That Time We Talked About Full-Time RV Life

This is episode number 39 of The Homeowner Show. Whether you're DIY or looking to hire, we're here to help you find the best information and options for you and your home. My name is Kevin Hackett, and here with me is Craig Williams.

Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to The Homeowner Show. We are so glad that you guys could join us today. Uh, wait, what are you looking at?

I heard a ding.

I heard a ding.

I definitely heard a ding.

There was some dingage going on there.

Whose computer was on?

Something is dinging.

In all honesty, my mother-in-law was texting me on the computer. So even here on the Homeowner Show, we are not unreachable by in-laws.

At all the times we don't want to be.

Thank you, technology.

We actually stopped recording earlier to turn airplane mode on on our phone. And the computer got us.

And just so everyone knows, she's okay.

She's okay. Well, okay. Okay.

The ding was worth it.

That's, that's good stuff. How you doing, man?

I am doing wonderful.

Okay.

Yeah.

Good.

Just having a crazy busy week. This was last week of school for just about everybody.

Yeah.

Um, yeah, all the teachers I saw looked tired.

Oh man, they've been ready since like March to be done. So yeah, they're good.

I was done last year.

Yeah. And on top of that, I mean, it's, you know, we just came back from Memorial Day weekend, so it's a short week.

That's like a dumb time to like end school.

Yeah.

Like a little teaser right before summer break.

Oh yeah, by the way, don't come to school one day, but then 2 days later you're done.

So I'll just full confession, we just took that Friday off anyway. Oh, so Full conf—

that— it's good to confess every once in a while.

What are they gonna do, put me in kindergarten jail?

I, I mean, I don't know.

I—

is that a thing?

No.

Oh, okay. Well then, no, they won't do that to you. So, well, so, uh, yeah, a little side eye though. Probably more side eye than you think.

They don't know that I don't feel shame about such things.

You don't care.

That's right.

How are you, man? I'm, I'm doing pretty good. We, uh, we had a good weekend. We went down to, uh, the coast, which is not the most beautiful beach in the world down there, uh, but it's a beach and we had a lot of fun. We, we took our kids down and, uh, we've got a camper, and so we stayed real close to the beach and, uh, we're able to do that. Uh, we, we did have one issue though while we were there.

Mm-hmm.

Our camper isn't the newest. In fact, I, I told my wife, uh, one day, I was like, Have you looked around at the other campers here at the RV resort? She's like, yeah, there's a lot of big ones. I was like, yeah, I'm pretty sure ours is the oldest and ugliest. And she goes, yeah, I think so. I said, but ours is paid off.

That's right.

So that's really all that matters. But we did— we had an issue last year. We'd gone down there and our air conditioner just couldn't keep up. Yeah, it was miserable. And so, um, is she okay?

Yeah, I don't think anyone else can hear the ding.

Oh, no one else can hear the ding?

I mean, the people hear it. The people on the show can hear the ding. I don't think anyone else, like, out in podcast land hears the ding. I don't think so.

Okay, well, there was a ding again. So anyway, she's still fine. She's fine. Good, I'm so happy. Um, yeah, so, so we, we got a new air conditioner installed, but our RV is so old that like apparently, um, some of the insides of this air conditioner— there, there's like a piece that goes on top, which is the air conditioner itself, and then there's kind of like the brains of the air conditioner.

Yeah.

That are— that's in the ceiling.

It's a very technical description you're giving us there.

Brains.

Yeah.

Well, that's an important word. Um, so the brains and And apparently, it's so old that both needed to be replaced, not just one of them. And so, we woke up one morning, there's like a puddle on the floor because this thing had been condensating on the inside of our RV. So, we had to live the entire weekend with a bucket.

A bucket.

A bucket in the middle of the floor so that we didn't have this massive puddle.

I don't know that I would think to bring a bucket. In the camper?

Yeah, you, you kind of figure out what you need. You start, you start bringing stuff that you even don't need, and then you find out you're really glad you brought it.

I mean, I'm not going through my head of all the uses of a bucket. I mean, don't get me wrong, I can, I can use a bucket. Yeah, I think of lots of uses for a bucket, but I just don't know. And like, in the packing process, I would be like, you know what, that bucket needs to come with me.

So I actually had a real legitimate reason to bring it. So, um, I don't know if you've seen it, but I've got this thing. It's a— the, the brand is Arctic Cool. It's a, um, It's a fan that sits on top of a 5-gallon bucket, and it's got a little tube that kind of goes down in the bucket. You fill it with water, and it's got a mister on it.

Oh.

And so, you know, if it's hot outside, you've got your own little portable mister rig.

Nice.

So that's actually why I had the bucket. I didn't ever use it. It was actually really nice down there, so I didn't really need it. I was really glad I had the bucket. Um, and one time we had like more than one leak, and just, just because of the, uh, the air conditioning unit was bigger than the bucket, so we had a bucket and a pot, like a cooking pot. And that one, that one was significantly more annoying because it was like ting, ting. I kind of like that sound.

It's a little soothing.

Yeah.

So, well, funny you should mention campers and RVs and all, because we have a really cool episode today. Yeah, about living the RV life, man.

I'll tell you, we have really, really enjoyed having our camper. And, you know, there have been moments whenever we've thought, you know, what would it be like if, like, we lived in our camper? And we know that there are people out there that do that, and it just so happens that we've got someone in the studio who is living that life.

Yeah, so, but before we introduce him, I think we need to introduce somebody else. Okay, because we have a special guest Guest co-host in the studio tonight, Jared Williams over here. We've talked about Jared many times on the show before.

We have. Should I be concerned about that?

Absolutely, 'cause it's all the truth. Yes, it is. So, but Jared's sitting in on the show, so we're gonna have a fun conversation with him, with our special guest, Andrew Brockenbush over here from Beefy Marketing, and who has recently made the switch. How recently have we made the switch?

December 1st.

Okay.

Was when we started. So we're brand new.

6 months. Is it that? Whoa.

Yeah.

It feels quicker than that.

It's been so much fun.

It's been so much fun. There's good and bad.

Yeah. And part of the reason we wanted to have you on is, I mean, I've known you a long time and I was kind of watching you on, I think it was maybe Instagram where you were posting some pictures about, hey, we're making this big life change and we're doing this. And part of this is we're moving into an RV. We're getting out of whatever it is we were living in before. This is a decision lots of people are starting to make. One of the things that they've been talking a lot about recently is, they're building all these homes, but this big market of millennials who's coming up, they don't want to own homes. They want to either rent them, or they want to live in an RV, or they want to

Airbnb from town to town. They want options.

Millennials are all about experience.

Yeah.

You know, we just want to do stuff. And it's— I feel like sometimes like a house or the traditional lifestyle ties— feels like it ties us down. And so we just wanted to be able to change it and do something different.

I like that you just owned the mantle.

Yeah.

I am—

I am a millennial.

No apologies. There are some of us that are like on that bubble.

Yeah, I'm definitely on the like— I'm not the snowflake millennial. Just a regular old millennial.

Yeah.

Sound like a millennial.

Mud clot?

I don't know.

What is that? Yeah.

