Top 6 Episodes Of The Year: Anniversary Special Countdown!

In this episode, Laura Lynch reflects on the past year of the Less House, More Moola podcast and counting down the top six episodes. The top six episodes include conversations with Alaska from Tiny House Concierge, Felice Cohen, Ash Mazanec, Alexis and Christian from Tiny House Expedition, Amanda Acuna, and Alisa Boots and Rick. Each episode explores different aspects of tiny living, including financial security, intentional lifestyle, DIY home building, and community. Laura encourages listeners to provide feedback and suggestions for future episodes.

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Transcript

Less House More Moola podcast (00:05.902)
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 am 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.

Less House More Moola podcast (00:44.558)
Hey there, thanks for joining me. Laura Lynch here. It is been a year. I can't believe it. We are on episode 51. Next episode will wrap up 52 full episodes of the Less House, More Mola podcast every single week. I have sat down with someone and talked about tiny living and it.

as a pathway to financial security. It has been such a great time over the last year. I want to thank you so much for listening and for sharing the podcast if you have and for subscribing if you have. And if you haven't, this is a great time to do it because we are working on year two and there's going to be so many great conversations coming up.

But in this episode, I wanted to take a moment to sort of go back in time and count down our top six episodes from this last year. So now on with some of the summaries of the episodes that we had in our top six. Make sure you listen all the way to the end to get to number one.

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So we will start with number six, the episode with Alaska from the tiny house concierge. Alaska with tiny house concierge has an amazing story of how she sat down and really calculated the value of everything that she owned and everything that she was spending and figured out that her house.

was the biggest part of her expenses and that caused her in a moment of major life transition to go in the tiny house direction and since then she's become a tiny house professional helping other people pursue this journey as well. Tell us what you mean by you quit your life. Yeah so I use that phrase because I think it's the the fastest most succinct way

of explaining how, how decisively I acted and get apart. We think our lives are so cemented. We think that they're permanent. We go to work, we look at our house, our spouse, our job, and it, it feels, or at least it felt for me, I felt stuck. I wanted more. I wanted to keep growing and I couldn't figure out how. And that.

pressure of repeating that same day over and over and over. And that I was a matter of, it was a matter of time before I was in a lot of trouble. if, as soon as I needed a new car or broke a limb or needed a surgery or, or had a wedding or a good opportunity come my way that maybe cost money, I was done. I was making it work, but I just barely, just barely. And I was realizing that vulnerability and that.

In that process, I kind of snapped is the best way to put it. I knew I couldn't go on any longer. I knew something had to change. And so it was a matter of a few weeks, a month or two, like somewhere in that range of time that I just quit everything. I quit my job. I ended my marriage. I walked away from my new real estate business. I put my stuff in storage. I moved to Alaska. Back to Alaska.

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legal name also from there. And I just, I started over and completely from scratch. I needed a new, free thing. And it, it was a, there's more that happened after that, that led me to a tiny house. But to answer your question, that's what I mean by quit, quit my life, quit my job, my business, my marriage, my location, left my friend and, and started over with a clean slate. Yeah. Yeah.

did something similar, but it was different in that I was sort of hoisted out of my life at one point in my first, you know, when someone presents you with that, you know, that paperwork, you get sort of hoisted out of all of your expectations and everything that you saw in your future. And there's a difference there between someone making that decision for you and you making that.

So how did that feel for you to take that control and quit your life and each one of those parts of that? I'm sure that there was some grieving but also some victory in that. So share with us how that felt for you.

Sure. It was both. It was both. It was absolutely ending that relationship with absolutely the hardest thing I have ever done in my entire life. You know, taking the things off of the wall, packing them up is gut wrenching. I mean, I was not okay. I'm still processing. It's been three years. Yes, I was the one that made the decision, but I also didn't get there alone. No, in a sense,

That person's life stayed the same in many ways. Same apartment, same friends. My life was completely upended. And the chaos and the free fall that came after that has been scary, has been hard to navigate. I definitely don't recommend people go quitting their lives. The tiny ass counselors did not say that. This is not advice. It's just what needed to happen in my specific situation.

