The Stabilizing Impact of Van Life with Forrest Stevens

Forrest Stevens joins me on the show today to talk about how tiny living has impacted his life, as well as the lives of those in his community. A filmmaker, podcaster, and writer, Forrest has been bringing van life and alternative lifestyles into the public eye, helping to educate people about what it’s really like and how to make it work for you. This conversation covers so many valuable aspects of tiny living, from the community impact to the financially stabilizing effect it can have.
 
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Transcript

The Stabilizing Impact of Van Life
with Forrest Stevens
Less House More Moola with Laura Lynch
https://thetinyhouseadviser.com
Full Episode Transcript
With Your Host
Laura Lynch
The Stabilizing Impact of Van Life
with Forrest Stevens
Less House More Moola with Laura Lynch
https://thetinyhouseadviser.com
It takes a brave and independent mindset to go tiny. If you are trying to
figure out your tiny pivot, this podcast is here to inspire and connect you
with the other unconventional, gritty, inspirational people within this
community.
I’m Laura Lynch, your tiny house friend and host. On this show, we are
always going to come back to money because, as a financial planner, this
is the question I hear the most: How do I make this work for me financially?
Well, that’s my jam. So jump in, let’s go. New episodes drop every
Thursday.
Laura Lynch: Hey, Forrest, welcome to Less House More Moolah. I am
super excited to have you here. It's so serendipitous, everything about the
tiny living community, the way that you get connected with folks.
You had connected with one of my previous guests, Christopher Hensley.
And then Christopher Hensley is, “This guy needs to be on your podcast.”
And so he sent your information over to me and gosh, we had such a great
pre-call. Thanks for being here and sharing your story. So to get us kicked
off, just share with us how you began your journey of tiny living.
Forrest Stevens: Sure. Yeah, I'm happy to. Thanks, Laura. I'm excited to be
on this podcast as well. And I think you're right. It is really, it's fitting. I have
a lot to talk about tiny houses and living small. And I have a history myself of
doing that. So that–to kind of tell you my story with relation to that, I didn't
really know, this was probably, this would have been 2012.
I bought a minivan, and with the idea of just traveling, me and my partner
now, fiance, we wanted to just travel and we thought, okay, what's the good
way? What's a good way to do that? And previously I had traveled. I'd done 
The Stabilizing Impact of Van Life
with Forrest Stevens
Less House More Moola with Laura Lynch
https://thetinyhouseadviser.com
some backpacking and I had hitchhiked and I kind of wanted to do travel like
that, but have more comfort.
So with that, I just thought, okay, what's better than a van. And so I bought a
van and started building it out. And basically, by building it out, I mean,
making a bed frame. putting a futon mattress in there and underneath the
bed frame, having storage capabilities. So it was really bare bones. And I, at
the time, was making some YouTube videos of just my travels and I didn't
know anything about the van life community.
That wasn't really like a popular thing at the time, that wasn't in the
mainstream at all. It was something that people did but didn't think much
about, just traveling in a van. So I shot some videos on my van, build out,
and those videos did just so much better than any of my travel videos, and
with that insight of seeing that the amount of like the audience for that, I just
thought what is this? Like, why? Why are these people interested in this? So
I looked further into it and I began to see that there's this whole community
of people living in vans, living in small spaces, it was tied to minimalism,
which is the concept of basically only having the things that really serve you
and being really conscious about the things that you bring into your life, the
objects you bring into your life.
And I started exploring that a little bit more and I'm a filmmaker and at that
time I was kind of beginning my filmmaking journey and I started just making
films about people living in small spaces. So that's kind of how it began. And
throughout that, I upgraded to a bigger van.
I got a 1988 Toyota motorhome, which I still have. We kind of re-renovated
it and made it look really nice and function really well and actually be able to
be off grid in it because RVs are basically built to go from RV campground.
