Turning Corporate Life Into Skoolie Adventures: New Year Episode!

In this episode of Less House More Moola, host Laura Lynch revisits a conversation with Ashley Innes, who shares her journey from a corporate accounting career to embracing tiny living through a school bus conversion. They discuss the COASTFY movement, which emphasizes living with purpose rather than just saving for retirement. Ashley reflects on the challenges and triumphs of her skoolie build, the lessons learned about minimalism and happiness, and the ongoing struggle to balance short-term enjoyment with long-term financial security. The episode highlights the importance of community and taking action towards an unconventional lifestyle.

For full show notes and more information visit: https://bit.ly/4fDzwOs

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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 (00:43.311)
Hey, welcome back to Less House More Moola Podcast in 2025. I mean, for real, can you even go back in your mind and imagine a world in which you would say 2025? It seems kind of crazy, but here we are. so I'm continuing a little bit of a break. I am taking some time off from the digital world. And so this week we are going to have a little rewind.

and refresh our memory on the conversation that I had with Ashley Inness. This was such an important conversation because Ashley is leading the way in the COASTFI movement. COASTFI being COAST in financial independence as opposed to the notion of just building up a bunch of financial independence and then retiring. Because retiring isn't the most fulfilling thing that we'll ever do in our lives. We really have to

make that transition into purpose away from maybe a job that we're keeping or career that we're keeping just to pay the big bills. So if we can reduce our cost of living, we can go from working to pay the mortgage to working towards our passion while also supplementing our lower cost of living. And Ashley did this through her schoolie build.

And so I really am excited about the possibility of attending Schooley Palooza in February. So I wanted to bring Ashley back to the podcast to share her story once again. So please enjoy this conversation that I had last year in 2020, I guess it's year before last now in 2023 with Ashley Innis. And also just a little preview.

2025 has as much excitement for me as 2024 because I never stop, uh, I guess, uh, making big changes and doing great and important things and at least in my mind. So, uh, coming up soon, we'll have, uh, some announcements about great things happening in 2025. So make sure you stay tuned this year because we have a lot more excitement coming up for you.

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And if you know anybody in tiny living who needs to be on this podcast, please connect to me with them. I would love to get them interviewed on the podcast. This is definitely a project that is quite collaborative with all kinds of amazing people in this community. Hopefully I'll get lots of great folks at Schooly-Poo-Looza. That will be great guests on the podcast, but

In the meantime, welcome to the new year. Super excited that you're continuing on this journey of tiny living. takes time and we all have to continue to stay motivated along the way. And so please enjoy and be motivated and inspired by Ashley's story. Ashley, I am so thrilled to be sitting with you in your schoolie on my acreage here that we're about to sell.

Talking with you, thank you so much for stopping by and for agreeing to kind of record with me your schoolie experience and kind of what about tiny life has really sparked you and Liz. Liz was unwilling to participate in the conversation today, but certainly you did this together and that's awesome. And you will be telling us about that story. So please share with us a little bit about your professional background.

and what normal life looked like for you before this bus thing? I have been in corporate accounting for about a little over 15 years, I think, at that point. I have a bachelor's degree in accounting with a minor in finance. I have an MBA and I'm a certified management accountant. And even though I didn't want to go into income tax, I found myself

an indirect tax for a good portion of my career. I was a financial analyst. I've had controller roles, but really kind of fell into this indirect tax base and spent a lot of my career there.

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Yeah. And so where were you living during all this sort of corporate career time? I'm from Houma, Louisiana, pretty small town, southwest of New Orleans. And I lived there my entire life until 35. 35, I ended up in a job in Bonita Springs, Florida. So we moved down to Naples. And that's kind of where the whole schooly thing started happening. We lived there for about three and a half years.

built the bus there and then took off. So you were renting or owned or? We did. We rented while we were in Florida. We started looking around for places. We were really looking to buy an investment property like a house hack, a duplex where we could live in one side and rent out the other and start making some income that way or at least basically live for free. Right. And then COVID hit and prices in the Southwest Florida market.

basically doubled within like a year. So we put that on hold, but because we had that goal of buying something like an investment property, we had been saving a lot of cash. So that really helped in order for us to be able to kind of take some time off the way that we did. So, yeah. Yeah. And so then where did you, how did you get from house hacking to schoolie? Well, once the real estate prices started going,

crazy, we started kind of rethinking what we wanted to do. part of that was COVID really started changing my mindset about how we were living our lives and what we were doing. I had had a real focus on saving money for a very long time. And I got into kind of this fire financial independence, retire early space.

And I had this big goal to retire by 45 before 50, you know, for sure. And that focus kind of dictated a lot of our lives. My main goal was saving as much money as possible, as quickly as possible to kind of get out of the rat race, out of the corporate environment as soon as I could. mean, nobody likes the cubicle environment.

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And I found myself for the first time at 35 in a cubicle. I'd always had an office and it made me really rethink where I was going in my career. So COVID was kind of a wake up call. 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, too. 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 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 tiny house? 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 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. 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 kind of suspend living today for a future day when you pull the rip cord and you go out and you kind of live your life. And so you kind of shifted that focus. So tell me more about that.