So, so tell us a little bit about, um, what precipitated your, your change, because I mean, this is a pretty big change, uh, to go from, uh, having a place. And because I guess traditionally most people would have some sort of a homestead, right? Like whether it's an apartment or, or a house or, um, you know, uh, a townhome or something like that that they would call home, um, to move to having a completely portable— I mean, this isn't even like motorhome. I mean, this is not motorhome, like, like a mobile home. Yeah, this is like completely portable, pick up and go whenever you want to.

Yeah, 100%. Yeah, we— the end of 2017, I wasn't feeling really inspired in Houston anymore. I've been here born and raised, and, um, I just felt like I wasn't getting a lot of fuel from my environment. And so me and the girlfriend decided to pick up and head to Nashville, and that was 2018. And we spent a year in Nashville living downtown and It was fun. It was very fun. Nashville's a really cool city and there's a lot happening. But, you know, a 1-bedroom efficiency apartment in downtown is like $1,600 a month.

Wow.

It's like, this city's like the new LA, the new New York. So it's like, it's really, you know, it's got that kind of like happening scene right now. And so while we were there, even though the experience felt good and the energy felt good and I felt like reinspired and reenergized and from a work standpoint, I felt like I was accomplishing a lot more than I was back home. I felt like I was spending all of the money that I was making, and that just felt wasteful.

Wrong.

Yeah.

It felt wrong.

It's like, wait, like the whole reason we make money is to be able to do fun things, and we can't do that because we're literally tying up all of our money in rent. And so probably towards the last few months of our time in Nashville, we started saying, hey, you know, could we live in a van? Could we live in a— could we live in an RV? Could we, could we do that lifestyle? And, and there was a lot of back and forth and a lot of hard discussions about like, What is the right way to— what's the real American dream and what is expected of people and things like that? And so, I think me and Kara finally were like, you know what? I

think we can do this. I think that we're okay with it. And so, we started watching a ton of YouTube channels, people that were living van life, people that were living RV life. We started following all the Instagram hashtags like RV lifestyle, RV life, RV renovations. And the things that people are doing with these things are insane. They look like homes. And so we took a random trip up to Gatlinburg one day, and I had to stop to use the restroom, which was code word for there was a really cool store that sold kayaks. And we stopped in. And while I was looking around, there was this really cool off-road tent contraption. And I told Kara, I was like, hey, that'd be really cool to get that. And they were like, oh, those are manufactured in Texas. I was like, oh, that's kind of

cool. And so I went to their website, and they happened to be giving away their pop-up camper version of that. camper. So it was like this, like, kind of off-grid— it was called the Taximantis, and it was this off-grid, you know, travel trailer. And so we entered online to win it, and a few months later we were at CMA Fest, and we were walking around the trade show floor, and they had it on display. And I was like, man, like, this thing's really cool. And Carol's like, there's no way we can live in this. This is like— this is too roughing it.

What about it was really appealing to you? I mean, what were some of, like, the cool features?

For me, it was just like, I I think it was like the, the true, you know, like minimal trailer. Like there wasn't much, like a cassette toilet or a cassette commode, which is like basically this like drawer that you use the bathroom in and you go dump it. Um, it had like a single bed. It was very like open to the outside. So it had tons of like big open windows. All the windows opened up and like open to the outside, which a lot of like modern travel trailers, like the windows only open a few inches to get breeze in, but not like fully open.

Yeah.

And so I just liked that it was like one with the environment almost. And I had spent a week backpacking Glacier National Park a few years prior, and I felt like that was the most peace in my life that I'd ever experienced, was like that separation between stuff.

Yeah.

You know, and, um, and so I was like, okay, this is really cool. And so a few weeks later, we got a call from Taxa after that CMA Fest that we had won the—

this trailer.

Oh my gosh.

What?

And so we were like, okay, this is like This feels like it's meant to be. We're talking about it. We started looking at trailers and now we win this thing. And so once we did that, we were like, okay, we could spend 30 days in this and see how it goes.

Yeah.

And so our first 30 days was in this super, super small pop-up trailer with myself, Kara, and our 2 big retriever dogs. And the experience wasn't bad. We actually didn't mind it. It was easy to pull. Um, it was like super minimal. We had outfitted our truck to have like our clothes stored in our truck, and our truck was like our closet. It was, it was pretty cool. Uh, one night, uh, in December, it was raining like crazy, and rain started seeping through the walls.

Oh no.

And we were just like, we like, we can't do this. Like, this minimal lifestyle is fine, but like We just came from a nice apartment in Nashville, and now we're swimming in our bed.

And it's not a waterbed.

It's not a waterbed.

And so, that was really the moment for us where we're like, okay, we're okay with this lifestyle, but we have to make a change. And so, we went and bought a 29-foot ultralight Forest River travel trailer, which is what we live in now. And there's trade-offs. I think we both missed that small trailer because it was really easy for us to up and go. It was so easy to set up. But it also had like a little AC that could hardly keep up. And now we've got 2 giant like, you know, ACs on the roof that keep the bad boy chill.

You know, do you have to use buckets?

We actually do have a bucket. Oh, not for the inside of the trailer. Sorry about that. I mean, hey, our first trailer, we had—

we needed buckets.

But, uh, no, but it's funny, you start learning, like you said, you have to kind of start learning what you need. But we started noticing that like The ACs condensate on the roof and they just drip constantly. And our campsite was always soaking wet, just water everywhere. So now, we have a 5-gallon bucket that just picks up the drip. And then, probably once a week, I go dump it down the drain. So it's silly. I mean, I don't really need the bucket. I guess it could just evaporate, but it just bothered me. So yeah, we have a bucket.

There you go.

We have a bucket.

You never know what you need.

So yeah, that's how we got into the lifestyle. It was just like, that idea that we could live a lifestyle where we could kind of go as we please and our money would be spent in experience versus just in rent. And I think the other piece for both of us was neither one of us had a ton of debt. We both have the traditional millennial debt like school loans and our car notes.

Yeah.

But beyond that, we don't have credit cards stacked to the ceiling or anything. And so, we were like, if we could take $1,500 a month, and put that towards student loans and things like that, we could be 100% debt-free by 33 years old or something like that. And that's pretty incredible because most young people carry student loans. I'd say anybody. My older siblings have student loans for their whole life and they always talk about it like they will have them for their whole life.

Yeah.

And I was just like, I don't want to be held hostage to financial debt. I don't have to be. I think we choose to live the lifestyle we want and allocate money the way we want. And my choice was like, Hey, even if we live in an RV for 3 years, pay off all of our debt, and then go get a house, I'll still be happy that I'm going to come out with no debt at the end of the day.

That's incredible. So did you guys trade in that other trailer for the one that you guys have now?

Yeah, we did. So that was a whole thing too. Obviously, we didn't get nearly as much as the paper says it's worth. When you win something, the dealer says, oh, it's worth $33,000, and you go sell it and you get $17,000. Well, the challenge in that was because it was a sweepstakes, I had to pay taxes On what the— on the value on that bill of sale was. So I had to pay taxes on a $37,000 trailer on the top of the fact that like I have taxes on a company and my personal income and all that other stuff. So this tax year was pretty like sickening because of how much, you know, like— Because that's, I think, a common misconception too is like, oh, you won something, like it's free. It's like, no,

really nothing really is free. Like that $37,000 trailer taxed at 25%, you know. Yeah, it's nearly $10,000 in taxes.

