How I went from being "selfish, stupid and wrong" to "amazing and an inspiration" on the internet

We had been on the road for only three weeks when I did a Money Diary for Refinery 29. I had been following the website for a year, and loved to learn how other women were earning and spending their money anonymously. There were posts from lawyers in NY, tarot card readers in Texas, and divorcees in Paris. But I hadnt seen anything for people who lived in an RV. When we were first looking at the lifestyle, all the blogs and videos didnt give me a great sense of the costs day to day. Everything was glamorized and filtered within a inch of its life, so I had no idea what living on the road would really be like.

Per the website’s format, I kept track of what happened to me and what I spent my money on for a week. I filled out their form and sent it, not really expecting it to get posted. From the feedback from Reddit forums and comments sections, it could take weeks for your diary to posted, if it ever was posted at all.

They posted mine the next morning.

I woke to the headline “A Week In An RV On A $96,400 Salary” and thought “Holy shit, they must have liked it”. I was so excited to read the comments. The comment section at R29 can be incredibly hostile, but if they liked someone it was usually because it was a unique circumstance or they handled their money well. I thought it would be an interesting read - we were traveling full time, we were debt free, we had a few hiccups that were drama and we went to see some amazing places. And while some people were really nice, the majority were pretty harsh.

And these were some of the nicer ones! The ones that really got to me were the ones that said that I was a monster for taking my cats with, how selfish could I be? A large group of people thought that since we still had wifi hotspots we couldnt possibly be considered off grid, and we were frauds. Some even said that I was a bad example and that nobody could live like this with a “real” salary. I was crushed. I had expected the judgement of people not being into the lifestyle, but being told that I was being cruel to my animals really hit home. I spent all day at my laptop, watching the comments flow in and trying to respond where I could, even to the ones that I hated.

Fast forward to now.

An editor at R29 contacted me and asked me if I would do a followup diary. I spent a day thinking about it - did I really want to put myself out there again? People didnt understand me before, what will have changed now? I said yes anyway, because people needed to know how Covid was effecting full time RVers. They told me the diary would be posted on Earth Day, and at 5am it went out to the world. And this time I was ready. I was going to be ambivalent and ignore the comments and just let it roll off me.

Then the comments started coming in.

People loved it. I was confused. I was living the same lifestyle. I still had the cats. We still had the internet. We still had rv drama problems. Why suddenly was this resonating with people? After reading all the comments, I had a few ideas:

• Other recent money diaries had been dumpster fires.

  • It’s easy to look at a nomad lifestyle and think that we are all rule breakers going against the grain of society. But we were doing what everyone else was! We are staying at home, reducing risk to ourselves and others, and being vigilant and cautious when we had to go out. Previous diaries that week had been from people who were exposed to Covid who were still living their normal routines, and the comments section had gone after them like the mob in Beauty and the Beast. If there were pitchfork icons, they would have been everywhere. It made my life look more like the acceptable norm than ever before.

• Many people are living in small spaces

  • A lot of the comments in my first diary were that people couldnt imagine being in a small space all the time, or being stuck with just one person. Now, a LOT of people can imagine that. Ron and I are pros at being around nobody but each other for an extended period of time. I think seeing a healthy, loving relationship between two people while being shut off from the world was something that people needed.

• People miss travel and adventure and new places

  • Even though I talk about having to cancel and change plans (some day we will get to you, Oregon, some day…), we still have a day where we have to travel to our new campsite and book new RV parks. Canceling plans was relatable, and making new ones shows some normalcy coming back to the situation.

• Cats

  • In the first money diary, our cats were still getting used to the RV life. Now that they are old pros, they are living their best life and it shows. While they were by no means the neglected babies people thought they were in the first posting, having daily updates of Kojii’s walks and antics showed people that the cats were thriving.

• People want to be nice and supportive

  • In times of crisis, people want a reason to band together. The positivity just snowballed. When everything else is scary and sad and wrong, the love and community of others is something that people want to flock to and resonate with. Even the very few posts that could be construed as negative were quickly squashed by random strangers on the internet.

Suddenly I was a precious cinnamon roll that needed to be protected at all costs. And while that was incredibly, incredibly kind of them, I was finally at a point that I didnt need that. 8 months ago I was in a place where I wasnt sure that being in an RV was the best thing for us, and the negative comments only fed that fear. Now I’m in a good place where I am happy with how our lives are going as nomads, and prepared to make changes in stride if need be.

All that to say, I think that this was a “right place in the right time” scenario. If I did a diary posting one a year from now when everything has settled down, I would expect it to be a lot more 50/50 as far as the peanut gallery is concerned. Right now, we are all in this together. I’m very lucky and humbled by the outpouring of love and support from the anonymous strangers on the internet, and hope the positivity continues with them.