5 Must-see Episodes Recap + Thanksgiving Reflections with Laura Lynch

In this episode, Laura Lynch reflects on the top downloaded episodes of her podcast as Thanksgiving approaches. She revisits key conversations from 2024, highlighting themes of financial independence, unconventional living, tiny homes, and sustainable building practices. Each segment offers insights into the journeys of various guests, from overcoming corporate burnout to creating sustainable living spaces.

For full show notes and more information visit: 

Go to www.altamericandream.com

Transcript

Less House More Moola podcast (00:05.974)
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 (00:43.544)
Hey there, Laura here. I wanted to take a second and say hello to the listener in Wilbur, Massachusetts who sent me a text message. Thank you so much for your feedback and for letting me know that the Holly episode was valuable to you and how you heard about me. The message was really helpful and timely. So thank you so much.

For those of you who aren't aware, you can send me a message through the link on any podcast episode page on your podcast player that says, Laura a message. This takes you over into the text function of your phone. The message is anonymized, so I can't reply and I don't know who sent it, but it does allow me to get feedback about what's resonating with you and what you'd like to hear more of.

So if you find an episode that's particularly useful to you, or if there's something you want to hear more about, then go over into the podcast episode page and just click the link to send me a message. Again, thanks to the listener in Wilburn, Massachusetts for sending me yours.

Less House More Moola podcast (01:58.864)
Hey friends, as we're coming up on Thanksgiving, I thought that in episode 78, we might take a little rewind into 2024 and look at the top downloaded episodes so far. So we're going to dive into little refresher on the top five. if you're new to Less House More Moola podcast, this will get you a quick catch up on all of the great conversations that we had this year.

In episode one, we talked to Ashley in us about her school adventure from corporate burnout to unconventional living. Ashley was a great example of someone who had been in the fire lifestyle. That's the financial independence, retire early lifestyle, and then found that the endless focus on saving for an unknown future wasn't allowing her to live today.

So make sure that you enjoy this recap of my conversation with Ashley.

At first, I was really scared when the pandemic kind of started. And it shifted my focus more from saving for this future that I finally realized might not come. I was putting off a whole lot of living today to, you know, for this future that I wasn't sure I would kind of make it to.

I don't know. So it really changed my perspective and what my goals were. So yeah, I think a lot of people, you know, kind of shifted their perspective during the pandemic. Certainly that was a pivotal time for us to, you know, we had been up in Virginia with kind of visiting family and on our way south with the camper on the truck and we're like stopping at campgrounds and the campgrounds are.

Less House More Moola podcast (03:57.945)
closing as you're going and you start hearing stuff about state borders being closed and all of that. And the whole time we're driving south, I'm like, can we just go to the tiny house? Can we just go to the right? Where do you want to be in a pandemic? Right? Is it living out sort of a conventional life and kind of blowing around in the winds of what's happening in corporate world? Or do you want to just hunker down with your core people and like ride out the storm?

And so I think that that was a big change. And then also the notion around what you're working so hard for. Absolutely. Right. Yeah. How you're spending your time for money to do what with it. I think a lot of people just really had a chance to root into their values during that period. So you had been focused so heavily on that notion of, you know, kind of suspend living today for a future day when, you know, you pull the

You know, you pull the rip cord, right? And you go out and you kind of like live your life. And so you kind of shifted that focus. So tell me more about that. This whole retirement dream that I had was like RV travel. It was something that I was just like, yeah, I'm going to we're going to do this. We're going to get out of this early and then I'm going to go see the United States and the world do some international travel, you know, but I

I started just thinking about, when that date would come, would I still be able to do all the hikes that we wanted to do and get around the way that we wanted to? I just started seeing things differently. So this RV retirement travel, I was like, why can't we do it now? I was working remote for the first time in my career, you know? mean, and I'm living in Southwest Florida.

sitting at my coffee table, you know, working and for the first time, like I could go walk in my shorts and t-shirt and enjoy the sunshine in the middle of the day. I'm like, what am I, what am I doing? Why would I want to continue down this path? I mean, I was at a point in my career, I was being groomed and being offered a position as a director of tax at a multi-billion dollar company. It was