Yeah.

You know, that, that sucks.

Now, do they— and, and like, I think a lot of people don't realize that they value those things so high so that they can get that money back.

That's right. Exactly right. So like, you know, taxes were upwards of over $10,000 on that trailer, so it wasn't free. And then like I said, I think we sold it for around $18,000. So when it was all said and done, we only made like, you know, $8,000, which really just I mean, in a down payment on a new trailer just kind of gets absorbed in the nonsense fees of dealers' stuff. So, um, that wasn't fun, but I feel like I'm still— I was still encouraged by it because of the fact that like we would— like we probably wouldn't have as confidently stepped out into the journey had that not happened. Like we were talking about it, right?

Right.

But we were still just like, eh, well then you win this trailer and it's like, okay, well I guess we're doing this. Like, yeah, you know, let's do it.

So I mean, like it really kind of thrusts you into that.

Yeah, yeah. And it really put— and we got into it like Really, really bare minimum. And so that was cool because if we can live it that rough for 30 days, then everything else that we do is going to be a lot easier from then on out. So obviously what we have now feels like a mansion, really. I mean, we've got sofas, a table, TVs. We didn't have any of that in the first trailer we were in. We literally just had water, a single burner stove, a bed, and that was it.

Yeah.

So Now we have a full kitchen and oven and a microwave. I mean, in those first 30 days, we probably cooked on the campfire every single day, which was really cool actually though. I mean, I learned how to— I can use a cast iron skillet now like nobody's business.

Those are the best. Yeah.

I was making sweet potatoes in the coals. I felt like a mountain man or something.

I won't get this quote right, but there's a famous quote from Seneca. that says like every so often you should live in such a way that you think is miserable and then ask yourself, is this the thing that I feared? You know, and I think, I think there's probably several people listening to what you're talking about living in that trailer going, that sounds absolutely miserable, 30 days.

Yeah.

And you're saying like, look, this is, this is a valuable experience that, you know, I, I couldn't have gotten anywhere else.

Yeah.

You know, that like, I, you can't take it away from me now either. Like I've had it, it's mine. And it's, it's valuable information that's, You know, part of me and who I am.

Yeah.

And I'm not afraid of it now.

And it's 30 days. Like, if you can't like do 30 days of anything, like you have a lot of like cert— like self-evaluation to do. I feel like 30 days really tests your limits and like it creates habits, it breaks habits. One of the first things we did in our transition, knowing that we were going into that small trailer, was agreeing between me and Kara that we were only going to take 30 pieces of clothing each. And, um, for me it was a lot easier. I was like, yeah, I wear the same 2 pairs of jeans and 5 shirts every single day. Like, that was I'm pretty easy to rotate through that. Kara was like, hey, I don't think I can do that.

So did you give her some of your buffer?

And so I gave her some buffer and there's obviously some compromise there, but we also realized that the 80/20 principle is so true. 80% of the things that you own, you probably use 20% of the time. And that is very, very true. And so when we started realizing I don't remember the last time I actually pulled that out of the drawer or, you know, out of the closet. We were just like getting more and more comfortable with like purging our stuff. And what was super special about that to me was like every purchase going forward is so much more intentional because you're thinking about like what you have the ability to store, right? Like you have kind of this inventory. And so we agreed between each other, it's like, hey, if you want to buy a new shirt, we get rid of an old shirt. You want to get a new pair of

pants, you get rid of an old pair of pants. And so like we knew that like like when we purchase something, you know, where before, like, I would just buy it because I had the room to buy it and yeah, whatever, whatever. Now we're like way more thoughtful of like, if I buy this, where does it go? Where do I store it? How is it protected? How is it safe? And so I feel like even our purchasing habits have completely changed. And we've talked about like if we go back to an apartment just because of the fact that we want more room or whatever, I think that we would be completely changed the way we move forward because we'd say I don't need all those clothes. I don't need all those things. And like, I'm okay with what we had. And it started—

it's really like comforting and like almost like, um, freeing to be able to separate yourself from stuff, you know, and not need that stuff to be happy. And, and, um, it was really cool.

Yeah, you know, we— I, I've got a friend who, who lived the RV life for a year, and they, they kind of said the same thing. They said, you know, it's one of those deals where they no longer live that lifestyle, but they said it really has challenged them to say, we don't need all of that. And we really do live in a culture here in America that says, the more stuff you have, the more valuable your life is. And it's just not true. And there's plenty of things we could point to to show that that's not necessarily true. But one question I've got is, what challenges beyond just the stuff? I mean, I assume

you're having to move from site to site to site sometimes, or do you have a permanent site somewhere? How do you deal with when the place that you're staying at says, hey, your time is up in this space? Yeah.

So we actually experienced that in our first campsite, in our first transition, which was we were staying at Yogi Bear Park, which is more of a destination campsite. And so they only have permanent sites for a few months of the year only during the like off-season. So like, you know, November, December, you know, those kind of months. I think through January is when we were kind of kicked out, um, because after that they just get like inundated with, you know, tourists, right?

Tourists.

And so for us, you know, we were just like, oh, we kind of like it here. Like we've— we feel like it's safe. We've kind of grown to like it or whatever. And then all of a sudden it's like the expiration, right? Like the timer starts or whatever. You're kind of like, oh, what are we going to do? And so, one of the hard parts was going and looking at all these RV parks that allow for permanent residency, I guess, if you will. And it's funny, Houston, as big of a city as it is, in the— I wouldn't say inner city, but in the suburbia cities like Cypress and The Woodlands, there's not a lot of RV resorts, which is pretty surprising because this lifestyle is becoming

way more popular. And the ones that we did come across were Um, they didn't feel safe, I guess is the best way to put it, right?

Yeah.

Like, they felt like— they felt like really rough, you know, parts of town and rough parks. And we were just like, we don't feel like we'd want to live in that, right?

Yeah.

And so like, we finally got lucky and came across a really cool RV resort in Tomball that was, you know, really nice pull-through, all concrete pads and things like that, which was actually a nice upgrade from our dirt, you know, dirt and trees that were at Yogi Bear.

Got to retire the bucket. Yeah.

But the biggest challenge between that transition, though, was just the cost. You go into this lifestyle and you think, oh, living an RV life is pretty cheap. And some of these RV parks are only charging $300 a month or whatever for your base rent, which includes electricity and water. And we went from paying that at Yogi Bear to going to this place in Tomball and paying $645 a month. And now, all of a sudden, you're evaluating and going, wait a minute. Are we saving money? Are we able to pay off our debts? Or are we just living this lifestyle because we have to now?

Yeah.

And so there was like, there's that internal battle there too. It's like, uh, did I make the right decision? I don't know for sure. But when you look at it and you do all the math, it's still the most, you know, cost-efficient way of living.

Yeah, because that still includes water and electricity.

