Let’s talk about being homeless. Seriously, when you decide to sell your belongings and live a bit of a traveling lifestyle, there are some challenges that go along with that.
Think of things like,
Where do I vote
Do I pay state income tax
How will I get important mail
Do I still have a vehicle to register and inspect
What are the insurance rates where I will be
We didn’t consider these things as we were planning our liveaboard boating lifestyle. As adults, Deb nor I have ever lived outside of Texas. That meant we didn’t really have exposure to additional costs associated with ‘living’ in other states.
We kind of knew that at some point we would sail toward Florida because of the warm weather, clear water and the easy hopping off point to get to the Bahamas.
So comes a decision, what state do you want to call home when you don’t have a permanent one. Let us look at the things that you may consider.
State income tax – 9 of them in the US as of 2018 do not have state income tax.Those are Alaska, Washington, Nevada, Wyoming, South Dakota, Texas, Florida, New Hampshire, and TN.
New Hampshire and TN, however, have a tax on dividends so something to consider when it comes to retirement or living off of investments. TN says they are phasing this out by 2021, but as of now there is still a tax on dividends
Keep in mind that there are other ways that these states supplement their revenue and that may be by sales tax, property taxes, road and registration fees, etc. For example, Texas has some of the highest property taxes in the country. (but if you are not a land/homeowner, this doesn’t really matter but good to know)
The next thing to consider if you are going to have a vehicle is car insurance rates. We have a modified cruising lifestyle that requires we have our vehicles. Of those states without income tax, New Hampshire is one of the 10 cheapest states to insure a vehicle and Wyoming is one of the highest.These were the big cost factors to consider.
The next thing to consider is vehicle inspection if you have a car. For example, as Texas residents we had to have our vehicles inspected in the county they were registered. So this meant annual road trips to Texas with more than one vehicle. Or sadly what I often chose was to just let it lapse and the cost of a ticket was less than the cost to get it inspected and the drive/trip back there.
But with some planning, you can also determine which states have no vehicle inspection required at all. This is mostly a convenience factor until you consider the cost of driving multiple vehicles across states to get it inspected and then it becomes a cost factor as well as a pain in the ass factor.Sates without vehicle inspection are Alaska, Montana, Wyoming, North and South Dakota, Kansas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Michigan, Kentucky, and Florida
For us, Florida made the most sense. While I consider myself a Texan and Pride make it hard to give that up, it is a pain in the butt to drive all the way over to near Houston to get the vehicles inspected.
The next thing we started to look at was Mail forwarding services that would help to provide a physical address and a mail forwarding, handling and package delivery service. There were 2 that sort of raised to the top of the pile. One in Florida and one in Texas. The one in Texas seemed to cater more toward RV’ers and the one in Florida caters a bit more to Boaters.
Escapees is in Livingston Texas
St. Brendan’s Isle is in Green Cove Springs Florida.
Both have similar services and packages for mail forwarding. Essentially you get
a Physical address to receive mail and packages and list as your permanent address (for all correspondences)
Mail scanning, holding, and forwarding. (Each has different ways of doing this so do your research to see what suits you best)
Each has varied plans depending on the services you request.
Escapees has additional services like roadside assistance and RV Parking and exchanges, etc. Again they are geared toward RV’ers.
As Boaters, we chose St Brendan’s Isle for the additional boaters related benefits such as- The ability to request mail forwarding and service via online, email or phone (Sometimes boaters just don’t have online access)
- Mail forwarding to any port of call in the world (not that we plan on being anywhere, but they are familiar with the challenges of getting mail in a marina or holding for someone planning to arrive there at some point, etc)
- Automatic handling of US Coast Guard Vessel Documentation
- They can and will help with purchasing boat parts and having them shipped to you or your next expected port. While this sounds simple, for travel outside the US, they are able to take care of all customs forms and needs as they do this.
- They can also assist with becoming a resident of Florida, vessel registration, and voter and vehicle registration. I will go over more on this shortly as the voting was recently a problem, however, St. Brendan’s Isle worked to resolve this.
So with all of this, a decision was made. We were going to make Florida our residence over Texas. That said, I still consider myself a Texan at heart and will likely fly a Texas flag on our boat and even list our home port as Kemah TX on the stern of the boat.
We decided and set up our plans with St. Brendan’s early in the year and just didn’t take any of the next steps right away.
We bought a used vehicle in July or so and when we bought it in Louisiana we let the dealer know that we lived in Florida and that meant the taxes they collected for the vehicle went to the Clay County in Florida where Green Cove Springs is located.
Some time in August or September, we decided to gather all the information we needed to go to Florida and register all the vehicles, change our car insurance to be Florida and register the boats, dinghies, and trailers. IF you don’t have the vehicle there in person, you must have a signed affidavit of the mileage of the vehicles from a local police department. Deb took the car to the police department with the proper form and they signed off on it.
We also had our proof of insurance for all vehicles and our 2 forms of proof of residency in Florida. We had the registration for the boats and were able to get most things done on this day (but not all of it). We are only about a 3-hour drive from the Florida state line so we took a day to go do this.
Florida even allows you to schedule your time at the DMV via their mobile app, which was great to reduce our time in line.
We were able to get the Hyundai registered in Florida and the plates for it. We were both able to get our drivers licenses for Florida. We also were able to register the dinghy trailer, and one of the dinghies. as well as the Gulfstar Sailboat. We held off doing SVDreamChaser because we are still in the middle of getting the Coast Guard Vessel Documentation completed and didn’t want to muddy the waters on that boat until that was done.
We were NOT able to get the Nissan Armada done at the same time because the taxes from purchase were sent to Clay County, not Escambia county which is the one just over the Florida state line.
To complete this we need to go to Clay County. We went there with the paperwork from the dealership showing the payment of taxes and we were able to get our license plates and registration in that location.
We were able to finally get it done as well as declaring our intended state of domicile but had some issues with our ability to Vote. Again St. Brendan’s Isle came through. The local voting and elections board had deemed that because the location of our address was not zoned Residential, we were not able to Vote and sent us a letter as such.St. Brendan’s Isle worked out an agreement with the elections board as well as another local business that provides RV and Boating slips with a physical address that is zoned in a way that allows us to vote. It took a bit of doing and we had to fly there to get it done, but we were able to. All good stuff. in the end.
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I hope you find this information useful.
Links mentioned in the video
St. Brendan’s Isle – https://www.sbimailservice.com/
Escapees – https://www.escapees.com/
Keywords: Homeless, Nomadic, Cruiser, Liveaboard, Full-time RVer, Full-time traveler, St. Brendan’s Isle, Escapees, Mail Forwarding Service
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Our Refit Playlist – https://youtu.be/8wyNNpLAeNs
Our Sailing to New Orleans Playlist – https://youtu.be/gzzteJxewAU
Our Epoxy Vs Polyester Fiberglass test results – https://youtu.be/V1bXiKPYDKI
Our series on hatches – https://youtu.be/7dNMu8s32kY
and Our Series on new Freshwater Plumbing – https://youtu.be/8uv7ABaD3YM
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Carbide Grinding blade for the oscillating tool – https://amzn.to/2Gsovnz
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