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This whole retirement dream that I had was like RV travel. It was something that I was just like, yeah, I'm gonna, we're gonna do this, we're gonna get out of this early and then I'm gonna go see the United States and the world, do some international travel. But 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. And 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 very hard to kind of shut that down. But I started just looking around at the people that were higher up, 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, turned it over in my mind for weeks, I think. 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.

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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

and the sort of space you could have gone RV, you could have gone van, 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. And the, 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 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. So yeah. And having just towards your bus, it is so nice, right? And just so beautiful and well put together. And I'm sure that you feel like I feel about my tiny house, that it was my just the best creation I've ever made. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And so I had it's like my

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my baby or something, know, I'm just like, I hand, you know, like I hand painted, you know, every little thing with these tiny, you know, really small, right? Little brushes. And so you just feel so attached because it's your first like house. Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah, that's amazing. Yeah. So what were some of the most memorable parts of your bill process? There were obviously ups and downs. Absolutely.

I don't, it's hard to kind of pinpoint a certain project. I think overall.

I don't know, every aspect required some kind of different knowledge or different skill. So it was great to learn all of that. But I think just in general, I learned a lot about myself and what we are capable of, you know, because we had no idea what we're doing. I'm an accountant. She's a physical therapist assistant. Like neither one of us have this background.

And it just gave me a lot more confidence in not just my building ability, but just the confidence to take on projects that I'm not sure that I can, that I'm not sure that I'm capable of. I've always been one to, I want to do the right thing. I want to have the right answer. want to, you know, I kind of just do what's expected, go above and beyond.

I'm not sure that, I don't know, when I started this, I wasn't sure that we were going to make it through, honestly. But I learned a lot about myself and what I'm capable of. And it's kind of given me the confidence to try different things, you know? So I don't know, that's what really sticks out. There's not one project. I don't know. It's it's kind of all encompassing. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. When you first take up

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you know, something that's totally new. You have to kind of like really overcome that hardest part is getting started. And then once you get started and you start to muddle your way through it, then you build some, you know, momentum there because you feel like, okay, I figured out this one thing. I can maybe continue on to completion. But then when you turn and you go, now it's plumbing. Then you're like.

Oh gosh, like another whole thing that you have to get that momentum for again. So for sure. So it's interesting because you've got so many different things packaged together in, you know, what is a relatively small project, but it's so many different domains that you've got to re-motivate yourself every single time. And okay, there is one thing that I will say as a general guideline. If you think it's going to take

Three hours. It's probably going to take 10 times. Like there were so many projects that we thought would be fairly simple. And here we were 20 hours in for a two hour project. And yeah, it got ridiculous at times. yeah. And then you have to battle your perfectionism. Absolutely. Because like you run into a thing and you're like, oh my gosh, I really would like this, you know, all of this rust gone or whatever.

And so then you can like really get into the weeds and something that I've kind of started saying around my house that sometimes is helpful is sometimes done is better than perfect. Absolutely. Yeah. And so when you like kind of like draw the line and say, is good enough. Right. Yeah. Thankfully my wife does not have the perfection gene. Like I am very much a perfectionist and she has to kind of talk me back sometimes like it's good enough. We're not doing this again. You know? So yeah.

I love that. Yeah, that's a very important lesson that, you know, I have definitely learned is that battle with perfectionism and, learning when to kind of like be like, this is going to be good enough for what we need. So you took a year off from your normal working life and changed your perspective on what was important to you. So how do you feel like specifically tiny living? really downsizing and

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condensing your life into 180 square feet. How has that really helped you shift away from the focus around, you know, sort of saving, saving, saving and into a more maximized life perspective? Well, going tiny kind of, it really helped us see what was really important, you know, and I mean, and how much we can do without. I mean,

after living in such a small space and for a lot of our journey, we were without electrical hookups, water hookups, sewage. We really had to conserve. So we dealt with the limited resources that we had. and I think when, soar, some major kind of event like that, I mean, we're living pretty good in this small space and

We don't need much more than or we don't need anything more than what we have now, but it just I don't know if Losing your house is like your worst fear It could be worse Like we've done so well with so little for so long, you know, I just think it changes your perspective and actually living in a bus down by the river is not

So bad. Yeah. It's been shifted in our narrative. down by the river was the worst case. And now everybody's trying to live in a van down by the river. Exactly. Yeah. That's the goal now. Yeah. That's so interesting because you're so right. I think that the air around us tells us that we have to just have so much stuff always coming into our lives and you can't be happy without, you know, the new

you know, whatever the gadget is or the, you know, the new furniture set or whatever. And the reality is, is that what, what really does make you happy for some people, maybe it is a well appointed, you know, 30,000 square foot home on, know, on, the beach or whatever. Maybe that truly does make.

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Yeah, but for most of us it's about experiences with people that we care about and so how do you create most more of those in your life? Well, you can't have everything right? You can't have you know the corporate ladder climb that's gonna get you to the 30,000 square feet You know house on the beach and have a lot of time So how do you pull what levers based on what's most important exactly? Yeah So you've been doing this thing for a little while. Yeah

And so far, you're just really enjoying the travel and the freedom and the remote work and trying to create that balance in your life. do you feel like that you've checked a lot of those boxes that you were wanting to check some day when you got to financial independence, retire early? Yes. Yeah. I think there's less of a focus on the retirement now.