Less House More Moola podcast (06:18.413)
very hard to kind of shut that down. But I started just looking around at the people that were higher up, you know, the director currently, the VP of tax that I was working for, I loved my team. My boss was awesome, like, but I started looking around at these people. And I'm like, is that really what I want for myself? And the truth was, I was climbing a ladder I didn't want to climb, you know, so

I don't know, I really started thinking differently around that time. You mentioned Seth Godin in one of your podcasts, I think the practice, I read a book called The Icarus Deception during the pandemic. And that kind of started opening my mind a lot too. And there was this one quote that really kind of stuck with me and I just perseverated on it. And it just, I turned it over in my mind for weeks, I think. And it's,

Freedom's not the ability to do whatever you want. It's the willingness to do whatever you want. And I kept telling myself that I was saving all this money for the ability to do what I wanted at some future time, but I wasn't willing to do that now. And it just really changed my perspective a lot. So yeah, we made a radical lifestyle shift and took what I call the

kind of a grownup gap year. yeah, no looking back now, I guess. So obviously there's a lot of different options in the sort of space. You could have gone RV, you could have gone fan, you could have gone schoolie. How did schoolie first and how did that meet your needs? We started thinking about RVs and I've kind of, RVs have been kind of notorious for breaking.

And I think the build quality, we started looking into things and the build quality during COVID was going down. So we started looking at maybe vans, but we have two big dogs. So we decided that a van would probably not quite fit that need. We needed something a little bit bigger and we ran into schoolies and the whole bus life movement. I don't know, there's kind of a cool factor to it.

Less House More Moola podcast (08:42.019)
the, you we started seeing people just doing this work themselves. And we really, I wanted the project, you know, not just moving into something that came off a factory line with tons of problems. Like I wanted, it's a, it's a, it's a very sturdy base to build in and just the project aspect, what we wanted and you know.

In October of 2020, when we bought the bus, there wasn't much else to do. So it was a great time to spend nights and weekends just working on something for ourselves. yeah. The second downloaded episode from 2024 was the conversation with myself that I had about home equity. Is home equity really your savior? This was episode 40.

on, in February of 2024. And in this episode, I used a real time example of what was going on with interest rates at the time and average home prices to run two scenarios and talk through those scenarios from a financial planning perspective in terms of what is the just raw number outcome of choosing a traditional American dream house versus choosing a tiny house.

So if you're wondering about the numbers and if they make sense, make sure you listen to the full episode number 40. And here's a little recap. So there's two things at play when we think about home equity. One is how much you own minus how much you owe. So when you first buy a property with a mortgage, you are buying

for 80 % of the value if you have a 20 % down payment. If you're using another loan product and you only have to put down 3%, then you owe 97%. And if the price you get the property at is fair market value at the time, you kind of are at your lowest home equity point immediately following the purchase.

Less House More Moola podcast (11:02.255)
The other thing at play is what is going on in the housing market. And so this is where people really are kind of talking about the home equity piece because people have this understanding that real estate values go up over time. And so historically speaking, on average, residential real estate since 1968 has gone up at about 5.4%.

This varies significantly depending on where you are. Obviously, different areas of the country have seen their property values soar, whereas other areas of the country may have seen values go down. Likewise, markets fluctuate based on supply and demand trends, based on what's going on with interest rates. so real estate, just like any other investment, has some risks associated with it.

when it comes to what the market is going to do.

So in the whole home equity part of the equation where it's really about how much you have paid off, so how much ownership you have, if your property is getting paid off in a 30 year mortgage, then the idea is at the end of 30 years, you will have full ownership of the property if you stay on the payment schedule. Now, if you refinance the home, then your

30-year time frame will likely change in some regard. Very often what happens is that people refinance in order to lower their payment due to interest rates going down or they refinance to take cash out of their equity, which we're going to talk about a little bit more in a bit, or they sell their property and buy another property if they are upgrading to a new property.

Less House More Moola podcast (13:00.441)
Sometimes they will take on yet again a 30 year mortgage and extend the timeframe that they are going to be working off that debt in order to get into full ownership of the property. So a lot of things in life can kind of shift around when it comes to that sort of really basic path of building up the full equity within 30 years.

