Ditching the Hamster Wheel: How Senta and Eric Used Real Estate to Fund Full-Time Camper Living

Are you tired of the 9-to-5 grind? Do you dream of funding a life of travel with your real estate?

On this episode of the Less House More Moola Podcast, host Laura shares an inspiring conversation with Senta and Eric (@SentaAndEricSomewhere), a couple who successfully escaped the corporate rat race in Cincinnati to live full-time in their DIY camper.

Senta and Eric reveal the exact financial and logistical strategies they used over three and a half years to achieve financial independence, focusing on their unconventional approach to real estate. They strategically converted both their primary residence and an acquired duplex into high-performing short-term rentals (STRs) to generate a reliable income stream while traveling.

In this episode, you will learn:

• The Asset Mindset Shift: How to view everything you own—from your car to your time (sweat equity)—as an asset that can work for you, challenging the advice that "you gotta spend money to make money."
• Delayed Gratification & Planning: Why their path took years, including nine months building their DIY camper and a full year renovating a duplex, and what kept them motivated through the difficult work.
• Remote Property Management Masterclass: Eric, a former financial advisor, breaks down the automated systems and critical local network (cleaners, handymen, landscapers) he uses to manage three rental units from anywhere in the world, saving 20-30% in property management fees.
• Prioritizing Peace of Mind: Why they intentionally avoided highly leveraged strategies like the BRRRR method, opting instead for a lower-debt approach where Senta’s remote income can cover all liabilities, ensuring security and "sleeping well at night."
• Essential Tips for Aspiring Nomads: Practical advice on how to start the planning and downsizing process, and the importance of having a financial cushion for inevitable rental downtime.

This episode is proof that you don't need to wait for retirement to live your dream life—you just need a smart plan.

Book a Call with Laura

Go to thetinyhouseadviser.com

Transcript

Senta & Eric (00:00)
I think something that happens a lot with ⁓ different financial advice you get from anybody, whether it's an actual financial advisor or friends and family, is not looking at what you own as assets that can work for you. Having that mindset that, I own a car, a car is an asset, and it depreciates in value over time as I use it, but it has value and it gives you a return on that initial investment as long as it's dependable, gets you point A and B and that type of thing.

people don't look at other things they own as an asset that can work for them. And I think that is a big difference between conventional thinking and someone who has a little bit better of a grasp of different financial instruments. if you have that house, it can be an asset in different ways. Either you can rent out an extra room or if you are like us and you just rent it out in general, doing short term versus long term. I think just...

evaluating what you own as an asset and how it can work for you. And that can be applied across your real estate, your cars, your time, everything you have as an asset. if you don't look at it like that, then you're going to be leaving a lot on the table,

Less House More Moola Podcast (01:50)
Well, welcome, Santa and Eric to Less Housemore Mola podcast. I'm super excited that we get to talk to you in your camper while you're on the road.

Senta & Eric (02:00)
Yeah, it's ⁓ definitely cozy up in here and we're excited to talk to you too.

Less House More Moola Podcast (02:04)
Yeah, thank you so much for joining me. We connected tiny home tours connected us since we've both been on their channel. So always great to connect with other people that are advocates for the lifestyle and have a really important voice that they want to get out in the world. And I'm excited to really hone in on money today because you know, that's my ⁓ topic of choice. And I'm really excited that you all are going to be willing to

go into some of the details of how you've made this nomadic life work for you.

Senta & Eric (02:40)
Absolutely.

Less House More Moola Podcast (02:42)
So go ahead and just do an introduction. Tell us a little bit about your camper home and just give us the kind of a little bit of the backstory there.

Senta & Eric (02:53)
Go ahead. Yeah, so we're center and Eric and we have been living full time on the road for almost two years now in our DIY camper. So just over a hundred square feet. Yeah, it's a seven by 14 foot trailer. So it's ⁓ pretty tiny. But since we custom built it, we really used every nook and cranny. So it really helps that we were able to kind of really think things out and build it ourselves and know the build inside and out like.

to the very inch ⁓ where everything needs to be. So it's been really nice for the last two years.