They're not really built for anything else. So you have to modify them. And
within that, I've now made 250+ documentaries about people living in small
spaces or unique–the series is called Alternative Dwellings. So it kind of 
The Stabilizing Impact of Van Life
with Forrest Stevens
Less House More Moola with Laura Lynch
https://thetinyhouseadviser.com
spans, it goes into tiny houses, it goes into sailboats, goes into off-grid, it
goes into van life. And yeah, that's basically how I got interested and involved
in the tiny house and alternative dwelling spaces.
Laura Lynch: Yeah. And when you and I were talking before you mentioned
that you were also seeing some of the challenges within your community and
the way that tiny living was solving a particular problem. So talk a little bit
about what you're seeing, you're in Canada. So what are you seeing up there
and how is tiny living helping people?
Forrest Stevens: Well, Canada, we have a really tight real estate market. If
something becomes available, that's suitable, we have a lot of people
interested in owning their own house and not a lot on the market. And a lot
of that is to do with regulations and,cost of building and all sorts of different
things.
But it's created a really expensive space to own a home, basically anywhere
in Canada. Specifically, there's a few really key areas of Canada that people
want to live. So those markets are really hot. And I grew up on Vancouver
Island and Vancouver Island is basically one of those spots.
There's no cheap housing on Vancouver Island at all, Victoria, specifically
Tofino, specifically, and those are both places that I've lived in the past, really
high rent, and a lot of the people I was filming with when I lived in Victoria
and when I lived in Tofino, they saw living small as an opportunity to escape
the housing crisis that they were living in and they saw it as a way to get
ahead, a lot of them. Some of them were students going to school and
instead of paying outrageous rent to get an education, they were able to live
in a van or a tiny house and actually pay a lot less in expenses and be able
to not have such a huge student debt or be able to basically use that as a
stepping stone to further their life and I saw, yeah, that's a huge reason
behind a lot of people doing this is the financial aspect of the potential of
having lower costs. 
The Stabilizing Impact of Van Life
with Forrest Stevens
Less House More Moola with Laura Lynch
https://thetinyhouseadviser.com
Laura Lynch: Yeah, we have said previously on this podcast, the housing
is like the biggest lever that you can pull, right?
For many people, it makes up 35, 40, more than 40% of their overall cost of
living. And so if you can really dial that down, you give yourself such a
significant pay raise in terms of redirecting that money towards something
else that is more impactful for you, be that education or more time choice or
starting a business or creating an alternative income stream or whatever it
is.
It just allows you to really just shift that focus. So I can definitely see how that
appeals to people and ultimately it sort of spreads like wildfire. Once people
start seeing others doing it, they get really energized about what the
possibilities are for them. So I know that tiny living has totally changed the
course of my life.
And it seems like it has totally changed the course of your life as well.
Probably, well, you can speak to whether or not you would have become a
tiny living filmmaker if you were in a traditional past. So share with us how
living in that van and then ultimately in your RV changed the course of your
life.
Forrest Stevens: Well, the vans were a lot more, when I got into them, there
were a lot more about traveling and experiences and being able to kind of
have lower expenses while traveling and then coming back and being able
to establish myself not in such a rough way because when I went hitchhiking,
I came back to no housing, no job.
When I had a van and I'd go traveling, I'd come back to maybe no job, but at
least I have somewhere to live, and even if it's just a van, while I reestablish
myself. And this was in my late teens, early twenties. I was doing this kind of
stuff. A couple of years ago. So this would, this was four years ago now, I
bought this RV and I was renting at the time in Victoria. It's one of the most 
The Stabilizing Impact of Van Life
with Forrest Stevens
Less House More Moola with Laura Lynch
https://thetinyhouseadviser.com
expensive places to live in Canada. And I was working full time at building a
business, which had replaced my, you know, this filmmaking had replaced
my income from working in a restaurant. And my partner was working almost
full time and we were able to just have a couple hundred bucks at the end of
the month extra, and I basically, you this motorhome, this RV on a credit
card, basically, and I thought, “Okay, if we live in this for a year, this
motorhome costs $9,000, we live in it for a year. That's way less than what
we would pay in rent for that year.”