Less House More Moola podcast (13:28.879)
I think it's important to understand that there are times when you can do everything right and the property can have zero or less than zero equity. I bought my first home after reading Homebuyer for Dummies and being really diligent about understanding the home buying process. And yet I bought it in 2007, right before the Great Recession.

So I was buying a home in Las Vegas while still attached with the Air Force. And so that property just plummeted in value as the Great Recession played out and ultimately was short sold in order to kind of cash out of the property when it was in an upside down position, meaning more was owned, owed on the property than what was owned on the property.

So that was a significant lesson for me in what can happen. so ideas that just by purchasing a sort of traditional home that you're in a secure position were definitely disrupted during that period. And there have been other periods in time where home values were not going up. They were in fact going down. Now at that time in my life,

I was maybe not nearly as educated as I am today when it comes to financial topics. And by buying a home, I was in essence sort of constructing a saving strategy for myself. So I think this is where we sometimes think about home equity being sort of the first place we go when we're trying to create

financial security for ourselves. When you are locked in a mortgage, it is most likely going to be the bill that you're definitely going to pay. And so to some degree, if that real estate is going to increase in value over time, you're in a bit of a forced savings strategy. So home equity, which is often described as the traditional way that Americans have built wealth, certainly has a

Less House More Moola podcast (15:52.015)
construct around it of the mortgage that incentivizes us to make sure that we are putting that money into that asset over time. So it often will create wealth for folks who otherwise wouldn't if they had that extra money in their bank account, perhaps they would not save it and they would spend it. And so I think that there are definitely times when home equity in its forced

way through a mortgage is very much a saving grace for people. The third most downloaded episode from 2024 so far was episode 42. And that was building a tiny solution to a big problem with Travis Pike. Travis is one of the influential home builders in the tiny home world working out of Tennessee. They have a great business and Travis's business has a great story.

about how they're evolving with the changing landscape in tiny homes, especially in their area in Tennessee. So make sure you check that one out. And here's a little preview of that conversation I had with Travis back in March of 2024. Yeah. My name is Travis Pike. I'm the owner, founder, chief CEO and chief design officer of Wind River Tiny Homes.

And we're currently just to let the audience know, kind of going through a rebranding. We've been Wind River Tiny Homes for 10 years and kind of rebranding to Wind River Built. But we'll still have Wind River Tiny Homes as kind of a subcategory to what we're offering going into the future. Yeah, awesome. So we're definitely going to dig into that a little bit as far as the changes that you are currently going through.

10 years is a long time to be in business. And so it's exciting to hear your perspective on where things have come from, where you've come from and where you're going and where your business is going. So to get us started, would you just share with us what home was like for you growing up? For me, was, we, grew up a family of five and we actually lived with my grandparents as well.

Less House More Moola podcast (18:16.407)
until I was in eighth grade. And my grandfather was a, he was a carpenter and builder by trade. And so that's kind of just what I grew up in working in his shop that was right there at our house. And so that definitely heavily influenced, you know, what I'm doing today. Our family traveled a bunch. We backpack, rock climb.

like to get outdoors and one of our favorite places to go since I was five years old was the Wind River Range in Northwestern Wyoming near the Tetons. And so I've been there probably a couple dozen times in the last 30 years. And so that's one of our favorite places to go and kind of influenced, you know, the name behind our company. so, yeah, traveled a lot and, you know, very much encouraged to kind of follow

follow our dreams and passions. so, yeah, school went to school for a while, but, you know, I've always liked working with my hands and designing and creating and, then that kind of just led to, to where we're at with winter retirements. Awesome. It sounds like that, that experience of focusing on experiences being in maybe multi-generational housing with having your grandparents there, probably all kind of play into your

tiny home view or philosophy. Would you say that some of those experiences growing up sort of took you in that direction? Yeah, definitely. And just our from both sides of the family, we've we've always had, you maybe family living with us, kind of multi generational, you know, parents now and my brother, his fiance actually live in a tiny home on our property now. So

Both my wife and I's family and me growing up. Yeah, there was always kind of that extended family close by and I think that's pretty special to to have that and it's I think it's influenced, you know once getting into building tiny homes, that's a really practical solution to have additional housing and space for other family members to live nearby. Yeah, it sounds like that.