Less House More Moola Podcast (03:30)
And this is not your first one, right?

Senta & Eric (03:33)
It is our first one. Yep. we built this out not knowing if we were gonna be on the road full-time in it and that was one of the reasons why we went with a trailer. It's a little bit cheaper than like a van or something else. So but we did have this like lofty goal that maybe we would be moving in and ⁓ we definitely kept working towards that goal. Yeah, we had that in the back of our mind when we designed it and when we designed like the space and kind of trying to figure out, okay, how would our life look like and

what kind of space, what kind of features do we need to be comfortable?

Less House More Moola Podcast (04:08)
That's so cool because so many of the people that I interview on this podcast, they iterate, you know, they start with one thing and then they move on. And I'm sure you've seen that a lot with the people that you've met on the road. So it's really cool that you figured it out kind of from the get go in terms of what was going to work for you.

Senta & Eric (04:23)
Yeah, we had it mostly down. It was nice that we had it built and it took us a couple of years to get ready for life on the road. So we had made a couple long weekend trips and even like a week long trip here or there. So we figured out a few things that didn't work that we were able to change along the way. So we kind of had like version one and now we're on like, I would say maybe version 1.3 or four maybe. Yeah, but it's like mostly smaller stuff, like some things that you just don't really think about until you.

live in it. For example, shoe storage was a big one. Like drove me nuts. The first time we went on our longer trip, like three weeks and we were just like we didn't know where to put the shoes and they were just like laying right by the door and like drove me nuts. And I was like, we need to change this. And then now we have our shoes like on a wall, like basically on shoe rack. Yeah, it's like wall shells where we like tuck in our shoes.

Less House More Moola Podcast (05:22)
Yeah, shoes drive me crazy too, though not because we don't have shoe storage, but because, hmm, sometimes the shoes never end up in the appropriate place.

Senta & Eric (05:31)
That's me. Sometimes I have two pairs out and not just like one by the door for my quick getaway. So I'm guilty of that for sure. He likes to make excuses.

Less House More Moola Podcast (05:40)
Yeah. So what prompted your decision to go full time with your RV living?

Senta & Eric (05:49)
So it was really, when we were living back in Cincinnati, we kind of, you know, like checked all the boxes that society kind of, you know, like tells you to do to be happy in life, you know, like we bought a home. We the house. We had cars. We had investments. We like progressed in our careers. But it felt like, you know, we were, we were working like 40 to 60 hours a week, Monday through Friday.

And then you get home on the weekend, like on Saturday, you take care of the house, you take care of the chores. And then like maybe on Sunday, you get a little bit of time to relax or to like, you know, explore, like go hiking and like relax enough just so you can start it all over again on Monday. It was just that rat race. You know, you're on the hamster wheel and you're spinning and spinning and spinning, but you're not really going anywhere and experiencing anything new.

And we wanted to break that. We wanted to get out and really explore. It just felt very unfulfilling to us. It was like, OK, is this it? You know, like, is this what life is supposed to look like until we retire? And so for us then, like we kind of, you know, during the pandemic started to realize like this is not what we want out of life. Like we need to, you know, think about, OK, what can we do to break out of this?

Less House More Moola Podcast (07:07)
So you didn't like take that yes for an answer. The answer to that question is yes. That is what life is supposed to be like for 40 or 50 years. And you're like, meh, I don't know if I like that idea.

Senta & Eric (07:13)
Yeah. ⁓

Yeah,

it was not for us, that's for sure. We did not feel fulfilled with it and we didn't want to... We really love the outdoors, we love exploring, we love going hiking. And we didn't want to wait until we're 65 and possibly are not even physically able to do that anymore. ⁓ So yeah, was kind of... I mean, that is kind of where the idea started that we just really didn't want to, you know, like follow that mold that society kind of, know, like... Genuinely has, yeah.