So it pays itself back, thinking of in the like the investment kind of way. It's
like an investment that pays itself back in a year, that's pretty good. And so
that was my idea. And then it was also conducive for my business, being
able to travel and actually live the lifestyle of the other subjects that I was
filming and being able to go from location to location really easily so that
worked itself out really well, and we actually ended up living in the motor
home longer than a year.
And we lived in it long enough to basically build up a down payment, which
then I used to buy a house and kind of get into, you know, I really did use
that small living as a stepping stone to further kind of my financial goals in
my life. And that house was not a tiny house. It was too big of a house,
actually.
It was an old farmhouse in very rural Ontario, Canada, where prices were
relatively cheap compared to everything else and I used my skills from
renovating the motorhome, from building out the vans, from everything that
I've learned from filming with people that have built really unique spaces, like
tiny houses are so unique in the way they're built.
And I learned so much by talking with these people that I use those skills to
renovate this house with help from my partner's family as well. But we kind
of use that and then there's this whole other aspect we can talk about as 
The Stabilizing Impact of Van Life
with Forrest Stevens
Less House More Moola with Laura Lynch
https://thetinyhouseadviser.com
well. But I was, I went from living small in a small motor home with my partner
to living in this four bedroom farmhouse that has had extension on extension.
It was just such a big house for two people. And then we realized this isn't
how we want to live either. So even though we became homeowners, we
kind of fulfilled a part of that kind of American dream, and like I said, in
Canada, it's so unattainable. Like I felt very special to actually be able to buy
a house even though it was so cheap and run down and all this, but I did feel
very fortunate still.
And then realizing like oh, this isn't actually the lifestyle we want to live either.
This is too much space. It’s just a lot of extra space to heat and look after,
and we have to clean up this giant house all the time. And then now, I'm in
this small cabin. We've kind of gone back to trying to figure out what works
for us in the size wise.
I think it's, I think people sometimes have this idea that oh, I want to be mega
rich. I want to have a mansion. It's like having that mansion is a huge amount
of work. It's not really the best option for everybody. So that's kind of, you
know, I'm trying to figure out where in the spectrum of housing works for me.
And right now we're in a 450 square foot cabin with a loft. And so far we've
been making it work really well with the two people.
Laura Lynch: Yeah, that's so good. I think the thing about the large homes
is that you have to, you feel compelled to fill that space with stuff, right? And
so then it kind of throws you off of your minimalism and you're only having
what serves you and into this mindset of, “Oh, we need to decorate and fill
every room and make it purposeful.” And the reason why homes, old homes
are so large is because families used to be so much larger. And so we have
old homes and we have new homes that are very large.
And yet at the same time, one of my previous guests pointed out that if you
look at a heat map, people only use about 50% or whatever of their space, 
The Stabilizing Impact of Van Life
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Less House More Moola with Laura Lynch
https://thetinyhouseadviser.com
actually. And a lot of rooms sit empty, but we feel compelled to fill them with
space. So it sounds like that you have come back to what feels most
intentional for you and are kind of settled into what fits your life and your
relationship right now.
Forrest Stevens: Definitely. Yeah. That's a really, really good point about
the wasted space. And yeah, I think there are challenges to living small.
There's never going to be everything like you're never really going to find the
perfect situation. I think there's always going to be things that need to be
adjusted and changed depending on your circumstances and what changes
in your own life.
But I do the challenge of living small and I also think there's a lot of benefits
that people don't really realize like just the convenience of having your
kitchen nearby and not having to walk so far and there's a lot of nice
conveniences about living small that I really enjoy actually that I missed a lot
when I was living in that bigger house.
I would actually spend nights all the time in my camper van just because I
loved how convenient everything was.
Laura Lynch: Yes, I joke about walking myself to death in this house that
I'm standing in right now that's on the market like gosh, it takes so many
minutes to get, you know, the laundry from room to room instead of it all just
being kind of crammed there in the kitchen.