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And I don't regret it. I absolutely don't regret it. I remember somebody telling me around that time, your new life is going to cost you your old one. And that sentence has come back to me over and over and over again. Was it worth it? Absolutely. Was it painful? To the nth degree, I am still working through, you know, some of, some of the trauma of a break that.

that sudden and that it's really only now. I think people, you know, they see on Instagram, you know, me and my tiny house, I'm happy. And that's true. It's also true that, that in the background, I have a personal life and that that is a, you know, healing, healing that. Tensity of a shift is, is still happening. I think it's starting to happen faster and I can feel kind of my new life.

taking root on another level, which I'm really excited about. But yes, it was wonderful. It was painful. It was all the things. Number six was the episode with Alaska. And thank you so much Alaska for sharing your wisdom with us.

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Episode number five was from September. This was the episode with Felice Cohen. Now, Felice was living the tiny lifestyle before any of us knew what a tiny house was. She spent over five years in 90 square feet in an apartment in New York City. And why? Because she had a mission that she was trying to accomplish. How did your friends and family react to you kind of, you know, moving into this teeny tiny space?

Well, they thought it was crazy because again, this was before Living Tiny was a thing. But when they saw, first of all, how happy I was and how less stressed I was and how efficient I could be and how productive and you wake up and it's like, what am I doing today based on what I want to do today? So it was, I want to go for a bike ride. I want to go to a yoga class. I want to write for five hours. I want to do whatever. So Living Tiny allowed me to live my life how I wanted to live it.

And so at first, you know, they snickered and then they thought, well, wait a second, what are we doing wrong? And, you know, I grew up in a huge house and I always thought one day I would live in a huge house. But what I realized from living tiny was I don't need a huge house. I want to live large in my own way. And that was doing the things I love to do. Yeah. Yeah. It's that shift of mindset, right? Putting your dollars behind what you really want to do instead of just putting your dollars in the default.

You know, I always talk about this default past, this prescribed American dream, and we all just work so hard to stay in that prescribed path, but we never think about whether or not it actually is what we want to do with our dollars. So you were there for, you said five years. So what did you learn about yourself in that amount of time? That I don't need as much as I thought I did. And how.

much how much more happy I could be with less. You know, I started, you know, you think I did all these sweaters. You really don't. You think I need all these and all this and you really we wear the same things all the time. And, you know, I love to do projects. I love to do art. And when you're we're near the limited amount of space and even if you're in a big space, I just move my side to add so much stuff and she's freaking out because she's overwhelmed by the stuff. And we have projects we think we want to do it and.

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At the end of the day, you have to look at what your priorities are. And I had to reevaluate what my priorities were. You know, I made shrinketing art. I didn't need all these other things. I was saving these scraps and pieces. And I thought, what do I really want to focus on? And it makes you really look at your priorities. And one of my biggest priorities is my family. So with having a low overhead, I could travel. I could visit family. I love going to the theater. So I was kind of just seeing what do I love to do? And...

You know, when I work with a client, that's what I ask people, what do you love to do? And then why don't you do it that more often? And it's usually because of stuff, because we have to work to pay for the stuff. We have to clean the stuff. We have to organize the stuff. And at the end of the day, we don't even have time to use it or wear it or eat it or read it. So I think that was it. It was really kind of a wake up call. When I had moved in, I had put 77 boxes into storage.

And every year I stayed, I went back to storage and got rid of stuff and got rid of more stuff. And, you know, that's one thing I would help clients go to storage. You don't remember what's in storage. You pay with your month and it's just a hole. It's just like a hole in your pocket of money going through. Yeah.