Yeah, and cable and sewer. And I mean, yeah, every— at $645, that's everything, Wi-Fi and all. Uh, and so that's, that's actually really been That part's really cool, not having all these extra bills that you have to add on top of your base rent. So that's been a tricky part. But what's cool about it too, I guess, is that you're not tied down to one place. So you can pay the daily rates, weekly rates, or monthly rates. And so today, if I was like, hey, I'm going to go spend the weekend in Aransas Pass or Port Aransas, I could go get a site for $200 for the week. And now my monthly rent is $850 between my full-month site back in

Tomball and the $200 at the RV resort, and I'm still less than base rent at an apartment. And, and now I've gotten to have an experience and not feel like, oh, I had to pay $200 a day for a hotel to go to the beach. So that part's really cool, is like I can have a home base, but I also have the freedom to go spend time anywhere else I want to.

Yeah.

And I would assume that that's one of the things that I would personally be concerned about. I mean, y'all are not at the same life stage that I'm at. I've got 2 small kids, which I know there are plenty of people that are doing the RV life that have kids. But one of the things that I would just be concerned about is just a sense of community, a sense of my kids having that— they're either in a homeschool co-op of some sort or or in an actual school, having some sort of community for them to grow up in. But what I hear you saying is you've still got your home base. A lot of people that are living this life, from what I know, they're using the opportunity to travel

and say, hey, we're going to be studying social studies this month, so we're going to go up to Washington, D.C. or somewhere around there and we're going to tour around the Smithsonians and different things like that and give them an experiential learning rather than just a book learning.

Yeah. One of our first groups of friends we met at our first RV park was a couple about our age who has 2 young kids. And what was interesting to us is me and Kara both agreed when we first started, like, man, what are we going to do about the community part if we're traveling? How are we going to have friends? Because we have a tight-knit group of people that we really like. respect and trust. And like, we were afraid about losing that. And it's funny, but I'd say we've got more friends and relationships now than anywhere else I've ever lived. Um, you're kind of forced into community, right? Like, you drive by your RV park

neighbor every day and he waves, and you see—

They're actually outside.

They're outside, right? And they're doing stuff. And so, you know, naturally it's like, oh, I see you're struggling to get your water hose off your camper. Like, let me come lend you a hand. Or, you know, at the first RV park we're at, like, people would forget to bring bring firewood. And we would just walk by and drop off a couple pieces of firewood. And so, conversations happen a lot more organically. And so, I'd say we have more friends now from this lifestyle that we still stay in touch with than we ever had before. And we even asked the couple friend that we met that has the 2 young kids how it's been for them. And they love it because of the fact that they homeschool their kids, which

I'm sure that that's a challenge in itself. But They've got, you know, everywhere they go, they get to meet these new groups of friends. And I think that a lot of the friends they've met, they kind of stay like in touch via kind of like old school pen pal ways.

Yeah.

Which is something that's kind of like gone. Like, there's not a lot of that. Like, let me write letters to my friends that I met before. And so these kids are getting to do that, but they're also getting to travel around and get true experiences, like you said, that they can learn that they wouldn't ever get before. And I think that another thing that like my older brother has talked to me about pretty openly is he hates that he spent so much time while his kids were in grade school working offshore because he never got the chances to really get a ton of experiences with them. And now, they're off doing their own thing.

Yeah.

His financial situation is a little different now and he's got different goals and whatnot. And so, that time has kind of expired for him in some ways. And so, these people that are getting to live that lifestyle while the kids are young, it's like, How cool will that be whenever you're 50 years old or whatever and your kids got to go to all those places because your money wasn't so tied up just in this traditional lifestyle that we've come to have to live? We need a house. We have to be in a neighborhood. We have to go to school. So I think it's really cool that there are families doing it. Like you said, I'm not a parent, so I can't speak for that for

sure. But a lot of the people that we've met or people we follow and things like that seem to really love it.

Yeah. And, and I'll also say that, you know, being a person who has an RV and going to sites and stuff, it is really interesting to, to be in a campground setting and see how many people are just talking to each other and interacting with each other. I mean, lots of people have pets.

Yeah.

And so you're walking your pet, you know, around and, you know, so, oh, what kind of dog you got? What kind of dog you got? And all of a sudden you're in this conversation about the past 5 pets that I've had and these sorts of things. This weekend down in Galveston, we were next to an older couple and they had this Taj Mahal diesel pusher next to us.

Right.

And I was like, hey, sorry, you have to bunk up next to the shack. And they were like, no, it's fine. But we wound up becoming friends with them. And at one point during the weekend, we got a knock on our door and the lady was there. And she had bought my kids packages of M&M's at the store.

That's so cool.

And she just said, hey, I saw your kids, they're, they're really cute, and I just wanted to— thought they might like some M&M's.

So that's so accepted in the RV life.

It's like if you're—

if your neighbor 5 blocks down in your neighborhood came over, you'd be like, what do you— what is your intentions?

Probably sending those M&M's off to get tested.

Yeah, no, it's so true. You're exactly right about that. And we were like— and, and then what was really cool is it gave us the I mean, my kids sat down and they drew some thank you notes for them and took them back over. And we wound up spending, you know, like an hour or 2 just sitting around talking to this couple that we would have never met. We would have never known. And so, you're right that there is a sense of community for sure. The only difference that I know is somewhat challenging is that without a home base, those communities change.

That's right.

But it's, it's one of those trade-offs, right?

Yeah, for sure.

It's a trade-off.

100%.

Yeah.

Well, and I would imagine one of the things that I know that you have done is sort of like a lifestyle design. I mean, like, there's, there's a reason that you're able to live in Nashville, live in Houston, and your business has allowed— because your business is kind of mobile, right?

Yeah, 100%. Yeah, for sure.

So I mean, and you've, you've sort of designed it that way.

Yeah. I mean, when I first created the company, you know, like So Beefy Marketing is a marketing web design agency. And for a long time, like our relationships with our customers had to be local. And I just felt like that wasn't working for me.

Yeah.

Although I like to have like that local touch with some of my customers because of, you know, for relational reasons, I still felt like I personally had a desire and a need to like go and explore and do. And so, you know, a couple of years ago we just started transitioning the company so that like We started setting expectations like, hey, meetings are— we can have meetings online, we can have phone calls, we can send videos. Like, and so when you kind of start shifting the mindset for your customers, like, hey, I'm still available, I'm just, I'm just available in a different way, your customers are okay with that, you know. Um, you just have to kind of create that

expectation with them. And so by doing that, it's allowed me, like you said, to be able to up and go to Nashville and, you know, and, and grow the business there. We got several clients in Nashville, which was cool. Like, I didn't have to be here to make that happen. So it's been great to be able to have a company that's allowed that. But I think that there's pretty big Facebook groups for people that live the RV lifestyle. And you'd be surprised how many people in different careers are doing this. And I think the other thought is RV life means full-time travel. And that doesn't have to be so. If someone has a full-time job in Cyprus, but wants to cut their bills in half, the RV lifestyle might still be for them.

Yeah.

They just get an RV park in Cypress or Tomball where they can stay full-time. They're going to pay $600 a month, and that's probably still cheaper than the mortgage. And again, that's inclusive of internet and cable and water. And that was kind of the math for us was like, the base rent part doesn't scare us that much. It's when you add $100 in water and $200 in electric and $200 in internet and cable where all of a sudden, it's like, man, I'm paying over $2,000 a month for just maintaining this lifestyle, where now we're probably less than $1,000 a month just for living. And everything else is fun, really. We can spend money on the things that we want, or we can put that money straight towards student loans and other debt. So we're pretty

aggressively paying off debt, which is exciting too, because we have that cash free to do that.