So you know, everything, nothing is perfectly ideal, right? There's going to
be hard parts of anything. The point is pick your heart, right? And if having a
large space where you don't use all the space and air conditioning that space
and paying the mortgage on that space and insuring that space and all of
that is a hard that works for you and you like that, and that's important to you
then great. But if it's not, then definitely there are other options out there. 
The Stabilizing Impact of Van Life
with Forrest Stevens
Less House More Moola with Laura Lynch
https://thetinyhouseadviser.com
Forrest Stevens: Yeah, I think it's I think it's good to think about this stuff
too like, that's why I appreciate your podcast is it poses the question in
people's heads of what would actually work for me?
A lot of people don't really think about that much. But I think if we do, think
about that, then we're going to get more value out of what we choose, and
like you said, we choose the difficulties we want in life, or at least we can try
to choose those things and that will benefit us, I think.
Laura Lynch: And so one of the challenges that people do face that kind of
comes with tiny living very often is some sort of alternative work, right?
Because a lot of people that are doing this are not wanting to be in the
traditional corporate rat race or climbing the ladder, and some people are,
right? There's, a full spectrum of people, but very often the option is if I lower
my housing costs that means I can have more meaningful work and that
might be a little less traditional.
So I really wanted you to share with us about how you've designed your work
and income around your lifestyle, being that you had some desire to travel
for a while, you did some homesteading for a while and now you're back in
a cabin and yet you're not working a corporate job and you're not working at
the restaurant you used to work at. So what did it look like for you to figure
out how to make money in this sort of unique way of being?
Forrest Stevens: Well, I've always wanted financial freedom to some
respect and sort of autonomy over my time. It's been something that's been
really important to me since I got my first job when I was 14 and had to show
up and get bossed around by somebody and told what to do all the time and
then just been like, “This isn't interesting to me. This isn't fun. This isn't what
I want to do.” And I was privileged enough to have parents that encouraged
me to try, be entrepreneurial and to not necessarily be so serious about it.
And not everybody is in that position, the position that I was in. And I was
also just lucky with timing as well.
The Stabilizing Impact of Van Life
with Forrest Stevens
Less House More Moola with Laura Lynch
https://thetinyhouseadviser.com
A lot of things, people, a lot of business stuff and entrepreneurial things,
people chalk up to their skill and their ability and everything. But I think a lot
of it is timing as well. And there is some skill on picking opportunities and
being aware of the time that you exist in, but like I said, when I made my first
video about van life wasn't really a thing and there was this small community
of people interested in it and I just said, “Hey, I'll serve these people.” I enjoy
this content. I just followed my personal curiosity, my personal passion of
sharing these spaces and looking into how people can live differently.
And I just continued to follow that because I thought it was good to share that
information and maybe inspire other people to think differently about how
they want to live in this world and what we consume. And, yeah, just kind of
open up the path for different opportunities for people.
So that was kind of my, you know, I think if somebody is to do like an
entrepreneurial thing, the most important aspect behind that is having a really
strong why. And so I had a really strong why of why I wanted to share this
information, but to kind of talk more broadly and more about the subject of
just like working sort of a different way because of living in a tiny house or
living in a smaller dwelling, an alternative space, there is lots of opportunity
now, the big kind of work from home era has happened and there's still a lot
of remote work because of that and the technology that we have now like I
had Starlink at my place in rural Ontario, my homestead, and it was amazing.
It was super fast and the latency was amazing. And that's just a brand new
technology, basically a couple of years old. Like when we first moved there,
we didn't have that. Like the only internet was either like terrible satellite or
literally they still offered dial up. So it was like, I just waited an entire year
and then Starlink became available.
I got the quickest one I could and just went for it. And so there is more options
of working online. A lot of our world is digital and we can participate in that
to whatever way that kind of suits you. And I would recommend, I mean, if 
The Stabilizing Impact of Van Life
with Forrest Stevens
Less House More Moola with Laura Lynch
https://thetinyhouseadviser.com
you have the privilege and the ability to work with what you're passionate
about and that is possible or more possible by living small.