Less House More Moola Podcast (07:51)
And so what we know from our previous conversations that you all are funding your travel to some degree through renting out your primary residence. So tell us how did that first come to you and what were the challenges there?

Senta & Eric (08:07)
So we knew that we wanted to kind of have some different income streams just to diversify. Senta is still working a ⁓ nine to five job. She works remotely, but I quit my job so that we could be on the road. But we knew that losing my revenue stream, it would be nice to have some other revenue streams. So we'd already had a little experience renting out. Like our basement had a separate entrance. So we had done some Airbnb in the past at our primary residence. And we...

weren't sure if we were gonna love life on the road, so instead of selling it and making that huge leap, we figured, well, we can turn that into an income stream by renting it out. It's already furnished, so it was already ready to go for being a short-term rental. And then we did buy another ⁓ duplex, another property, before we got on the road also, and we kinda implemented the same things in that property as well. So it was just a way to ensure that we could have more income, ⁓ different streams of income, and not...

really put all our eggs into the living on the road basket. Like in case we realize we actually don't like living that lifestyle, we wanted to kind of have an escape plan. And then one thing that Eric didn't really touch on was so he, as he said, he quit his job for us to travel on the road because he was a financial advisor that's actually a very hard job to do on the road. So was clear for us we would lose his income, but we would also lose his like, ⁓ how do you say that? Like, ⁓

what he would pay into his retirement account. Yeah, I lost the 401k payments and things like that. I'm not going to be able to, I'm not pulling in a W-2 so I don't have taxable income. can't put it into an IRA or anything like that. So we also didn't really feel comfortable with the idea to sell our house and give up that asset that obviously would be a lot more expensive down the road if at some point we move back into a house or something. So

Less House More Moola Podcast (10:01)
So it sounds like you all really went in like totally into the short-term rental idea in terms of the fact that you bought yet another property and got it ready for short-term rental. Tell us a little bit what that process was like.

Senta & Eric (10:15)
So we knew we wanted a rental property ⁓ and we were hoping for like a duplex or a triplex, a multifamily home, because then we could have a few more options. And when we first got on the road, actually, we had one we furnished and made into an Airbnb and a Verbo. And the other one we did a long-term rental. We had a lease agreement, everything, and had that set up because we wanted to kind of not put all our eggs into the short-term basket if that market dried up or something changes.

⁓ But after a year of being on the road, our tenants decided they didn't want to renew the lease and we had to come back anyways to fix all that. So then we dove more into the short-term rentals because they were working so well. you know, took a lot of time to automate as much as we could. We had good help back in Cincinnati, a good cleaning person, a good landscaper and a handyman we could rely on. So that really made things very easy for us when we were getting ready to be on the road. We knew we had the

the people in place to help maintain it. And also taking a step back because you're just like kind of saying like, we just bought a duplex. if, you know, anyone could just like buy a duplex. ⁓ We saved up for it for like several years. ⁓ And then we, so we have a very good realtor. She actually, you know, like found that duplex for us and we weren't even the highest offer, but like the seller, she like kind of liked our story.

and she accepted our offer and we put 25 % down. ⁓ So that was $60,000 that we had saved up and also plus closing Yeah, with closing costs it was closer to $70,000. And then we still had to put some work into it. a lot of TLC. So it was not that we bought it and then it was just ready to rent out. It took a year for us to get everything renovated because we did all the work ourselves, ⁓ which was helpful.

because we didn't have to pay all the money upfront for somebody to do it. We got to keep saving money as we were going along and doing the different projects that needed to be done. Yeah, we paid for it as we went along because we really could not have afforded to just drop Drop 70,000 and then drop another $70,000 on renovations and everything. We didn't have that much money laying on the side.