Yeah, I interviewed, where is Babs? Barbara Talisman a few episodes ago and she's doing the house sitting thing. And it was fascinating to hear her talk about how every time she comes back to her storage unit, which is in Chicago, like she keeps getting rid of that stuff. And you're exactly right. You don't even remember. I mean, we just think about our attention span. We don't remember what we have for breakfast, much less what we put in storage. So, you know, shifting that priority to,

less and you're right, we wear the same, you know, our favorite things, you know, over and over again, my husband says, just give me the top of the pile, right? Well, the top of the pile always ends up at the top because it comes straight down to the dryer. So just figure out what your favorite things are and just keep those things. And I think it's about sunk cost, you know, we know that we spent money on these things and we feel like we want to get the value out of them, but that's actually a psychological fallacy that we have.

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Because we'll continue to throw good money at that sunk cost and never actually get the value of it. And the way that we do that is by them putting it in storage, right? And throwing more money at that thing that we're never actually going to use because we spent money on it to begin with. And so we just cut our losses, right? Say, okay, I'm done losing money on all the stuff I've been toting around with me for my entire life. And I don't want to lose another penny on it. And I'm just going to move on.

I think that that can be very freeing to just realize that that is, you know, that's a natural psychological fallacy that we have. Yeah, I know. My dad will have like an old boombox or an old stereo from 1982 or something. He goes, well, I spent good money on it. I said, that was like 40 years ago. It's just this. It's taking them space. It's taking up real estate.

And I think that comes from that scarcity mentality that many of us like pass down through our family and the history, my grandparents, going through the depression and whatever, and they tended to keep a lot of things around because you never know when you might put that thing to use. And I think a lot of the thoughts around reduce, reuse, recycle and regenerative thought definitely encourages us to.

you know, make good use of things and not be so apt to throw things away, but there has to be, you know, kind of a balance there for sure. So if you haven't heard episode number 15 with Felice, make sure you go back and listen to that.

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Number four was the episode where we had a tiny house theme song on the show with Ash Mazanek. Ash was so kind to share her tiny house anthem with us. It was a great episode where we talked about music and sustainability and the connection through the tiny house community. I love that conversation with Ash and getting to hear her song.

which I've used many times on Instagram as the song on my reels. That was super fun. Make sure you check out episode number 16, which was number four for the year. So I, we're going to talk about your tiny house song in a minute, but if you would please introduce yourself to the listeners and the spectrum of your creative work. Fabulous. My name is Ashley Nadanek, Ash for short.

I am a musician and singer from San Diego, California. And currently my focus is within the tiny house movement. I've been writing music since I was 10 years old. I'm a professional singer and often gig on the weekends for three or four hours at a time and leaning into the soul and jazz world these days and.

Generally speaking, taking recording arts classes and wanting to record more music this year that is focused on the tiny house movement, the environmental movement at large. But I find that the tiny house movement is a fun and quirky subject matter. So I'm really leaning into that. I love that you say fun and quirky, cause I feel like that your song that you recently released, Shelter, is very fun and quirky. So would you tell us how that song came to be? Absolutely.

So I have a friend from graduate school. I studied environmental policy and got my master's degree from UCSD. And one of my colleagues who also was focusing on the environment approached me about doing a climate change focused video. And I said, well, I have a lot of ideas. I'm currently living in a tiny home and it would be fun to discuss or explore the possibility.

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of a creative project that talked about how tiny homes are good for the environment. So for example, tiny homes have 1 14th the footprint of an average home in the USA. They require way less land, right? Way less ecological resources. So we often think of energy as our footprint, but there's other things that go into that as well, like the materials, the water that go into that. And of course the habitat that is taken away from wild animals in order for our house to exist.

So she had to think about it for a second. And ultimately her and her team decided that doing a tiny house music video was in their wheelhouse and that it would be something fun to focus on. So then we moved forward with that and I got a team together. We worked with the San Diego music and art company and recorded the song, which I wrote. and from there we got the cameras out and we had some fun in the Emerald submarine at the Emerald village in Vista, California.