If you build a tiny house instead of a house, the costs are going to be so
much significantly less because of the materials. If you live in a van instead
of a house, I mean, once again, right, it's just it's so much cheaper. So that
could allow you to think more about what effect do I want to have by the work
that I do.
Laura Lynch: And did you like come to your idea just sort of out of
serendipity and luck and you're just kind of, “I'm going to be a filmmaker.” Or
was it something that you had always felt called to do, or like, how did that
piece of it come about?
Forrest Stevens: Well, I was always interested in film and music, like video
and music, and I would kind of always jump back and forth in my teenage
years and growing up, my brother, is seven years older than me, so he had
a VHS, like full tape video camera and would film stuff with his friends.
And I was, I grew up in the era of there being these kind of breakout hits on
TV and in media that were, you know, it's before YouTube where everybody
now knows, “Oh, you can film yourself and you can do something with that.”
It was like at the beginning of that. So a lot of my inspirations were these
movies and TV shows that were like super low budget, but very successful
and very kind of doable.
And so I saw all this media out there that I enjoyed that really impacted me.
And I saw it as something I could do. So I think if you see, if you only watch
big Marvel movies, you think, “Oh, I can't really do that.” So it doesn't really
inspire you to think about doing it because it's just completely unattainable.
So I kind of had that base in just my experience. And yeah, that is basically
luck that I saw these things as possible where other people didn't. I made my 
The Stabilizing Impact of Van Life
with Forrest Stevens
Less House More Moola with Laura Lynch
https://thetinyhouseadviser.com
first check from YouTube when I was 13 years old and even when I was 19
and I started actually making some money from it and 20 when I, or 21, I
think when I went full time on it, it's every single person I talked to about it
was, “Oh, you can make money on that? How does that work? How do you
make money from YouTube?”
And it's well, it's the same way as people make money on TV, but it was just
a completely–it wasn't completely unknown at that point, but it was like very
much that was the first question I get is, “Oh, how do you even make money
from that?”
So there was definitely just a bit of that. And then, yeah, like I said, I really
just stumbled upon this community of van life and then living and being young
and seeing my friends live in vans and tiny houses and just thinking, “Hey, if
this video did this well, and if I made–” Literally how I went full time with this
film, with this documentary series was I just thought if I make one of these a
week and I make a hundred of them, I can–and they make this much money
per month, that is my full expenses for the month.
And so my goal initially was to just make a hundred of these documentaries
on single individuals or people living in alternative dwellings. And so far I've
made 250 plus of them. So it was just, it was kind of just a decision of just
saying, Hey, this has some, some success to it.” The attempts that I've made.
And then my interest was, yeah, just documenting the truth, showing reality.
And that was something that I grew up doing with my brother filming and then
just, yeah, just being affected by documentaries and kind of like TV and
movies throughout my life.
Laura Lynch: Yeah, I love the way that our sort of fabric of life, all of our
experiences kind of weave together and you don't even realize you can be
in one place doing one job and a couple of years you're doing something
completely different and you're like, “How is any of this going to play
together?”
The Stabilizing Impact of Van Life
with Forrest Stevens
Less House More Moola with Laura Lynch
https://thetinyhouseadviser.com
But the things that we're exposed to, it's like that saying, “You can't be what
you can't see.” And so if you see something that maybe it doesn't even, you
don't even realize at the time how much impact it's having, our brains put
together our life experiences like lego blocks. And then one day you end up
with this avatar in front of you of this business idea or some need in the
market that just seems very timely.
And then it's just a matter of taking that risk that's required to do something
different that nobody has been doing, or a little bit different or focused on a
little different niche or whatever. But ultimately, we're all sort of like walking
around waiting for that life experience to kind of show up in our lives and an
idea that maybe we could make enough money to pay the bills.