Yeah. Especially with a little taste of freedom. So once you have it, you want more. And that's kind of the The whole debt-free mentality is like, I want to get these shackles off of me so I can experience more of those kinds of freedoms.

Yeah, because I think people think that, oh, debt, it'll just be with me forever. But imagine if you're paying $1,000 a month towards different debts between credit cards and whatever it may be that you've got bills for. If you could free that $1,000 a month up every month to be used however you want and not be having to lock that money up with the bank, dude, you're living a totally different life all of a sudden. You want to take a trip to Disney? You want to go to the beach? You want to go grab a really nice hotel for a few nights? It's not going to be like, oh, can we afford that? Well, let's put it on the credit card. You don't have that mindset anymore. Now you can afford to do pretty

much whatever you want because you're not in debt anymore. And that part's exciting.

I guess on the flip, I think somebody might listen to you and go, well, this guy's developed his business and it's mobile. He can do all these kinds of things. But that's not necessarily it's not the case that that's not a possibility for other people, right? I mean, like, one of the— I know one of the chapters from like 4-Hour Workweek, Tim Ferriss's book, is like how to get out of the office.

Yeah.

Like how to negotiate that with, with your boss, you know? Because like most jobs, and not all jobs, but a lot of jobs, I mean, like you need a laptop.

Yep.

And if you can perform at the same level or better Not being in that physical space, one, you're saving your company money, and two, you're producing more for them. So if you can negotiate that, well, then all of a sudden, you have a little bit more freedom to potentially go do this RV life.

Yeah, for sure. I mean, again, if people want to have that true experience where they get to travel and all that, that's definitely the way to do it is ask your company to trial it. Hey, let me, let me work one, you know, you know, Friday every other week at home, right? Let me just prove to you that I'm gonna get the same amount of work done just as efficiently, maybe better, right? And if they can prove that, then take it up, go once a week. And before long, the companies are like, hey, we don't have to pay for this big office space anymore. Yeah. And everybody's still getting their jobs done. Like, we live in a—

He's not stealing my lunch anymore.

You know, we live in a world where it's okay to like have people work virtually. And with technology and Skype and all these other pieces of software, you can be remote and still be just as productive. So I think that that's a great way to trial into it. And again, the people that have those jobs that it's just not possible— you work for a bank or you work for a true corporation— if it's just about the debt savings and if it's just about having cash to be able to use for other stuff, you can still just be a permanent RVer in a nice RV resort and still free all that cash up to be used in ways that might be otherwise tied up in

nonsense.

Yeah.

And I think that's one of the things I wanted to mention here is that, you know, not all RV resorts are like KOAs. And don't get me wrong, there's nothing wrong with KOAs. There's some standards. Yeah, there's some standards that they hold. But those are, you know, a lot of those places are going to be typical, you know, dirt sites that, you know, you've got grassy areas around, picnic table, those sorts of things. But For instance, the place that we stayed at this weekend down in Galveston, it's a true resort. All of the sites were concrete pads. It was very, very pet-friendly. They had a really nice pool. They had a hot tub. They had a splash pad. They had a beach volleyball court. They had a

playground. And they were right across the street from the beach. A lot of these places even have lazy rivers and really, really nice amenities, basketball courts. Um, you know, that some of them even have restaurants on site, things like this. And so, um, you know, there's, there's ways that you can feel like you're not necessarily roughing it. In some ways, you can feel like you're getting more out of your home, uh, because of the amenities that you get without actually owning a home. And the other thing that I want to just mention is that, you know, maybe you're sitting here thinking, man, I, I just don't know if I could live in an RV.

I don't—

I've never really You know, pulled an RV. I've never really done that life. I've never— you know, if I go camping, it's in a tent or a cabin because I'm a cabin type of person. Um, you know, one of the things that I would say, um, and, and, you know, help me out here if you've got other ideas, but you can rent an RV and just take a, take a week with your family and go, go rent an RV. Uh, you know, you can get—

The site is actually, uh, one of the biggest ones, outdoorsy.com. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah. And a lot of times, you can get them for $100 a night, something like that, and take it wherever you want to enjoy a week with your family and just see, is this something that's enjoyable to me or is it not?

Yeah. And mind you, I think the things you have to get past is what I like that you mentioned was that people have this idea that RV parks are like camp. It's like campfires and firewood and all this stuff.

You couldn't even have an open campfire at the site that we were at.

That's right. And that's how it is at the one we're at now. So the first one, it was like fires every day. And there was something nice about that. It felt super nature-y and it felt cool. And now, it's gone. And it's like, well, that kind of sucks. But at the same time, we're like, oh, that's nice. We don't always smell like smoke anymore. There's trade-offs. But there are definitely RV resorts that are super, super nice. Our friends right now are staying in one in Magnolia that is fully gated. It has a dog park. It has multiple laundry and shower rooms if you're living in a smaller camper and don't have those amenities. Kind of a funny story.

Because your money is now— you're able to use your money in a different way because you free up so much in rent and things like that. People get freaked out about, I don't want to go to a laundromat. That sounds ghetto and that sounds scary. Because you're saving so much money in rent, I can afford to do wash and fold services at the dry cleaner. I can drop my laundry off once a week, have it all cleaned, folded, and picked up. And it's It's still about the same cost as using a laundromat, but I don't have to go to the laundromat. And so we do a little bit of both. We'll go to the laundromat when we're being cheap and we have more stuff to wash. And when

we're not being cheap and we want to be lazy and want to go do something else on our weekend, we'll just go drop it off and go pick it all up and it's nicely folded. That stuff isn't stuff that you should be scared about. And if you are going to rent an RV and try it out, keep in mind that whenever you go camping, 90% to 100% of your time is spent in that camper because you're cooking there, you're doing everything. Maybe you'll go do a little hike or something else, but really, a lot of time is spent in the camper. When you're living this lifestyle full-time, it's just like in a house. 20% to 30% of the time, you're in that camper because you're at work or you're at your job or you're at

school or you're out doing whatever errands you have. And so, when I think about the RV, I'm not really in it that much. It's a place to lay my head at night. It's a place to watch a couple TV shows. But it's not where I spend all my time. And I'd rather be outside of the camper. And that's the other thing about living in a smaller footprint is it forces you to get out too because you're like, oh, I'm cooped up in a big old house. It's like, well, I can go hang out in the movie room. I can hang out in the office. I can do this. I've got plenty to do on the property. But when you're in a little camper, it's like, ah, man, I'm kind of getting a little bored. Okay, cool. Let's go do something. And

it forces you to go have experiences. And so kayaking and riding bikes and going— for us, it's been like going to the gym. Before, it was like we had the nicest gym ever at our apartment complex, but we never used it because our apartment was so nice. And now, we're in this RV and we're just like— sometimes, you kind of go out of your mind because you're just like, well, we're done for the day. We're kind of bored. Well, now, you go to the gym because it's something to do. And so, it kind of forces you to be healthier. And even the cooking kind of situation, you do have a smaller fridge in some campers. We have a smaller camper. And although we have a good-sized fridge, it's not like you

know, double doors like, right, a house. And so like even the types of things we purchase in our refrigerator and freezer are like healthier options because it's like, okay, we, we can buy chicken and turkey and things like that for the week and prep it for the week and salads. And so we have like, we're making better choices. We don't have a freezer full of like frozen burritos and whatnot because you don't have the space for that extra nonsense.