Yes, it is such a fun song. And I think that it's great that you sort of highlight the statistics. I am still standing today in my sort of normal house on my path to my tiny house next year. And it's excruciatingly a hot summer for everyone. And yet I'm out on the porch most of the time.

watching that air conditioning running and buzzing along, right? So thinking about, you know, how wasteful it is, not only to my resources, but just the overall drain on the grid and, you know, the money that goes into all of our utilities. And so I love that you point out that 1 14th, because how much space do we really need? I think a lot of us need a lot less than we are currently living in. Absolutely.

And then if you, if you also consider that a lot of people are looking for more affordable homes, it's sort of this beautiful connect of there are people that want to pay less money for housing and they want smaller homes. And by the way, it's good for the environment. And some people that want to do good for the environment and hey, I also get to save money by, you know, by less moolah, right? Little less moolah. That's right. That's right. So what do you see the mission of this song being?

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Yeah, so riding shelter was really a celebration kind of an anthem for the tiny house movement because we have made a lot of progress in the last few years. San Diego has passed a few laws even my hometown and Sanitas has made accessory dwelling units of more streamlined process, which just means that it's a little bit easier, a little bit less expensive.

to add a smaller home into your backyard if you own a larger home. And that does include tiny homes. Now the tiny homes have to be certified up to a certain standard in order to do that. And I won't get into the weeds in terms of legalities, but there are also, there are many more wins to be made. So it's both the celebratory anthem and it's also a call to action for people to support going tiny. For example, we have a...

In Encinitas, at least a few years ago when I went to the last planning meeting that I went to, we had a 600 square foot minimum for any new homes for a main dwelling. So that means if you buy a plot of land and you want to build a home, you can't build smaller than 600 square feet as your main home. Now, for most people, that's okay. But for those of us that want to live tiny, we might want to have, I don't know, a 400 square foot home. We might want to do two 400 square foot homes.

or threes for indescribable. Now don't even get into quantity, right? Cause there's all these rules around how many you can have. But those are the types of hurdles that we're still facing as a movement and the types of hurdles that I foresee coming down in the relatively near future as we run up against more issues with climate change, needing to switch to more renewable energy and switching, having some more conservation be a part of that. And then of course the affordable housing situation in California is pretty out of control.

So that's one way that we can keep our costs low in terms of building new homes. It's just building them smaller.

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Episode number three was my conversation with the sort of leaders in tiny house living. That would be Alexis and Christian from tiny house expedition. They have a huge following on YouTube and really have been such leaders in our industry. They are sitting on many boards of different tiny house organizations, really doing some great work on the legalization front. And they had some really practical guides.

for figuring out your tiny house living solution. We talked about sticking with it and staying the course on your path to tiny living. We also talked about DIY home building because they have built all of their homes. They have a bus build that they're working on. They have an A -frame cabin and they have their original tiny house that they built and lived in together. So great conversation. Number three,

Episode 18 back from September. Well, you know, I watched your living tiny legally documentary that is, you know, all over YouTube and on your website. And it seems like a lot of legalized movement is really coming on cities taking this on and people advocating within their municipality in order to get little commute.

built out, possibility fitted in spaces that weren't good for other uses, which of course is really important for people, for jobs, right? I mean, we have to have a place for people to work. So it seems like that traction is there rather than more of the one -off rural space, which is my tiny house story. My tiny house is dropped in the middle of nowhere. So I am starting to get really.

curious and interested for my future in this notion of community and living in community. I even see on your website, you mentioned something about you're working on a homestead village, which kind of piqued my interest. So what do you see of the benefits of living in community, especially for folks that are inclined in this way towards minimalism and tiny living? Yeah, great question. We just...

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tiny home communities, the way we see it is that they come in a lot of different forms. I mean, of course there's what people think of like a picturesque village kind of form and there's pockets. But another great one is like a micro village that could be on a suburban lot or it could be on maybe a handful of acres. But that's where there's a main house that someone's living in and then.