Less House More Moola Podcast (12:38)
So what I'm hearing from you guys is that you were very thoughtful and it took you a while to make this all.

kind of play out the way that it is today in terms of, Santa, you're still working, Eric, you are managing the properties, you're bringing in income that facilitates your travel, you've got properties that are appreciating in value, presumably with market. And but all of that wasn't just willy nilly, it sounds like you really did a lot of planning. Santa, do you want to talk about some of that planning and how you thought about that?

Senta & Eric (13:13)
Yeah, so we really started having the idea to want to pursue this nomadic lifestyle and living tiny in like 2020 during the pandemic, you know, like everyone else, we had nothing better to do. ⁓ And then we started, you know, like really looking into it, like looking into, okay, like how would this life look like for us? Like we knew like at that point in time, I didn't have a location independent position. So

We knew that I would have to work towards a location independent position. We knew that Eric likely wouldn't be able to work remotely. So we would have to make up his income or he would have to look for something that he could, you know, do from the road. And then, you know, like once we had that idea, we realized, okay, it would be good for us to like have another stream of income. And that was the duplex. And we already had our primary residence. So we knew that we could, you know, like rent this out.

And it took us like four years from like really having the idea and then going ahead, you know, like taking nine months to build this camper here. And then, you know, like finding the duplex, putting another like year in there, like the time to like renovate it to even get to the point where we, you know, like we're able to like think about, you know, moving into the trailer. Yeah. Yeah. It was, it was about three and a half years from

buying the trailer, getting it all built out ourselves. And then after that, we the next project right away, we jumped into the duplex. then a year that by the time we were all done and everything was ready to start being rented out, it was twenty, twenty three. So and we bought the trailer in twenty twenty. So, yeah, about three and a half years. And then we hit the road and like beginning of twenty, twenty four. So it all just, you know, we did baby steps on it, basically. You know, it's not ⁓

instant gratification. was definitely a lot of delayed gratification and we in thinking it out. So, ⁓ long weekends working, renovating. was, I mean, it was a lot of years where we work. you know, we had our day jobs 40 to 60 hours a week. And then on the weekends we would work, you know, like 10, 12 hours on the house or on the camper. Yeah.

Less House More Moola Podcast (15:33)
Where do you think you got the motivation to stick with this? This is hard stuff, right, that you're doing? How do you think you kept going? What kept driving you forward?

Senta & Eric (15:44)
I think fear of the alternative. you know, because we knew we knew we weren't happy doing what we were doing. so there's and there's little bits of light at the end of each tunnel. So, you know, it was nine months of really hard work with the trailer. And then it was, you know, mostly done. And we took a couple of trips with it. We got to enjoy like, ⁓ that was really nice. So we had maybe maybe six months.

took a couple of trips and then we were like, hey, we got the trailer now, what's the next step? And then it was, well, we need another income stream. And then it was looking for a house. Well, looking for the house was some work, but it wasn't that hard. We had a realtor doing a lot of the heavy lifting for us there. And then when we got the house, then it was like, okay, now it's the next one. So we had some small breaks in between, which gave us that kind of gratification along the way. But...

I don't know, yeah, the fear of the alternative I think was the big motivator. think also working with your hands and like renovating something, you see, you know, like results as you're going along the way and that is very satisfying. And also while Eric is pretty handy, and I'm like, you know, like learning new skills and like, you know, learning like, hey, I don't know how to, you know, do plumbing.

and then you like, you know, sit down and learn about it and then you apply those skills is also very satisfying in itself. But I don't want to romanticize it too much. did suck for a little bit. There was a lot of ⁓ very frustrating moments along the way. Absolutely. ⁓ But yeah, like Santa said, it's very rewarding along the way. Looking back at it, it's very rewarding.

Less House More Moola Podcast (17:31)
Yeah, and it seems like that sweat equity really played into your ideas around building this financial security for yourself that you didn't just hire a bunch of contractors to come and do the work either on the camper or the properties. You really put in the work yourself, which has added so much value to all of your places.