Less House More Moola podcast (20:37.761)
people are looking for those solutions right now because we're all aware of the really high cost of, you know, sort of custodial support, health, health, care for folks in their later generations. And so bringing them into your backyard allows for a family to care for their family members and sort of a traditional way and kind of make it more affordable for a family to make sure that their elders and

know, grandparents and parents are well taken care of. Right. Yeah, very much so. We kind of have a in our reach kind of who we're trying to reach and find solutions for. We kind of market those that are looking to launch and those that are looking to land. it's launching might be your your child is about to go up to college or they're old enough to have a place on their own. And so you're trying to find a solution for them. That's not, you know,

renting or buying a house right out of the gate or landing and that's your parents maybe moving back in with you or other family members. Yeah, I love that launch or land and it sounds like that launching was kind of where you personally first experienced a tiny home as a solution. So share with us, how did you first hear about tiny homes? Why did this seem like a good solution for you? Yeah, so was 2000.

Probably 2012, I'd heard about Tiny Homes in a local newspaper, Chattanooga Times Street Press. it was a feature on tumbleweed tiny homes that Jay Schaeffer started back in the day. And I read that and it was just fascinating. I was in the trades, I was working for contractors, doing all sorts of things. And it just seemed like a practical, something about it clicked. It was like, can build this right here in my parents' driveway.

I just moved back and was still taking classes in college and was like, should, I should just do this. It's something that I could, I should do. And so I bought a trailer on Craigslist the next week. I'm kind of the type that I'll just, you know, jump in. If it feels right, jump in, figure it out on the go. So looking back, I probably wouldn't have bought the trailer I bought on Craigslist, an old farm trailer, but got that and just started.

Less House More Moola podcast (23:00.995)
doing the deep dive on everything I could find on YouTube and online about tiny home designs and how they were built. So the fourth most downloaded episode was the evolving landscape of tiny home financing and communities with Abby Schenck. Abby and I volunteer together at the tiny home industry association. So this conversation was

super in-depth and fascinating. Abby is really playing a pivotal role in terms of building and creating communities in her area. And so this was a wonderful conversation about how she sees the landscape from the inside of the industry and how she is solving the financing question.

So make sure you check that. That was episode 37 downloaded or recorded and published February 8th of 2024 and episode number 37. Yeah. So we started out as a tiny home community that's called Tiny Estates. We now have parks in PA, South Carolina and Florida under the Tiny Estates brand. And then partnerships. Some of them are called Tiny Estates and others aren't. And then also a build company.

We work with Atomic Homes who builds the houses and then we sell them. So the sales company selling the tiny houses is called Endeavor Tiny Homes. Awesome. So in those communities, they Airbnb communities? Are they people bring their tiny house? What are in those communities? So tiny states in Pennsylvania was our first park and it started out as all nightly rentals. But after COVID hit, it pivoted to an owner community, a lot like a mobile home park where they rent the lot, but they own the house.

We have a few that are nightly rentals and that really allows people to try it out. And we're trying to do that same concept with our parks. So we have some owners who want to do a park of all rentals and that's great. But for our parks, we're really trying to do owner parks that have a few that people can either experience the community or experience tiny living and really see what it's like before they get a sense of, you know, the area and if it's for them. So for folks that are out there that are trying to figure out what communities might be available, where they could park their tiny house.

Less House More Moola podcast (25:08.291)
Do you have a wait list? What is the sort of the availability of a place to park? That is a tricky point of contention with people because we do have a wait list, but to me, the wait list doesn't really feel like a wait list. We were experiencing that when somebody gives their notice to leave, it's a 60 day lot termination. So they'll sign out for a lease. They give 60 days notice when they're ready to move. And it's a transient situation. So a lot of people will come and go.

And in doing that, were finding that builds are, you know, six months or a year out. And so people were having trouble coming to fill the lots because they didn't want to have a house with nowhere to go and they didn't want to have a lot open and then not have a build ready. So that's part of the reason we got into the idea of selling tiny homes. We wanted to have something available for people if they wanted something quickly. So the homes we sell, you can get in six weeks. You don't have to put an atomic home in our community, but for a lot of people that solved the issue of being on our quote unquote wait list.