You know, one to three tiny houses on the property. And what I love about that, cause we've experienced that a lot personally. This is such a great way to build ships and a very like, just like an egg and heartwarming way where it's like, you don't have to be best friends. There can be, you can't sit down and create, you know,

rules or guidelines, or it can be more loose depending on the people. But the thing is, is there's always going to be opportunities, of course, to say hello and have an unexpected station, but also to help each other out. You know, maybe someone gets hurt and they need that happened with one of our hosts where he broke his arm. Yeah. He broke his elbow. Yeah. So he and his wife, his wife called me inside the house and said, Hey, can you help me? He fell down at a car wash and, and.

We need to, I need to take them to the hospital and would you be able to get his car for me? So yeah, so of course I wrote over there and helped him out the best I could. And then for the next, was it year almost? Yeah, a long time. Yeah. He was doing rehab, so he couldn't, you know, so I was doing things like taking out the trash every week. You cut the grass for them and that kind of stuff. Shuttle in snow. And so we had more conversations with them and this is definitely a very informed community take. You know, I bring that up because I, because I think, you know, there's.

different ways to think about community. I know so many people express how, you know, they don't know their neighbors. They just kind of felt it. So even if you just have a quarter acre, half acre, you know, there's the possibilities for something like this. And we've also seen really wonderful intentional communities done on that small scale where the people share the main house. So there's that resource sharing on available land, you know, and of course in bigger communities, there's a lot of neighborliness and.

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resource sharing and, and more opportunities for community building with activities and whatnot. Like, we were recently at the Acone Bell tiny home village, North Carolina, such an incredible village. They're the best in the nation. They get together and do like a creek cleanup and they have occasional potlucks and people help cats and dogs sit and, and it just feels good to be connected to the folks around you. And we can do everything on our own.

So it's nice to have the support. Yeah, for sure. I was just, sort of doing a little LinkedIn rant yesterday about the way, way that the American dream is sort of institutionalizing shin that we have. Right. And as a financial planner, I see so many women, you know, cause women live longer and they're, you know, often the one to solo age living, rattling around.

in these houses that they worked so hard to achieve and pay off. And yet it's so terribly lonely and depressed. So how beautiful that the tiny living movement can help restart the conversation around community that really historically humans have lived in community and in village and have been.

able to resource share and provide support for each other. And it's so important for our mental health to have those relationships. And we've forgotten about that while we kept ourselves locked away in our ticky tacky homes where we don't know our neighbors. So I love that.

Now, episode number two was the conversation that I had with Amanda Akuna. And this was a great conversation because Amanda is in her tiny house with her family of four. And so we really got to dive into what it is to be in a tiny house with kids and what it was that drove them in that direction and how they're creating an intentional lifestyle with their children in tiny living.

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So really fun conversation with Amanda Acuna. Number two, back from November of 2023. I have a twin sister and she's very like -minded and she kind of helped me get unstuck. You know, like when you get stuck in that like thinking, overthinking stuff. And she's like, while you're planning everything five to 10 years in the future, the future isn't even real right now. We have like the present. So she's like, start thinking like,

one to two years instead. And that's what really helped us or helped me. My husband was fine, but like helped me kind of jump out and be like, yeah, you know what, she's right. Like quality of life matters more, especially with kids this young. We wanna give them a certain life. We wanna learn so much stuff right now. So we're like, okay, we'll think two years. And then from there, we'll figure out what's up. Yeah, good. So say more about that. What kind of life are you trying to give your children?

we, we really value nature and spending time outside. And I feel like that is so much of what kids need and are missing these days. It's like, like I also home school my son's only four. So for me, it's like, he shouldn't be, I don't, I don't feel like he should be in school inside in four walls. Like he's not a four wall kind of kid. He's a little boy. He just wants to bounce off the walls if he's inside, but outside they turn into totally different people and like they're centered and they're calm and they're exploring and.

Like he knows every single kind of bug out here and we know how to identify snakes already. Like it's, it's really, really cool. So our values are really to like learn and respect nature and spend more time outside. And that was the other thing too. It's like, what I love about tiny living is like when we have a big house, big living areas, everyone has their own room, their own bathroom. They're like, you're so divided and kind of like closed off in this space where tiny living it's small.

