Do you have the values worksheet? Alt-Living is Now.

In this episode of the Less House More Moola podcast, Laura reflects on her journey of alternative living, discussing her experiences in Colorado and the various housing options available. She emphasizes the importance of understanding personal values when making housing choices and explores the balance between nomadic lifestyles and community building. Laura encourages listeners to take a values quiz to better understand their preferences and how they can create a fulfilling living situation that aligns with their goals.

Go to thetinyhouseadviser.com

Transcript

Less House More Moola Podcast (00:42)
Hey, welcome to Let's House More Moola podcast. Laura here in my makeshift studio. You know, I was thinking back of all the places that I have recorded this podcast, podcast turn two earlier this month, and just thinking back to all the ways that I have set up my camera and microphone and gotten things up and running. There was a moment.

about a year ago, I guess a little over where I was standing in my walk-in closet. And now I'm operating from sort of a makeshift janky shelf situation in the cabin in Colorado that we're rehabbing. And so I've gotten myself a portable screen to add. So I have two screens going and all the cords and it looks a little messy, but it works.

And you know, I've been having so many interesting conversations with people, even up here spending time in Colorado, talking to people living in, you know, different types of homes. We have a great neighbor with a double adobe home that they built, gosh, long time ago, but it is just stunning.

And then we have another neighbor with a semi tiny house that he built himself. There's another neighbor in a straw bale house, lots of greenhouses, lots of off grid properties. This property is completely off grid. So we've been spending a lot of time figuring out our new solar setup and trying to optimize for using what we have while upgrading what needs to be upgraded.

And so far, looks like we're doing pretty good. I've been under the cabin in the cactus spines and the debris this week, while we were leveling the cabin. All the drywall behind me is going to need to start being finished. So that's a new skill set that I am going to learn, hopefully, because I do like some painted walls.

And so for all of us in that stage where we're trying to figure out what an alternative living housing situation looks like for us, gosh, this is the moment, right? There is just so much going on in terms of housing costs and rising costs of all things and people moving to be in places where they feel more comfortable.

and just a lot of shuffling and jiving going on. And I feel like this is a great moment for us to think about what options and how we narrow down our options and find the best arrangement for us. I think so much of it comes out of our values and lots of times we'll see something

maybe that someone else is doing, maybe on social media or a friend and the way that they're living some unique and fantastic life. I remember when I was young, I met someone in the Air Force who, when she left the Air Force, she just traveled around the globe by herself. And gosh, I was a little envious of that and yet not brave enough to do it. And so we may be seeing things that we envy, but we're not quite.

maybe ready to take on ourselves. And so how do we figure out what we are willing to take on and what is a good fit for us? And I think that is a lot about what's important to us and where our competencies lie and what we have accomplished in the past, maybe our experiences in childhood, lots of different things that come into what feels good to us.

and maybe where we're willing to stretch and grow ourselves as well. So if you haven't yet encountered this, there is a values quiz on my website. So thetinyhouseadviser.com, A-D-V-I-S-E-R is how I spell advisor. So.

Get onto that values quiz. It goes through a short quiz first and then you'll get a full worksheet that you can go through in order to understand what your values are. Here's an important example, right? Van life, super common. Gosh, I have seen so many Sprinter vans out here in Colorado while we have been here. And that is really a great life for folks that want to be

traveling and exploring and seeing new things.

In the last episode, we talked about how Payton's Skoolie was going to help her explore lots of small towns so that she could figure out where she wanted to be. And this is great. The nomadic exploration piece. Also nomadic works well for folks that have friends all over the place and they want to be able to park in driveways and hang out with friends or family all spread out all over the place. And so that is a great.

solution. However, not everyone is driven to be nomadic. Some folks want to put down roots and build community and build

I aspire to build community roots and relationships. And yet at the same time, I used to love to travel and definitely wanted to explore a lot. And now I just want to stay in one place and grow vegetables.

So we go through different stages of life and understanding what really sparks your interest and what is true to you, as opposed to what may be true for someone else is really important. As I've talked about before, there's a couple of key values that pop up for me that show up in the life that we have crafted for ourselves. And one of them is exploration.

and seeing new things. And so the way that we solve for that without being nomadic is having two places, the tiny house and now this cabin. So we can go back and forth and feel that sense of seeing new places without necessarily having to figure out where we're going to park every day.

The great thing about having a low cost of living through an alternative housing setup like tiny home or in this case where I'm standing right now is 600 whole square feet is that if you buy smaller places or you build smaller places, then you can maybe have more than one place. And that is can be a lot of variety and novelty and allow some of that spice of life that we like to have.

So lots of different things to explore about yourself as you're figuring out, hey, maybe this conventional American dream path isn't for me, but what is for me and what does resonate for me and what will work for me and what are the trade-offs, what is necessary and what are areas where I might be willing to give a little in order to get a lot. So figuring out what's important and what's not important to you.

is really important. again, if you haven't done it yet, go over to thetinyhouseadviser.com and go to the values quiz and definitely check that out and let me know if you want to talk about your values and what that might look like for you as a future plan.

signing off here from Colorado this week, it has been a lot of work that we've been doing the last couple of weeks.

everything from plumbing to electrical to leveling the house to fixing the doors when they didn't open because we leveled the house, trying to figure out how to stay sort of operational in terms of cooking and cleaning things. I got to use my washing machine for the first time that was here, though it definitely vibrates a lot.

but working with what we got and you know, buying new things as needed and trying to think about how we are creating some resilience here and how we're going to create an opportunity to grow things in the blackest deepest soil that I have ever seen.

It is just begging for me to stick some ⁓ plants and vegetables in there. And so I'm super anxious to learn how to do that in an environment that is very dry and has a very short growing season. So still learning a lot and still working hard, juggling all the things, all of the work, the podcast, the work on the house and managing to feel so grateful.

to have the opportunity to do that juggle and not be sort of shoehorned in a nine to five and going home to the same place every day. looking forward to bringing you a couple of new guests that are up for recording next week and some other folks that I'm talking to. So thank you for joining me today on Les House More Moola podcast. See you next week.