So people are still buying frozen burritos, man?

Frozen burritos fried and poured some cheese on them, dude, I I got a fat man heart over here.

I just threw up in my mouth a little bit.

So good. But I have to eat grilled chicken in the burrito.

Yeah.

So I got a question. Um, so like when I was going to buy my house, I had this like set of things that I wanted my house to have. So when you were looking for your Uh, RV, what were those things that, you know, the have-to-haves, the nice-to-haves, or things you definitely didn't want? So when we first got into it, like, our dogs had been kenneled up to this point. Even though they're a little bit older, we just had kind of always felt better about having the dogs kenneled so they didn't tear things up. They're big dogs. And when we lived in that tiny little RV, we couldn't— like, there's no room for kennels. So the dogs kind of just slept on the little, like, the floor area.

And so when we looked for a camper, we were like, okay, we need a camper that's big enough for you know, kennels if we wanted to do so, and, and really have a space that the dogs— like, we really thought way more about the dogs, I feel like, than ourselves. Like, we wanted space for them because—

Welcome to parenthood.

And so, um, we just, we wanted a space that had room for them. Um, we also— for us, there's so many configurations of campers, right? You know, bunk, bunk beds and all this other stuff. And for us, um, We felt like bunk beds at this stage of our lives would be kind of a waste. We weren't going to use that. It would probably just end up being clutter for junk. We also wanted a big bathroom. That's a downside of a lot of RVs is that the bathrooms, even the big ones, are a little small. And so we ended up finding an RV that the bathroom was pretty huge considering it's a relatively small trailer. And so we've got a really

nice shower and nice bathroom sink and all this other stuff. And so for us, I think those were the important things. If we're going to live in it, we want to have a nice shower. We want to have a nice bathroom. Our bed's a little smaller than I think we would have liked to have. It's a queen versus a king. Storage was a big deal for us. Even though we don't have a lot of stuff, going from that first 30 days in something where we had no storage, we were like, it'd be cool if we had room to put our shoes and things like that instead of having to walk out every day to go get

your clothes out of your truck drawer. And so storage was really important for us. Those were the big things for us, just finding a place that had room for the dogs and storage. Now, we don't even use the kennels for the dogs. That first 30 days really trained them to just hang out. So now, we can just leave and they'll hop up on the bed or whatever else while we're gone.

And they stay in the trailer during the day?

They do, yeah. And then about 2 days a week— that's another cool thing in our situation was in an apartment, because there is so much space for your dogs and there's that level of peace of mind that the AC is not going to go out and stuff like that, you'll leave your dogs there all day long.

Like, oh, they'll be fine until 11:00 when I come home and take them out.

And when you take them to go play or go to the park or whatever, sometimes they get neglected in the sense that you're tired. And if you're in an apartment and you don't have a big dog park or whatever, it's just like, well, let's just take them on a walk and bring them back in. And that energy, they start to misbehave a little bit in the house because they're just like, oh my gosh, I'm bored out of my mind, just like we would be.

Yeah.

And so, because we have so much cash freedom now, 2 days a week, we drop them off at a doggy daycare and they get to just play all day long. And so, we couldn't have afforded that prior to this lifestyle, but now they probably play more than they did when we lived in a place where they should have had more room to play. And so, that's been cool too is they're probably living a happier life too, which is bizarre in an RV.

Yeah.

I want to kind of address some of the screaming that I hear from some of the audience members. Andrew, we hear that you're saving all this money. We hear how this can be a convenient lifestyle, all these things that you're bringing up. But at the end of the day, isn't a house going to hold its value better than an RV? So how is that going to be for you financially in the long run?

That's a great question. I don't know if I have the perfect answer or not.

Sure.

But I think that what's cool about the RV lifestyle is that you can kind of come into it at any price point, right?

Right.

There's people that buy old buses and old RVs for $1,000 on Craigslist and reno them for a few thousand dollars, make them look beautiful, and they're only a few thousand dollars in, right? So if in 5 years it's broken on you, still only $3,000, which is probably fixing an AC breaking on your house, right?

Right.

It's not even like a roof repair or something. And so that was a thing for us was although the idea of homeownership is exciting, I really like the idea of that. It seems like, oh, I can personalize it. I can have an office. I can have a podcast studio. I can have a yard for the dogs to run in. All those things seem exciting. For me, the biggest challenge was facing the fact that it felt too long-term. Like, it felt like permanent. It felt like once you do this, that's it. And I've had conversations with people about it, and they're like, no, you can just sell it and list it and blah, blah, blah if you don't want to do that and you want to move. But the people that I hear

that are talking about selling their houses and buying houses talk about how much of a nightmare it is. And I'm like, if it's such a nightmare, then I don't want to deal with that. Like, I would much rather be able to take that money and put it into something like a small RV and And in a few years, if I want to swap it out. So for even us, we bought a brand-new one. So to talk about our financial situation specifically, we probably spent $30,000 on a brand-new one. And because it's a recreational vehicle, it's got a lengthy loan term, probably like a house.

Sure.

Pretty long. And so our payment's like $200 a month. So it's cheap. Yeah, it might not hold the value. even if I go upside down and sell it, I still am probably out less than I would be if I would've bought a house and then things would've gone out or broken. And for me, it just felt like short-term, that was the way I wanted to go because we knew we could always get out. It's like working for a company and saying, you know what? I'm going to go try something else.

Yeah.

And if it doesn't work out, the job's always going to be there. And so I think that that's true for me with buying a house. It's like that lifestyle will always be there for me, but taking this opportunity while I'm young and don't have kids personally to be able to explore and go and save money and maybe even create wealth in the meantime is exciting.

Yeah.

Because I think that's it for young people. A big challenge is buying a house, coming up with a down payment. Not a lot of kids my age or people my age have $20,000, $30,000 to drop a down payment. And it seems like some people my age that are getting houses are getting into these kind of, you know, less than ideal FHA loans that are probably hurting them in the, the early stages of that homeownership process, right?

Yeah.

Just because they're just pouring so much into just trying to cover that initial down. And so, um, you know, I just think that for me, this was like a way that I could say, hey, I'm gonna just put money away And if I decide I'm done with this lifestyle, hopefully I'll have the cash to just buy what I want.

I think you probably won a lot of moms over when you said, I have enough money to have my laundry done for me.

And folded. That's right.

You're welcome, Mom.

No, it's true.

That's awesome.

What else? Is there anything that we haven't discussed already that you think we should hit on?

No, I mean, I think that, uh, I think that you brought up a great point earlier, which is if, if this sounds exciting, if it sounds like something you could do, go to YouTube, watch some videos.

Yeah.

Start with van life and see how rough it can be. That's a great place to start. For me, it was like, okay, van life is not for me with 2 big dogs, but if people can do it with kids in a van, then I can do it in an RV, right? And, um, and that was a cool place to start. And then Instagram— everybody's on Instagram. That's a great place to look too. Like, you start looking at these RV renovation hacks hashtags and you see what people are doing in RV, it'll blow your mind.