So it's more comfortable and freeing and nice to be outside. You're kind of pushed to be outside. We're outside like six, seven hours a day now, which is insane. And I love it so much. And there's never, it's like never ending stuff to explore. It sounds like your experience so far has pretty been pretty good. Aside from the nature piece, is there anything else that really stands out for you that has been a huge change for your life? Really? Just like really we've learned a lot already being out. We've been out here about a month. We've learned a lot.

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Like the lit like kind of tougher things like electric were now on solar, but that was quite the struggle initially. Stuff that we didn't really, you've never really had to struggle with, you know? And interestingly, like, I feel like camping and spending like tent camping and stuff like that has prepared us because it's like, we've roughed it before, but we were on a generator for a whole month. Yeah. So like learning, we're learning a lot. Everything's more intentional. I feel like.

more intentional. We're learning how we can get power from the sun. My husband learned all this electric stuff that is like, my gosh, beyond me. But it's been a huge learning experience. We're learning about regenerative farming. It's pretty cool. Amazing. So what have you heard from other members of your community, friends or family, when you suggested tiny living might be an option for them? Yeah. So it's been...

We've had a lot of mix things, a lot, most people around us are so excited for what we're doing. And they're like, I love watching it, but I could never do it. a lot of it, a lot of it is limiting beliefs because I feel like we're so conditioned to think inside this box of society and like how we're, how we should live and what we should have and consumerism and all this stuff we should have. And then we have the attachment to this stuff and it's a whole cycle.

And first of all, I don't think tiny living is for everybody, but to like completely close off the whole idea because it's different or scary or the lack of space. I feel like is doing people a disservice when there's so many other options out there. And like the people who own the farm, they're building a year and it's a huge year. It's the biggest year I've ever seen. But like the point is there's so many different living situations that can solve so many people's issues, whether it's finance issues or.

quality of life. And I think just being able to think outside the box and basically question everything. Like when it comes to consumers, we're not buying as much stuff because we're in a small space. We're way more intentional when it comes to things like that. Yeah, I just published an article on LinkedIn on Monday about limiting beliefs. And you and I have that similar experience that everybody's so fascinated.

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but they say, I could never do that. Right? And I just wonder, like, what do you get the sense that they cannot live like that or they cannot do that? What do you think the root cause of that is? I think it's just fear, like fear of being different. Some people even, it's like what other, fear of what other people might think. And not to say like we all haven't dealt with that, but...

It's kind of separating yourself and just being like, well, what works for me and my family rather than the comparison game. I feel like fear and then social conditioning is just, we're conditioned from a young age to be a certain way and do a certain thing. I think being able to kind of explore what's true to you and whether it's different or not is what.

can be stopping people is when they're able to actually tap into that and see what really works for them. This was episode number 23, so check that out if you haven't.

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And the top episode for the entirety of the year was my conversation with Alisa Boots and Rick, and they actually have two tiny houses that they live in side by side. So they have been inside of the tiny house ecosystem for a long time, and they know a lot going on with the legalization efforts. They talked about their financial freedom pass, as well as their

search for community and how that has been an ongoing project. They were such great guests with so much wisdom. So if you have not heard the top episode from the last year, make sure you check that out. That was in November of 2023. I think that the flexibility alone and the financial, you know,

Where do you value? What are your values for where you put your money? You know, and for us, it's new experiences in that undiscovered country, so to speak. And especially and this goes across the board of whatever age group you're in. I mean, I was just watching something. I used to live in New York City way back a long time ago. And now for people to live in the city, anywhere from 50 to 80 percent of their income has to go to rent. That's just that's just untenable.

I mean, we can't do that much longer. And then of course, if you want to buy even out here in the Pacific Northwest, this is why we went tiny. We were going to be stuck in an apartment forever because we just, you know, the time we came out here is when all the prices literally started going up and whatever money we had wasn't even going to touch something that was barely livable. You know, some little post -war box that was built 80 years ago.

for half a million dollars, you know, at the least, right? So, and I feel like, you know, every group of people from the time you're in your twenties on, you know, that money is a huge issue today. It's the American dream is such that you can't, even if you're necessarily mean, you can have a house. So this is a great shot to go tiny. And the other benefit is yes, the flexibility, the artistic, you're not living in a box.

