier uh and that's changing nevada is just changing to an eight year driver's license and so that is as about as good as it gets i think is eight years and so that's going to make a plus for nevada although right now it's still four which is you know not as good as five six or eight uh how long will your registration last uh if it's every year well that's a pain uh arizona for example will let you go five years and if you pay for the whole five years up front it's cheaper my 2001 chevy van was 120 dollars for five years i've got a tag on my license plate that says 21. i got it in 16 when i'm making this video and i don't have to register my vehicle again until uh 2021. that's a big plus to me but it's not the overriding factor but it's a factor uh jury duty will do does the state make it easy to get out of jury duty south dakota makes it very easy another reason why people choose south dakota they if you can sign an avid data saying you're a full-time rv or you don't live in the state and they will exempt you from jury duty really a big thing voting how hard is it to vote in that state well we can all vote absentee but sometimes it's easier and harder so the simple bottom line is that if you uh if you have very low income the big three don't work won't work for you that the simple fact that you can't get health insurance may override your desire to to become residents of those states okay so there you have it i know it's a lot of long discussion and a lot of material covered i'm sorry about that but the information is yours and you can go back and re watch this video and study it and again go to my blog i have a blog post about this that you can uh you can see i'll put up the the link at the bottom of the screen you can see it go to my forums uh if you go to thecheaprvliving.com forums we have these discussions about obamacare all the time you ask post your question there and i'll answer it a lot of people will answer it um and so um there you have it just a gigantic amount of information to all digest at once and you can always feel free to contact me and i will try and explain it especially through the forums where a lot of people try and explain it to you okay that's enough i'll stop now and shut my mouth and we'll talk to you next time when we'll talk about getting a mail forwarder how will you get your mail on the road or while you don't have a home base so we'll see you then hi folks sorry about that awkward transition i had a problem with that uh video and i had to just reshoot it again right now i'm in arizona in the beautiful coconino national forest shooting this one more thing i want to cover really quickly before uh before i call good enough and that's obamacare obamacare has had a tremendous impact in the state you choose in two different ways the first way is uh when you use obamacare you have to choose your state of residence and you have to choose your health care policy from what that state offers if the state doesn't offer a nationwide health care policy then you have to you can only get your health insurance you can only see a doctor in that uh state so if i'm a south dakota resident but i spend all and i never ever go to south dakota i'll never ever be able to see my doctor emergency room visits are always covered uh by every health insurance policy so i can always go to the health to the emergency room in arizona or california if i explore florida if i spend my winters there i'm not spending my winter in south dakota take my word for it and probably you aren't either so if i'm wintering in arizona and i need to see a doctor how am i going to do it i'm going to drive all the way back to south dakota in the winter and boy water misery that's going to be so the thing is to either choose a state that has nationwide policies which is not the big three south dakota florida and texas north nevada offer nationwide policy uh so you can't essentially you can't use your health insurance in any of those places so choose your location your state by location i chose nevada because i'm always within a circle i'm putting up a map now and you'll see that within a day's drive a long day's drive i can be into nevada and see my doctor nevada is my home base so i can see my doctor twice a year if i want to on the way to arizona and away from arizona is my winter base uh and and so i can see them regularly it's part of my plan it's part of my regular travels uh florida's far away texas is far far away i'll never visit either one hardly uh an emergency i can go to emergency room but then i gotta go see my doctor they won't cover keep covering emergency room visits you gotta go to your doctor so so choose a state that offers you either choose a state that offers a nationwide health insurance policy through obamacare through the exchange or choose a state that's local to you you can get too often i chose a state that's local to me the second issue is water very low income and you know in america today a lot of us are very low income there's a lot of minimum wage people who are just barely making a thousand a month 1500 a month if you're low income you cannot get obamacare i believe it's ten eleven thousand dollars somewhere in that ballpark i don't know the exact number you'll have to look it up yourself and it'll probably change year to year if you're too low income you can't get obamacare you have to go to your state and get something called uh enhanced medicaid you're going to get on medicaid it's a federal program but it's administered by the states so and here's the problem the big three don't offer enhanced medicaid they're all the big three are all conservative states they all hate obamacare they hate obama and they hate obamacare and so they chose not to offer enhanced medicaid to their citizens uh florida texas south dakota do not offer enhanced medicaid if you make ten thousand dollars and europe you're a resident one of those states you're out of luck you're not getting health insurance from the federal government for free i don't know how you're going to get it you're probably just simply not however so you and one of the things you want to do is choose a state that offers enhanced medicaid and also doesn't have an income tax and what does that happen to be nevada i'm a i'm a resident of nevada and they do offer enhanced medicaid i do make more than 10 000 so i don't qualify um i make about 24 000 a year and um obamacare and my my insurance policy cost me 400 a month i can't afford 400 a month i wouldn't do it obamacare pays 350 dollars of that uh 400. i'm only paying 50 a month for my health insurance policy because i'm on obamacare a pretty good deal uh the penalty this year for in 2016 i believe is 700 if you don't get it it would cost me more not to get the insurance policy and you have to pay it it's in your irs taxes i pay taxes it'll be right in my my 1040 form uh it will cost me more not to have insurance than it costs me to get it so i bought it i mean it only makes sense um there are people who are going to write and complain well you're just a leech you're sponging off the government they forced me to take it i'd be a fool not to take it uh and so i took it and if you think that's i'm a leech and a horrible human being that's up to you you make that decision um so if you're very low income choose a state that offers enhanced medicaid that's very important uh and so uh i wanted to cover those two things before we go so now i'm done we're gonna go on next to our next video which will be on getting your driver's license and what about an address how do you get a real address you can you can go to mail forward or get a po box and have a mailing address but you need a physical real physical residential address you live at you have to have one and so i'm going to tell you all about that and how you can get one in our next video so thanks for putting up with all this it's long and drawn out and i apologize but it's a lot of information i really want to get it out to you and i and i hope you uh you you can it helps you make some good decisions all right so we'll see on our next video and until then uh be sure and subscribe to our channel and like us on youtube see

Channel: CheapRVliving

Views: 578,468

Keywords: live, living, car, van, RV, Fill-time, nomad, gypsy, camper, camp, boondock, travel, full-time, domicile, state resident, Mail, Forwarder, South Dakota, Texas, Florida, Escapees, address, mailing, escapees, good sam

Id: jntFI_5FiA8

Length: 43min 7sec (2587 seconds)

Published: Mon Mar 27 2017

Reddit Comments

[u/driverdan]

I like his channel but all his videos are 3x as long as they should be. He repeats stuff over and over and adds a lot of unnecessary info. 44 min is really long for this content. Ain't nobody got time for that.

[u/[deleted]]

Can somebody make a Tldr video?

[u/FarkMcBark]

I think these videos really need to be shared more.

[u/trippymicky]

Not Texas !! Noooo

[u/trippymicky]

Ya definitely some Bavarian vibes, which is the upside, it's just the weather. Texas would be great for van life October-April. But it's unbearable outside more than a few minutes right now.