Senta & Eric (17:54)
Yeah, it added the value like in how much we appreciate it and like, you know, but also it added the value and actually we know exactly where everything is. Like if something breaks, we know exactly how to fix it or we know, you know, who caused it. There's only these two people here we can blame if something breaks. And you know, the other thing too with with sweat equity, there's other benefits. Like, yes, there is

If you pay somebody to have it to do it, it's gonna get done quicker because they're gonna take your money, do the job, it'll be done like that's their concentration. And you pay that little extra and it gets done faster and you might be able to get a faster return on your investment sometimes with that. But if you don't have that money, instead of taking out a loan and paying interest to get it done faster, you can put your own time in as you're banking some of that other money. So some trade-offs in time to start.

getting your return on investment, but also you basically get an interest free loan instead of paying upfront. You're putting your time in. ⁓ it was also really important to us ⁓ to not increase our liabilities. So for us, it wasn't really an option to take out another loan to get contractors in or something like that. We really wanted to be able to pay for it as we go and not carry more debt than the mortgages that we are.

that we have. Exactly.

Less House More Moola Podcast (19:21)
So, there's a lot of sort of conventional financial advice that, is out there in the world. Eric, you were a financial advisor and, I came from, big financial advisor firm. And there was a lot of things that I saw in my career that made me want to start my own thing for one to align with my values. But there's a lot of things out there that people just assume.

are good ideas that maybe aren't the best or don't align with the values or the financial independence that people like us want to have. Do you have any examples or particular things that you feel like are maybe conventional advice that you don't really agree with?

Senta & Eric (20:05)
Hmm, so I think

I think something that happens a lot with ⁓ different financial advice you get from anybody, whether it's an actual financial advisor or friends and family, is not looking at what you own as assets that can work for you. Having that mindset that, I own a car, a car is an asset, and it depreciates in value over time as I use it, but it has value and it gives you a return on that initial investment as long as it's dependable, gets you point A and B and that type of thing.

people don't look at other things they own as an asset that can work for them. And I think that is a big difference between conventional thinking and someone who has a little bit better of a grasp of different financial instruments. know, if you have that house, it can be an asset in different ways. Either you can rent out an extra room or if you are like us and you just rent it out in general, doing short term versus long term. I think just...

evaluating what you own as an asset and how it can work for you. And that can be applied across your real estate, your cars, your time, everything you have as an asset. ⁓ if you don't look at it like that, then you're going to be leaving a lot on the table, I think.

Less House More Moola Podcast (21:21)
Do you have anything to add to that center?

Senta & Eric (21:22)
I think one of the like typical advices that you also get is you gotta spend money to make money. And to a certain degree that is true. But you also, it also kind of implies that if you don't have money to spend, that you can't make any money. And I don't think that that is true. And obviously like now I'm speaking to a certain degree from a privileged position. If we're talking about someone who lives

from paycheck to paycheck is struggling to, you know, like, ⁓ make ends meet. Is that how you say it? Yeah. Like, then, you know, like you are in a different situation. But if you are, you know, like, ⁓ middle class, you know, like you're starting to like put your savings away and whatsoever, you don't have to, you know, like, save that much money to invest like you can actually, you know, like also how we talked about sweat equity, you can put in your time.

and like use that to like, you know, make money later on. So you don't really, you know, like, I think like, you've got to make money to spend money is more like you got to, you know, you got to invest resources to like, correct. Yeah, get resources back or like to get a return on investment is I think a more accurate way of looking at it. Because, you know, it can be your time, it can be, you know, like something else that you are.

Yeah, you have money, you can use your money to make money. If you have a house that you're not using, you can use that to make money. If you have time and but no extra money, well, use your time to make more money and then start investing that money. ⁓ It's just resource utilization. And yeah, I think that's the best way to put it.

Less House More Moola Podcast (23:04)
And Eric, you're doing that now instead of exchanging your time for financial advisory services, you're exchanging your time for managing your properties, which is getting you that 25 or 30 % that you all aren't having to pay for a property manager. So tell us about your decision to manage your properties yourself and how that's going for you.