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You can have the things that you want as tiny living is concerned. And I would say for anybody who really, you know, is thinking about this, and I see this online, a lot of people are like, you're going to be tiny. What do I do? Well, the first thing you need to do is talk to your county or your town or your municipality. And if they're like, no, then you say why, you know, and you make them explain to you why they can't have it. And you know, then you can counter with.

Well, this is a really good conversation because this is what you can gain if you allow us to go tiny. And I think that's where it has to start. And you're talking about that flood gate. Well, if all those people actually started calling our local towns and municipalities saying, Hey, what's your view on tiny houses? Our own tiny house world, right? Surrounded by YouTube and, and the podcast and everything, but it's up to us to educate people. That's why we're on this podcast to, to let them know that yes, it is possible.

Yes, you can thrive. Yes, there's a lot more that needs to be done. But yes, I do feel that we are coming to the point where those gates are going to have to open and people are going to have to be heard by their towns and counties. And it's really hard to go if you don't actually have the need in medical sense, then they're not likely to be as interested as if I have a tiny home and I need to to put it down. You know, where are the rules or, you know,

do can I even live in this county? You know, are you prohibiting me from living where I would like to live and being part of your community and couch it that way? I hope that's not too aggressive, but it just depends on, you know, who they are. But just kind of like, well, why not? You know, and because a lot of times it's never been tested. You may have to go before the city council or the county commissioner and say, you know, we need to amend the zoning.

a lot of towns and municipalities still consider tiny homes to be like a mobile home or a RV, and we're not. And so we're always trying to tell people, and I think many people have done this, it's like, well, come visit my tiny home. I mean, if you can't picture it, come see my tiny home, see what we're doing, see how this industry is different. And I do know that in some cases, I think there was a case down in

Less House More Moola podcast (37:57.486)
I want to say San Diego, somewhere around this, where this woman actually was granted her little lot in the suburban neighborhood and her little tiny home on it. And it took years, but she invited people, please come, please visit, you know, and, and let me show you around. Let me tell you why this is different. And once they started to see that the wheels started to turn, so to speak, to get her, you know, a variance in the ordinance so she could live there.

And I believe that that's, we're, you know, short of a heavy hitting national organization. And I mean like a heavy hitting one. It's going to be up to us as owners to be activists, to stand our champion, our cause, so to speak.

Yeah, so I think that that's a great awareness too for folks that are interested in going this route that you are going to have to advocate for yourself. And this is a great growth opportunity for house if you've never had to do it before, because things have been the path has been laid out for you because you know this.

Standard American dream was laid out for all of us. The path was right. All we had to do was walk down it and give away all of our time and 40 % of our resources and all that. So if you want a different path, you're gonna have to advocate for yourself still at this moment in time. And so you can do it and there's people around you that can help you figure out exactly how to do it and what to say. This is why.

We have all these great sort of legends of the tiny house world who are here to support you as you do the number one episode was number 24 with Elisa and Rick.

Less House More Moola podcast (39:44.014)
As I mentioned, we have some great stuff coming up for you in the next year. So more of that in the next episode. Thank you so much for joining me on this tiny living journey. I need to hear from you. Who would you like to hear from on the podcast? What topics? What questions do you have? What problems are you running into in your path to tiny living?

Would you please send me an email to laura at the tiny house advisor .com and let me know what it is that you're looking for. That's L A U R A at the tiny house advisor. Advisor is A B B I S E R .com and let me know who you'd like to hear from, what topics you'd like covered. If you have any guest suggestions, I need to hear what you would like to hear more of.

Less House More Moola podcast (40:51.182)
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. Just have to go to thetinyhouseadvisor .com. It's the tiny house.

adviser .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.

Less House More Moola podcast (41:39.016)
Please see the show notes for important disclosure regarding the tiny house advisor LLC and this episode.