I'm just kind of, we're enjoying it. We're enjoying the journey. It really has shifted perspectives and what's important to us. We've checked a lot of boxes, but we're not done yet for sure. There's still a lot left to do. So we haven't seen most of the East side of the United States. We're hoping to do some of that and get back out West too, cause we left it there. So yeah, ticked a lot of boxes, but yeah, that's so good.

There are so many people who will never get the opportunity or never have the will, as you pointed out earlier, to do the things that they say they want to do. We talk to people all the time who are like, you know, they're watching on YouTube the life that they want to live, but they won't take that first step. And so it is so great, you know, to find community of people who do actually take action on the things that they say are important.

It was terrifying. I'm not going to lie to you. I had many sleepless nights. I gave like a three month notice at my job and every second of it was terrifying. But yeah, it was a good decision for sure. Yeah. So now that you've had this sort of perspective shift, how do you balance your short term

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Maximize my life with the long term because obviously you're like me. We have you know finance minds We are thinking about our financial security for the long term. So how do you find that you balance them? I don't think I do it very well, I think we're still trying to well, I'm still trying to figure that out My wife fortunately She's not a worrier. She's you know

she kind of helps me scale back and see things from a different perspective because a lot of times I get that monetary focus and you but I forgot where I was going with that. Balancing the short and the long term. You're right. I think I'm still trying to figure that out because I had such this focus for so long on

only the long term. kind of had to, I almost had to stop tracking expenses the way that I used to. I had to stop just to allow myself, I could tuck myself out of any purchase, just to allow myself to do what we wanted in this bus and spend the money that we did to get this thing going. I had to turn that part of my brain off and just kind of stop tracking so much. So I'm still trying to find that balance. Thankfully,

You know, we started early, saving early and often. So we put ourselves on a good financial track and we had a nice nest egg prior to starting this process. knowing that that's there and it's still sitting there and it will continue to grow over the long term, that's like my saving grace. But we're still trying to figure out that balance between saving for the future and enjoying life now. So it's still a struggle.

I think it is very much a struggle. It is a struggle for me and it is a struggle for even some of the clients that I talked to because we have this these shoulds that are talking to us all the time, right? There's a big chunk of a population that's not focused at all in the long term and they're very much living, you know, in the now and they don't have actual security for themselves. then plumbing, when you start to learn how to create financial security for yourself, then you get really

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Confident in it and so then you hear the sheds of I must max out my own pain I must be maxing out my Roth and I must be saving as much as possible because it's another muscle that you're developing exactly and so you feel those really strong pressures to do the most possible and so then how do you sort of create that that balance of being fully human in them in the now and also

combat the fear of somehow slamming yourself into the other category. That has been, yeah, that's been a huge struggle for me. And like I said, I had to kind of shift like a complete different focus to allow myself to get out of that long-term, know, just complete long-term focus rather than now. It's been tough.

You know, and I kind of go back and forth. yeah, it's it's a process. So where are you today? Are you focused on long term or short term today? It has been more of a short term focus, especially trying to build something on my own. The focus has been on building my firm and.

kind of making sure that I'm keeping that as the foundation and building a big kind of there to make sure. So I focus less on our long-term and it's kind of more about companies long-term, but right now it's kind of a short-term focus just trying to build things on my own. So I'm not sure if that made sense. So for listeners, you have launched a firm Nomad.

nomadic accounting, nomad accounting, right? And so you are creating an opportunity for yourself to have a firm that is solely based on this lifestyle that you've created for yourself. So you and I have that in common as well, kind of building a business around your lifestyle. And so how do you think, do you think that would have ever been a thing had the school lay not

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I'm not sure that it would. It's something that I've always thought about, but was always too scared to do. So I think the schoolie thing, leaving the corporate world, giving this a go, you know, like I said, I just built so much confidence through the build process, through actually making that leap.

I was just been eye opening and I've done so many hard things over these last few years that it finally gave me the confidence to kind of go out and do this on my own. I always knew I had the ability. I was just too scared to do it. So yeah, making that leap has kind of made all these other small steps possible. yeah. Yeah, that's so good. I think that that happens for a lot of people. Yeah. You you start doing brave and difficult and, know,

you know, outside of the norm things and you just keep doing right. Yeah. So please share with us if you would like any where, listeners might follow you. Sure. I am at the nomadic accountant. Actually it's at the dot nomadic that accountant on Instagram. email is Ashley at the nomadic accountant.com. The website is the.

the nomadic accountant.com. And if you just want bus life stuff, we are at big leap bus on Instagram. That's our kind of personal, my wife and I, you can see some of the build process there. I think that's it. Awesome. Well, Ashley, thank you so much for letting me come in and record in your beautiful kitchen. a great, such great thoughts. Thank you so much. Thank you. 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 thetinyhouseadviser.com. One more thing, podcasts don't have algorithms like social media does. They only grow by word of mouth.

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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 and this episode.