Senta & Eric (23:19)
Mm-hmm.

So it's going pretty well. mean, obviously there are always challenges in property management. So if anyone's out there listening, it's not just like snap your fingers and it's good to go. There are always going to be issues with your properties in different ways. But the big thing is ⁓ when you are working with a property manager, if you're doing long term, they're taking a minimum of 10%, probably 15%. And if you're doing short term where there's more turnover and cleaning

personnel gotta come in regularly, they're gonna take 20, 25, or 30%. And that's a pretty good amount of margin you're losing. luckily with technology, there's so many ways for you to be able to manage it remotely on your own, at least if you have a smaller portfolio like we do. You we have three doors, so three units, so it's pretty easy for us to have that automated. We have smart locks that integrate directly with Airbnb, so whenever someone books it,

a code automatically generates, I never have to worry about that. All I have to do is anytime someone books, I send a picture of the calendar to my cleaning lady and she knows when they're checking in, when they're checking out, and she can set that up to make sure that they're cleaned on time. I may check in with her and just be like, hey, just checking that X property was already cleaned. She'll be like, yeah, I'm on it. I'm already finishing up right now. That type of thing. I've got a good handyman. ⁓ I think that's an important part of

Property management is just in general having good people you can rely on and you don't need a lot of good people you can rely on you just need the right people to rely on so a good house cleaner for for our short term a Good landscaper that can come and cut our grass and make sure everything's good ⁓ and then a good handyman I think those are the big three ⁓ Anything else that you might have might be a little extra you could probably have one or two other people to help out but ⁓ I think that is

that's the key, it's just having a couple of good people you can rely on. And with that, good people demand higher prices. And that means value. You still have good value. You need good value people. So even if they cost you a lot of money, if they do good work, then they're totally worth it. So if you can automate as much as you can, have good people on the ground, and then ⁓ I think that property management on the road is actually fairly simple.

And I think also one thing, like one of the main reasons why we decided to do the remote property management versus going with a property management firm. Like, yeah, of course the return is much nicer without a property management firm. But we did seriously look into it. We like talked to different property management firms. We actually looked at their portfolios. We looked at the reviews that their ⁓ properties got. And it just was very clear that people can tell.

if a property is managed by a property management firm or if it is managed by the owners. 100%. No one is ever going to care as much about your property and your assets as you do. if there is something that needs to be repaired, like Eric is on top of it, he gets our handyman in, like he takes care of it. And then, you know, like we know it's good to go. If any of our guests have any issues, like we will respond to them right away. You know, like we have Starling, we're like usually connected.

And we care that they have a good time there. But yeah. Yeah. mean, the property managers we looked at, think their average reviews on Airbnb was like a 4.3 or 4.4. No, it was higher than that. 4.4 stars maybe. It wasn't even that bad, like that they got bad reviews. It was just more like that people can tell, you know, like it is managed by a property management firm. it loses a little bit of that, you know, like that caring touch.

And yeah, and so we have great reviews. We're super hoes and like we said, we respond right away to our guests because we care that our guests have a good experience because we want this to succeed. We open it in LLC, we run it as a business and that's important too. If you're property managing, you have to run it as a business. You have to understand that you have bottom lines, you have to track your money in and out and you can't just do it willy nilly or else you're going to...

miss those little things and you're going to pay more in the future in different ways. Well, you also have to be prepared that you might not make any money for a certain period of time. for example, the first year on the road, we had an incident at our primary residence at the house where a window broke and

And a window takes a long time to get replaced because every window in every house is basically a different size. They kind of have some standardization, but not really. So a guy had to come in, take the measurements, and then it takes six weeks for that window to get made and get shipped to him so he can install it. Just one window. Not a lot of windows, just one window. And so that was a month and a half, really two months before we could get it rented out again. So that was two months where we had no income on that property.

And we had to incur all of the liabilities for it.