Yeah.

Like, my older sister has 2 older kids around 13 and 10. And when we told her about it and she came and sat in our RV and her husband and her kids came, they were like, wow. Like, they just felt like that financial burden relief. Like, even though they're a little scared about the idea of doing it with older kids that are connected in schools and like the fact that they've gotten comfortable with this big backyard and this big house, they hurt. I think that they struggle to live that, right? Like, it's tight every month, and if anything were to change it with, with their employment, that lifestyle could go away like overnight. And I think that that's like an all-too, you know, all-too-true scary reality that like that could be taken away. And so

having this other alternative option where you can spend all that money on whatever else you want and just give your kids experiences and enjoy experiences yourself, um, and still you can stay in the town that you like, you know, if you like Waller, stay in Waller.

Yeah.

You can do it with an RV. And I think that's another cool thing too with RVs that I could briefly mention is that it also allows you the ability to own land, which I feel like land is one of the best investments you can make, right?

Sure.

And so instead of pouring all that money into a house with your little block and your neighbors that are arm's distance away, you can buy an RV, buy a few acres, and put that money that you were putting into a mortgage into financing that land instead. And while you're living on your land, you can slowly start building a house. And that's cool too because all of a sudden now, you've allowed yourself to have something that maybe you couldn't afford while also living the typical neighborhood life.

Yeah. I see a lot of people doing that now. They're using it as a vehicle to actually purchase land and set up a pad and get that process rolling on a piece of property that had a house on it, they couldn't afford it.

That's right.

Yeah. That's awesome, man. There's very few living arrangements that you can try before you buy. You can't try a house out, really. No, you can't. You can't be like, hey, I'm going to live in this neighborhood for a month and see if I like it, or if I like the commute that I'm going to have every day from this location. Traffic patterns change even at that.

To a certain degree, that's But that's not true really. I mean, because now we have— I mean, like Airbnb is allowing you to rent out by the week, by the month.

Sure.

And so you do kind of have this trial that you can do. It's really expensive to do that.

Sure.

But you look around, man, there's guys that are doing it. Some of these guys that travel from city to city for their businesses and things like that, that's all they do.

Yeah.

Is they're Airbnb-ing it or VRBO and all these kinds of things. And they like it because they like Like what Andrew is saying, I get a different experience in every city. I don't own the property. If something goes wrong with it, this sucker has to fix it. And if it breaks, I can just leave. Yeah.

And that's definitely a more expensive way to experience, trial or demo that area. But I think the other thought for me is you buy a house in your ideal neighborhood and then your job changes. You get laid off. You get moved somewhere else. Your drive changes. Well, now you're trying to commute there while trying to get your house ready to be sold and you're trying to deal with finding a new house. And it's like in the RV life, you lose your job, you just hook up to your trailer and go to the new campsite that's closer, right?

Yeah.

There's this ability to move your life a little bit more organically. You're not so locked down. And again, I don't think there's anything wrong with homeownership. I think at some point in my life, I would like to achieve that. I'd love to have land. I think where we were at in our journey, it just wasn't in the cards, right? I didn't necessarily have the ability to drop a down payment And I, and I'm also like young enough and impressionable enough that like every neighborhood I see I think is cool. So it's like, how do I decide? I feel like older, you know, older people that have kids and stuff like that, y'all have pretty good ideas of like, my kids need this kind of school system and,

and I need this kind of neighborhood and I need to be close to work or whatever. And for me, it's just like, ooh, that neighborhood's in The Woodlands, there's really good bars around there, like whatever.

Yeah.

And it's just like, it's based My house-making decisions would be based on what best restaurant was nearby. And so for me, it felt a little premature to buy a house where it could be in a year I'd be bored.

One of the things you mentioned earlier that I thought was pretty interesting is that the reality is a lot of people who get into homeownership do end up living paycheck to paycheck because they feel like that is sort of the pinnacle of adulthood, that now I've arrived and all of my My financial focus needs to be on this thing that I've now achieved and now I have to maintain because if I don't, I'm not a success. But if that's your reality, if your reality is that from paycheck to paycheck, there's nothing left at the end of the month, it might not be a bad idea to run those numbers, to evaluate your life and go, okay, where am I actually at right now? And what would actually free

me up to do the things that I really enjoy? Um, because for a lot of people who are living paycheck to paycheck, you know, once those credit cards max out, once all those things— like, everything stops, you know, and reality kicks in. It's like, okay, everything has to be paid for now, and, and the fun time is over, so to speak. And it would be way better to have evaluated that situation and go, you know, right now this isn't for me.

Yeah.

But I could actually free up some, some capital. I could free up my finances by Living like nobody else is living right now, living differently than what my expectations of adulthood was like.

Yeah. And don't be afraid of what people are going to think because at the end of the day, people don't care. When we got into this, I definitely am a bit of a prideful person. I grew up really, really poor. And so, going into this lifestyle, I was very honest with my girlfriend and friends when I talked about doing this. I was like, You know, there's nothing wrong with it, but I grew up in really rough trailer parks as a kid.

Sure.

And so, I was like, I don't want to go into this lifestyle and feel like I'm just back to a trailer park. There was something for me that just like— and that's obviously like my own personal experience that like made me feel that way. But now that I've actually lived this lifestyle for a little while and I talk about it with people, people don't go, oh, you're poor. Like you live in an RV. Like people are pretty like intrigued by that. Like they want to know what, like, why are you doing that? And when you can express that and you can share the reasons why, people get really excited that. So I don't think you should ever feel ashamed about living in an RV. Like you said, the homeownership feels like

this American dream, which it has been for a long time. I don't think it is the only dream. I don't think it is the only way you can do things, which I think is pretty awesome.

Well, cool. Well, man, we appreciate you being open and honest with some stuff. I mean, it's pretty personal the way you live and those sorts of things. So thanks for taking the time to to explain some of those. And, and maybe you have some questions for, um, for Andrew here and want to, want to kind of figure out what does it look like to do this a little bit more. Um, maybe I'm intrigued, or maybe I've just— maybe I'm just curious. Uh, where, where can people find you? How do they get a hold of you?

Yeah, I'm on Instagram, Andrew Brockenbush, and I'm sure you guys have a place y'all drop that stuff. And, uh, that's probably the best place. You know, we've got our companies, beefymarketing.com, and we also have Wingman, which is trustyourwingman.com, for smaller businesses. And, uh, That's a great way if you're looking for business help. That's a good way to do it. But if you want to just kind of chat about this lifestyle, hit me up on Instagram. I'll take you out to coffee and talk about it. I'll bring you to the RV park and show you our camper, introduce you to my dogs. But, uh, thank you guys for, uh, thanks for having me. I know I'm not a homeowner. No, no, no, it's all good.

And this is one of the things that Craig and I really are hopeful for with this podcast is just helping people understand what it means to own a home. And honestly, at the end of the day, you're still owning a home.

Yeah.

It is your home. It's just not a house.

Yeah.

And, you know, it's different for everybody. And, you know, we're not trying to judge people that live in mansions versus people that, that live in RVs or anywhere in between.

Yeah.