And then if you know they already had a build great and if they didn't they could get whatever they wanted whether full custom or a model we already have that would fit that lot in that 60 day time frame. That's awesome. so generally speaking, would you say people into your wait list end up with a place to park? Yeah, I our goal is to expand and do communities all over the country, so our hope is to make it quicker and quicker and easier and easier and be a one stop shop for people to be able to find something.

kind of regardless of where they want to be in the country. But we're really trying to work with other community owners. It's such a collaborative industry. So for us being able to have a network that it might not be one of our parks and it might not even be a tiny home community yet. But even if it's just somebody saying, hey, I have land that would be great for it, or hey, I really want to do a community, but it's an RV park right now, then we kind of have this list of how we can connect people. And if somebody reaches out and says, you know, I'm looking for a park in this area, we can connect people with like minds and similar interests.

Yeah, so you're like sort of the go to hub of of maybe a variety of parking resources and education, which I'm sure takes a little bit more than just you from keeping track of all of this, because it just is a fast moving and ever changing situation. So you have staff that are helping you, obviously. Yeah, I have a wonderful staff that is along my side for operations and logistics and accounting and all that good stuff. So

Less House More Moola podcast (27:31.575)
A lot of people see my face and we're trying to make that not so, our team knows everything that I know. So you don't have to see me to get a good story and get a tour and things like that. But I'm happy to help when I can as well personally. That's so awesome. So you've been in this tiny ecosystem for a while now. So it's not your original.

career path I know from our previous conversation. So how did you first come to the tiny ecosystem? Yeah, so I was in forensic investigations with one of the big accounting firms and decided to move home, kind of get out of corporate America. And in doing so, we were as a family taking on an antique store, which overlooked the Amish farmland. And my dad's secretary had moved to Colorado at the time to work remotely. And that was when one of the first jamborees was going on in the industry.

And so when we were visiting her, it was kind of just like a fun weekend activity, but it sparked my interest. I had always been intrigued by interior design and the small space was something unique. So to me, it was like, well, we could put one at the antique store. You the staff could oversee it. People could Airbnb in the Lancaster countryside. But unbeknownst to me, know, zoning and code were a huge hiccup, especially, you know, they are still now, but especially at the inception of the movement. so.

we bought a frame of all struck frame from Texas and had it shipped to Pennsylvania. And as soon as that went up on the trailer, we got calls from the township, you know, what are you doing? That can't be here. It doesn't meet code. So we spent about a year moving it to different properties, trying to figure out what we were going to do with it. Ultimately finishing it out inside of a warehouse so that we wouldn't get in trouble and then not having anywhere to go with it. And then that became, okay, well, why is that a problem? And how do we go about that?

And ultimately finding the most rundown property that we could and saying to the township, we understand that, you know, it's a risk because there isn't a code for them to meet yet. but the property was such a risk already and had kind of evolved into an eyesore that we felt like it was a win for everybody. You know, we'll clean it up. We'll make it look nice. It'll be high-end units. And so that's kind of how we got our start. And now we have that as a great pilot project in Boiler when we go to other communities to say,

Less House More Moola podcast (29:41.247)
talk to the neighbors in PA or talk to the guests and see what it's done for the town and how great it has been. And the evolution of zoning and code has also helped. But it's great to show that kind of before and after of how dilapidated it was and what it became because the township was willing to do so. And the fifth and one of the most interesting episodes I've recorded, I got the opportunity to go sit with Amanda and Dane in their Earthship here in Northern

New Mexico, where I live now. And we had a great conversation about how they literally built their entire house themselves. They dug the dirt with shovels. They have built an earthship, which is one of those beautiful homes that is internally sustainable in terms of collecting its own water, creating its own energy.

and really repurposing that energy and water over and over again. And to, they're both weavers making beautiful artwork and to sit with them inside of their amazing creation and to talk through how they did everything themselves with no heavy machinery was truly just a stunning,

opportunity for me to get to talk with them. We do a lot of building, you know, in our lives, as you know, but we have a lot of equipment to help. So it was just really a wonder to me of what they had accomplished with sheer muscle. I am Amanda Spear. I moved here with Dane almost 15 years ago, 14 years ago, and we

are sitting in our finished now Earthship, which we built from the ground up. And I mean, we just finished it yesterday. Yeah, I'm Dane Daller and we're in the back of the kitchen. Yeah. Of sizable project that we're now pretty much done with. Yeah. So awesome. So.