Less House More Moola Podcast (28:37)
very interesting. And I am glad that you pointed out that this rental strategy isn't like an instant success all the time. In fact, I was on a financial planning workshop recently and we were talking about short term rentals with real estate focused financial planners. And it can take people up to three years even to make a property cashflow in terms of making a profit.

over their expenses. just something to keep in mind. Like you all have been so clear in laying out, a lot of these things are long strategies, right? And you have to think a little bit beyond the immediate and be a little bit more thoughtful about planning. And you have to have that cushion for those times when your property may be out of the rental market for one reason or another. And so all of these things require some thought and intention.

Senta & Eric (29:31)
Mm hmm. Yeah. And it was also important to us that, ⁓ you know, like we don't rely on our income from the rental properties to like pay our mortgages. So if we were to end up like not renting out our units. Yeah. Her W-2 job can cover all of those liabilities, whether they're making money or not. So that was important for us not to over leverage ourselves with our mortgages and things like that. Yeah. And I think

I think that's something else that you hear a lot from ⁓ real estate financial advisements is like they want you to do, ⁓ if anyone's familiar out there with the BRRRR method, which is buy, rent, refinance, repeat. That's BRRRR. So ⁓ people like to do that and they keep racking up more more debt as they buy more properties from what they're making whenever they refinance these houses. we didn't want to get into that.

very highly leveraged where we have 10 properties and $5 million of debt, but technically we have $10 million in equity spread across it or whatever. Your balance sheet just gets like bigger and bigger. And that was just not something that we wanted to pursue because in the end, know, what is important to us in life is not to be like, you know, to become rich. It is important to us to like have financial freedom in the sense that we are

Comfortable financially that we can you know like afford the life that we want to live but That doesn't mean that you know like the life that we want to live is a Ferrari in the garage and things like that like that's not our goals Those are not things that we aspire and for us like the peace of mind of being able to like you know afford our like that at any point Not at any point in time, but like in 99 % of the time

⁓ Like that is worth a lot more than you know, trying to like increase, you know, like your assets and your liabilities. Yes

Less House More Moola Podcast (31:27)
yeah, that being able to sleep well at night. If you're gonna be traveling and enjoying your life, you just wanna be able to sleep well at night and not feel like, what if something goes wrong tomorrow, right?

Senta & Eric (31:30)
Yes.

Yes.

Absolutely.

Less House More Moola Podcast (31:40)
So any other key pieces of advice that you have for folks that are wanting to put in place a good plan for getting out on the road full time and maybe are thinking about the assets that they have, their properties, as ways to fuel that. Any other tips? We've covered a lot of great concepts today. Anything else popping up for you?

Senta & Eric (32:00)
⁓ I think if you're interested in getting out on the road and you don't know where to start, first of all, just get onto YouTube and start looking at other people who are living that lifestyle because there's a million ways to go tiny, whether that is being in like a tiny home community because you maybe do want to travel but you want to downsize and have less things. ⁓ There's the vans, there's campers like us, there's people who do it in bigger fifth wheels and go to campsites.

all around the country and don't boondock or dry camp out in the middle of nowhere like we do a lot of times. So there's a ton of different ways to actually live this tiny lifestyle. And understanding what you want out of tiny is going to kind of dictate which one's going to be best for you. So I think just getting out there on YouTube and exploring those different options would be ⁓ one of my biggest pieces of advice I would give. Yeah, and like taking that.

you know, like information that you get and really trying to figure out, okay, what is important to you in life? And like, how do you want your life to look like and what makes you happy? Because, you know, like, not everyone likes to go hiking and like, you know, like go and explore national parks and whatsoever. Like, you know, that's not appealing to some people. So there's no point for them to like even look into, you know, like a nomadic lifestyle. ⁓ And then if you are looking into

like remote property management. like similar situation as ours where, you know, you might have your own home, you own your home and you don't want to sell it. You want to rent it out while you are on the road. think the most important thing is that you have to have like systems and processes in place that allow you to do it remotely. like automate as much as you can. As Eric mentioned earlier, you know, like we use smart logs, like they integrate with Airbnb, makes it really easy.