And then we can work from passion instead of following a traditional path.
So would you consider yourself working like full time or part time on this work
that you're doing?
Forrest Stevens: Well, It's kind of like gig work. I treat it like that. It's kind of
like almost like a trades person gets like a construction worker will be building
a building. And then once that's finished, they kind of have to find another
building to be a part of whatever trade they're in or whatever. So I think about
it like that. So there's periods in my life and throughout the few years of full
time business that I've done with this where I'll be working an insane amount
and all the time and then there'll be periods of time where I have nothing
going on, and there's some flexibility within that too.
It's like a big gray area spectrum. So right now I'm working on four major
films that I'm producing or directing or writing or editing. So there's a lot to do
with those, but I spread it out so that I'll work on one, I'll work on another,
and I have a team working on one and the other ones are–two of them are a
lot more solo and I can kind of schedule in when I want to work on them, but,
it's probably on average, I'm probably filling up my time with work and side 
The Stabilizing Impact of Van Life
with Forrest Stevens
Less House More Moola with Laura Lynch
https://thetinyhouseadviser.com
projects like even, you know, I have a podcast, which isn't making me any
money.
It's not producing anything really, but that is work that I'm choosing to do for
the potential in the future of it. So there's kind of like my business is spread
out over like major work that I kind of need to do to further this business. And
then there's side stuff that has potential that I'm working on, but I would say,
yeah, overall, I probably work a little bit less than a full time job, but with a lot
more flexibility on top of that.
Laura Lynch: Yeah, I think the flexibility piece is what everybody's aiming
for, right? We can find work that we love, maybe, and work that we're
passionate about, and the point is can I do it in the time blocks that are best,
supportive of how I feel like a lot of people are most productive in the
morning.
So can I arrange my work so that I really get my really major tasks done in
the morning? And that I leave time specifically in the week that I know I like
to be most social, to have my interactions with others. And that is the greatest
thing about having your own business is being able to wrap your schedule
around how you feel in our most productive and what resonates with you.
If you're feeling really creative today and you've got some writing to do, you
can focus on that instead of focusing on something else. So was it hard for
you to kind of make that switch to be from being managed to self
management? Because that's another key challenge for folks is figuring out
how to structure their life and how to stay on task and being self managed.
Forrest Stevens: Yeah, I think there's definitely been some challenges for
that for me, like the self managed position that you that you get yourself into
starting your own business or being an entrepreneur, what you really need
is self discipline, but you also need reflection time and even understanding
what your work is.
The Stabilizing Impact of Van Life
with Forrest Stevens
Less House More Moola with Laura Lynch
https://thetinyhouseadviser.com
So my work is very creative. So a lot of times it's about like going for a walk
can be work for me because I need to go for a walk to be able to think about
something or I need to spend time like writing a document or I need to give
myself a break from like the actual physical work of filming or editing to allow
my brain to have some space to work on these kind of more hard to grasp
things.
So even understanding what your work is, for me, it was like so part of it is
like the not really having much to fall back on. So I don't have much to fall
back on. So when I became full time in my business, I was extremely hungry
for work. I was extremely hungry to prove myself.
And I was extremely hungry to pay my rent, to buy food. I wanted to work
really hard so that I would feel secure. So that's what drove me a lot was just
that urge to survive. So that was part of my reasoning for going full time was,
can I actually do this? Is this just on weekends or after work, this filmmaking
thing, or could I spend more time doing this and actually really thrive and
really grow a lot more than if I was just doing it on the weekends and that?
So I had that why, that why of just needing to make enough money to live
was really strong and then, yeah, there's just, there's a lot of aspects to it.
But for me, it was a little bit less challenging because I've always, I've never
really accepted the work that I've had.
I've always, part of me, rejected it. The job I had, the last job I had was in a
restaurant and they're looking for chef, sous chef, managers. They're looking
for all types of people. The only position I wanted was dishwasher because
I did not want responsibility.