Less House More Moola podcast (31:54.115)
Tell us a little bit about your journey to building your own home. I mean, you've lived other places and had other homes in the past. So how did you come to this place where you wanted to build your own space? We moved here from Chicago and we were renting and we kind of got sick of that, like just having these rundown apartments and then.

not wanting to fix them ourselves and then we didn't really have the money or careers or anything to like get a mortgage to buy anything. So and we kind of had it with the big city, I guess. So we ended up here and we're able to buy some land and we kind of just

dove in and step by step. Yeah. All the stars aligned. We found the land and learned about our ships the same. I think the same day and same week at least. Yeah. And we didn't have any money. And we realized that if you're building a house and you have time and energy, the earth ship is a good way to go. And then,

Yeah. So it was also a good way that we thought we could go in without really any experience and be able to have it not fall down or something like that. Like there's a lot of leeway. can be pretty, it's pretty forgiving. Yeah. When your walls are two and a half feet thick and way like

3,000 tons you can easily build on top of it without it having problems. don't really have to be an engineer or anything.

Less House More Moola podcast (34:07.847)
as long as you don't make some really insane errors. so yeah, was good. Yeah. I love the sweat equity piece of things and talk about this a lot because not only does building your own home,

allow you to get a little ahead from a financial perspective, but it also allows you just to build so much confidence within yourself. Like if you can build your own home, you can build pretty much anything. It's great way to, I don't know, it's after I did it or while I was doing it, I thought, Hey, everybody should do this. And it really is how you should live instead of like complaining about this house you bought, like go build one. it's yeah.

It's rewarding in every way, the confidence, the skills, and then, you know, the outcome. But also terrifying, right? When you first get started. So how did you build up the confidence and enough knowledge just to even get started? Because getting started of anything is the hardest part. So how did you kind of build up enough knowledge and confidence to say, yes, we're just going to.

we're going to take a stab at this. Dane learned at the Earthship community and he did the internship and learned how to do some of the basic stuff. And then we were living in the back of our truck at the top of our driveway. So we had to do it. wasn't that much confidence. was necessity. It was like, okay, do this or, you know, not have a house for even longer. Yeah. There was a few moments where we maybe thought,

What are we doing? Is this going to work? Like, are we going to enjoy it long-term? Like all this stuff. But the satisfying aspect of accomplishing all the steps as they went definitely outweighed that. And luckily we never really got tired of being out here in the middle of nowhere. You know, initially moving out here from

Less House More Moola podcast (36:20.131)
a big city we thought, well, we might miss some of that stuff. Who knows, but let's try it. And it worked out. So if there are listeners out there who are curious about some sort of alternative building method or, you know, kind of tackling building your own, what would you say to them? Start as soon as possible because no one's getting younger and go for it.

I would say go for it. And if you can't physically do it, hire somebody or find friends, but really building your own house is, I mean, we don't have a mortgage. pretty, it's a pretty magical thing. It's like people in this country live their whole lives paying for the house that they're inside of and ours is done and we paid for it as we went. So slow and steady. We referred to all the,

materials and all the cost of building, which isn't free. We refer to it as rent the whole time, but at the end of it, we have a house. So make sure you check out that episode number 50. And we want to continue on with great conversations, the remainder of 2024 and looking forward to new things coming in 2025. I think I thought this was a great moment in the midst of our

our holidays and thinking about what we're thankful for. I've had so many amazing conversations with great people, with great perspectives and great stories. And I just thought we would take a moment and rewind and remember these great stories before we press ahead with the holiday season. So I hope you enjoy.

Hey, thank you for taking the time to listen to Less House More Moola. I have another free resource on my website for you, the Unconventional Values Quiz. In just two minutes, you can pinpoint your style of freedom seeker, security guardian, adventure enthusiast, or community builder. Check it out at thetinyhouseadvisor.com. one more thing, podcasts don't have algorithms like social media does.

Less House More Moola podcast (38:35.649)
they only grow by word of mouth and reviews. If this podcast is helpful to you, would you please post a review on your podcast app and tell a friend who is trying to live a values-based life? It would totally make my day.

Please see the show notes for important disclosure regarding the tiny house advisor LLC in this episode.