Our Story
You might be wondering why we chose to live in an RV and how that qualifies us to talk about money and finances. Let’s start with a flashback from a few years ago.
We had just purchased our very first home in Parker, Colorado. In addition to this new mortgage, we had recently purchased a brand new Jeep, and had about $75K in student loan debt (for Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees…yep, we’re that smart- kidding!). Plus, we had another $9-10K of debt in other various credit cards (we had to purchase furniture for the new house!). So in total, we were $362,000 in debt!!! And nothing we had purchased was bringing us happiness.
That’s when we started turning things around. After implementing a budgeting process, we decided to sell our house so we could use the earnings to pay off debt. We sold our house, decided to rent instead, and eventually downsized to 100 sq feet! With the money from the house, we paid off Lindsay’s student loans! Over the years, we cut expenses and paid down debt as fast as we could. If any unexpected money came in, we used that to pay off debt as well. Three years later we were out of debt and have never felt freer. From there, we managed to save an emergency fund of $25,000. So, now we have complete peace of mind that if something unexpected came up, we would be covered.
Throughout this process, we learned how to take control of our money and stop spending every dollar we worked so hard to earn. We learned the true cost of debt and the importance of paying ourselves FIRST. But more importantly, we learned how to effectively manage money as a team, we have a clear and mutual vision for our financial future, and we meet regularly to reflect on how we’re doing with our money each month.
Throughout the years, we’ve fine-tuned our budgeting strategies and created a tool that helps keep us on track with our financial goals each month. Best of all, it allows us to be proactive so that we always know exactly where our money will go each month, while still being flexible, generous, and not too restrictive.
We no longer stress about our finances, wonder where our money goes at the end of the month, worry about the other person’s spending, feel guilty for purchases, etc. etc. etc. And the funny thing is, we currently make less money than we used it.
So why are we living in an RV? Because traveling full-time has always been our dream and now that we aren’t constrained by debt and worrying about every bill, we have the freedom to chase any crazy dream we have. Lindsay was even able to quit her job, in order to pursue this dream and start taking risks on finding ways to start our own business.