And throughout that entire time, I was working there for about a year, they
kept promoting me. They kept giving me pay raises. They kept saying, “Hey,
do you want to do this instead? Do you want to do this?” And I was just like,
“I don't know. I don't really want to do more. I just want to use this to build 
The Stabilizing Impact of Van Life
with Forrest Stevens
Less House More Moola with Laura Lynch
https://thetinyhouseadviser.com
something else. I just want to do my own thing.” So there's always been that
part of me. I've never held a job for a very long time. I'm maybe a unique
specimen in that respect of just always wanting to do my own thing
throughout my entire life. So in that way, it wasn't hard, but it is difficult to
always be self disciplined and not to burn yourself out and to balance it and
to create like a schedule that works for you and but maybe it's not like a nine
to five, five days a week, Monday to Friday schedule.
Maybe it's different than that and allowing yourself to have flexibility, but not
taking advantage of the fact that there's nobody needing those reports on
their desk from you. It's like you could allow yourself to become really
negligent in the work that would propel your business.
So there has been a lot of balancing that. And there's been phases
throughout these years of me working for myself where I've maybe done a
lot like too much work and I burn myself out or I haven't done enough work
and then I start feeling really antsy and like I've missed opportunities or there
has been some challenges with that.
And I've just found that working on organization, working on my mental
health has been the things that have helped my business the most. And it
seems counterintuitive. It seems, “Oh, just put your head down, put in the
work that you need to do. Just focus on that, drink some extra coffee and
just go, go, go,” is the way to go forward in life.
And for me, that's actually not really been the case. It's step back from what
you're doing, analyze it, make sure you're doing it efficiently and make sure
that I'm at the best that I can be so that I can be the best I need to be because
at the end of the day, when you have a business, there is a lot of weight on
your shoulders.
And for me, I'm very much, I have a very small team and I work with them to
certain degrees, but basically everything comes back to me and it's my 
The Stabilizing Impact of Van Life
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Less House More Moola with Laura Lynch
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responsibility to really complete things. And so with that is just the
understanding that if I'm not who I want to be, if I'm not who I need to be, that
my work will suffer from that.
So it's been a lot of, the development of my business has also been a lot of
self development of who I am as an individual.
Laura Lynch: Yeah. It's so much about self compassion too, right? This is a
journey not a destination, and nobody's going to have it all figured out
overnight. And the minute you start to get it figured out, you come up with a
new idea.
So you have to take on a new project and learn new hard things. And so just
the autonomy of choice though, to be able to do what you have a strong why
for is so valuable and such a privilege of living in a way that your cost of living
is lower. And so I really appreciate all that. All those details that you shared.
So you have filmed a lot of people doing alternative living in different ways.
Are there any other examples that you feel comfortable sharing of people
kind of figuring out how to work for passion and have a strong why in the
work that they're doing specifically in tiny living van life or RVs or cabins or
homesteads or any of the things.
Forrest Stevens: Oh, specific. It all melds together. I have a pretty poor
memory. Like just in general, I have a pretty bad memory. So I'd have to
really think of that and look at examples, but so for a specific example, but
there are lots of people who, I can think of one example, actually, of a couple
that moved into a van, and this was when I was traveling in Australia. I filmed
a bunch of documentaries over there.
They moved into a van that they built out themselves and they built it
specifically for rock climbing because that was their passion. And by living in
that, they moved out of the house that they owned and they began renting 
The Stabilizing Impact of Van Life
with Forrest Stevens
Less House More Moola with Laura Lynch
https://thetinyhouseadviser.com
that house out. And then they used that money that they got from having a
cheaper existence by living in the van and the extra income that they got
from renting, from being landlords to invest into stocks and they were also,
when I was talking to them, going to buy another house to rent out more.
So it's like they were building their portfolio and that was the way that they
were going to reach some sort of financial freedom was having investments
and they were not like, it wasn't only just about making money for them. It
wasn't like there was just some business plan that they were going to make
a bunch of money and just be able to hoard all this money.