At the end of the day, we want people to feel secure and confident in the decisions that they've made. And once you've made that decision, You have to live into it, right? You've, you've owned a home, uh, you've chosen to buy that home. Well, now you got to repair it, you got to fix it, you got to understand how you maximize owning that home. Same's true for you. And, and not only that, I mean, you know, there's a big transition for most people going from a home to an RV. It sounds like y'all maybe weren't, um, as already entrenched.

Yeah, it wasn't as bad as like a 5-bedroom house.

And part of that is just you're younger, right? And so you don't necessarily— you haven't acquired as much stuff. You don't have kids. And so that— I mean, there's, there's lots of things that you acquire once you have kids, um, and those sorts of things.

So emotional damage.

It's really cool stuff. Well, we can't let you off the hook. We can't finish this podcast without, uh, doing something that we do with all of our guests, and that is the Final Four.

The Final Four.

Yeah, so these are just 4 questions we ask all of our guests. guests at the end of the podcast. So, um, we'll see how you fare compared to our other guests.

Dun dun dun!

It is, it is not really a test.

I don't believe it.

But you will be scored at the end.

Yes.

Okay, the first question is this: what's the must-have tool you won't leave your house without? AirPods.

Apple AirPods, best invention ever.

Okay.

Oh, even though I've been told— whenever I lived in Nashville, there was a coffee shop that I used to kind of pace back and forth on taking calls, and, and, and one day that a couple came down And they were like, hey, you're that crazy guy that paces back and forth talking to yourself. And I was like, I— yeah, like, yeah, that's me. Oh yeah, AirPods are great. I mean, as a business owner, I'm on the phone all the time, literally all the time, and being able to multitask with AirPods in is really, really valuable. Yeah, so AirPods, my, my tool.

And they got the second generation coming out.

Yeah, they are. I just wish they would come out in black. That'd be cooler that way.

Oh yeah, one day.

One day.

I don't know, Adam, that fit in my ear.

Apple's proprietary.

They're still baby ears. No, my ears are too big. They like, they fall out.

You got fat ears, man. Just, just imagine whenever he's like 90, you know, your ears never stop growing. You like it? Like, yeah, they're flapping in the wind. It's gonna be awesome.

We'll be gliding through the hills.

Uh, Craig's never gonna lose his hearing. Okay, second question. What's a job you've walked away from? So, I mean, it could be a career, but maybe a project or something that you said, ah, I'm done with.

Oh, you know, I'll start with it. I'll go with a career option. I walked away from my first ever business, which was a recording studio. And I was young. I was, I don't know, 19. I was fresh out of high school, owned a recording studio, and it was exciting and it was fun, but I realized pretty early on that one, I just didn't have all the resources I needed. I hadn't built that experience up. And I had a lot of other life things going on that forced me to decide what to do next. And so what was cool about leaving that experience though was it led me to my next experience, which was working for Apple as a corporate trainer.

And I feel like it laid the foundation to me being able to create my next business and for my next business to be super successful because I learned a lot of core competencies that I think corporate America gives you. And there's definitely like a lot of nonsense that comes with that world. But there was a lot of really valuable things to learn from one of the most respected brands in the world.

Yeah, sure.

It's actually when I met Andrew.

Working for Apple?

No, at the studio. Yeah.

Oh, it's a studio.

Yeah.

Okay, cool.

Yeah, we used to hang.

Awesome.

It was fun.

Okay, cool.

It was fun for you.

Oh man. I must have been not doing any of the work.

That's funny. All right, 3rd question. How do you wind down at the end of a long day?

Oh, I'm not— I'm still in the discovery process of that. Um, sometimes I whip out the guitar and try to just write some songs. I feel like that's a great way for me to release emotions and stuff like that.

Um, that's Nashville coming out in you right there.

Yeah, that's the— that's Nashville coming out. Um, beyond that, you know, I, I still— I'm still challenged with that. You know, you go from living a life where like the therapeutic things you would do would be to go do the adventure things, and now you live the adventure things. And so I was like, uh, what next? So I'm still trying to figure that out. I need to be better. I've got a stack of books that I've bought to read but haven't read. So maybe that will be on the list of things I should do to start winding down.

Yeah.

OK. Well, that's good. I'm going to throw this out there. So just a little piece of advice for you or any of our listeners out there. There's a reason that we ask these questions. And one of the reasons we ask this question specifically is Because, you know, Craig and I just kind of— we're, we're under the, the, um, impression, and, and we feel very strongly that life can really get to you. I mean, if you don't— if you don't find a way to just decompress, then you're gonna bottle it up and it's gonna come out the wrong way, the wrong time, to the wrong person.

Create more unhealthy situations. Yeah.

And it can it can turn itself into stress and turn itself into anxiety, and you can have physical ailments from it, you can have mental ailments from it. And so, you know, if, if you're the type of person that, that you're in the stage where you are, I mean, find that thing, whatever it is. I mean, it can be lots of different things. Find the thing that you go, you know what—

Not meth.

No. Okay, maybe there are a few limits. Let's stay within the realms of legal. Okay. Um, and, and, and also things that won't, you know, get you divorced. But, um, you know, just find that thing and, uh, you know, figure it out and do it. Yeah. So yeah. All right, last question. What's the one of the best pieces of wisdom or advice you've ever received? And if your answer is not find a way to wind down at the end of a long day, then you are wrong.

Wind down?

That's a great piece of wisdom.

Best I've ever received.

Best ever. It's a great answer. If you can tell me what that thing is, then you win. Um, one of my first ever jobs, my boss told me, if I— if you ever tell me that's not your job, I'll tell you it's not your job anymore. And, um, that really stuck with me because it meant, you know, that it doesn't matter what on paper you're supposed to be doing. Like, we should be willing to like step up and help in any way. And I feel like that really has been something I've tried to like own in every job I've had is like getting in the trenches and supporting people no matter what I do. And I find that to be true both in

professional and personal experiences, is just like being available, you know?

Yeah.

Being available to support in any way you can, not being afraid to, you know, clean the toilets and sacrifice to do the hard jobs just because they're not glamorous. So that's definitely probably the best piece of advice I've ever gotten.

I love it. I love it. Cool. Craig, you got anything else?

No, but if you haven't hit the subscribe button, go ahead and hit that. You can find us wherever podcasts are played across the world.

Across the world.

Yeah.

You can also find us on the YouTubes.

Yep.

And the interwebs.

There, we're there.

HomeownersShow.com. You can also reach us at info@homeownershow.com, on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and whatever social media things.

You won't find very much on Twitter.

There's stuff.

Yeah, there's stuff.

We're just not responding to it.

That's right, absolutely.

Just putting it out there.

Yeah. Well, thanks for downloading our episode today. And thanks for coming on the show. We really, really appreciate it. And Jared, thanks for sitting in. Maybe we'll talk to you soon.

Your one question was so special to me. I'm not a big talker, but I try to hit hard when I do.

He's going to cherish it That's right.

It's hard to get a word in edgewise with these guys.

Yeah, that's so true.

We're professional talkers.

So true.

Well, yeah, thanks for downloading this episode. We're here every Tuesday, so keep on subscribing. Thanks for listening. Until then, we'll see you next time. See you.