⁓ You know, you can like have scheduled messages like just automate as much as you can so you don't have to you know, like worry about those things and then the second aspect to that is you have to work really hard on having a network of dependable people that are actually there in person because you are not gonna be able to you know, like have your property cleaned and turned over remotely. That's just you know, we're not there yet. ⁓ So you need to

have those reliable people and when you find them, then you better make sure that they are very happy with you and you pay extra money to keep them happy because finding reliable help ⁓ is not. That's probably one of the hardest things to do. Yes. So for example, our handyman, if there's a light bulb that needs to be changed, he charges us a hundred dollars. He charges a hundred dollars an hour and he charges a minimum of an hour for any time he comes out.

That's a really expensive light bulb, but we're not paying for him to exchange that light bulb. In that sense, we are paying for him because we know he is reliable when we tell him like, hey, this property has an issue. He will coordinate the work. He will get it done and we don't have to worry about it. And that's what we pay for. Rather than, know, like

paying $100 for the light bulb. Luckily enough with that example, he'll always check a few other things. Like he'll feel the doorknobs. He's like, I'll do a quick check around the house, make sure there's nothing else that needs to be done to make it a little bit more worth it. He's a very nice guy in that regard. I mean, he's running a business too. And he needs to get paid his minimum one hour if he gets called out to a property. So you pay extra, but it's worth the headache in the long run if you have good, dependable people.

And then I think the last point is, and we kind of touched on that a little bit earlier, you know, like getting to the point of like living tiny or like living nomadically, it is going to be a process. You're like, very few people that we meet on the road are the people that just like sold everything one day and then the next day they were on the road. Most of the time people take years to like plan for it, to think it through, to like, you know,

build like, you know, income streams or like, you know, build a career that like supports that lifestyle. And just downsizing in general, if you're going from the bigger house and you're going tiny, you have a lot of stuff. Even though we kept our house and it was furnished so we didn't have to sell all that furniture and things, we still had way more clothes that could fit into our camper. We had a lot of toys and things that we weren't using, which was also part of the beauty of going tiny was less stuff, but more peace of mind.

You don't realize the mental stress that having even toys and things that you think you want to use and have fun with Start to become a mental burden and that is like sent us that it's a process not a procedure for most people It takes a few different iterations of here's my pile that I know I'm getting rid of Here's my maybe pile and then you can start moving that maybe pile over to the get rid of pile eventually ⁓ So yeah process not a procedure. Yeah, and it's also a mindset mindset shift that you're going through as you are like downsizing so

like if you're trying to downsize in one go, you're probably not going to be very successful or very happy with yourself. So like, you know, like give yourself some grace to like, you know, start small with downsizing and then, you know, after like a few months downsize a little more and a little more. So

Less House More Moola Podcast (37:16)
Yeah, I definitely took my time. started with the easy stuff and worked up to the hard stuff. It was definitely a process and I've talked about that a good bit on this podcast, though not in a while. So thanks for bringing that up. Where can listeners find and follow you all?

Senta & Eric (37:29)
Okay.

So across all socials, we have YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, Facebook. We are @SentaAndEricSomehwere We do a lot of travel vlog content, so lots of fun stuff that we like to put out there. Yeah, most of our content is really travel related, and we do share a little bit of our daily lives. And that's what you can expect if you are curious about how our life looks like. ⁓

Less House More Moola Podcast (38:01)
Senta and Eric, thank you so much for taking the time to tell us about your strategy and how you had to work so hard to get where you are. And I think this is really inspiring for folks who maybe don't realize how much pre-work goes into it and it's good to really understand the full picture. So thanks for sharing.

Senta & Eric (38:22)
Absolutely, thanks for having us. We're happy to share our bits of knowledge and hopefully inspire some people to get out there and ⁓ go tiny. Yeah, thanks so much Laura.