It was like they also got to live the existence they wanted to with all their rock
climbing gear with them. And they were able to drive to the base of a
mountain and stay there in their camper van and be able to climb that
mountain the next day. It was this beautiful mix of being able to do more of
what they love to do on their weekends and actually be able to Improve their
financial situation drastically because of living that way.
Laura Lynch: That's an awesome example Yeah, I love that. So you are in
the middle of so many great projects right now, so please share with the
listeners what work you're really proud of, what you're excited that's going to
come out soon and how they can find and follow you.
Forrest Stevens: Okay, well, I did mention I'm working on four projects.
I'll tell you briefly about those. But before I do, I have a documentary. It's on
Prime Video and it's on YouTube as well. So that's on my YouTube channel
called Different Media. And it's a documentary about van life and about the
Instagram online kind of, showcase of living in a van compared to reality.
So it's called the reality of hashtag van life. so I would check that out if you're
interested in van life and my documentary work. I'm working on four
documentaries. One is about vintage motorcycles and I'm going to be making 
The Stabilizing Impact of Van Life
with Forrest Stevens
Less House More Moola with Laura Lynch
https://thetinyhouseadviser.com
it with a friend of mine who was the cinematographer for another
documentary I made called Moments, which was us traveling around in a
sailboat. So I'm really excited for that one. I'm making a documentary about
the current state of magic mushrooms, and how we are basically on the
precipice here in Canada of legalizing them in some way. There's publicly
traded companies that do psychedelic assisted therapy with psilocybin
mushrooms and there's storefronts selling them all over the place where
we're very similar to where we were pre-legalization of cannabis.
So that's what interested me about that subject. I'm making a documentary
about my mother who passed away. And she did the maid experience. She
had stage four breast cancer and she had a very different way of dying. So
it's a kind of a look at, yeah, a different way to die in this world. And, yeah,
so I'm working on that.
There's one other one. Oh, yeah, I'm working on a documentary following
three different homesteaders at different stages of homesteading, and it's a
bigger look at the back to the land movement and what it really takes to be
self sufficient and self reliant because that's a big idea.
Like a lot of people that I've met that want to live small, they also want to live
on land. They want to grow their own food. They want to have some animals.
Maybe they want to have some sharing and some community. And so what
does that actually look like? So that's a documentary I'm working on as well.
And if you just wanted to follow anything that I do, my YouTube channel is
Forrest Stevens. That's also where I post my podcast, which is the Forrest
Stevens Show, which is sometimes with guests and oftentimes just myself
musing about life and going deeper into different self development and self
improvement, things that I explore.
Laura Lynch: Awesome. That's definitely a lot and all very relevant topics.
In my permaculture class, I've been studying this whole idea around 
The Stabilizing Impact of Van Life
with Forrest Stevens
Less House More Moola with Laura Lynch
https://thetinyhouseadviser.com
community. It seems like that eco villages, people wanting to live together
and grow food together is something that is I see constantly on my Instagram
feed, their point of view.
Does anybody else want to get together and start a community? It seems to
be like a very hot topic right now. And so lots for you going on. Thank you so
much for sharing your time today and your experience. And, we will definitely
talk again. Thank you.
Forrest Stevens: Great. Thanks, Laura. I appreciate being on. And, yeah,
that was a lot of fun.
Hey, I’m honored that you listened to this episode of Less House More
Moolah. I hope something in it will help you continue to move toward a life
aligned with your values.
Every algorithm out there is trying to tell us what to prioritize, but we get to
choose. If you haven’t ever identified your key values, I have a free
resource on my website to help you.
You just have to go to thetinyhouseadviser.com. It’s the tiny house A-D-V-IS-E-R dot com.
At the bottom of the page, you can grab the tiny life values worksheet.
When we design a life around “what is our core truth?”, we shortcut to deep
fulfillment.
See you next Thursday.
Please see the show notes for an important disclosure regarding The Tiny
House Adviser, LLC and this episode.